Download or read book Critical Play written by Mary Flanagan and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2013-02-08 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of subversive games like The Sims—games designed for political, aesthetic, and social critique. For many players, games are entertainment, diversion, relaxation, fantasy. But what if certain games were something more than this, providing not only outlets for entertainment but a means for creative expression, instruments for conceptual thinking, or tools for social change? In Critical Play, artist and game designer Mary Flanagan examines alternative games—games that challenge the accepted norms embedded within the gaming industry—and argues that games designed by artists and activists are reshaping everyday game culture. Flanagan provides a lively historical context for critical play through twentieth-century art movements, connecting subversive game design to subversive art: her examples of “playing house” include Dadaist puppet shows and The Sims. She looks at artists’ alternative computer-based games and explores games for change, considering the way activist concerns—including worldwide poverty and AIDS—can be incorporated into game design. Arguing that this kind of conscious practice—which now constitutes the avant-garde of the computer game medium—can inspire new working methods for designers, Flanagan offers a model for designing that will encourage the subversion of popular gaming tropes through new styles of game making, and proposes a theory of alternate game design that focuses on the reworking of contemporary popular game practices.
Download or read book The Critical Game written by John Albert Macy and published by . This book was released on 1922 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Critical Gaming Interactive History and Virtual Heritage written by Erik Champion and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-09 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explains how designing, playing and modifying computer games, and understanding the theory behind them, can strengthen the area of digital humanities. This book aims to help digital humanities scholars understand both the issues and also advantages of game design, as well as encouraging them to extend the field of computer game studies, particularly in their teaching and research in the field of virtual heritage. By looking at re-occurring issues in the design, playtesting and interface of serious games and game-based learning for cultural heritage and interactive history, this book highlights the importance of visualisation and self-learning in game studies and how this can intersect with digital humanities. It also asks whether such theoretical concepts can be applied to practical learning situations. It will be of particular interest to those who wish to investigate how games and virtual environments can be used in teaching and research to critique issues and topics in the humanities, particularly in virtual heritage and interactive history.
Download or read book Game Theory written by Shaun Hargreaves Heap and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Requiring no more than basic arithmetic, this book provides a careful and accessible introduction to the basic pillars of Game Theory, tracing its intellectual origins and philosophical premises.
Download or read book Debugging Game History written by Henry Lowood and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2016-06-03 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essays discuss the terminology, etymology, and history of key terms, offering a foundation for critical historical studies of games. Even as the field of game studies has flourished, critical historical studies of games have lagged behind other areas of research. Histories have generally been fact-by-fact chronicles; fundamental terms of game design and development, technology, and play have rarely been examined in the context of their historical, etymological, and conceptual underpinnings. This volume attempts to “debug” the flawed historiography of video games. It offers original essays on key concepts in game studies, arranged as in a lexicon—from “Amusement Arcade” to “Embodiment” and “Game Art” to “Simulation” and “World Building.” Written by scholars and practitioners from a variety of disciplines, including game development, curatorship, media archaeology, cultural studies, and technology studies, the essays offer a series of distinctive critical “takes” on historical topics. The majority of essays look at game history from the outside in; some take deep dives into the histories of play and simulation to provide context for the development of electronic and digital games; others take on such technological components of games as code and audio. Not all essays are history or historical etymology—there is an analysis of game design, and a discussion of intellectual property—but they nonetheless raise questions for historians to consider. Taken together, the essays offer a foundation for the emerging study of game history. Contributors Marcelo Aranda, Brooke Belisle, Caetlin Benson-Allott, Stephanie Boluk, Jennifer deWinter, J. P. Dyson, Kate Edwards, Mary Flanagan, Jacob Gaboury, William Gibbons, Raiford Guins, Erkki Huhtamo, Don Ihde, Jon Ippolito, Katherine Isbister, Mikael Jakobsson, Steven E. Jones, Jesper Juul, Eric Kaltman, Matthew G. Kirschenbaum, Carly A. Kocurek, Peter Krapp, Patrick LeMieux, Henry Lowood, Esther MacCallum-Stewart, Ken S. McAllister, Nick Monfort, David Myers, James Newman, Jenna Ng, Michael Nitsche, Laine Nooney, Hector Postigo, Jas Purewal, Reneé H. Reynolds, Judd Ethan Ruggill, Marie-Laure Ryan, Katie Salen Tekinbaş, Anastasia Salter, Mark Sample, Bobby Schweizer, John Sharp, Miguel Sicart, Rebecca Elisabeth Skinner, Melanie Swalwell, David Thomas, Samuel Tobin, Emma Witkowski, Mark J.P. Wolf
Download or read book The Play Versus Story Divide in Game Studies written by Matthew Wilhelm Kapell and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-11-16 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the emergence of digital game studies, a number of debates have engaged scholars. The debate between ludic (play) and narrative (story) paradigms remains the one that famously "never happened." This collection of new essays critically frames that debate and urges game scholars to consider it central to the field. The essayists examine various digital games, assessing the applicability of play-versus-narrative approaches or considering the failure of each. The essays reflect the broader history while applying notions of play and story to recent games in an attempt to propel serious analysis.
