Game Design as a Cultural Practice / Fall 2004
requirements | schedule | texts
Graduate students are responsible for all required readings
Undergraduates are responsible for Salen&Zimmerman and Sutton-Smith and for any 5 of additional readings.
Katie Salen & Eric Zimmerman, The Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. MIT Press (2004)
Brian Sutton-Smith, The Ambiguity of Play Cambridge MA: Harvard UP (2001)
Additional Required Reading : on electronic and physical reserve
Roland Barthes, "Wrestling," in Mythologies (originally published 1957)
G.Loftus & E. Loftus, Chapter 2 "Why Computer Games are Fun," The Mind at Play. NY: Basic Book, 1983
Sherry Turkle, "Video Games and Computer Holding Power" Chapter 2 in The Second Self Simon and Shuster 1984 p. 64-Sherry Turkle "The Games People Play: Simulation and its Discontents" in Life on the Screen, pp 66-73
Additional Required Reading: on physical reserve
Roger Caillois, Man, Play, and Games, trans. Meyer Barash, University of Illiniois Press, 1961 (orig.1958) 1-3, 8
David Partlett, The Oxford History of Board Games, Oxford U P, 1999, Chapters 1,2,7
Richard Rouse III, Game Design: Theory and Practice. Plano, TX: Wordware 2001, chapters 4,7,8,20,22
Additional Required Reading: 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) 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 (2nd 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
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 at http://www.wheels.org/spacewar/creative/SpacewarOrigin.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 at http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom/Articles/ieee.html.
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
Recommended Books on Library Reserve
Roger Caillois, Man, Play, and Games, translated by Meyer Barash, University of Illiniois Press, 1961 (orig. 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)
Tracy Fullerton, Christopher Swain, and Steven Hoffman, Game Design Workshop: Designing, Prototyping, and Playtesting Games CMP Books (2004)
Johann Huizinga, Homo Ludens: a study of the play element in culture (orig. 1950)
Nick Montfort, Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction. MIT Press (2003)
Janet H. Murray, Hamlet on the Holodeck, NY:Free Press, 1997.(Chapters 5-8)
Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrington, First Person. MIT Press 2004
Mark J. P. Wolf and Bernard Perron. Video Game Theory. Routledge 2003
Additional Recommended Web readings
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 http///www.hyw.com/Books/WargamesHandbook/7-design.htm
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
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)
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 )
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) (optional)
Sid Meier, Civilization original version, Maxis Software (1991)
Will Wright, SimCity original version, Maxis Software (1989)
Will Wright, The Sims, Maxis Software (2001)
http://www.game-research.com/ Game Research Site, maintained by Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen and Jonas Heide Smith
http://www.digra.org Digital Games Research Association
http://www.game-culture.com/ Game Culture: collects academic and significant journalistic writing on games as part of popular culture, maintained by Sue Morris
http://www.ludology.org/ Gonzalo Frasca's weblog and portal site to games studies and game conferences
http://www.gamestudies.org/ Academic journal,edited by Espen Arseth
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
Other Recommended Books
Brenda Laurel Computers as Theater
Espen Arseth Ergodic Literature
Steven Kent The Ultimate History of Video Games
J.C. Herz Joystick Nation
D.W. Winnicott, Playing and Reality. New York: Routledge, 1971
Marc Bekoff and John Byers, Animal Play
Clifford Geertz The Interpretation of Cultures