Dreamcast Book...back on track...

[Simon]

Hi guys,

My first post and i am already on the scrounge!

I am (along with a few others) creating an online UK centric Dreamcast resource and need a little help with some screenshots for some of the games that are in the Database.

What I am after is three screenshots per game comprising of the title screen, and two in game screens at the best resolution possible.

Here is a little WIP page for the game AQUA GT to show you what I am working towards...



I have changed parts of this since this screenshot was taken, but you get the general idea.

I am looking for people who may be able to help me out with providing a few screenshots for this resource using Chankast or another Dreamcast emulator. Anyone out there who can spare a few seconds to do this for me? Naturally you will have full credit for any help you can give, and if anyone out there can help ongoing then I may be able to throw some beer tokens you way too

If anyone is available to help out then please drop me a PM and we can discuss what i am after exaclty. Like I said I am only looking for 3 screenshots per game, so as long as you are playing the game, taking 3 shots will take 5 seconds and will help me out, and the resource, immensly.

I have had some positive responses from the official Chankast forum and thought I would try my luck on here.

Failing the Chankast / emulator route, does anyone have a tv card and a DC and can take screenshots that way?

I am also looking for people who may be able to spend a few moments writing a few game overviews for the same project.

Your help is appreciated.

Regards
Simon

[Nick]

I can write up some overviews/reviews of games, if need be. I can also edit stuff. There's some grammatical errors in there.

I presume you're only doing PAL titles?

Also, not to downplay what you're doing (it looks quite spiffy), but there are already some great resources for Dreamcast games -- http://www.dreamcasthistory.com, for one -- so you may be treading in to redundant territory.

Best of luck.

[Imerion]

Id love to see a page more pages like that. The design looks great. Sadly I cannot help with capturing screens (Chancast doesn't run in Linux as far as I know. Haven't tried though..). But a great place to fins high-res screens is here : ftp://segapr.segaamerica.com/SEGA_ARCHI ... ast_Games/
Segas own archive. No idea how I found it, but it has great screens from many of Segas games.

[GyroVorbis]

What the crap? I've never seen that place before...

[Simon]

Hi guys,

Firstly, thank you for the interest shown. Yes I am aware of the grammatical errors in the test pic, it was simply a load of text to fill the white space for now.

I welcome overviews / reviews if any of you have the time. This will save me a load of time writing for the 215 UK released games

As for the other resources, I am fully wawre of these, however all of the ones I have seen (including DC history) have very little in regards to UK released games, hence my little effort. So yes it will only be looking at PAL released games for now.

I will PM those who offer to help in the next few days.

Regards
Simon

[Cid Highwind]

What the crap? I've never seen that place before...

Indeed, there are some awesome shenmue pictures over there:

click

This one for example.

Btw, check this car's license plate: click

[Lyris]

That's very interesting. Me and Smeghead (from DCHistory) were going to do that a few years ago, and call it "Dreampast". Great minds!

[Imerion]

Btw, check this car's license plate: click

Nice!

[Simon]

Me again

Been a while sine I last posted, but thought I would let you all know the situation so far....

I wanted to start this off as a book, then after chatting to Sega I decided upon a PDF, then a website (which I banded a few test pages about the net - to positive remarks) and now I have come full circle and have actually spent the last few days planning it as a book again. I have the structure set out, a list of contents, and detailed information relating to those contents. Being an unofficial guide to the Dreamcast, and without stepping on Sega's toes, as long as I do not use any copyrighted material (Logos etc) I will be able to get the printed as a book somewhere down the line.

Obviously I will only be looking at printing a short run, as I truly do not know how many people would be interested in this kind of product, however I do not expect any moeny up front before I got it printed.

The idea is to create it as a PDF and then charge a small amount to those who want to download it. If after seeing the PDF you decide that you want the actual paper book version then the cost of the PDF will be deducted from the cost of the book. So lets say that the PDF will cost ?4.99 (price only as a guide and not decided upon) and you wanted a physical paper copy (we are talking about a perfect bound 300+ page book here) then the ?4.99 you paid for the PDF will be put towards the cost of the book, leaving a smaller balance to pay.

This way you get to see the contents without paying a fortune for it, and if you decide to go with the book itself, you will also get the PDF version for nothing If not then the money charged for the PDF will go towards the bandwidth needed for the PDF download (which I expect will be around the 100MB mark), and a few beers for the amount of work that I am sure to put into this insane idea!

Like I said, I have the structure of the book planned and estimate that it will be ready around Christmas time this year, possibly sooner depending on certain factors. That gives me 6 months. Its possible.

I will have a webpage up soon with information relating to the progress of this project along with sample pages as and when i have them ready. I will also have a pre-order page set up for the PDF and the book itself but remember that NO-ONE is obliged to pre-order anything, although those who do pre-order will be guarantted one of the 100 or so I will be initially printing.

Anyone got any thoughts on this?

Regards
Simon

[Simon]

To save cluttering up this forum I have created a provisional webpage for the idea with a link to a fourm where I would appreciate it if you take a few moments and post your views.

More information can be found at http://www.consolearchive.co.uk

See you there...
Simon