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Like movies, television, and other preceding forms of media, video games are undergoing a dynamic shift in its content and perception. While the medium can still be considered in its infancy, the mark of true artistry and conceptual depth is detectable in the evolving styles, various genres and game themes. Doris C. Rusch’s, Making Deep Games, combines this insight along with the discussion of the expressive nature of games, various case studies, and hands-on design exercises. This book offers a perspective into how to make games that tackle the whole bandwidth of the human experience; games that teach us something about ourselves, enable thought-provoking, emotionally rich experiences and promote personal and social change. Grounded in cognitive linguistics, game studies and the reflective practice of game design, Making Deep Games explores systematic approaches for how to approach complex abstract concepts, inner processes, and emotions through the specific means of the medium. It aims to shed light on how to make the multifaceted aspects of the human condition tangible through gameplay experiences.
Internationally renowned media and literature scholars, social scientists, game designers and artists explore the cultural potential of computer games in this rich anthology, which introduces the latest approaches in the central fields of game studies and provides an extensive survey of contemporary game culture.
»Fictional Practices of Spirituality« provides critical insight into the implementation of belief, mysticism, religion, and spirituality into worlds of fiction, be it interactive or non-interactive. This first volume focuses on interactive, virtual worlds - may that be the digital realms of video games and VR applications or the imaginary spaces of life action role-playing and soul-searching practices. It features analyses of spirituality as gameplay facilitator, sacred spaces and architecture in video game geography, religion in video games and spiritual acts and their dramaturgic function in video games, tabletop, or LARP, among other topics. The contributors offer a first-time ever comprehensive overview of play-rites as spiritual incentives and playful spirituality in various medial incarnations.
This in-depth resource teaches you to craft mechanics that generate challenging, enjoyable, and well-balanced gameplay. You’ll discover at what stages to prototype, test, and implement mechanics in games and learn how to visualize and simulate game mechanics in order to design better games. Along the way, you’ll practice what you’ve learned with hands-on lessons. A free downloadable simulation tool developed by Joris Dormans is also available in order to follow along with exercises in the book in an easy-to-use graphical environment. In Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design, you’ll learn how to: * Design and balance game mechanics to create emergent gameplay before you write a single ...
How do we know whether our development programmes are reducing poverty and empowering the most vulnerable people? What evidence do we have to support our theory of change? Qualitative research for development aims to build the research capacity of development practitioners so that their work benefits from the significant contributions offered by solid qualitative research. The book guides development practitioners through the process of planning, conducting and reporting on a qualitative study, whilst simultaneously highlighting the role of qualitative research in improving the impact, quality and accountability of development programmes. It covers in detail data collection methods such as P...
Games allow players to experiment and play with subject positions, values and moral choice. In game worlds players can take on the role of antagonists; they allow us to play with behaviour that would be offensive, illegal or immoral if it happened outside of the game sphere. While contemporary games have always handled certain problematic topics, such as war, disasters, human decay, post-apocalyptic futures, cruelty and betrayal, lately even the most playful of genres are introducing situations in which players are presented with difficult ethical and moral dilemmas. This volume is an investigation of "dark play" in video games, or game play with controversial themes as well as controversial play behaviour. It covers such questions as: Why do some games stir up political controversies? How do games invite, or even push players towards dark play through their design? Where are the boundaries for what can be presented in a games? Are these boundaries different from other media such as film and books, and if so why? What is the allure of dark play and why do players engage in these practices?
A healing path using the power of dreams, theater, poetry, and shamanism • Shows how psychological realizations can cause true transformation when manifested by concrete poetic acts • Includes many examples of the surreal but successful actions Jodorowsky has prescribed to those seeking his help While living in Mexico, Alejandro Jodorowsky became familiar with the colorful and effective cures provided by folk healers. He realized that it is easier for the unconscious to understand the language of dreams than that of rationality. Illness can even be seen as a physical dream that reveals unresolved emotional and psychological problems. Psychomagic presents the shamanic and genealogical pri...
Contemporary game scholarship offers a broad palette of theories and methods inherited from such fields as sociology and communication studies, experimental sciences, literary analysis, educational sciences and cultural critique. At large, this inherently interdisciplinary research aims for a holistic perspective on the 'LUDIC SOCIETY'. With that in mind, this book is organized into four sections that present related and often intertwined ideas and observations about the ways we manifest ourselves in games and play, how games represent us in the present and in the past, how games and play change us, and what it all may mean for contemporary society. This book invites readers to engage with the key challenges of a ludic society, explore new perspectives and initiate fruitful discussions. It is aimed at both passionate game scholars and all those who want to get a first taste of the multifaceted research field of game studies.