Download or read book Sid Meier s Memoir A Life in Computer Games written by Sid Meier and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2020-09-08 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The life and career of the legendary developer celebrated as the “godfather of computer gaming” and creator of Civilization, featuring his rules of good game design. "Sid Meier is a foundation of what gaming is for me today." — Phil Spencer, head of Xbox Over his four-decade career, Sid Meier has produced some of the world’s most popular video games, including Sid Meier’s Civilization, which has sold more than 51 million units worldwide and accumulated more than one billion hours of play. Sid Meier’s Memoir! is the story of an obsessive young computer enthusiast who helped launch a multibillion-dollar industry. Writing with warmth and ironic humor, Meier describes the genesis of his influential studio, MicroProse, founded in 1982 after a trip to a Las Vegas arcade, and recounts the development of landmark games, from vintage classics like Pirates! and Railroad Tycoon, to Civilization and beyond. Articulating his philosophy that a video game should be “a series of interesting decisions,” Meier also shares his perspective on the history of the industry, the psychology of gamers, and fascinating insights into the creative process, including his rules of good game design.
Download or read book Sid Meier s Civilization II written by David Ellis and published by Prima Games. This book was released on 1996 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The new updated version of the highly successful Sid Meier's Civilization. This book includes discussions of the new game report features will be included as well as a foray into the map editor for players to create and build their own worlds.
Download or read book Cruelty and Civilization written by Roland Auguet and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-11-12 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Roland Auguet examines the Roman taste for blood and considers what the games, that strange combination of Cruelty and Civilization, reveal about the Roman mentality. He shows how the great spectacles became a part of city life - they were awaited with impatience, everyone discussed them, some applauded the action in the arena, while others booed frantically. This book provides an exciting history of gladiators, chariot racing and other games as well as an investigation of their function and significance within society. It is essential reading for anyone who is interested in the Romans' violent form of entertainment.
Download or read book Games of History written by Apostolos Spanos and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-06-13 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Games of History provides an understanding of how games as artefacts, textual and visual sources on games and gaming as a pastime or a “serious” activity can be used as sources for the study of history. From the vast world of games, the book’s focus is on board and card games, with reference to physical games, sports and digital games as well. Considering culture, society, politics and metaphysics, the author uses examples from various places around the world and from ancient times to the present to demonstrate how games and gaming can offer the historian an alternative, often very valuable and sometimes unique path to the past. The book offers a thorough discussion of conceptual and material approaches to games as sources, while also providing the reader with a theoretical starting point for further study within specific thematic chapters. The book concludes with three case studies of different types of games and how they can be considered as historical sources: the gladiatorial games, chess and the digital game Civilization. Offering an alternative approach to the study of history through its focus on games and gaming as historical sources, this is the ideal volume for students considering different types of sources and how they can be used for historical study, as well as students who study games as primary or secondary sources in their history projects.
Download or read book Play Redux written by David Myers and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2010-06-02 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Play Redux excels in tying together intellectual traditions that are rooted in literary studies, cognitive science, play studies and several other fields, thereby creating a logical whole. Through this, the book makes service to several academic communities by pointing out their points of contact. This is clearly an important contribution to a growing academic field, and will no doubt become important in many future discussions about digital games and play." ---Frans Mäyrä, University of Tampere, Finland "David Myers has researched video games longer than anyone else. Play Redux shows him continually relevant, never afraid of courting controversy." ---Jesper Juul, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark Play Redux is an ambitious description and critical analysis of the aesthetic pleasures of video game play, drawing on early twentieth-century formalist theory and models of literature. Employing a concept of biological naturalism grounded in cognitive theory, Myers argues for a clear delineation between the aesthetics of play and the aesthetics of texts. In the course of this study, Myers asks a number of interesting questions: What are the mechanics of human play as exhibited in computer games? Can these mechanisms be modeled? What is the evolutionary function of cognitive play, and is it, on the whole, a good thing? Intended as a provocative corrective to the currently ascendant, if not dominant, cultural and ethnographic approach to game studies and play, Play Redux will generate interest among scholars of communications, new media, and film. David Myers is Reverend Aloysius B. Goodspeed Distinguished Professor at the School of Mass Communication, Loyola University New Orleans.
Download or read book Gaming the Past written by Jeremiah McCall and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-06-17 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the growing number of books designed to radically reconsider the educational value of video games as powerful learning tools, there are very few practical guidelines conveniently available for prospective history and social studies teachers who actually want to use these teaching and learning tools in their classes. As the games and learning field continues to grow in importance, Gaming the Past provides social studies teachers and teacher educators help in implementing this unique and engaging new pedagogy. This book focuses on specific examples to help social studies educators effectively use computer simulation games to teach critical thinking and historical analysis. Chapters cover the core parts of conceiving, planning, designing, and implementing simulation based lessons. Additional topics covered include: Talking to colleagues, administrators, parents, and students about the theoretical and practical educational value of using historical simulation games. Selecting simulation games that are aligned to curricular goals Determining hardware and software requirements, purchasing software, and preparing a learning environment incorporating simulations Planning lessons and implementing instructional strategies Identifying and avoiding common pitfalls Developing activities and assessments for use with simulation games that facilitate the interpretation and creation of established and new media Also included are sample unit and lesson plans and worksheets as well as suggestions for further reading. The book ends with brief profiles of the majority of historical simulation games currently available from commercial vendors and freely on the Internet.
