Critical Play

Critical Play PDF Author: Mary Flanagan
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262518651
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 363

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Book Description
An examination of subversive games like The Sims—games designed for political, aesthetic, and social critique. For many players, games are entertainment, diversion, relaxation, fantasy. But what if certain games were something more than this, providing not only outlets for entertainment but a means for creative expression, instruments for conceptual thinking, or tools for social change? In Critical Play, artist and game designer Mary Flanagan examines alternative games—games that challenge the accepted norms embedded within the gaming industry—and argues that games designed by artists and activists are reshaping everyday game culture. Flanagan provides a lively historical context for critical play through twentieth-century art movements, connecting subversive game design to subversive art: her examples of “playing house” include Dadaist puppet shows and The Sims. She looks at artists’ alternative computer-based games and explores games for change, considering the way activist concerns—including worldwide poverty and AIDS—can be incorporated into game design. Arguing that this kind of conscious practice—which now constitutes the avant-garde of the computer game medium—can inspire new working methods for designers, Flanagan offers a model for designing that will encourage the subversion of popular gaming tropes through new styles of game making, and proposes a theory of alternate game design that focuses on the reworking of contemporary popular game practices.

Critical Play

Critical Play PDF Author: Mary Flanagan
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262518651
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 363

Get Book Here

Book Description
An examination of subversive games like The Sims—games designed for political, aesthetic, and social critique. For many players, games are entertainment, diversion, relaxation, fantasy. But what if certain games were something more than this, providing not only outlets for entertainment but a means for creative expression, instruments for conceptual thinking, or tools for social change? In Critical Play, artist and game designer Mary Flanagan examines alternative games—games that challenge the accepted norms embedded within the gaming industry—and argues that games designed by artists and activists are reshaping everyday game culture. Flanagan provides a lively historical context for critical play through twentieth-century art movements, connecting subversive game design to subversive art: her examples of “playing house” include Dadaist puppet shows and The Sims. She looks at artists’ alternative computer-based games and explores games for change, considering the way activist concerns—including worldwide poverty and AIDS—can be incorporated into game design. Arguing that this kind of conscious practice—which now constitutes the avant-garde of the computer game medium—can inspire new working methods for designers, Flanagan offers a model for designing that will encourage the subversion of popular gaming tropes through new styles of game making, and proposes a theory of alternate game design that focuses on the reworking of contemporary popular game practices.

Critical Play

Critical Play PDF Author: Mary Flanagan
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262258196
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 363

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Book Description
An examination of subversive games like The Sims—games designed for political, aesthetic, and social critique. For many players, games are entertainment, diversion, relaxation, fantasy. But what if certain games were something more than this, providing not only outlets for entertainment but a means for creative expression, instruments for conceptual thinking, or tools for social change? In Critical Play, artist and game designer Mary Flanagan examines alternative games—games that challenge the accepted norms embedded within the gaming industry—and argues that games designed by artists and activists are reshaping everyday game culture. Flanagan provides a lively historical context for critical play through twentieth-century art movements, connecting subversive game design to subversive art: her examples of “playing house” include Dadaist puppet shows and The Sims. She looks at artists’ alternative computer-based games and explores games for change, considering the way activist concerns—including worldwide poverty and AIDS—can be incorporated into game design. Arguing that this kind of conscious practice—which now constitutes the avant-garde of the computer game medium—can inspire new working methods for designers, Flanagan offers a model for designing that will encourage the subversion of popular gaming tropes through new styles of game making, and proposes a theory of alternate game design that focuses on the reworking of contemporary popular game practices.

Critical Play

Critical Play PDF Author: Mary Flanagan
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262062682
Category : Art and popular culture
Languages : en
Pages : 363

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Book Description
An examination of subversive games--games designed for political, aesthetic, and social critique.

