Characteristics Of Games

Author : George Skaff Elias
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262542692
Total Pages : 331 pages
Book Rating : 4.92/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Characteristics of Games written by George Skaff Elias and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2020-12-08 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understanding games--whether computer games, card games, board games, or sports--by analyzing certain common traits. Characteristics of Games offers a new way to understand games: by focusing on certain traits--including number of players, rules, degrees of luck and skill needed, and reward/effort ratio--and using these characteristics as basic points of comparison and analysis. These issues are often discussed by game players and designers but seldom written about in any formal way. This book fills that gap. By emphasizing these player-centric basic concepts, the book provides a framework for game analysis from the viewpoint of a game designer. The book shows what all genres of games--board games, card games, computer games, and sports--have to teach each other. Today's game designers may find solutions to design problems when they look at classic games that have evolved over years of playing.

Author : George Skaff Elias
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 026201713X
Total Pages : 331 pages
Book Rating : 4.38/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Characteristics of Games written by George Skaff Elias and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2012-08-24 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understanding games—whether computer games, card games, board games, or sports—by analyzing certain common traits. Characteristics of Games offers a new way to understand games: by focusing on certain traits—including number of players, rules, degrees of luck and skill needed, and reward/effort ratio—and using these characteristics as basic points of comparison and analysis. These issues are often discussed by game players and designers but seldom written about in any formal way. This book fills that gap. By emphasizing these player-centric basic concepts, the book provides a framework for game analysis from the viewpoint of a game designer. The book shows what all genres of games—board games, card games, computer games, and sports—have to teach each other. Today's game designers may find solutions to design problems when they look at classic games that have evolved over years of playing. Characteristics of Games—written by three of the most prominent game designers working today—will serve as an essential reference for game designers and game players curious about the inner workings of games. It includes exercises (which can also serve as the basis for discussions) and examples chosen from a wide variety of games. There are occasional mathematical digressions, but these can be skipped with no loss of continuity. Appendixes offer supplementary material, including a brief survey of the two main branches of mathematical game theory and a descriptive listing of each game referred to in the text.

Author : George Skaff Elias
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262300443
Total Pages : 331 pages
Book Rating : 4.45/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Characteristics of Games written by George Skaff Elias and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2012-08-24 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understanding games—whether computer games, card games, board games, or sports—by analyzing certain common traits. Characteristics of Games offers a new way to understand games: by focusing on certain traits—including number of players, rules, degrees of luck and skill needed, and reward/effort ratio—and using these characteristics as basic points of comparison and analysis. These issues are often discussed by game players and designers but seldom written about in any formal way. This book fills that gap. By emphasizing these player-centric basic concepts, the book provides a framework for game analysis from the viewpoint of a game designer. The book shows what all genres of games—board games, card games, computer games, and sports—have to teach each other. Today's game designers may find solutions to design problems when they look at classic games that have evolved over years of playing. Characteristics of Games—written by three of the most prominent game designers working today—will serve as an essential reference for game designers and game players curious about the inner workings of games. It includes exercises (which can also serve as the basis for discussions) and examples chosen from a wide variety of games. There are occasional mathematical digressions, but these can be skipped with no loss of continuity. Appendixes offer supplementary material, including a brief survey of the two main branches of mathematical game theory and a descriptive listing of each game referred to in the text.

Author : Nicholas David Bowman
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351235249
Total Pages : 318 pages
Book Rating : 4.42/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Video Games written by Nicholas David Bowman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-07-16 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This entry in the BEA Electronic Media Research Series, born out of the April 2017 BEA Research Symposium, takes a look at video games, outlining the characteristics of them as cognitive, emotional, physical, and social demanding technologies, and introduces readers to current research on video games. The diverse array of contributors in this volume offer bleeding-edge perspectives on both current and emerging scholarship. The chapters here contain radical approaches that add to the literature on electronic media studies generally and video game studies specifically. By taking such a forward-looking approach, this volume aims to collect foundational writings for the future of gaming studies.

