Download or read book Interstellar Players written by Bills and published by Fanpro. This book was released on 2005-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a universe spanning more than a thousand light years, the mighty House leaders and Clan Khans rule their star empires with absolute power...or at least they'd like to believe so.
Download or read book Jihad Conspiracies Interstellar Players 2 written by Catalyst Game Labs and published by Catalyst Game Labs. This book was released on 2008-08-27 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On October 25, 3068, the Word of Blake flooded the Inner Sphere HPG networks with "White Noise," a stream of gibberish and propaganda that made normal communications virtually impossible. Amid the noise, stunning secrets were revealed: Anastasius Focht was once Frederick Steiner; ComStar Primus Sharilar Mori was a Kurita spy.
Download or read book Classic Battletech Jihad Conspiracies Interstellar Players 2 written by Catalyst Game Labs and published by . This book was released on 2008-09-10 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sequel to Interstellar Players, this title has been produced with some possible (though not necessarily probable) influences upon the Jihad storyline, from the dubious "White Noise" HPG data stream as a dominant source. Peeks at previous known and unknown secret societies, missing planets and intelligence agencies are provided, as well as directions for gamemasters who seek to add the rumors to their own campaigns.
Download or read book Interstellar Pig written by William Sleator and published by Turtleback Books. This book was released on 1995-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For use in schools and libraries only. A teenager becomes interested in a strange board game called "Interstellar Pig," the obsession of his new and unusual neighbors, and he soon stumbles into a nightmare when he discovers that the game is real.
Download or read book Player and Avatar written by David Owen and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2017-07-03 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do you make small leaps in your chair while attempting challenging jumps in Tomb Raider? Do you say "Ouch!" when a giant hits you with a club in Skyrim? Have you had dreams of being inside the underwater city of Rapture? Videogames cast the player as protagonist in an unfolding narrative. Like actors in front of a camera, gamers' proprioception, or body awareness, can extend to onscreen characters, thus placing them "physically" within the virtual world. Players may even identify with characters' ideological motivations. The author explores concepts central to the design and enjoyment of videogames--affect, immersion, liveness, presence, agency, narrative, ideology and the player's virtual surrogate: the avatar. Gamer and avatar are analyzed as a cybernetic coupling that suggests fulfillment of Atonin Artaud's vision of the "body without organs."
Download or read book Battletech Interstellar Operations written by Catalyst Game Labs and published by Catalyst Game Labs. This book was released on 2016-04-27 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Martial Your Forces And Prepare To Conquer The Inner Sphere! Interstellar Operations Is The Long-Awaited Final Rules Installment To The Series Begun With Total Warfare And Carried Through The Award-Winning Tactical Operations And Strategic Operations. The Former Focuses On A Whole New Level Of Excitement Directly On Your Gaming Table While The Later Focuses On Moving From A Single Scenario To A Multi-Part Campaigns And How To Take An Entire Solar System. Interstellar Operations Zooms Up To The Final Level, Allowing Players To Assume The Roles Of House Lord Or Clan Khans And Dominate The Galaxy.Interstellar Operations Contains Complete Rules For Generation And Running Any Type Or Size Of Force. Additionally, A Comprehensive Rules Set Governs Running An Entire Faction'S Military As A Player Tries To Conquer Numerous Solar Systems, Including Rules For How To Stage Through Any Of The Various Scales Represented Through The Core Line Of Rulebooks. Finally, Perhaps One Of The Most Anticipated Portions Of The Book,She Alternate Eras Section Introduces A Huge Swath Of Rules For Playing Across The Thousand Years Of Battletech History, Including Weapons And Equipment Mostly Unique To A Given Era,Such As Complete Rules For Building And Playing With Lams.
Download or read book A Billion Suns written by Mike Hutchinson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-02-18 with total page 65 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Billion Suns is a wargame of interstellar combat that puts you in command of fleets of powerful starships, from squadrons of agile, but fragile, fighters, to hulking and powerful capital ships. When combined with some spaceship miniatures, a tape measure, a deck of playing cards and some dice, this rulebook provides everything you need to play exciting and tense tabletop games of interstellar exploration and combat. Using simple dice pool mechanics, you must carefully manage your resources and seize the opportunities that come your way in order to lead your fleet to victory and assert your dominance over the stars.