Critical Plays

Critical Plays PDF Author: Anne Harris
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9462097550
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
Critical Plays is the systematic study of one (fictional) classroom culture populated by six students and their two professors, imaginatively conceived from interviews, experience, observation and thematic analysis, and shaped into performance text. This play-as-research-text aims to provide an encounter both creative and scholarly for readers. The characters who populate it are drawn from the authors’ lived experiences as researchers, teachers, and performance makers. The characters are drawn from the fields of health, performance studies, education and leadership studies to remind readers of the political, social and scholarly power of creative research approaches. The text also attests to the potential of integrating emotion and relationality in the research space. This text is a must-read for qualitative researchers and students of health sciences, communications, interdisciplinary ethnography, rhetoric, education, sociology, drama and theatre arts. Relevant to the lives of an emerging generation of researchers and students, this text highlights new methodological pathways that are open to them as they begin their own scholarly undertakings in a rapidly-evolving global research landscape. It also poses serious questions about education, identity and creativity that readers can reflect on. Written with humor and passion, students will enjoy reading excerpts aloud in class, or on their own. This play can be read or performed purely for pleasure, or used as a class text in courses that address qualitative research methods, performance studies, education, teacher training, pedagogy and curriculum, arts-informed inquiry and research ethics. Anne Harris, PhD is a playwright and scholar who addresses themes of diversity, creativity and gender in her work. Chris Sinclair is Head of drama education at the University of Melbourne. She is also a freelance community artist who draws on research in her arts practice and the arts in her research.

Critical Play

Critical Play PDF Author: Mel LeBrun
Publisher: Mel LeBrun
ISBN: 0463019180
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 427

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Book Description
No longer in hiding from a notorious Russian Mob or running from corrupt CIA agents, Michael and Jessica Cailen have settled in to a quiet life, adapting to their new role as parents. However, when an old friend arrives at their door needing their help they find themselves in the middle of a deadly conspiracy that reaches across the globe. Unable to receive help from their friends in the CIA, they are forced to turn to an unlikely ally. A man with mysterious power and influence who happens to be Jessica's estranged father. The stakes are higher than ever as Michael takes on corrupt government officials colluding with terrorists who will do everything in their power to keep from being exposed.

The Play Versus Story Divide in Game Studies

The Play Versus Story Divide in Game Studies PDF Author: Matthew Wilhelm Kapell
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476623090
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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Book Description
Since the emergence of digital game studies, a number of debates have engaged scholars. The debate between ludic (play) and narrative (story) paradigms remains the one that famously "never happened." This collection of new essays critically frames that debate and urges game scholars to consider it central to the field. The essayists examine various digital games, assessing the applicability of play-versus-narrative approaches or considering the failure of each. The essays reflect the broader history while applying notions of play and story to recent games in an attempt to propel serious analysis.

Rules of Play

Rules of Play PDF Author: Katie Salen Tekinbas
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262240451
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 680

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Book Description
An impassioned look at games and game design that offers the most ambitious framework for understanding them to date. As pop culture, games are as important as film or television—but game design has yet to develop a theoretical framework or critical vocabulary. In Rules of Play Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman present a much-needed primer for this emerging field. They offer a unified model for looking at all kinds of games, from board games and sports to computer and video games. As active participants in game culture, the authors have written Rules of Play as a catalyst for innovation, filled with new concepts, strategies, and methodologies for creating and understanding games. Building an aesthetics of interactive systems, Salen and Zimmerman define core concepts like "play," "design," and "interactivity." They look at games through a series of eighteen "game design schemas," or conceptual frameworks, including games as systems of emergence and information, as contexts for social play, as a storytelling medium, and as sites of cultural resistance. Written for game scholars, game developers, and interactive designers, Rules of Play is a textbook, reference book, and theoretical guide. It is the first comprehensive attempt to establish a solid theoretical framework for the emerging discipline of game design.

Out of Play

Out of Play PDF Author: Michael A. Messner
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791479781
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
2008 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title From beer ads in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue to four-year-old boys and girls playing soccer; from male athletes' sexual violence against women to homophobia and racism in sport, Out of Play analyzes connections between gender and sport from the 1980s to the present. The book illuminates a wide range of contemporary issues in popular culture, children's sports, and women's and men's college and professional sports. Each chapter is preceded by a short introduction that lays out the context in which the piece was written. Drawing on his own memories as a former athlete, informal observations of his children's sports activities, and more formal research such as life-history interviews with athletes and content analyses of sports media, Michael A. Messner presents a multifaceted picture of gender constructed through an array of personalities, institutions, cultural symbols, and everyday interactions.

Gaming Globally

Gaming Globally PDF Author: N. Huntemann
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137006331
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Video games are inherently transnational by virtue of industrial, textual, and player practices. The contributors touch upon nations not usually examined by game studies - including the former Czechoslovakia, Turkey, India, and Brazil - and also add new perspectives to the global hubs of China, Singapore, Australia, Japan, and the United States.

Thinking Games to Play with Your Child

Thinking Games to Play with Your Child PDF Author: Cheryl Gerson Tuttle
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
ISBN:
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Book Description
Easy ways todevelop creative and critical thinking skills.