The Game Worlds Of Jason Rohrer

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The Game Worlds of Jason Rohrer

Author : Michael Maizels
Publisher : National Geographic Books
ISBN 13 : 0262529114
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (625 download)

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Book Synopsis The Game Worlds of Jason Rohrer by : Michael Maizels

Download or read book The Game Worlds of Jason Rohrer written by Michael Maizels and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2016-01-22 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A generously illustrated volume that documents the career of Jason Rohrer, one of the most heralded art game designers working today. A maker of visually elegant and conceptually intricate games, Jason Rohrer is among the most widely heralded art game designers in the short but vibrant history of the field. His games range from the elegantly simple to others of almost Byzantine complexity. Passage (2007)—acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York—uses game rules and procedurals to create a contemporary memento mori that captures an entire lifetime in five minutes. In Chain World (2011), each subsequent player of the game's single copy modifies the rules of the universe. A Game for Someone (2013) is a board game sealed in a box and buried in the Mojave Desert, with a list of one million potential sites distributed to Rohrer's fan base. (Rohrer estimated that it would take two millennia of constant searching to find the game.) With Chain World and A Game for Someone, Rohrer became the first designer to win the prestigious Game Challenge Design award twice. This book, and the exhibition it accompanies, offers a comprehensive account of the artist's oeuvre. The book documents all seventeen of Rohrer's finished games, as well as sketches, ephemera, and related material, with color images throughout. It includes entries on individual games (with code in footnotes), artist interviews, artist writings, commentary by high scorers, and interpretive texts. Two introductory essays view Rohrer's work in the contexts of game studies and art history. Exhibition The Davis Museum at Wellesley College February–June 2016

Bit by Bit

Author : Andrew Ervin
Publisher : Basic Books
ISBN 13 : 0465096581
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (65 download)

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Book Synopsis Bit by Bit by : Andrew Ervin

Download or read book Bit by Bit written by Andrew Ervin and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2017-05-02 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An acclaimed novelist and critic argues that video games are the most vital art form of our time Video games have seemingly taken over our lives. Whereas gamers once constituted a small and largely male subculture, today 67 percent of American households play video games. The average gamer is now thirty-four years old and spends eight hours each week playing-and there is a 40 percent chance this person is a woman. In Bit by Bit, Andrew Ervin sets out to understand the explosive popularity of video games. He travels to government laboratories, junk shops, and arcades. He interviews scientists and game designers, both old and young. In charting the material and technological history of video games, from the 1950s to the present, he suggests that their appeal starts and ends with the sense of creativity they instill in gamers. As Ervin argues, games can be art because they are beautiful, moving, and even political.

Experimental Games

Author : Patrick Jagoda
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 9780226629834
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (298 download)

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Book Synopsis Experimental Games by : Patrick Jagoda

Download or read book Experimental Games written by Patrick Jagoda and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2020-12-15 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In our unprecedentedly networked world, games have come to occupy an important space in many of our everyday lives. Digital games alone engage an estimated 2.5 billion people worldwide as of 2020, and other forms of gaming, such as board games, role playing, escape rooms, and puzzles, command an ever-expanding audience. At the same time, “gamification”—the application of game mechanics to traditionally nongame spheres, such as personal health and fitness, shopping, habit tracking, and more—has imposed unprecedented levels of competition, repetition, and quantification on daily life. Drawing from his own experience as a game designer, Patrick Jagoda argues that games need not be synonymous with gamification. He studies experimental games that intervene in the neoliberal project from the inside out, examining a broad variety of mainstream and independent games, including StarCraft, Candy Crush Saga, Stardew Valley, Dys4ia, Braid, and Undertale. Beyond a diagnosis of gamification, Jagoda imagines ways that games can be experimental—not only in the sense of problem solving, but also the more nuanced notion of problem making that embraces the complexities of our digital present. The result is a game-changing book on the sociopolitical potential of this form of mass entertainment.

