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Just to add to the list of books coming out
Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman have a new one out from MIT called ‘The
Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology’. See http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=10659Also out from MIT is Jesper Juul’s book based on this PhD ‘ Half Real’
See http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=10660Lots more to read.
Aphra.
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well guess what, they have started marketing ‘the’ book.
Still refining cover details as we speak but looks like it will be out in March. Now there is a reason for a few pints!
see http://www.sagepub.co.uk/book.aspx?pid=107533
BYW the cover is silver and not grey apparently!
Aphra.
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hey , well done Aphra. It’s great to see it’s just about ship.
i ordered one …
there should be loads of support from gd.ie i reckon.
congrats and hope it does well.
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Well done Aphra, will get a copy once its out.
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congrats, Aphra. Light at the end of the tunnel, eh?! Look forward to getting my hands on an ‘official’ copy
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Nice one Aphra!
(Get them to put Dr. Aphra Kerr on the front….it makes you sound science-y :lol: )
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Well done Aphra – Big congrats!!!
Looking forward to picking up a copy!
Ian
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Well done, Aphra! I’m looking forward to having a read through the book. I’m sure the critics will be friendly. It’s your debut after all!
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Nice on Aphra, the title finally worked itself out eh :)
Gonna get a copy for the office once its out..
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Aphra :D your book has arrived through my door today :D
very nice … am looking forward to reading this
V.cool
:D
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Hey no fair! :cry:
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well i did order it direct from sage ..
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It can be ordered??
Way to not pimp your book Aphra :P
Gonna order it now!
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UoU library has precisely 0 copies…I’ll have the dogs whipped.
And then say sorry and maybe asks them nice to buy some copies :D
ps Aphra, Leo Galway’s back from GDC with a truck load of notes for the making of reports into out of, and stories (well more offhand comments) of amazing sights and happenings…worth a commission?
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I have just reviewed the new Salen and Zimmerman book for Mute, a UK based politics and culture website.
If you are interested see http://www.metamute.org/?q=en/Dungeons-and-Dragnets
If you have read it I would be interested in your opinion of it..
Aphra.
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Oh I probably wouldn’t, or if so in much the same way, but I would have put in a picture :D
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thanks Hugh
well blame our old Dutch friend Johan Huizinga for going back to, I believe the latin, ‘ludens’ for play and calling his book written in the 1930s homo ludens which I suppose translates roughly as playful man or man, the player. Not having ever done latin please feel free to correct me.
A ludologist is defined by some as a theoretician who rejects the narrative and literary theory approach to the formal analysis of games. they focus more on theories from play and games..It was all a mad big debate around the first DIGRA and it has all rather run out of steam by now.
So at the next DIGRA there might be no self professed ‘ludologists’ left…you will be safe..
then again we could all call ourselves homo ludens…or homette ludens…:)
Aphra.
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So at the next DIGRA there might be no self professed ‘ludologists’ left…you will be safe..
[/quote:d18c6211ec]
Next DIGRA hmmmmnnn …. Tokyo, Japan. Sounds good doesn’t it? I may even be willing to become a ludologist myself in order to swing that one.
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I’m not sure if Caillois was even correct in his derivation of Ludens, to ludus. I mean, type Ludus into answers.com and you get a rock band. For a respected academic like Roger Caillois not to have checked answers.com is, well, just shocking…
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It’s a play on words, like the “pan narrans” of Terry Pratchett et al.
If you have done Latin/Biology it’s easy enough to understand. Homo Sapiens, “Man who thinks” (from “sapienta” : “wisdom”).
So he made the equivalent “Homo Ludens” from “ludo”: “to play”, which you can translate as “Man who plays” or “playing man”. I think “playful” if you are being picky (and you should in this case) is incorrect.
“player” would be constructed from “ludo” and would be “lusor” (notice the interesting play on words in English…)
Also, the second meaning of “ludo” is “to make love”.
