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The business and culture of digital games : gamework/gameplay
Combining theoretical and empirical analysis of the production, content and consumption of computer games, Aphra Kerr explores this all-pervasive, but under-theorized, aspect of our media environment. Kerr examines: games as a new media form; design, development and marketing of games; and the use of games in public and private spaces.
eBook
1001 video games you must play before you die
Gaming magazine authors from around the globe present a chronological yet qualitative history of the video game, with insight into the development, popularity, and influence of games that can't be missed.
Book
Racing the Beam
The Atari Video Computer System dominated the home video game market so completely that \"Atari\" became the generic term for a video game console. The Atari VCS was affordable and offered the flexibility of changeable cartridges. Nearly a thousand of these were created, the most significant of which established new techniques, mechanics, and even entire genres. This book offers a detailed and accessible study of this influential video game console from both computational and cultural perspectives. Studies of digital media have rarely investigated platforms--the systems underlying computing. This book (the first in a series of Platform Studies) does so, developing a critical approach that examines the relationship between platforms and creative expression. Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost discuss the Atari VCS itself and examine in detail six game cartridges: Combat, Adventure, Pac-Man, Yars' Revenge, Pitfall!, and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. They describe the technical constraints and affordances of the system and track developments in programming, gameplay, interface, and aesthetics. Adventure, for example, was the first game to represent a virtual space larger than the screen (anticipating the boundless virtual spaces of such later games as World of Warcraft and Grand Theft Auto), by allowing the player to walk off one side into another space; and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back was an early instance of interaction between media properties and video games. Montfort and Bogost show that the Atari VCS--often considered merely a retro fetish object--is an essential part of the history of video games.
eBook
Design a game
\"Just about every kid loves playing computer games whether they're handheld, on the computer, or in an arcade. Now, they can get the inside story and learn how their favorite types of games are made, from the code up! Easy to understand text and colorful graphics help kids master the foundations of programming and computers as well as offers guidance on how to be a good digital citizen. Features include hands-on activities; a debugging challenge that asks readers to use their critical thinking skills to find out whats wrong in different scenarios; a glossary and more.\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Making Virtual Worlds
The past decade has seen phenomenal growth in the development and use of virtual worlds. In one of the most notable, Second Life, millions of people have created online avatars in order to play games, take classes, socialize, and conduct business transactions. Second Life offers a gathering point and the tools for people to create a new world online.
Too often neglected in popular and scholarly accounts of such groundbreaking new environments is the simple truth that, of necessity, such virtual worlds emerge from physical workplaces marked by negotiation, creation, and constant change. Thomas Malaby spent a year at Linden Lab, the real-world home of Second Life, observing those who develop and profit from the sprawling, self-generating system they have created.
Some of the challenges created by Second Life for its developers were of a very traditional nature, such as how to cope with a business that is growing more quickly than existing staff can handle. Others are seemingly new: How, for instance, does one regulate something that is supposed to run on its own? Is it possible simply to create a space for people to use and then not govern its use? Can one apply these same free-range/free-market principles to the office environment in which the game is produced? \"Lindens\"-as the Linden Lab employees call themselves-found that their efforts to prompt user behavior of one sort or another were fraught with complexities, as a number of ongoing processes collided with their own interventions.
InMaking Virtual Worlds, Malaby thoughtfully describes the world of Linden Lab and the challenges faced while he was conducting his in-depth ethnographic research there. He shows how the workers of a very young but quickly growing company were themselves caught up in ideas about technology, games, and organizations, and struggled to manage not only their virtual world but also themselves in a nonhierarchical fashion. In exploring the practices the Lindens employed, he questions what was at stake in their virtual world, what a game really is (and how people participate), and the role of the unexpected in a product like Second Life and an organization like Linden Lab.
eBook
Great game design
\"Introduces readers to basic computer game design. Content covers key game features, including game assets such as characters, obstacles, and tools. Readers also learn about the types of code used for different actions including keeping score and changing difficulty levels\"--Amazon.com.
Book
Players unleashed
It has been ten years since video game giant Electronic Arts first releasedThe Sims, the best-selling game that allows its players to create a household and then manage every aspect of daily life within it. And since its debut, gamers young and old have found ways to \"mod\"The Sims, a practice in which gamers manipulate the computer code of a game, and thereby alter it to add new content and scenarios.
InPlayers Unleashed!-the first study of its kind-Tanja Sihvonen provides a fascinating examination of modding, tracing its evolution and detailing its impact onThe Simsand the game industry as a whole. Along the way, Sihvonen shares insights into specific modifications and the cultural contexts from which they emerge.
eBook
Developing creative content for games
\"This book provides readers with a solid understanding of game development, design, narrative, charaterization, plot, back story and world creation elements that are crucial for game writers and designers as they create a detailed world setting, adventure, characters, narrative and plot suitable for possible publication. Game design and development issues such as writing for games, emergent complexity, risk reward systems, competitive and cooperative game play will be investigated, analyzed and critiqued. Examples will be used to highlight and explain the various concepts involved and how the game development process works\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design
Want to design your own video games? Let expert Scott Rogers show you how!
If you want to design and build cutting-edge video games but aren't sure where to start, then the SECOND EDITION of the acclaimed Level Up! is for you! Written by leading video game expert Scott Rogers, who has designed the hits Pac Man World, Maximo and SpongeBob Squarepants, this updated edition provides clear and well-thought out examples that forgo theoretical gobbledygook with charmingly illustrated concepts and solutions based on years of professional experience.
Level Up! 2nd Edition has been NEWLY EXPANDED to teach you how to develop marketable ideas, learn what perils and pitfalls await during a game's pre-production, production and post-production stages, and provide even more creative ideas to serve as fuel for your own projects including:
* Developing your game design from the spark of inspiration all the way to production
* Learning how to design the most exciting levels, the most precise controls, and the fiercest foes that will keep your players challenged
* Creating games for mobile and console systems – including detailed rules for touch and motion controls
* Monetizing your game from the design up
* Writing effective and professional design documents with the help of brand new examples
Level Up! 2nd Edition is includes all-new content, an introduction by David \"God of War\" Jaffe and even a brand-new chili recipe –making it an even more indispensable guide for video game designers both \"in the field\" and the classroom.
Grab your copy of Level Up! 2nd Edition and let's make a game!
eBook