Download or read book Game Feel written by Steve Swink and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2008-10-13 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Game Feel" exposes "feel" as a hidden language in game design that no one has fully articulated yet. The language could be compared to the building blocks of music (time signatures, chord progressions, verse) - no matter the instruments, style or time period - these building blocks come into play. Feel and sensation are similar building blocks whe
Download or read book Learning Games written by Scott J. Warren and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-06-16 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an overview of the design and development of learning games using examples from those created by the authors over last decade. It provides lessons learned about processes, successful approaches, and pitfalls that befall developers of learning games and educational transmedia experiences. The book includes stories from the authors’ lives that give context to why and how they built these products to help the reader understand whether or not building a learning game is right for them and what challenges they might face. It also gives a framework for thinking ethically about design and research when it comes to designing complex digital systems like educational games. /div
Download or read book Computer Games and Instruction written by J. D. Fletcher and published by IAP. This book was released on 2011-05-01 with total page 564 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is intense interest in computer games. A total of 65 percent of all American households play computer games, and sales of such games increased 22.9 percent last year. The average amount of game playing time was found to be 13.2 hours per week. The popularity and market success of games is evident from both the increased earnings from games, over $7 Billion in 2005, and from the fact that over 200 academic institutions worldwide now offer game related programs of study. In view of the intense interest in computer games educators and trainers, in business, industry, the government, and the military would like to use computer games to improve the delivery of instruction. Computer Games and Instruction is intended for these educators and trainers. It reviews the research evidence supporting use of computer games, for instruction, and also reviews the history of games in general, in education, and by the military. In addition chapters examine gender differences in game use, and the implications of games for use by lower socio-economic students, for students’ reading, and for contemporary theories of instruction. Finally, well known scholars of games will respond to the evidence reviewed.
Download or read book Game Mechanics written by Ernest Adams and published by New Riders. This book was released on 2012 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Game mechanics--the rules and systems that govern the functional behavior of a game--lie at the heart of all game design. The mechanics implement the living world of the game; they generate active challenges for players to solve in the game world and they determine the effects of the players' actions on that world. Here to teach game designers and students the essentials of game mechanics are two leading authorities in game design. Readers will learn how to craft mechanics that generate challenging, enjoyable, and well-balanced gameplay. They'll learn how to visualise and simulate game mechanics in order to design better games and learn at what stages to prototype, test, and implement mechanics in games.
Download or read book The Ecology of Games written by Katie Salen Tekinbas and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2007-11-30 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of games as systems in which young people participate as gamers, producers, and learners. In the many studies of games and young people's use of them, little has been written about an overall “ecology” of gaming, game design and play—mapping the ways that all the various elements, from coding to social practices to aesthetics, coexist in the game world. This volume looks at games as systems in which young users participate, as gamers, producers, and learners. The Ecology of Games (edited by Rules of Play author Katie Salen) aims to expand upon and add nuance to the debate over the value of games—which so far has been vociferous but overly polemical and surprisingly shallow. Game play is credited with fostering new forms of social organization and new ways of thinking and interacting; the contributors work to situate this within a dynamic media ecology that has the participatory nature of gaming at its core. They look at the ways in which youth are empowered through their participation in the creation, uptake, and revision of games; emergent gaming literacies, including modding, world-building, and learning how to navigate a complex system; and how games act as points of departure for other forms of knowledge, literacy, and social organization. Contributors Ian Bogost, Anna Everett, James Paul Gee, Mizuko Ito, Barry Joseph, Laurie McCarthy, Jane McGonigal, Cory Ondrejka, Amit Pitaru, Tom Satwicz, Kurt Squire, Reed Stevens, S. Craig Watkins
Download or read book Games as Texts written by Alayna Cole and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2020-12-16 with total page 139 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Games as Texts provides an overview and practical steps for analysing games in terms of their representations of social structures, class, power, race, sexuality, gender, animals, nature, and ability. Each chapter applies a traditional literary theory to the narrative and mechanics of games and explores the social commentary the games encourage. This approach demonstrates to players, researchers, games media, and non-gamers how they can engage with these cultural artefacts through both critical reading and theoretical interpretations. Key Features: Explores games through various literary and theoretical lenses Provides exemplar analysis and guiding questions to help readers think critically about games Highlights the social commentary that all texts can reveal—including games—and how this impacts narrative and mechanics
Download or read book Law Video Games Virtual Realities written by Dale Mitchell and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-10-20 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume explores the intersection between the coded realm of the video game and the equally codified space of law through an insightful collection of critical readings. Law is the ultimate multiplayer role-playing game. Involving a process of world-creation, law presents and codifies the parameters of licit and permitted behaviour, requiring individuals to engage their roles as a legal subject – the player-avatar of law – in order to be recognised, perform legal actions, activate rights or fulfil legal duties. Although traditional forms of law (copyright, property, privacy, freedom of expression) externally regulate the permissible content, form, dissemination, rights and behaviours of game designers, publishers, and players, this collection examines how players simulate, relate, and engage with environments and experiences shaped by legality in the realm of video game space. Featuring critical readings of video games as a means of understanding law and justice, this book contributes to the developing field of cultural legal studies, but will also be of interest to other legal theorists, socio-legal scholars, and games theorists.
