The Video Game Library Newsletter - Vol. #051

Welcome back to The Video Game Library Newsletter!

After last week’s milestone 50th issue, I first want to say THANK YOU.

The response to that Newsletter meant a lot. I wrote about why this project exists, why human-created books still matter, and why documenting this space with care feels more important than ever.

And Volume 51 is a pretty perfect reminder of why this work is so fun.

We’ve got a genuinely exciting lineup this week, with nearly 50 new releases, announcements, collector’s editions, magazine issues, GameStudies and GameDev resource, manga, comics, and plenty of surprises from around the world.

Dragon Quest is celebrating its 40th anniversary, and Japan marked the occasion with a few especially interesting books on the horizon. Elsewhere, we’ve got a closer look at Terraria: Design Works, a new Halo fiction collection, a French deep dive into Grand Theft Auto’s building architecture, a wave of new Korean comics, a Farsi book for young aspiring GameDevs, a trio of Polish translations, some exciting exclusives on the horizon for Russian readers, a bit of Sega Dreamcast love, and a whole lot more.

In Behind the Shelves, we’re digging into dozens of newly catalogued books added to The Video Game Library this week. Volunteers have been helping expand coverage for Ace Combat, Dragon Quest, Super Famicom strategy guides, old computer gaming BASIC books, and more. I’ll also show off a few very kind donations that arrived for the personal shelves, and for fellow Canadian readers, there’s now another place where you can find us.

And for this week’s Book Spotlight, I decided to crack into something close to my own childhood: Let’s Go Dizzy! The Story of the Oliver Twins. I grew up loving The Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy on NES, so this was a really fun chance to revisit those memories while learning more about the Oliver Twins, Codemasters, and the British home computer scene that helped shape the series.

So, with all that said, let’s jump into Volume 51.