Adaptations in the Franchise Era

Author : Kyle Meikle
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 1501318748
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (13 download)

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Book Synopsis Adaptations in the Franchise Era by : Kyle Meikle

Download or read book Adaptations in the Franchise Era written by Kyle Meikle and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2019-01-24 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Adaptations in the Franchise Era re-evaluates adaptation's place in a popular culture marked by the movement of content and audiences across more media borders than ever before. While adaptation has historically been understood as the transfer of stories from one medium to another-more often than not, from novel to film-the growing interconnectedness of media and media industries in the early twenty-first century raises new questions about the form and function of adaptation as both a product and a process. Where does adaptation fit within massive franchises that span pages, stages, screens, and theme parks? Rising scholar Kyle Meikle illuminates adaptation's enduring and essential role in the rise of franchises in the 2000s and 2010s. During that decade-and-a-half, adaptations set the foundation for multiplexed, multiplied film series, piloted streaming television's forays into original programming, found their way into audiences' hands in apps and video games, and went live in theatrical experiences on Broadway and beyond. The proliferation of adaptations was matched only by a proliferation of adaptation, as fans remixed and remade their favourite franchises online and off-. This volume considers how producers and consumers defined adaptations-and how adaptations defined themselves-through the endless intertextual play of the franchise era.

Rethinking Thought

Author : Laura Otis
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190213477
Total Pages : 273 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (92 download)

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Book Synopsis Rethinking Thought by : Laura Otis

Download or read book Rethinking Thought written by Laura Otis and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In 'Rethinking Thought, ' Laura Otis gives readers a multi-dimensional tour through the minds of thirty creative thinkers to illustrate how the experience of productive thought can vary across the spectrum. Focusing on individual experiences with planning, problem-solving, reflecting, remembering and forging new ideas, Otis approaches the question of what thinking is by analyzing variations in the way thinking feels. Drawing from her own experience as a neurocscientist-turned literary scholar, Otis aptly juxtaposes creative thinkers' insights with recent neuroscientific discoveries centering on visual mental imagery, verbal language, and thought. By offering distinct psychological portraits of famous figures like controversial novelist Salman Rushdie and engineer Temple Grandin, Otis treats scientists and artists with equal respect, and creates a fascinating dialogue in which neuroscientific findings and introspection engage with each other as equal partners. 'Rethinking Thought' encourages readers to resist the temptation of classifying people as 'visual' or 'verbal, ' and to instead consider how thinkers combine both skill-sets and how their abilities can be further developed as a result. By showing how greatly individual experiences of thought can vary, this book aims to help readers in all proessions better understand the diverse pool of people with whom they work and interact with"--Page 4 of cover.

Through the Black Mirror

Author : Terence McSweeney
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 3030194582
Total Pages : 297 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (31 download)

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Book Synopsis Through the Black Mirror by : Terence McSweeney

Download or read book Through the Black Mirror written by Terence McSweeney and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-07-26 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited collection charts the first four seasons of Black Mirror and beyond, providing a rich social, historical and political context for the show. Across the diverse tapestry of its episodes, Black Mirror has both dramatized and deconstructed the shifting cultural and technological coordinates of the era like no other. With each of the nineteen chapters focussing on a single episode of the series, this book provides an in-depth analysis into how the show interrogates our contemporary desires and anxieties, while simultaneously encouraging audiences to contemplate the moral issues raised by each episode. What if we could record and replay our most intimate memories? How far should we go to protect our children? Would we choose to live forever? What does it mean to be human? These are just some of the questions posed by Black Mirror, and in turn, by this volume. Written by some of the foremost scholars in the field of contemporary film and television studies, Through the Black Mirror explores how Black Mirror has become a cultural barometer of the new millennial decades and questions what its embedded anxieties might tell us.

Digital Storytelling 4e

Author : Carolyn Handler Miller
Publisher : CRC Press
ISBN 13 : 0429801831
Total Pages : 485 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (298 download)

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Book Synopsis Digital Storytelling 4e by : Carolyn Handler Miller

Download or read book Digital Storytelling 4e written by Carolyn Handler Miller and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2019-11-04 with total page 485 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This fourth edition of Digital Storytelling: A creator's guide to interactive entertainment dives deeply into the world of interactive storytelling, a form of storytelling made possible by digital media. Carolyn Handler Miller covers both the basics – character development, structure and the use of interactivity – and the more advanced topics, such as AI (Artificial Intelligence), narratives using AR and VR, and Social Media storytelling. The fourth edition also includes a greatly expanded section on immersive media, with chapters on the exciting new world of the world of XR (AR, VR, and mixed reality), plus immersion via large screens, escape rooms and new kinds of theme park experiences. This edition covers all viable forms of New Media, from video games to interactive documentaries. With numerous case studies that delve into the processes and challenges of developing works of interactive narrative, this new edition illustrates the creative possibilities of digital storytelling. The book goes beyond using digital media for entertainment and covers its employment for education, training, information and promotion, featuring interviews with some of the industry’s biggest names. Key Features: A large new section covering various forms of immersive media, including VR, AR and Mixed Reality Breakthroughs in interactive TV and Cinema The use of VR, AR and mixed reality in gaming New forms of voice-enabled storytelling and gaming Stories told via mobile apps and social media Developing Digital Storytelling for different types of audiences