So again, you can interpret the title on several levels…
I discovered, while checking my Latin, that there is also a verb for “playing often”… as in “gambling”, I assume.
So a hardcore gamer would be a “lusitor”, from “lusito”.The stuff you can learn with a nice dictionary, eh? :wink:
what I was gonna ask is what the difference is between being in a “ludic state” on one side, as opposed to being more “game like”… it’s the same thing, but definition. Or I missed something?
Anyway, forgive me, I was just discussing Latin on another forum, so I just _had_ to post :twisted:
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No, no, very enlightening.
In fact, forgive me, because I was just joking (no sarcasm indicator on forum posts):
I knew most of what you said and it inspired me to point out that Caillois’ conjugation of ludo to ludus is not in fact good grammar, which you can see if you look it up online (hence the reference to answers.com). The joke being that while a lot of modern research uses internet references, Caillois wrote in the 1950’s! Quite nerdy and not too funny :?
Modern ludologists (which I’m not) seem to have further conjugated ludus to ludic, for use in describing game states, as in: paidic play vs. ludic play.
So there’s the continuum of play formalism, which goes from rule-less and free-form paidia to rule-bounded, defined ludus. A game state can be any of these, although some will argue that there’s a point (close to pure paidia) at which play ceases to be a game because a game needs a rule set.
Whatever about that, in reference to your question, as I understand it – a ludic state will belong to a subset of game states.
Or it could be argued the other way -> games are a subset of ludic states!
Aahhh, the wonderful world of the soft sciences…care to step in, somebody with a PhD in this stuff? -
as far as I can remember Caillois suggested that play and games can be placed along an axis whereby some games tend more towards ludus and some more towards paidia – the former is more rule governed and goal directed and the later more unstructured and open.
I guess Facade and maybe the SIMS would be more towards the paidia end of the spectrum..much more open ended and player directed…
Aphra.
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Goog gods, I’ve actually read about this stuff ages ago.
It’s a classic discussion in roleplaying games (the real thing, eh, not the pansy ass computer RPGs, or MMORPGs for that matter) whereby you’ll have your free form roleplaying where your GM won’t really bother you will rules all that much (the paidia side),
and the very structured “on rails”, rules heavy games will be more toward the ludus side.
Funny how it’s all the same, eh?Wish the lecturers here knew about gaming (as in, non computer gaming).
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Wish the lecturers here knew about gaming (as in, non computer gaming).[/quote:5eef9a0b59]
If they don’t, that’s a real shame, cos bets are odds on that if they don’t know about the field of non-computer gaming, they won’t be familiar with how game design is done – i.e. starting with a pen and paper, and designing an experiential play structure leading into formal interaction rules; not starting with a shiny game engine, and throwing in maps and textures and models until you have the same FPS/RTS/etc as has been made since at least 1995.
I bet if you counted, the number of distinct non-computer game types would be some orders of magnitude greater than the number of computer game types, or ‘genres’.
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cos bets are odds on that if they don’t know about the field of non-computer gaming, they won’t be familiar with how game design is done[/quote:c05f96aa60]
That one could open quite a can of worms…Dave
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Possibly a can of whup-ass, even. But conceptually, Im just trying to step back from looking only at computer games, and when you do that, you can see many good designers dabbling in both areas, and many bad designers working solely in computer games. Producing things which have many other great features, but pretty staid game play design.
Like Quake IV – how beautiful was that game? But if you happen to think run and gun got old by 1998, then who cares? -
Mackenzie Wark, a well respected academic, living in New York, has draft chapters of his new book on games online and is inviting comment and feedback…He is a critical theorist and this is a nice attempt at a book online in terms of design and layout.
See here http://www.futureofthebook.org/gamertheory/
Aphra.
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Oh I’ve heard of this guy…with the ‘crazy’ alphanumeric title font, he’s all over the place. Nice website though :D
Thanks for the heads up. Just what I need to keep me out of all that horrible sunshine…
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Ernest Adams is doing mail outs to promote the new version of the book he wrote ages ago with Andrew Rollings on Game Design. The revised edition won’t be out until August but those teaching on game courses can order inspection copies before that by contacting him directly. See details below
Aphra.
