Game Design as a Cultural Practice: Texts

Game Design as a Cultural Practice / Fall 2002
Dr. Janet H. Murray LCC 4400 / LCC 6215 Tuesdays 3-6 Skiles 349
requirements \| schedule \|texts

Required Text:

Brian Sutton-Smith, The Ambiguity of Play Cambridge MA: Harvard UP (2001)

Books on Reserve (Report Readings)

Roland Barthes, "Wrestling," in Mythologies (originally published 1957)

Roger Caillois, Man, Play, and Games, translated by Meyer Barash, University of Illiniois Press, 1961 (originally published 1958)

Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game (1985)

Orson Scott Card, Ender 's Shadow (1999)

Justine Cassell and Henry Jenkins, From Barbie to Mortal Combat Cambridge MA: MIT UP (1998)

G.Loftus & E. Loftus, Chapter 2 "Why Computer Games are Fun," The Mind at Play. NY: Basic Book, 1983

Janet H. Murray, Hamlet on the Holodeck, NY:Free Press, 1997.(Chapters 5-8)

David Partlett, The Oxford History of Board Games, Oxford U P, 1999

Richard Rouse III, Game Design: Theory and Practice. Plano, TX: Wordware 2001, chapters 4,7,8,20,22

Sherry Turkle, "Video Games and Computer Holding Power" Chapter 2 in The Second Self Simon and Shuster 1984 p. 64-92

Sherry Turkle "The Games People Play: Simulation and its Discontents" in Life on the Screen, pp 66-73

Games (On web or available in Skiles)

Steve (Slug) Russel SPACEWAR! (1962)

http://agents.www.media.mit.edu/groups/el/projects/spacewar

This is a simulator of the very first videogame, produced in 1962 at MIT on early timesharing machine with CRT teletype display (PDP-1 from DEC)

Moru Iwatani, PacMan (1980)

Alexey Pajitnov, Tetris (1985)

Ed Long with Donna Baily. Centripede (1981)

Solitaire (choose your poison!)

Willie Crowther and Don Woods Adventure (1975): online at

Colossal Cave Adventure: http://www.rickadams.org/adventure/. (Crowther and Woods) or http://www.uwec.edu/jerzdg/orr/articles/IF/online/adventure/index.html or

http://interactfiction.about.com/games/interactfiction/library/zplet/okadvent.htm

Timothy A. Anderson, Marc S. Blank, Bruce Daniels, and P. David Lebling, Zork (text adventure game, 1977) available at http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom/

John Conway s Game of Life (various implements on line available at http://hensel.lifepatterns.net/

Shigaru Miyamoto, Super Mario Brothers, Nintendo (1986)

Ed Boon, John Tobias, Mortal Kombat Acclaim (1993)

Rockstar Games, Grand Theft Auto (2001)

John Romero, John Carmack, Doom. Id Software (1994)

Warren Spector (lead designer), Deus Ex , Ion Storm (2000)

Verant (SONY), Everquest (2000)

Sid Meier, Civilization original version, Maxis Software (1991)

Will Wright, SimCity original version, Maxis Software (1989)

Will Wright, The Sims, Maxis Software (2001)

Films (on reserve)

Stephen Zaillian (dir), Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993)

Penny Marshall (dir), A League of Their Own (1992)

Ridley Scott (dir), Gladiator (2000)

Required Reading available on the web

Rick Adams, "The Origins of Adventure" (undated) available at http://www.rickadams.org/adventure/a_history.html

Tim Anderson,"History of Zork" part 1 and 2, originally in New Zork Times (1985) available at http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom/Articles/NZT/zorkhist.html

Apollodorus , The Riddle of the Sphinx, as recounted in Apollodorus, Library 3.5.8 (2^nd century B.C.) http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Apollod.+3.5.8

Brothers Grimm, "Rumplestiltskin" in, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Grimm s Fairy Tales, orginally published 1812, English version from Project Guttenberg available at ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext01/grimm10.txt

James Dunnigon, The Complete Wargames Handbook, online version of 2nd edition (1997), available on line at http://www.hyw.com/Books/WargamesHandbook/Contents.htmEspecially Chapter 6 Computer Wargames http://www.hyw.com/Books/WargamesHandbook/6-comput.htm and Chapter 7 Designing Computer file:///Games http///www.hyw.com/Books/WargamesHandbook/7-design.htm

Ted Friedman, "The Semiotics of Sim City," First Monday, vol. 4 issue 4, April 1999 available here: http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue4_4/friedman/

Martin Gardner, "The Fantastic Combinations of John Horton Conway's New Solitaire Game 'Life'," Scientific American (1970): 120-23. Available here: http://ddi.cs.uni-potsdam.de/HyFISCH/Produzieren/lis_projekt/proj_gamelife/ConwayScientificAmerican.htm

Jeffrey Goldstein,: "Effects of Electronic Games on Children" (testimony to senatecommittee March 2000) available at http://www.senate.gov/~commerce/hearings/0321gol.pdf

J. M. Graetz, "The Origin of Spacewar!," Creative Computing (1981). Available here: http://www.enteract.com/~enf/lore/spacewar/spacewar.html.

Homer, Odyssey Book IX (Cyclops Episode) available from the Perseus Project at : http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Hom.+Od.+9.82

Henry Jenkins, Complete Freedom of Movement: Video Games as Gendered Play Spaces. In Justine Cassell and Henry Jenkins, From Barbie to Mortal Combat Cambridge MA: MIT UP (1998) available on line at:

http://web.mit.edu/21fms/www/faculty/henry3/pub/complete.html

P. David Lebling, Marc S. Blank, and Timothy A. Anderson, "Zork: A Computerized Fantasy Simulation Game," IEEE Computer 12 (April 1979): 51-59. Available here: http://mud.co.uk/richard/zork.html or here: http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom/Articles/ieee.html.

Tim Lenoir, "All But War Is Simulation: The Military Entertainment Complex," Configurations, Fall 2000 and available at:

http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/TimLenoir/MilitaryEntertainmentComplex.htm

Moira Muldoon, "The father of Mario and Zelda,"Salon Magazine, December 02, 1998, interview with Shigeru Miyamoto, available at http://www.salon.com/21st/feature/1998/12/02feature.html

Paul Starr, "Seductions of Sim: Policy as a Simulation Game," The American Prospect 17 (Spring 1994) 19-29 http://www.prospect.org/print/V5/17/starr-p.html

Additional Web readings

Chris Crawford, "The Art of Computer Game Design." (1982). Available here: http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/fac/peabody/game-book/Coverpage.html or in PDF here: http://www.erasmatazz.com/free/AoCGD.pdf

Required Text:

Books on Reserve (Report Readings)

Games (On web or available in Skiles)

Films (on reserve)

Required Reading available on the web

Recommended

Games reference sites