Playful Materialities

Author : Benjamin Beil
Publisher : transcript Verlag
ISBN 13 : 3732862003
Total Pages : 296 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (328 download)

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Book Synopsis Playful Materialities by : Benjamin Beil

Download or read book Playful Materialities written by Benjamin Beil and published by transcript Verlag. This book was released on 2022-09-30 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Game culture and material culture have always been closely linked. Analog forms of rule-based play (ludus) would hardly be conceivable without dice, cards, and game boards. In the act of free play (paidia), children as well as adults transform simple objects into multifaceted toys in an almost magical way. Even digital play is suffused with material culture: Games are not only mediated by technical interfaces, which we access via hardware and tangible peripherals. They are also subject to material hybridization, paratextual framing, and processes of de-, and re-materialization.

Experimental Games

Author : Patrick Jagoda
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022663003X
Total Pages : 403 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (266 download)

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Book Synopsis Experimental Games by : Patrick Jagoda

Download or read book Experimental Games written by Patrick Jagoda and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2020-12-07 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In our unprecedentedly networked world, games have come to occupy an important space in many of our everyday lives. Digital games alone engage an estimated 2.5 billion people worldwide as of 2020, and other forms of gaming, such as board games, role playing, escape rooms, and puzzles, command an ever-expanding audience. At the same time, “gamification”—the application of game mechanics to traditionally nongame spheres, such as personal health and fitness, shopping, habit tracking, and more—has imposed unprecedented levels of competition, repetition, and quantification on daily life. Drawing from his own experience as a game designer, Patrick Jagoda argues that games need not be synonymous with gamification. He studies experimental games that intervene in the neoliberal project from the inside out, examining a broad variety of mainstream and independent games, including StarCraft, Candy Crush Saga, Stardew Valley, Dys4ia, Braid, and Undertale. Beyond a diagnosis of gamification, Jagoda imagines ways that games can be experimental—not only in the sense of problem solving, but also the more nuanced notion of problem making that embraces the complexities of our digital present. The result is a game-changing book on the sociopolitical potential of this form of mass entertainment.

The Works of Fumito Ueda

Author : Damien Mecheri
Publisher : Third Editions
ISBN 13 : 2377843700
Total Pages : 197 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (778 download)

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Book Synopsis The Works of Fumito Ueda by : Damien Mecheri

Download or read book The Works of Fumito Ueda written by Damien Mecheri and published by Third Editions. This book was released on 2019-05-21 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Go behind the scenes of the creation of the Fumito Ueda trilogy ! Fumito Ueda has worked on 3 games: ICO, Shadow of the Colossus and The Last Guardian. Each of them was able to express the depth of their author's reflection, his love of purity and showed a real poetry. Are video games art ? This study of the Futimo Ueda's work focuses on the question of the artistic essence of video games. EXTRACT When the game ICO was released in 2001, it had several decades’ worth of video games behind it. The game itself was significantly influenced by video games that had touched its creator, Fumito Ueda: Another World by Éric Chahi and Prince of Persia by Jordan Mechner. Yet, when a player takes the ethereal Yorda’s hand, when they feel this physical contact through the vibrations in the controller, something happens. Something new and profound. Something that can only exist through a video game. A simple idea, attached to the R1 button, and digital interaction opens a new door. Of course, this insignificant-seeming gesture is but a small representation of what can really happen. Its strength lies elsewhere; it draws from everything that makes up ICO: its art direction (everything in chiaroscuro), its vanishing lines, its simple and clear game mechanics, its lack of visual interface, its quest for physical realism, its minimalist narration, its extraordinary sensibilities. It is an opening to an evocative otherworld that lets our imagination soar. Contemplative, slow and nearly speechless, ICO offers an uncommon, poetic adventure, rejecting traditional video game standards while still drawing from them. Many remained indifferent to it. Just as many were touched as rarely before. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Passionate about films and video games, Damien Mecheri joined the writing team of Gameplay RPG magazine in 2004 and wrote several articles for the second special edition on the Final Fantasy saga. With this same team, Damien continued his work in 2006 for another publication known as Background, before continuing the adventure online in 2008, with Gameweb.fr. Since 2011, he has written and co-written numerous works for Third Éditions, including The Legend of Final Fantasy X, Dark Souls: Beyond the Grave and Welcome to Silent Hill: Journey to the Center of Hell and actively participates in the “Level Up” and “Video Game Almanac” collections from the same publisher.