Download or read book Critical Game Theory written by Wayne Eastman and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-12-05 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The models in mainstream game theory generally assume that actors act according to a single, consistent utility function. Empirical studies, common sense, and humanistic wisdom all suggest that that assumption is too simple. This book starts with an assumption that actors are controlled by diverse, inconsistent forces and demonstrates that introducing this level of complexity allows for the creation of critical game theory models that can help to attain new insights into nature, human nature, human institutions, and human behavior. The book begins with an evolutionary, or Evo, model in which the players have concerns for the other player as well as egoistic interests. Part I analyzes the Prisoner’s Dilemma using a literary, or Lit, model in which the players have entropic, or Entro, masochistic and sadistic drives as well as altruistic and egoistic ones. Part II suggests that the Lit model opens the door to a “where Entro is, let Evo be” critical perspective on politics. Part III considers how core stories in mainstream game theory can be usefully supplemented and deepened by critical models and reflects on possible futures for critical game theory. The discussion of games and subgames includes poems as well as matrices, in pursuit of a mode of presentation that respects the complex, simultaneously humanistic and scientific qualities of critical game theory. The vision of critical game theory advanced in the book will be of significant interest to researchers in an array of theoretical and applied disciplines, including but not limited to literature, psychology, political science, economics, computer science, ethics, business ethics, law, and law and economics.
Download or read book Heart of Ice written by Dave Morris and published by Fabled Lands Llp. This book was released on 2013-09 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The end of the 23rd century. Earth lies in the grip of a new Ice Age. Famine, cold and fanatic cults threaten what is left of civilization. Humanity is on the brink of extinction. Nine of the strongest heroes of the age come seeking the ultimate prize: the Heart of Volent, an object with the power to reshape reality. All are ruthless, powerful, determined. To succeed they must work together. But only one can have the Heart. Choose your alliances with care. Weigh up who to trust. Be ready for betrayal. When the moment comes, the future of mankind will rest on your judgement. * * * Critical IF books are interactive adventures with a difference. You can be a mutant with the power to warp reality. A soldier whose combat skills are a match for any foe. A stealthy assassin leaping between rooftops. An explorer who can survive in the harshest conditions. Be anyone you can imagine. Choose from almost five hundred different character types, each with their own unique skills. Strong stories, vivid settings and compelling characters make Critical IF the game-changers of the interactive fiction genre. Put yourself in the heart of the story.
Download or read book Critical Hit written by W. M. Akers and published by . This book was released on 2021-05-25 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do you win a game that's trying to kill you? A twenty-nine year-old clerk at a games store in the Appalachian hamlet of Jett Creek, Tennessee, Callie Myles lives for the weekly RPG sessions run by her beloved brother and gamesmaster, LB. Under his watchful eye, she and her friends wage war, harness magic, and battle evil. When the dice are rolling, they are heroes, and all of Callie's anxieties slip away. The fun stops the night LB burns to death in a bizarre fire.Asked by her friends to keep the weekly game alive, Callie does her best to set her grief aside. She puts on the monocle LB wore during sessions and finds herself sucked into a life-sized recreation of her brother's game. Inhabiting the body of her beloved character, the legendary Arabeth, she thinks she has found the ultimate escape. Her paradise is spoiled when she discovers that something inside the game killed LB-and one of her fellow players was in on it. To save herself, to avenge her brother, Callie Myles must pull on her armor and beat LB's game from the inside out. If she gets killed along the way, well, at least she's having a great time.A fast-paced hybrid of mystery and adventure, CRITICAL HIT captures the breakneck joy of tabletop gaming, where life and death depend on the whims of a plastic die.
Download or read book Computer Games and Technical Communication written by Jennifer deWinter and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-23 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking as its point of departure the fundamental observation that games are both technical and symbolic, this collection investigates the multiple intersections between the study of computer games and the discipline of technical and professional writing. Divided into five parts, Computer Games and Technical Communication engages with questions related to workplace communities and gamic simulations; industry documentation; manuals, gameplay, and ethics; training, testing, and number crunching; and the work of games and gamifying work. In that computer games rely on a complex combination of written, verbal, visual, algorithmic, audio, and kinesthetic means to convey information, technical and professional writing scholars are uniquely poised to investigate the intersection between the technical and symbolic aspects of the computer game complex. The contributors to this volume bring to bear the analytic tools of the field to interpret the roles of communication, production, and consumption in this increasingly ubiquitous technical and symbolic medium.
Download or read book Responding to Call of Duty written by Nate Garrelts and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2017-11-21 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Call of Duty is one of the most culturally significant video game franchises of the 21st century. Since the first game was released for PC in 2003, the first-person shooter has sold over 250 million copies across a range of platforms, along with merchandise ranging from toys and comic books to a special edition Jeep Wrangler. Top players can compete for millions in prize money in tournaments sanctioned by the Call of Duty World League. While the gaming community has reported on and debated each development, Call of Duty has received little scholarly attention. This collection of new essays examines the ideologically charged campaign mode of major franchise releases, with a special focus on militarism, realism and gender.