Download or read book BattleTech The Mercenary Life written by Randall N. Bills and published by Catalyst Game Labs. This book was released on 2021-04-13 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A COST IS ALWAYS PAID… Nikolai Reed is a trader on a Lyran JumpShip plying the space lanes… Chloe Mason is a hot-shot tech with the Hsien Hotheads mercenaries… Leaving the Northwind Highlanders, MechWarrior Ryana Nikol fills a billet with the Eridani Light Horse… Disparate lives, but a unified dream that will bring them all together on a fateful course that will span decades, cover hundreds of light years, and involve love, friendship, and loss across a dozen worlds. Each will pay a price along the way, as a cost always comes due. The Mercenary Life anthology is a compilation of stories written by Randall N. Bills. Including tales from several different characters as they cross paths, and the dream to found a new mercenary command is born. Their unique lives showcase the struggles and trials of the men and women who take up the mercenary mantle from a variety of angles, all bound around that central vision. The first eight stories of this anthology were originally posted for free alongside the release of MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, acting as the origin stories for the mercenary command within that computer game. This is the first time they have been compiled into a single volume to allow for a Print on Demand physical copy. Additionally, an all-new ninth story has been added—The Sun Will Rise—along with postscripts for every story that gives the reader insight into how stories are crafted within a shared universe between tabletop, computer games, and fiction that spans more than thirty years and tens of millions of words.
Download or read book Postsecondary Play written by William G. Tierney and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2014-06-01 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Games and social media can improve college access, attract and support students, and boost rates of completion. The college application process—which entails multiple forms, essays, test scores, and deadlines—can be intimidating. For students without substantial school and family support, the complexity of this process can become a barrier to access. William G. Tierney, Tracy Fullerton, and their teams at the University of Southern California approach this challenge innovatively. Using the tools of online games and social media, they have developed ways to make applying for college much less intimidating. While the vast majority of college students use social media and gaming in their everyday lives, colleges and universities have been slow to recognize and harness the power of either. Postsecondary Play explores the significance of games and social media in higher education, and particularly how they can be used to attract, retain, educate, and socialize students. Tierney, a past president of the American Educational Research Association, has gathered some of the best research on the emerging role of games and social media in the classroom and how these tools can boost student confidence and increase college access. Scholars writing from a wide variety of disciplines—college access, social media, game studies, and learning sciences—provide concrete examples to illustrate the new and complex ways in which students learn in response to social media and games. Tierney and the contributors find that, although games can be powerful tools for encouraging underserved students, quality game design and mastering the concept of play—the ability to develop skills while engaging in the game—are essential in the effective use of serious games in teaching and learning. Summarizing a decade of research in game design and learning, Postsecondary Play will appeal to higher education scholars and students of learning, online gaming, education, and the media.
Download or read book Video Game Spaces written by Michael Nitsche and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2008-12-05 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of how we see, use, and make sense of modern video game worlds. The move to 3D graphics represents a dramatic artistic and technical development in the history of video games that suggests an overall transformation of games as media. The experience of space has become a key element of how we understand games and how we play them. In Video Game Spaces, Michael Nitsche investigates what this shift means for video game design and analysis. Navigable 3D spaces allow us to crawl, jump, fly, or even teleport through fictional worlds that come to life in our imagination. We encounter these spaces through a combination of perception and interaction. Drawing on concepts from literary studies, architecture, and cinema, Nitsche argues that game spaces can evoke narratives because the player is interpreting them in order to engage with them. Consequently, Nitsche approaches game spaces not as pure visual spectacles but as meaningful virtual locations. His argument investigates what structures are at work in these locations, proceeds to an in-depth analysis of the audiovisual presentation of gameworlds, and ultimately explores how we use and comprehend their functionality. Nitsche introduces five analytical layers—rule-based space, mediated space, fictional space, play space, and social space—and uses them in the analyses of games that range from early classics to recent titles. He revisits current topics in game research, including narrative, rules, and play, from this new perspective. Video Game Spaces provides a range of necessary arguments and tools for media scholars, designers, and game researchers with an interest in 3D game worlds and the new challenges they pose.