‘put a page <http://www.designersnotebook.com/Books/Fundamentals_of_Game_Design/fundamen
tals_of_game_design.htm> on my website to describe it in more depth,
including some info on the new material.If you scroll down some you can also see a detailed Table
<http://www.designersnotebook.com/Books/Fundamentals_of_Game_Design/fundamen
tals_of_game_design.htm#TOC> of Contents.The book is being published by Prentice-Hall, and its ISBN number is
0131687476. I’m the principal author on this edition. It will actually be in
shops on August 21st, but you should be able to pre-order it for classes by
the 8th or so.In order to get you an evaluation copy I’ll need all of the following: your
name, title, institution (department and university), street address to ship
it to, office telephone number, fax number (if any), and E-mail address. -
Lots of good references here, I have alot of reading to do! Anyway, i’m doing research on interactivity and narrative in games and when I got to primary research I decided to look into table top role plays quite a bit. Nothing like going back to the source.
So would any of you know a theory book on role play as opposed to computer games, or at least something that places it in a historical context in relation to computer games?
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when I got to primary research I decided to look into table top role plays quite a bit. Nothing like going back to the source. [/quote:5bb7c844f9]
Much as I love table top rpg, if you want the source you need to start with boardgames and see how much they’ve grown. From there go to the wargames (and not just Games Workshop!). D&D was a change in presentation of a GMed wargame so its no originator.
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Rules of Play by Salen & Zimmerman would be a good starting point. Looks at games as a whole, regardless of medium and is very accessible, yet comprehensive
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I suppose if you want to get right dwn to it, you’d have to look at what influenced board games too. I’ll have a look at the book, thanks, sounds like it might be what I’m after :)
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Dr Marinka Copier (sometimes spelt Kopier) has written on the RPG/CG intersection, and you can find her (and other notable female games researchers :D ) online in the Level Up 2003 conference. Gonzalo Frasca looks at interactivity and narrative, and the people working on narrative games (Storytron) have written about it too.
Homo Ludens by Huizinga is always an important touchstone for games researchers, although not a page turner. The Rules of Play Anthology is even bigger than Rules of Play, and contains a bunch of authors.
Theres a good website on MMORPG research – http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/
You might be able to extrapolate from it. Check out kingludic.blogspot.com, in fact get in touch with the game designers who blog (most do) if you want reading tips – their memories are elephantine and they are mostly helpful.
Not really looking at this myself so am beginning to scrape the barrel… -
GTA book we were talking about a bit back is now out.
See http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?isbn=0-7864-2822-8
Aphra.
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We are going to be start posting book reviews in between features. The first one will be by Sergio Calabria from Ballyfermot Senior College on ‘the Game Design Reader’ by Salen and Zimmerman. We have one feature ready to go and that will be followed by the review.
If you would like to write a short review of a book and recommend it to an academic and/or industry audience please drop me a line. If you would like to recommend a book for review but don’t have the time yourself do let me know and we will see if we can find someone. Hopefully this will be another way we can share resources and experience.
Let me know what you think.
Aphra.
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Some of you may be interested in this new issue of Fibreculture, an online journal, which currently focuses on networked gaming from a social, cultural and aesthetic perspective.
See http://journal.fibreculture.org/issue8/issue8_andrews.html
Great piece on people playing Dance Dance Revolution in arcades.
Aphra.
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Does the IGDA have a games book library by any chance, that members can borrow from? Am just wondering, it would save me buying some books over the next year. Not just tech/games programming books, but also the games design kind of book?
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Does the IGDA have a games book library by any chance, that members can borrow from? Am just wondering, it would save me buying some books over the next year. Not just tech/games programming books, but also the games design kind of book?[/quote:c43e209ee4]
Doubt it, it aint no public library :P
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Thats one for me Aphra, ta for the heads up
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this is quite a good resource for game books and indeed a listing of courses in the UK.