Download or read book Positional Chess Handbook written by Israel Gelfer and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2013-07-24 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Learn to develop a more powerful strategic game. Key squares, bad bishops, pawn structures, other examples appear in ascending difficulty, with cross-references. For players at every level. 495 black-and-white illustrations.
Download or read book Rules of Play written by Katie Salen Tekinbas and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2003-09-25 with total page 680 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An impassioned look at games and game design that offers the most ambitious framework for understanding them to date. As pop culture, games are as important as film or television—but game design has yet to develop a theoretical framework or critical vocabulary. In Rules of Play Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman present a much-needed primer for this emerging field. They offer a unified model for looking at all kinds of games, from board games and sports to computer and video games. As active participants in game culture, the authors have written Rules of Play as a catalyst for innovation, filled with new concepts, strategies, and methodologies for creating and understanding games. Building an aesthetics of interactive systems, Salen and Zimmerman define core concepts like "play," "design," and "interactivity." They look at games through a series of eighteen "game design schemas," or conceptual frameworks, including games as systems of emergence and information, as contexts for social play, as a storytelling medium, and as sites of cultural resistance. Written for game scholars, game developers, and interactive designers, Rules of Play is a textbook, reference book, and theoretical guide. It is the first comprehensive attempt to establish a solid theoretical framework for the emerging discipline of game design.
Download or read book Gaming Globally written by N. Huntemann and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-01-26 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Video games are inherently transnational by virtue of industrial, textual, and player practices. The contributors touch upon nations not usually examined by game studies - including the former Czechoslovakia, Turkey, India, and Brazil - and also add new perspectives to the global hubs of China, Singapore, Australia, Japan, and the United States.
Download or read book Metagaming written by Stephanie Boluk and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2017-04-04 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The greatest trick the videogame industry ever pulled was convincing the world that videogames were games rather than a medium for making metagames. Elegantly defined as “games about games,” metagames implicate a diverse range of practices that stray outside the boundaries and bend the rules: from technical glitches and forbidden strategies to Renaissance painting, algorithmic trading, professional sports, and the War on Terror. In Metagaming, Stephanie Boluk and Patrick LeMieux demonstrate how games always extend beyond the screen, and how modders, mappers, streamers, spectators, analysts, and artists are changing the way we play. Metagaming uncovers these alternative histories of play by exploring the strange experiences and unexpected effects that emerge in, on, around, and through videogames. Players puzzle through the problems of perspectival rendering in Portal, perform clandestine acts of electronic espionage in EVE Online, compete and commentate in Korean StarCraft, and speedrun The Legend of Zelda in record times (with or without the use of vision). Companies like Valve attempt to capture the metagame through international e-sports and online marketplaces while the corporate history of Super Mario Bros. is undermined by the endless levels of Infinite Mario, the frustrating pranks of Asshole Mario, and even Super Mario Clouds, a ROM hack exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art. One of the only books to include original software alongside each chapter, Metagaming transforms videogames from packaged products into instruments, equipment, tools, and toys for intervening in the sensory and political economies of everyday life. And although videogames conflate the creativity, criticality, and craft of play with the act of consumption, we don’t simply play videogames—we make metagames.
Download or read book Critical Path written by Dan Amrich and published by Tripletorch. This book was released on 2012-02-15 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's your dream job: Playing video games. Writing about them. Getting paid. It will never happen, right? Actually, it can. It's definitely not easy to get this dream job-it requires a lot of perseverance, plenty of patience, a certain amount of skill, and a fair amount of luck. But with the right combination of elements, this job can be yours. Critical Path: How to Review Videogames for a Living will tell you what you need to know and what you need to do to make a run at this career, for real. This includes how to write compelling reviews, how to pitch yourself as a writer, how to tackle some tricky ethical quandaries, and yes, even how to get free games. Based on Dan Amrich's own experience as a game journalist for more than 15 years, it's advice that can serve you for your entire career, from press start to game over.
Download or read book Values at Play in Digital Games written by Mary Flanagan and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2014-07-18 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A theoretical and practical guide to integrating human values into the conception and design of digital games, with examples from Call of Duty, Journey, World of Warcraft, and more. All games express and embody human values, providing a compelling arena in which we play out beliefs and ideas. “Big ideas” such as justice, equity, honesty, and cooperation—as well as other kinds of ideas, including violence, exploitation, and greed—may emerge in games whether designers intend them or not. In this book, Mary Flanagan and Helen Nissenbaum present Values at Play, a theoretical and practical framework for identifying socially recognized moral and political values in digital games. Values at Play can also serve as a guide to designers who seek to implement values in the conception and design of their games. After developing a theoretical foundation for their proposal, Flanagan and Nissenbaum provide detailed examinations of selected games, demonstrating the many ways in which values are embedded in them. They introduce the Values at Play heuristic, a systematic approach for incorporating values into the game design process. Interspersed among the book's chapters are texts by designers who have put Values at Play into practice by accepting values as a design constraint like any other, offering a real-world perspective on the design challenges involved.