How Pac-Man Eats

Author : Noah Wardrip-Fruin
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 026204465X
Total Pages : 382 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (62 download)

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Book Synopsis How Pac-Man Eats by : Noah Wardrip-Fruin

Download or read book How Pac-Man Eats written by Noah Wardrip-Fruin and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2020-12-15 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the tools and concepts for making games are connected to what games can and do mean; with examples ranging from Papers, Please to Dys4ia. In How Pac-Man Eats, Noah Wardrip-Fruin considers two questions: What are the fundamental ways that games work? And how can games be about something? Wardrip-Fruin argues that the two issues are related. Bridging formalist and culturally engaged approaches, he shows how the tools and concepts for making games are connected to what games can and do mean. Wardrip-Fruin proposes that games work at a fundamental level on which their mechanics depend: operational logics. Games are about things because they use play to address topics; they do this through playable models (of which operational logics are the primary building blocks): larger structures used to represent what happens in a game world that relate meaningfully to a theme. Game creators can expand the expressiveness of games, Wardrip-Fruin explains, by expanding an operational logic. Pac-Man can eat, for example, because a game designer expanded the meaning of collision from hitting things to consuming them. Wardrip-Fruin describes strategies game creators use to expand what can be said through games, with examples drawn from indie games, art games, and research games that address themes ranging from border policy to gender transition. These include Papers, Please, which illustrates expansive uses of pattern matching; Prom Week, for which the game's developers created a model of social volition to enable richer relationships between characters; and Dys4ia, which demonstrates a design approach that supports game metaphors of high complexity.

Alternate Reality Games and the Cusp of Digital Gameplay

Author : Antero Garcia
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 1501316257
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (13 download)

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Book Synopsis Alternate Reality Games and the Cusp of Digital Gameplay by : Antero Garcia

Download or read book Alternate Reality Games and the Cusp of Digital Gameplay written by Antero Garcia and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2017-04-20 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) challenge what players understand as “real.” Alternate Reality Games and the Cusp of Digital Gameplay is the first collection to explore and define the possibilities of ARGs. Though prominent examples have existed for more than two decades, only recently have ARGs come to the prominence as a unique and highly visible digital game genre. Adopting many of the same strategies as online video games, ARGs blur the distinction between real and fictional. With ARGs continuing to be an important and blurred space between digital and physical gameplay, this volume offers clear analysis of game design, implementation, and ramifications for game studies. Divided into three distinct sections, the contributions include first hand accounts by leading ARG creators, scholarly analysis of the meaning behind ARGs, and explorations of how ARGs are extending digital tools for analysis. By balancing the voices of designers, players, and researchers, this collection highlights how the Alternate Reality Game genre is transforming the ways we play and interact today.

Virtually Sacred

Author : Robert M. Geraci
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199344701
Total Pages : 340 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (993 download)

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Book Synopsis Virtually Sacred by : Robert M. Geraci

Download or read book Virtually Sacred written by Robert M. Geraci and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014-06-13 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Millions of users have taken up residence in virtual worlds, and in those worlds they find opportunities to revisit and rewrite their religious lives. Robert M. Geraci argues that virtual worlds and video games have become a locus for the satisfaction of religious needs, providing many users with devoted communities, opportunities for ethical reflection, a meaningful experience of history and human activity, and a sense of transcendence. Using interviews, surveys, and his own first-hand experience within the virtual worlds, Geraci shows how World of Warcraft and Second Life provide participants with the opportunity to rethink what it means to be religious in the contemporary world. Not all participants use virtual worlds for religious purposes, but many online residents use them to rearrange or replace religious practice as designers and users collaborate in the production of a new spiritual marketplace. Using World of Warcraft and Second Life as case studies, this book shows that many residents now use virtual worlds to re-imagine their traditions and work to restore them to "authentic" sanctity, or else replace religious institutions with virtual communities that provide meaning and purpose to human life. For some online residents, virtual worlds are even keys to a post-human future where technology can help us transcend mortal life. Geraci argues that World of Warcraft and Second Life are "virtually sacred" because they do religious work. They often do such work without regard for-and frequently in conflict with-traditional religious institutions and practices; ultimately they participate in our sacred landscape as outsiders, competitors, and collaborators.

