Tag Archives: video games

The Wide Variety of Video Game Studies

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Video games are an interesting field of study in today’s academic world. For a while, they were thought of as mindless garbage (okay, to be honest, there are probably tons of people who still think this i.e. my grandparents), yet the recent developments of video games have garnered more attraction from all walks of life and scholarly research into these games. Andrew Ervin even sets out to understand the explosive popularity of video games. No longer are they simplistic ideas of trying to get a frog across a highway or a yellow circle earing up dots. Theses games have stories as compelling as books.

Now that these games are more accepted they allow scholars to analyze and explore how these games affect our understanding of the wider world. In Gaming the System, Gunkel explores how philosophical traditions, put forth by thinkers like Plato, Descartes, Kant, etc., can help us explore and conceptualize recent developments in video games, game studies, and virtual worlds. Surprisingly, these games cross disciplines as well. Serious Games in Physical Rehabilitation demonstrates how videogames can be a valuable tool in clinics and how clinicians can use them in physical rehabilitation for various pathologies. And The Rhetoric of Videogames as Embodied Practice offers a critical reassessment of embodiment and materiality in rhetorical considerations of videogames.

No longer are games thought of in a vacuum, if they ever were. Not only has the ivory tower of universities started to realize that video games are a worthwhile field of study, but this field is also one that is crossing into other subjects and areas of thought. It truly shows you can’t judge a book…or a game…by its cover.

An Intriguing Combination

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This book formulates a new theological approach to the study of religion in gaming. Video games have become one of the most important cultural artefacts of modern society, both as mediators of cultural, social, and religious values and in terms of commercial success. This has led to a significant increase in the critical analysis of this relatively new medium, but theology as an academic discipline is noticeably behind the other humanities on this subject. Each chapter introduces case studies from video games connected to a specific theme i.e. theomorphism and christophorism. In contrast to many studies which focus on online multiplayer games, the examples considered are largely single-player games with distinct narratives and ‘end of game’ moments. The book concludes by synthesizing these themes into a new theology of video games.

Call Number: 794.8 B743G

What is Game Writing?

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“An actual serious question. For many years, even decades, it was virtually an oxymoron. Games. Writing. Some game companies dabble with writers, others used people drafted from their development team who may have seemed to have a “flair” for writing, or story, or dialogue. But a few games’ success and critical acclaim showed that a game that used a professional writer could not only elevate the story, not to mention the dialogue but also lead to something even more important. Nothing less than the integration of gameplay and story into a new narrative entity. And not just a new narrative entity, but a new art form. Writers have come along to not only write the games but to build interactive experiences in a dramatic and exciting way” (Costello, xx).

This insightful, revised book explores the challenging and evolving world of the games writer. Especially useful reading for novice game writers, its chapters cover a broad range of topics including contracts, NDAs, creative collaboration, narrative design, editing, adaptations, and environmental storytelling. Packed with practical samples, case studies, and exercises, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in the world of games writing.

Call Number: 794.8 S942V 2017

Practices in Procedural and Dynamic Game Content

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This book offers a compendium of best practices in game dynamics. It covers a wide range of dynamic game elements ranging from player behaviour over artificial intelligence to procedural content generation. Such dynamics make virtual worlds more lively and realistic and they also create the potential for moments of amazement and surprise. The book draws upon interdisciplinary approaches; researchers and practitioners from Game Studies, Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction, Psychology and other disciplines will find this book to be an exceptional resource of both creative inspiration and hands-on process knowledge.

Call Number: 794.81 G192

Video Games and Religion, Finally Together

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Game studies have been an understudied area within the emerging field of digital media and religion. Video games can reflect, reject, or reconfigure traditionally held religious ideas and often serve as sources for the production of religious practices and ideas. This collection of essays presents a broad range of influential methodological approaches that illuminate how and why video games shape the construction of religious beliefs and practices and also situates such research within the wider discourse on how digital media intersect with the religious worlds of the 21st century.

Call Number: 794.8 M592

Gaming the System

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This book is a guide to designing curricular games to suit the needs of students. It makes connections between video games and time-tested pedagogical techniques such as discovery learning and feedback to improve student engagement and learning. The author emphasizes designing curricular games for problem-solving and warns against designing games that are simply “Alex Trebek (host of Jeopardy) wearing a mask.” By drawing on multiple fields such as systems thinking, design theory, assessment, and curriculum design, this book relies on theory to generate techniques for practice.

Call Number: 371.33 K294G

The Complete Reverse Design Collection

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The Reverse Design series looks at the design decisions that went into classic video games. Six instalments in total: Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy VII, Super Mario World, Diablo II, and Half-Life. Each book looks at key designs of all of these video games that are written in a readable format and broken down into sections. The key features of each book are comprehensive definitions, a summary of the historical context of each game, and extensive collections of data and data visualizations.

Final Fantasy VI: 794.8 H737RF6

Chrono Trigger: 794.8 H737RC

Super Mario World: 794.8 H737RS

Half-Life: 794.8 H737RH

Final Fantasy VII: 794.8 H737RF7

Diablo II: 794.8 H737RD2

May the Stories Never End

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When it comes to academic analysis, mainstream humanities research seems confused about what to do with videogames. The problem is one of the classifications, in the first instance: ‘is it a story, is it a game, or is it a machine?’ After weathering many controversies with regards to their cultural status, video games are now widely accepted as a new textual form that requires its own media-specific analysis. Despite the rapid rise in research and academic recognition, video game studies have seldom attempted to connect with older media and to locate itself within broader substantive discourses of the earlier and more established disciplines, especially those in the humanities. Video games and Storytelling aims to re-address this gap and to bring video games to mainstream humanities research and teaching.

Call Number: 794.8 M953V