Tom Lenting wrote a book about the dutch game developer Guerrilla Games, which has a clear link with CD-i as Lost Boys Interactive *review*

Jazz Jackrabbit was one of my favourite platform games in my youth and the soundtrack is even now in my head. I never realized the link between Jazz JackRabbit and Lost Boys, I never realized the link between many other games and what is now known as Guerrilla Games, the studio behind Killzone and Horizon Zero Dawn. And just like how we at Interactive Dreams get many remarks by our visitors who tell us they never realized the potential and influence of the Philips CD-i, there are many links with current studios who have a link with the retro scene. 

This is why I enjoy the projects by Tom Lenting, who showed us the Dutch Gaming History in a nice book that we reviewed here in September 2019. After writing a complete overview, including an important chapter about Philips and the CD-i, he now comes back with a new book. It's a smaller book, with a smaller focus. It is still about the dutch gaming history, but it touches one very important dutch developer: Guerrilla Games.

Of course that book also includes CD-i, as Guerrilla Games was basically the former Lost Boys group, that started games development as Formula Games (with the same cactus logo) and they started in 1996 with developing The Lost Ride on CD-i. 

Of course it's not all that. While we at Interactive Dreams have a clear CD-i mindset, I'm also interested in a wider view to get more perspective of the role of various studios in our gaming history. The retro 'demo scene' has many leads to various CD-i developers. This book also startes with an overview of the 'forerunners' of Guerrilla Games: the Ultra Force demo group by Arjan Brussee, his own studio Orange Games, Lost Boys Interactive (started by Cees Kousenmaker, Jan-Pieter Melchior and Michel Mol), Digital Infinity and how it all came to Lost Boys Games. The name Formula was in fact the gaming department of Lost Boys Interactive. In these early chapters you'll find the most links to CD-i, as Lost Boys Interactive brought CD-i many CD-i titles, including the dutch world overviews in 1994-1995, children software like Ik, Mik, Letterland and the CD-Online software. 

Many other games come to our attention, as Lost Boys was far bigger than CD-i: Dodgem Arena, Grachten Racer that was published by competitor Davilex, and even Big Brother: The Game. It is the beauty of literature like this to bring a wider knowledge of the gaming history, in a nice physical book. If you are interested in this topic, this is highly recommended.

Of course there is more. The book continues with the development of Shellshock Nam '67 and Killzone and how the name Guerrilla came to be. How Guerrilla was sold to Sony in 2005 and what happened to the key people: Where do they work now and what other studios are related to the success of Guerrilla. It is pretty much a fact-based list in a story and it focuses pretty closely to what the title describes: It is about the history of the biggest gaming developer of The Netherlands. I think we can be proud that CD-i was part of that.

After 70 pages, the commentary starts with a few conclusions why Guerrilla was able to be so succesful as it is now. Finally you'll read the credits and some footnotes. It is over before you know it, it holds less than 100 pages and almost fits in your sidepocket. It was released in February 2020, the price is only 10 euros. 

Bottomline: There are only four pages with pictures and I really think you can spice up the reading experience by spreading it in the book. The history perspective is of great value and very interesting to anyone who is remotely interested in CD-i, gaming history, Lost Boys or Guerrilla. A reference book that you will save for later. For only 10 euros this is nonetheless a must-buy. You will find a knowledge perspective that you won't find online.

One thing is that I was missing some details about Lost Boys and its involvement with Softmachine, the publishing company by Tom Steenbergen. We uncovered some details of that in this article. This shows that there is always more to discover and the relevance of Lost Boys is even broader than what is just described in this book. But when I asked the author, Tom Lenting, about this, he said: "Kijk, dit is precies de reden dat ik deze boekjes schrijf: zodat andere experts (zoals jij) de Nederlandse gamegeschiedenis weer verder kunnen aanvullen, zodat we uiteindelijk met z'n allen een soort ultieme gamegeschiedenis van Nederland hebben... Ik hoop dan ook dat je die aanvulling over Softmachine in je recensie opneemt, heel interessant en en jammer dat ik die gemist had!"