Download or read book Music In Video Games written by K.J. Donnelly and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-03-26 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From its earliest days as little more than a series of monophonic outbursts to its current-day scores that can rival major symphonic film scores, video game music has gone through its own particular set of stylistic and functional metamorphoses while both borrowing and recontextualizing the earlier models from which it borrows. With topics ranging from early classics like Donkey Kong and Super Mario Bros. to more recent hits like Plants vs. Zombies, the eleven essays in Music in Video Games draw on the scholarly fields of musicology and music theory, film theory, and game studies, to investigate the history, function, style, and conventions of video game music.
Download or read book The Middle Ages in Computer Games written by Robert Houghton and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2024-11-05 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers the most comprehensive analysis and discussion of medievalist computer games to date. Games with a medieval setting are commercially lucrative and reach a truly massive audience. Moreover, they can engage their players in a manner that is not only different, but in certain aspects, more profound than traditional literary or cinematic forms of medievalism. However, although it is important to understand the versions of the Middle Ages presented by these games, how players engage with these medievalist worlds, and why particular representational trends emerge in this most modern medium, there has hitherto been little scholarship devoted to them. This book explores the distinct nature of medievalism in digital games across a range of themes, from the portrayal of grotesque yet romantic conflict to conflicting depictions of the Church and religion. It likewise considers the distinctions between medievalist games and those of other periods, underlining their emphasis on fantasy, roleplay and hardcore elements, and their consequences for depictions of morality, race, gender and sexuality. Ultimately the book argues that while medievalist games are thoroughly influenced by medievalist and ludic tropes, they are nonetheless representative of a distinct new form of medievalism. It engages with the vast literature surrounding historical game studies, game design, and medievalism, and considers hundreds of games from across genres, from Assassin's Creed and Baldur's Gate to Crusader Kings and The Witcher series. In doing so, it provides a vital illustration of the state of the field and a cornerstone for future research and teaching.
Download or read book Teaching the Middle Ages through Modern Games written by Robert Houghton and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2022-10-24 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Games can act as invaluable tools for the teaching of the Middle Ages. The learning potential of physical and digital games is increasingly undeniable at every level of historical study. These games can provide a foundation of information through their stories and worlds. They can foster understanding of complex systems through their mechanics and rules. Their very nature requires the player to learn to progress. The educational power of games is particularly potent within the study of the Middle Ages. These games act as the first or most substantial introduction to the period for many students and can strongly influence their understanding of the era. Within the classroom, they can be deployed to introduce new and alien themes to students typically unfamiliar with the subject matter swiftly and effectively. They can foster an interest in and understanding of the medieval world through various innovative means and hence act as a key educational tool. This volume presents a series of essays addressing the practical use of games of all varieties as teaching tools within Medieval Studies and related fields. In doing so it provides examples of the use of games at pre-university, undergraduate, and postgraduate levels of study, and considers the application of commercial games, development of bespoke historical games, use of game design as a learning process, and use of games outside the classroom. As such, the book is a flexible and diverse pedagogical resource and its methods may be readily adapted to the teaching of different medieval themes or other periods of history.
Download or read book Playing with the Past written by Matthew Wilhelm Kapell and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2013-10-24 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Game Studies is a rapidly growing area of contemporary scholarship, yet volumes in the area have tended to focus on more general issues. With Playing with the Past, game studies is taken to the next level by offering a specific and detailed analysis of one area of digital game play -- the representation of history. The collection focuses on the ways in which gamers engage with, play with, recreate, subvert, reverse and direct the historical past, and what effect this has on the ways in which we go about constructing the present or imagining a future. What can World War Two strategy games teach us about the reality of this complex and multifaceted period? Do the possibilities of playing with the past change the way we understand history? If we embody a colonialist's perspective to conquer 'primitive' tribes in Colonization, does this privilege a distinct way of viewing history as benevolent intervention over imperialist expansion? The fusion of these two fields allows the editors to pose new questions about the ways in which gamers interact with their game worlds. Drawing these threads together, the collection concludes by asking whether digital games - which represent history or historical change - alter the way we, today, understand history itself.