The Routledge Handbook of Fiction and Belief

Author : Alison James
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1000993361
Total Pages : 815 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (9 download)

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Book Synopsis The Routledge Handbook of Fiction and Belief by : Alison James

Download or read book The Routledge Handbook of Fiction and Belief written by Alison James and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-12-22 with total page 815 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge Handbook of Fiction and Belief offers a fresh reevaluation of the relationship between fiction and belief, surveying key debates and perspectives from a range of disciplines including narrative and cultural studies, science, religion, and politics. This volume draws on global, cutting edge research and theory to investigate the historically variable understandings of fictionality, and allows readers to grasp the role of fictions in our understanding of the world. This interdisciplinary approach provides a thorough introduction to the fundamental themes of: Theoretical and Philosophical Perspectives on Fiction Fiction, Fact, and Science Social Effects and Uses of Fiction Fiction and Politics Fiction and Religion Questioning how fictions in fact shape, mediate or distort our beliefs about the real world, essays in this volume outline the state of theoretical debates from the perspectives of literary theory, philosophy, sociology, religious studies, history, and the cognitive sciences. It aims to take stock of the real or supposed effects that fiction has on the world, and to offer a wide-reaching reflection on the implications of belief in fictions in the so-called “post-truth” era.

The Palgrave Handbook of Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature and Science

Author : Neel Ahuja
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 3030482448
Total Pages : 688 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (34 download)

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Book Synopsis The Palgrave Handbook of Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature and Science by : Neel Ahuja

Download or read book The Palgrave Handbook of Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature and Science written by Neel Ahuja and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-11-26 with total page 688 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This handbook illustrates the evolution of literature and science, in collaboration and contestation, across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The essays it gathers question the charged rhetoric that pits science against the humanities while also demonstrating the ways in which the convergence of literary and scientific approaches strengthens cultural analyses of colonialism, race, sex, labor, state formation, and environmental destruction. The broad scope of this collection explores the shifting relations between literature and science that have shaped our own cultural moment, sometimes in ways that create a problematic hierarchy of knowledge and other times in ways that encourage fruitful interdisciplinary investigations, innovative modes of knowledge production, and politically charged calls for social justice. Across units focused on epistemologies, techniques and methods, ethics and politics, and forms and genres, the chapters address problems ranging across epidemiology and global health, genomics and biotechnology, environmental and energy sciences, behaviorism and psychology, physics, and computational and surveillance technologies. Chapter 19 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

The Routledge Companion to Media Studies and Digital Humanities

Author : Jentery Sayers
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317549082
Total Pages : 786 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (175 download)

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Book Synopsis The Routledge Companion to Media Studies and Digital Humanities by : Jentery Sayers

Download or read book The Routledge Companion to Media Studies and Digital Humanities written by Jentery Sayers and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-05-01 with total page 786 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although media studies and digital humanities are established fields, their overlaps have not been examined in depth. This comprehensive collection fills that gap, giving readers a critical guide to understanding the array of methodologies and projects operating at the intersections of media, culture, and practice. Topics include: access, praxis, social justice, design, interaction, interfaces, mediation, materiality, remediation, data, memory, making, programming, and hacking.

The Cambridge Companion to Narrative Theory

Author : Matthew Garrett
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1108428479
Total Pages : 301 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (84 download)

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Book Synopsis The Cambridge Companion to Narrative Theory by : Matthew Garrett

Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Narrative Theory written by Matthew Garrett and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-31 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Narrative theory is essential to everything from history to lyric poetry, from novels to the latest Hollywood blockbuster. Narrative theory explores how stories work and how we make them work. This Companion is both an introduction and a contribution to the field. It presents narrative theory as an approach to understanding all kinds of cultural production: from literary texts to historiography, from film and videogames to philosophical discourse. It takes the long historical view, outlines essential concepts, and reflects on the way narrative forms connect with and rework social forms. The volume analyzes central premises, identifies narrative theory's feminist foundations, and elaborates its significance to queer theory and issues of race. The specially commissioned essays are exciting to read, uniting accessibility and rigor, traditional concerns with a renovated sense of the field as a whole, and analytical clarity with stylistic dash. Topical and substantial, The Cambridge Companion to Narrative Theory is an engaging resource on a key contemporary concept.