Retrogamer

Retrogamer PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Video games
Languages : en
Pages : 564

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Book Description

Retrogamer

Retrogamer PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Video games
Languages : en
Pages : 564

Get Book

Book Description


Retrogame Archeology

Retrogame Archeology PDF Author: John Aycock
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319300040
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
Drawing on extensive research, this book explores the techniques that old computer games used to run on tightly-constrained platforms. Retrogame developers faced incredible challenges of limited space, computing power, rudimentary tools, and the lack of homogeneous environments. Using examples from over 100 retrogames, this book examines the clever implementation tricks that game designers employed to make their creations possible, documenting these techniques that are being lost. However, these retrogame techniques have modern analogues and applications in general computer systems, not just games, and this book makes these contemporary connections. It also uses retrogames' implementation to introduce a wide variety of topics in computer systems including memory management, interpretation, data compression, procedural content generation, and software protection. Retrogame Archeology targets professionals and advanced-level students in computer science, engineering, and mathematics but would also be of interest to retrogame enthusiasts, computer historians, and game studies researchers in the humanities.

The Ultimate 80's Retro Gaming Collection

The Ultimate 80's Retro Gaming Collection PDF Author: Dan Peel
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781912918294
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
An in-depth analysis of the best video-game franchises, characters, consoles, and computers of the 1980's. Curating the most important games, including Pac Man, Tetris, Frogger, Outrun, Zelda, Super Mario, and more, as well as the hardware: the NES, C64, Sega Mega System, the Amiga 50, and more.

Now the Chips Are Down

Now the Chips Are Down PDF Author: Alison Gazzard
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262552027
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
The story of a pioneering microcomputer: its beginnings as part of a national Computer Literary Project, its innovative hardware, and its creative uses. In 1982, the British Broadcasting Corporation launched its Computer Literacy Project, intended “to introduce interested adults to the world of computers and computing.” The BBC accompanied this initiative with television programs, courses, books, and software—an early experiment in multi-platform education. The BBC, along with Acorn Computers, also introduced the BBC Microcomputer, which would be at the forefront of the campaign. The BBC Micro was designed to meet the needs of users in homes and schools, to demystify computing, and to counter the general pessimism among the media in Britain about technology. In this book, Alison Gazzard looks at the BBC Micro, examining the early capabilities of multi-platform content generation and consumption and the multiple literacies this approach enabled—not only in programming and software creation, but also in accessing information across a range of media, and in “do-it-yourself” computing. She links many of these early developments to current new-media practices. Gazzard looks at games developed for the BBC Micro, including Granny's Garden, an educational game for primary schools, and Elite, the seminal space-trading game. She considers the shift in focus from hardware to peripherals, describing the Teletext Adapter as an early model for software distribution and the Domesday Project (which combined texts, video, and still photographs) as a hypermedia-like experience. Gazzard's account shows the BBC Micro not only as a vehicle for various literacies but also as a user-oriented machine that pushed the boundaries of what could be achieved in order to produce something completely new.

20 Years of Tomb Raider

20 Years of Tomb Raider PDF Author: Meagan Marie
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780744016901
Category : Computer adventure games
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Packed with exclusive art, photographs, and interviews covering all facets of the 'Tomb Raider' franchise, this is the essential guide to this game's action-packed history and a must-have for every fan

Fans and Videogames

Fans and Videogames PDF Author: Melanie Swalwell
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1317191919
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
This anthology addresses videogames long history of fandom, and fans’ important role in game history and preservation. In order to better understand and theorize video games and game playing, it is necessary to study the activities of gamers themselves. Gamers are active creators in generating meaning; they are creators of media texts they share with other fans (mods, walkthroughs, machinima, etc); and they have played a central role in curating and preserving games through activities such as their collective work on: emulation, creating online archives and the forensic archaeology of code. This volume brings together essays that explore game fandom from diverse perspectives that examine the complex processes at work in the phenomenon of game fandom and its practices. Contributors aim to historicize game fandom, recognize fan contributions to game history, and critically assess the role of fans in ensuring that game culture endures through the development of archives.