Download or read book Therapeutically Applied Role Playing Games written by Elizabeth D. Kilmer and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-04-05 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Therapeutically Applied Role-Playing Games provides a comprehensive approach to implementing therapeutically applied role-playing game (TA-RPG) groups for mental health practitioners. When facilitated by a trained professional, TA-RPGs are a powerful tool for insight, growth, and change for individuals and communities. The Game to Grow Method of Therapeutically Applied Role-Playing Games is a transdiagnostic, transtheoretical, group intervention developed over a decade of practice using Dungeons & Dragons and other popular tabletop role-playing game systems, as well as leveraging therapeutic factors from acceptance and commitment therapy, marriage and family therapy, drama therapy, and interpersonal process groups. TA-RPGs are conceptualized as a gaming system layered on top of established intervention techniques. They can accommodate a multitude of game systems and align with theoretical mechanisms for change found across therapeutic orientations. This work serves as a comprehensive training manual for TA-RPGs, providing a valuable resource for mental health professionals interested in incorporating TA-RPGs into their practice.
Download or read book How Dark the World Becomes written by Frank Chadwick and published by Baen Publishing Enterprises. This book was released on 2013-02-05 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sasha Naradnyo is a gangster. He's a gangster with heart, sure, but Sasha sticks his neck out for no man. That's how you stay alive in Crack City, a colony stuffed deep into the crust of the otherwise unlivable planet Peezgtaan. Alive only¾because if you're human, you don't prosper, at least not for long. Sasha is a second generation City native. His parents came to this rock figuring to make it big, only to find that they'd been recruited as an indentured labor force for alien overlords known as the Varoki. Now a pair of rich young Varoki under the care of a beautiful human nanny are fleeing Peezgtaan, and Sasha is recruited to help. He'd prefer to rather leave the little alien lordlings to their fate, but certain considerations¾such as Sasha's own imminent demise if he remains¾make it beneficial for him to take on the job. Sasha discovers his simple choice has thrust him in the midst of a political battle that could remake the galactic balance of power and save humanity from slow death by servitude. Now all he has to do is survive and keep his charges alive on a hostile planet undergoing its own revolution. But it's the galaxy that had better watch out. For now the toughest thug in Crack City has gotten his first taste of real freedom. He likes it, and he wants more. At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).
Download or read book 100 Greatest Video Game Franchises written by Robert Mejia and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2017-08-17 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Video games take players on a trip through ancient battlefields, to mythic worlds, and across galaxies. They provide players with a way to try on new identities and acquire vast superpowers. Video games also give people the chance to hit reset – to play again and again until they achieve a desired outcome. Their popularity has enabled them to grow far beyond their humble origins and to permeate other forms of popular culture, from comic books and graphic novels to films and television programs. Video games are universal. In 100 Greatest Video Game Franchises, editors Robert Mejia, Jaime Banks, and Aubrie Adams have assembled essays that identify, assess, and reveal the most important video games of all-time. Each entry makes a case for the game’s cultural significance and why it deserves to be on the list, from its influence on other games to its impact on an international scale. In addition to providing information about the game developer and when the franchise was established, these entries explore the connections between the different video games, examining them across genre, theme, and content. This accessible collection of essays gives readers an opportunity to gauge their favorite video game franchises against the best of all time and argue how they each fit among the 100 greatest ever created. Whether casually looking up information on these games or eager to learn how franchises evolved over the years, readers will enjoy this entertaining and informative volume. Comprehensive and engaging, 100 Greatest Video Game Franchises will appeal to fans and scholars alike.