See http://www.digiplay.info/digibiblio
Aphra.
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This has just been posted and might be of interest to some.
Aphra.
The BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) have just published an
extensive new report on video gaming.The report, produced by Cragg Ross Dawson, looks at what players enjoy about games and explore preferences in UK gamers aged from seven through to players in their early 40s as well as parents of young games players, games industry representatives and games reviewers.
Speaking about the report, David Cooke, Director of the BBFC said:
"The element of interactivity in games carries some weight when we are
considering a video game. We were particularly interested to see that this
research suggests that, far from having a potentially negative impact on the reaction of the player, the very fact that they have to interact with the
game seems to keep them more firmly rooted in reality. People who do not
play games raise concerns about their engrossing nature, assuming that
players are also emotionally engrossed. This research suggests the opposite; a range of factors seems to make them less emotionally involving than film or television. The adversaries which players have to eliminate have no personality and so are not real and their destruction is therefore not real, regardless of how violent that destruction might be."The report should be available on the BBFC web site shortly, but in the mean time you can download it from http://digiplay.info/node/2423.
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In case you haven’t got this..
Aphra.
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I am writing to let you know of the launch of the International Journal of Computer Games Technology, which aims to bring together both the research and development aspects of games technology, covering the whole range of entertainment computing and interactive digital media. The focus will be on three research and development frontiers: first, to expand the technology frontier in terms of both hardware and software for games, second, to validate innovative procedures including algorithms and architectures for games, and finally, to explore novel applications of games technology both for entertainment and serious games.
The journal is a peer-reviewed full "Open Access" journal, i.e., the journal enables world-wide, barrier-free, online access to the full text of published research articles. All interested readers can read, download, and/or print any articles without requiring a subscription to the journal. In addition, we allow our open access authors to retain their own copyright as long as they sign a Creative Commons Attribution License, which allows readers to freely access, print and redistribute an article as long as it is properly cited.
The journal has distinguished editorial board members with extensive academic qualifications, ensuring that the journal will maintain high scientific standards and have a broad international coverage.
Another important aspect is the review and publication speed of the journal since the publisher’s electronic Manuscript Tracking System (MTS), which is located at http://www.hindawi.com/mts/, helps reduce the review time significantly. We are then aiming for an average publication time of a few weeks following acceptance.
Furthermore, the articles of the journal are now published on an accelerated article-by-article basis to reduce the publication delay of accepted manuscripts.
I would like to take this opportunity to invite you to submit your research paper to the journal and maximize the readership and impact of your research. For more information about the journal, please visit the following URL:http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcgt/ .
Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions about the journal.
Many thanks and best regards.
Sincerely yours,
Prof. Edmond Prakash
Editor-in-Chief
International Journal of Computer Games Technology -
For those interested in a more economic analysis of competition in the games industry with a particular focus on Finland see
http://www.cric.ac.uk/cric/abstracts/dp81.htm
best
Aphra.
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Mia consalvo has just written a book on cheating in games and how some players will just not play by the rules!
see http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11153
Aphra.
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Steven Pool’s book "Trigger Happy" is available online for free at:
http://stevenpoole.net/blog/trigger-happier/Steve P is a UK based journalist so this is a popular introduction to games written in 2000.
A bit dated but a good and easy read.
Aphra.
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this may be a useful resource for people involved in game audio..
http://sad-web.wlv.ac.uk/~mark/wikindx3/
Aphra.
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games audio must be taking off.
some articles on audio in games in this issue of computer game technology journal
see http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcgt/volume-2008/si.cgie.html
Aphra.
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if you read Italian then this series of book is definitely for you…academics and artists explore their favourite games
see http://www.ludologica.com/english/availablebooks.html
Aphra.
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This is interesting, I didn’t know of such vast literature in my language. It’s a good start indeed.