Game Engine Black Book: DOOM

Game Engine Black Book: DOOM PDF Author: Fabien Sanglard
Publisher: Software Wizards
ISBN:
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
It was early 1993 and id Software was at the top of the PC gaming industry. Wolfenstein 3D had established the First Person Shooter genre and sales of its sequel Spear of Destiny were skyrocketing. The technology and tools id had taken years to develop were no match for their many competitors. It would have been easy for id to coast on their success, but instead they made the audacious decision to throw away everything they had built and start from scratch. Game Engine Black Book: Doom is the story of how they did it. This is a book about history and engineering. Don’t expect much prose (the author’s English has improved since the first book but is still broken). Instead you will find inside extensive descriptions and drawings to better understand all the challenges id Software had to overcome. From the hardware -- the Intel 486 CPU, the Motorola 68040 CPU, and the NeXT workstations -- to the game engine’s revolutionary design, open up to learn how DOOM changed the gaming industry and became a legend among video games.

Super Power, Spoony Bards, and Silverware

Super Power, Spoony Bards, and Silverware PDF Author: Dominic Arsenault
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262341506
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
How the Super Nintendo Entertainment System embodied Nintendo’s s resistance to innovation and took the company from industry leadership to the margins of videogaming. This is a book about the Super Nintendo Entertainment System that is not celebratory or self-congratulatory. Most other accounts declare the Super NES the undisputed victor of the “16-bit console wars” of 1989–1995. In this book, Dominic Arsenault reminds us that although the SNES was a strong platform filled with high-quality games, it was also the product of a short-sighted corporate vision focused on maintaining Nintendo’s market share and business model. This led the firm to fall from a dominant position during its golden age (dubbed by Arsenault the “ReNESsance”) with the NES to the margins of the industry with the Nintendo 64 and GameCube consoles. Arsenault argues that Nintendo’s conservative business strategies and resistance to innovation during the SNES years explain its market defeat by Sony’s PlayStation. Extending the notion of “platform” to include the marketing forces that shape and constrain creative work, Arsenault draws not only on game studies and histories but on game magazines, boxes, manuals, and advertisements to identify the technological discourses and business models that formed Nintendo’s Super Power. He also describes the cultural changes in video games during the 1990s that slowly eroded the love of gamer enthusiasts for the SNES as the Nintendo generation matured. Finally, he chronicles the many technological changes that occurred through the SNES's lifetime, including full-motion video, CD-ROM storage, and the shift to 3D graphics. Because of the SNES platform’s architecture, Arsenault explains, Nintendo resisted these changes and continued to focus on traditional gameplay genres.

Ultima and Worldbuilding in the Computer Role-Playing Game

Ultima and Worldbuilding in the Computer Role-Playing Game PDF Author: Carly A. Kocurek
Publisher: Amherst College Press
ISBN: 1943208654
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 197

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Book Description
Ultima and World-Building in the Computer Role-Playing Game is the first scholarly book to focus exclusively on the long-running Ultima series of computer role-playing games (RPG) and to assess its lasting impact on the RPG genre and video game industry. Through archival and popular media sources, examinations of fan communities, and the game itself, this book historicizes the games and their authors. By attending to the salient moments and sites of game creation throughout the series’ storied past, authors Carly A. Kocurek and Matthew Thomas Payne detail the creative choices and structural forces that brought Ultima’s celebrated brand of role-playing to fruition. This book first considers the contributions of series founder and lead designer, Richard Garriott, examining how his fame and notoriety as a pioneering computer game auteur shaped Ultima’s reception and paved the way for the evolution of the series. Next, the authors retrace the steps that Garriott took in fusing analog, tabletop role-playing with his self-taught lessons in computer programming. Close textual analyses of Ultima I outline how its gameplay elements offered a foundational framework for subsequent innovations in design and storytelling. Moving beyond the game itself, the authors assess how marketing materials and physical collectibles amplified its immersive hold and how the series’ legions of fans have preserved the series. Game designers, long-time gamers, and fans will enjoy digging into the games’ production history and mechanics while media studies and game scholars will find Ultima and World-Building in the Computer Role-Playing Game a useful extension of inquiry into authorship, media history, and the role of fantasy in computer game design.

Blips on a Screen

Blips on a Screen PDF Author: Kate Hannigan
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 0593306732
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 26

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Book Description
An engaging picture book biography based on the incredible true story of a Jewish refugee who pioneered home video games and launched a worldwide obsession. Do you ever wonder how video gaming was invented? What came before your PlayStation or Xbox? This is the story of Ralph Baer, a refugee from Nazi Germany, who used his skills--and a lot of ingenuity and persistence--to make life a little more fun. Television was new when Ralph returned from serving in World War II, but he didn't settle for watching TV. He knew it could be even more fun if you could play with it. He tinkered and tested, got help and rejected, but with perseverance and skill, he made his vision come true! This is the inspiring story of a fearless inventor who made TV video games a reality.