Download or read book Changing the Game written by David Edery and published by FT Press. This book was released on 2008-10-07 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Use Video Games to Drive Innovation, Customer Engagement, Productivity, and Profit! Companies of all shapes and sizes have begun to use games to revolutionize the way they interact with customers and employees, becoming more competitive and more profitable as a result. Microsoft has used games to painlessly and cost-effectively quadruple voluntary employee participation in important tasks. Medical schools have used game-like simulators to train surgeons, reducing their error rate in practice by a factor of six. A recruiting game developed by the U.S. Army, for just 0.25% of the Army’s total advertising budget, has had more impact on new recruits than all other forms of Army advertising combined. And Google is using video games to turn its visitors into a giant, voluntary labor force--encouraging them to manually label the millions of images found on the Web that Google’s computers cannot identify on their own. Changing the Game reveals how leading-edge organizations are using video games to reach new customers more cost-effectively; to build brands; to recruit, develop, and retain great employees; to drive more effective experimentation and innovation; to supercharge productivity...in short, to make it fun to do business. This book is packed with case studies, best practices, and pitfalls to avoid. It is essential reading for any forward-thinking executive, marketer, strategist, and entrepreneur, as well as anyone interested in video games in general. In-game advertising, advergames, adverworlds, and beyond Choose your best marketing opportunities--and avoid the pitfalls Use gaming to recruit and develop better employees Learn practical lessons from America’s Army and other innovative case studies Channel the passion of your user communities Help your customers improve your products and services--and have fun doing it What gamers do better than computers, scientists, or governments Use games to solve problems that can’t be solved any other way
Download or read book A Gamut of Games written by Sid Sackson and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 1992 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An expert on game history selects 38 of his favorite amusements, all of which can be played by children or adults with common items such as cards, dice, checkerboards, and pencil and paper.
Download or read book The Unpredictability of Gameplay written by Mark R. Johnson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2018-12-27 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Unpredictability of Gameplay explores the many forms of unpredictability in games and proposes a comprehensive theoretical framework for understanding and categorizing non-deterministic game mechanics. Rather than viewing all game mechanics with unpredictable outcomes as a single concept, Mark R. Johnson develops a three-part typology for such mechanics, distinguishing between randomness, chance, and luck in gameplay, assessing games that range from grand strategy and MMORPGs to slot machines and card games. He also explores forms of unanticipated unpredictability, where elements of games fail to function as intended and create new forms of gameplay in the process. Covering a range of game concepts using these frameworks, The Unpredictability of Gameplay then explores three illustrative case studies: 1) procedural generation, 2) replay value and grinding, and 3) player-made practices designed to reduce the level of luck in non-deterministic games. Throughout, Johnson demonstrates the importance of looking more deeply at unpredictability in games and game design and the various ways in which unpredictability manifests while offering an invaluable tool for game scholars and game designers seeking to integrate unpredictability into their work.
Download or read book Families at Play written by Sinem Siyahhan and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2024-07-02 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How family video game play promotes intergenerational communication, connection, and learning. Video games have a bad reputation in the mainstream media. They are blamed for encouraging social isolation, promoting violence, and creating tensions between parents and children. In this book, Sinem Siyahhan and Elisabeth Gee offer another view. They show that video games can be a tool for connection, not isolation, creating opportunities for families to communicate and learn together. Like smartphones, Skype, and social media, games help families stay connected. Siyahhan and Gee offer examples: One family treats video game playing as a regular and valued activity, and bonds over Halo. A father tries to pass on his enthusiasm for Star Wars by playing Lego Star Wars with his young son. Families express their feelings and share their experiences and understanding of the world through playing video games like The Sims, Civilization, and Minecraft. Some video games are designed specifically to support family conversations around such real-world issues and sensitive topics as bullying and peer pressure. Siyahhan and Gee draw on a decade of research to look at how learning and teaching take place when families play video games together. With video games, they argue, the parents are not necessarily the teachers and experts; all family members can be both teachers and learners. They suggest video games can help families form, develop, and sustain their learning culture as well as develop skills that are valued in the twenty-first century workplace. Educators and game designers should take note.