Author : Katherine Isbister
Publisher : CRC Press
ISBN 13 : 1000688860
Total Pages : 443 pages
Book Rating : 4.63/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Better Game Characters by Design written by Katherine Isbister and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2022-04-29 with total page 443 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Games are poised for a major evolution, driven by growth in technical sophistication and audience reach. Characters that create powerful social and emotional connections with players throughout the game-play itself (not just in cut scenes) will be essential to next-generation games. However, the principles of sophisticated character design and interaction are not widely understood within the game development community. Further complicating the situation are powerful gender and cultural issues that can influence perception of characters. Katherine Isbister has spent the last 10 years examining what makes interactions with computer characters useful and engaging to different audiences. This work has revealed that the key to good design is leveraging player psychology: understanding what's memorable, exciting, and useful to a person about real-life social interactions, and applying those insights to character design. Game designers who create great characters often make use of these psychological principles without realizing it. Better Game Characters by Design gives game design professionals and other interactive media designers a framework for understanding how social roles and perceptions affect players' reactions to characters, helping produce stronger designs and better results.

Author : Katherine Isbister
Publisher : CRC Press
ISBN 13 : 0080922422
Total Pages : 392 pages
Book Rating : 4.23/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Game Usability written by Katherine Isbister and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2008-08-12 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Computers used to be for geeks. And geeks were fine with dealing with a difficult and finicky interface--they liked this--it was even a sort of badge of honor (e.g. the Unix geeks). But making the interface really intuitive and useful--think about the first Macintosh computers--took computers far far beyond the geek crowd. The Mac made HCI (human c

Author : Roger Caillois
Publisher : University of Illinois Press
ISBN 13 : 9780252070334
Total Pages : 228 pages
Book Rating : 4.3X/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Man, Play, and Games written by Roger Caillois and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: According to Roger Caillois, play is an occasion of pure waste. In spite of this - or because of it - play constitutes an essential element of human social and spiritual development. In this study, the author defines play as a free and voluntary activity that occurs in a pure space, isolated and protected from the rest of life.

Author : James Carse
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1451657293
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.96/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Finite and Infinite Games written by James Carse and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-10-11 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “There are at least two kinds of games,” states James Carse as he begins this extraordinary book. “One could be called finite; the other infinite.” Finite games are the familiar contests of everyday life; they are played in order to be won, which is when they end. But infinite games are more mysterious. Their object is not winning, but ensuring the continuation of play. The rules may change, the boundaries may change, even the participants may change—as long as the game is never allowed to come to an end. What are infinite games? How do they affect the ways we play our finite games? What are we doing when we play—finitely or infinitely? And how can infinite games affect the ways in which we live our lives? Carse explores these questions with stunning elegance, teasing out of his distinctions a universe of observation and insight, noting where and why and how we play, finitely and infinitely. He surveys our world—from the finite games of the playing field and playing board to the infinite games found in culture and religion—leaving all we think we know illuminated and transformed. Along the way, Carse finds new ways of understanding everything from how an actress portrays a role, to how we engage in sex, from the nature of evil, to the nature of science. Finite games, he shows, may offer wealth and status, power and glory. But infinite games offer something far more subtle and far grander. Carse has written a book rich in insight and aphorism. Already an international literary event, Finite and Infinite Games is certain to be argued about and celebrated for years to come. Reading it is the first step in learning to play the infinite game.

Author : Mary Flanagan
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262518651
Total Pages : 363 pages
Book Rating : 4.59/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

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.

Author : Stefan Werning
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262361353
Total Pages : 171 pages
Book Rating : 4.54/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Making Games written by Stefan Werning and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2021-02-16 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An argument that production tools shape the aesthetics and political economy of games as an expressive medium. In Making Games, Stefan Werning considers the role of tools (primarily but not exclusively software), their design affordances, and the role they play as sociotechnical actors. Drawing on a wide variety of case studies, Werning argues that production tools shape the aesthetics and political economy of games as an expressive medium. He frames game-making as a (meta)game in itself and shows that tools, like games, have their own "procedural rhetoric" and should not always be conceived simply in terms of optimization and best practices.