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More focussed on production and management of a games project, which is rare, and written by an industry person
and better still, free to download.
see http://www.blackwood.dk/PDF/PlayingTheGame-IE.pdf
Aphra.
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Not exactly a book but a useful report on the Canadian games industry which provides a nice counterpoint to the NESTA reports in the UK.
‘Computer Games and Canadaʼs Digital Economy:
The Role of Universities in Promoting InnovationReport to the Social Science Humanities Research Council
Knowledge Synthesis Grants on Canadaʼs Digital Economy’ 2010Aphra
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issue of academic journal on music in games
see http://www.act.uni-bayreuth.de
and yes some of the articles are in Englsih….
Aphra.
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Videos and slides from Casual Connect available online at http://seattle.casualconnect.org/content.html
Aphra.
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Been reading The Art of Game Design ( http://artofgamedesign.com/ ), an incredibly awesome book that goes into a lot of depth of countless different aspects of how a game is put together and is very insightful.
One thing that surprised me was that one chapter actually dealt with actual project managment, a methodology for blending creative and artistic evolution into the early stages of development so that all the risky and "exciting" aspects of the game are evaluated early on so that there’s less chances of changes needing to be made later on that require a lot of work being thrown out. In other words, how to avoid the whole "make a lot of stuff and see where we go from there".
The book itself admits how for a creative and proactive pursuit such as game design a book can’t teach everything, but despite this the book does an amazing job in that direction. It’s also very pleasant to read.
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papers on online games from a social perspective…
free to download
presented at the Ocford internet institute conf this week
see http://microsites.oii.ox.ac.uk/ics2011/content/programme
Aphra.
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I echo Sofox’ recommendation – The Art of Game Design ( http://artofgamedesign.com/ ) it’s a very insightful read.
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I don’t know this book or the author but I just received info about it. Might be of interest to some. If you have it, let us know what you think of it
Aphra.
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Holistic Game Development With Unity: An All-In-One Guide To Implementing Game Mechanics, Art, Design, And Programming
By Penny de Byl
Out now.
http://www.booktopia.com.au/holistic-game-development-with-unity/prod9780240819334.html
Synopsis:
The independent developer has ascended, and the new business model demands agility. You have to be able to work on all aspects of game creation, and your team’s game will publish directly to platforms like Android, iPhone, and Facebook. You’ll use Unity, the hottest game engine out there, to do it.
In order to earn your place on the elite development team, you must master both sides of the development coin: art and programming. Holistic Game Development with Unity is an authoritative guide to creating games in Unity. Taking you through game design, programming, and art, Penny de Byl uses a holistic approach to equip you with the multidisciplinary skills you need for the independent games industry. With this book, you will master essential digital art and design principles while learning the programming skills necessary to build interactivity into your games.
The tutorials will put these skills into action. All art assets are created in Blender, so you won’t have to make a huge investment in order to get started. Examines art and programming in unison-the only one-stop shop for individual developers and small teams looking to tackle both tasks. Teaches, using proven, step-by-step tutorials how to design and structure and entire game in Unity with art assets created in Blender. Presents a gentle introduction to essential 2D and 3D mathematical and physics concepts. Provides a portfolio of reusable game mechanics.
Companion website offers source code for completed projects featured in the book, art assets, instructional videos, author blog, and discussion forum, as well as lesson plans and challenge questions for professors.
Dr Penny de Byl
Associate Professor Multimedia and Games
Bond University
Gold Coast, Australia -
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This is a special issue of a journal from Canada looking at the meaning and variations of ‘indies’
See http://journals.sfu.ca/loading/index.php/loading/issue/view/11/showToc
Aphra
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The Video Game Business by Randy Nichols (2014)
Just out from Palgrave Macmillan this books looks at how the software and hardware networks in the industry woks and includes case studies of EA, Activision-Blizzard, Microsoft and Sony. It also looks at working conditions.
See http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/the-video-game-business-randy-nichols/?K=9781844573189
Aphra
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