This book explores the lifecycle of digital games. Drawing upon a broad range of media studies perspectives with aspects of sociology, social theory and economics, Aphra Kerr explores this ...all-pervasive, but under-theorised, aspect of our media environment. Written as an introductory text for media and game students this book aims present an overview of industry and scholary work on who makes games, where they get made, what kind of media and cultural form they are and who plays them and where. The Business and Culture of Digital Games looks at: -games as a new media form; -the design, development and marketing of games; -the use of games in public and private spaces. Combining a theoretical and empirical analysis of the production, content and consumption of computer games, this book will be of interest to many students of media, culture and communication.
Want to design your own video games? Let expert Scott Rogers show you how! If you want to design and build cutting-edge video games but aren't sure where to start, then the SECOND EDITION of the ...acclaimed Level Up! is for you! Written by leading video game expert Scott Rogers, who has designed the hits Pac Man World, Maximo and SpongeBob Squarepants, this updated edition provides clear and well-thought out examples that forgo theoretical gobbledygook with charmingly illustrated concepts and solutions based on years of professional experience. Level Up! 2ndEdition has been NEWLY EXPANDED to teach you how to develop marketable ideas, learn what perils and pitfalls await during a game's pre-production, production and post-production stages, and provide even more creative ideas to serve as fuel for your own projects including: * Developing your game design from the spark of inspiration all the way to production * Learning how to design the most exciting levels, the most precise controls, and the fiercest foes that will keep your players challenged * Creating games for mobile and console systems – including detailed rules for touch and motion controls * Monetizing your game from the design up * Writing effective and professional design documents with the help of brand new examples Level Up! 2nd Edition is includes all-new content, an introduction by David " God of War " Jaffe and even a brand-new chili recipe –making it an even more indispensable guide for video game designers both "in the field" and the classroom. Grab your copy of Level Up!2nd Edition and let's make a game!
Racing the Beam Montfort, Nick; Bogost, Ian
2009, 20090109, 2009-01-09
eBook
The Atari Video Computer System dominated the home video game market so completely that "Atari" became the generic term for a video game console. The Atari VCS was affordable and offered the ...flexibility of changeable cartridges. Nearly a thousand of these were created, the most significant of which established new techniques, mechanics, and even entire genres. This book offers a detailed and accessible study of this influential video game console from both computational and cultural perspectives. Studies of digital media have rarely investigated platforms--the systems underlying computing. This book (the first in a series of Platform Studies) does so, developing a critical approach that examines the relationship between platforms and creative expression. Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost discuss the Atari VCS itself and examine in detail six game cartridges: Combat, Adventure, Pac-Man, Yars' Revenge, Pitfall!, and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. They describe the technical constraints and affordances of the system and track developments in programming, gameplay, interface, and aesthetics. Adventure, for example, was the first game to represent a virtual space larger than the screen (anticipating the boundless virtual spaces of such later games as World of Warcraft and Grand Theft Auto), by allowing the player to walk off one side into another space; and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back was an early instance of interaction between media properties and video games. Montfort and Bogost show that the Atari VCS--often considered merely a retro fetish object--is an essential part of the history of video games.
The Blueprints Visual Scripting system in UE is a complete gameplay scripting system based on the concept of using a node-based interface to create gameplay elements from within Unreal Editor. This ...book will help you create a fully functional game and the skills necessary to expand and develop an entertaining, memorable experience for players.
The past decade has seen phenomenal growth in the development and use of virtual worlds. In one of the most notable, Second Life, millions of people have created online avatars in order to play ...games, take classes, socialize, and conduct business transactions. Second Life offers a gathering point and the tools for people to create a new world online.
Too often neglected in popular and scholarly accounts of such groundbreaking new environments is the simple truth that, of necessity, such virtual worlds emerge from physical workplaces marked by negotiation, creation, and constant change. Thomas Malaby spent a year at Linden Lab, the real-world home of Second Life, observing those who develop and profit from the sprawling, self-generating system they have created.
Some of the challenges created by Second Life for its developers were of a very traditional nature, such as how to cope with a business that is growing more quickly than existing staff can handle. Others are seemingly new: How, for instance, does one regulate something that is supposed to run on its own? Is it possible simply to create a space for people to use and then not govern its use? Can one apply these same free-range/free-market principles to the office environment in which the game is produced? "Lindens"-as the Linden Lab employees call themselves-found that their efforts to prompt user behavior of one sort or another were fraught with complexities, as a number of ongoing processes collided with their own interventions.
InMaking Virtual Worlds, Malaby thoughtfully describes the world of Linden Lab and the challenges faced while he was conducting his in-depth ethnographic research there. He shows how the workers of a very young but quickly growing company were themselves caught up in ideas about technology, games, and organizations, and struggled to manage not only their virtual world but also themselves in a nonhierarchical fashion. In exploring the practices the Lindens employed, he questions what was at stake in their virtual world, what a game really is (and how people participate), and the role of the unexpected in a product like Second Life and an organization like Linden Lab.
Discover how to create a simple game environment in Blender 3D, from modeling and texturing game assets, to placing them in a scene. You’ll export and import game assets as well as look at ...open-source game engines that will work with your game assets. Creating Game Environments in Blender 3D introduces the power of Blender 3D when creating a low poly game environment.The book starts by discussing the basics of game terminology, such as knowing the difference between low poly and high poly assets and the types of game you’re likely to work on. You’ll also take a brief look at Blender's background and installation. The following chapters talk about the process for creating a simple game environment. This is discussed in detail along with a sample project. These chapters discuss the common tools for starting a game environment and the methods for enhancing your game environment, such as color fundamentals. The final chapter shows how you can export the game assets you created in Blender, how you can import game assets in Blender, and how to evaluate the different game engines available.
This book shows you the exciting side of creating a game environment while showing the power of Blender. After reading it, you will feel confident about creating a game environment.
What You Will Learn
Use Blender to create low poly game environments Work with the common Blender tools for game environment design and development Discover how to use Blender features in depth Compare the Eevee and Cycles game engines Who This Book Is For
Game environment artists who want to use Blender 3D to create a game environment. Some previous exposure to game design and development would be helpful, but not required.
Computer games usually take one of two approaches to presenting game information to players. A game might offer information naturalistically, as part of the game's imaginary universe; or it might ...augment the world of the game with overlays, symbols, and menus. In this book, Kristine Jørgensen investigates both kinds of gameworld interfaces. She shows that although the naturalistic approach may appear more integral to the imaginary world of the game, both the invisible and visible interfaces effectively present information that players need in order to interact with the game and its rules. The symbolic, less naturalistic approach would seem to conflict with the idea of a coherent, autonomous fictional universe; but, Jørgensen argues, gameworlds are not governed by the pursuit of fictional coherence but by the logics of game mechanics. This is characteristic of gameworlds and distinguishes them from other traditional fictional worlds. Jørgensen investigates gameworld interfaces from the perspectives of both game designers and players. She draws on interviews with the design teams of Harmonix Music (producer ofRock Bandand other music games) and Turbine Inc. (producer of such massively multiplayer online games asLord of the Rings Online), many hours of gameplay, and extensive interviews and observations of players. The player studies focus on four games representing different genres:Crysis,Command & Conquer 3: Tiberian Wars,The Sims 2, andDiablo 2. Finally, she presents a theory of game user interfaces and considers the implications of this theory for game design.
