The Semiotics of Architecture in Video Games

The Semiotics of Architecture in Video Games PDF Author: Gabriele Aroni
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350152323
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
Video games are among the most popular media on the planet, and billions of people inhabit these virtual worlds on a daily basis. This book investigates the architecture of video games, the buildings, roads and cities in which gamers play out their roles. Examining both the aesthetic aspects and symbolic roles of video game architecture as they relate to gameplay, Gabriele Aroni tackles a number of questions, including: - How digital architecture relates to real architecture - Where the inspiration for digital gaming architecture comes from, and how it moves into new directions - How the design of virtual architecture influences gameplay and storytelling. Looking at how architecture in video games communicates and interacts with players, this book combines semiotics and architecture theory to display how architecture is used in a variety of situations, with different aims and results. Using case studies from NaissanceE, Assassin's Creed II and Final Fantasy XV, The Semiotics of Architecture in Video Games discusses the techniques used to create successful virtual spaces and proposes a framework to analyse video game architecture, ultimately explaining how to employ architectural solutions in video games in a systematic and effective way.

The Semiotics of Architecture in Video Games

The Semiotics of Architecture in Video Games PDF Author: Gabriele Aroni
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350152323
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 193

Get Book Here

Book Description
Video games are among the most popular media on the planet, and billions of people inhabit these virtual worlds on a daily basis. This book investigates the architecture of video games, the buildings, roads and cities in which gamers play out their roles. Examining both the aesthetic aspects and symbolic roles of video game architecture as they relate to gameplay, Gabriele Aroni tackles a number of questions, including: - How digital architecture relates to real architecture - Where the inspiration for digital gaming architecture comes from, and how it moves into new directions - How the design of virtual architecture influences gameplay and storytelling. Looking at how architecture in video games communicates and interacts with players, this book combines semiotics and architecture theory to display how architecture is used in a variety of situations, with different aims and results. Using case studies from NaissanceE, Assassin's Creed II and Final Fantasy XV, The Semiotics of Architecture in Video Games discusses the techniques used to create successful virtual spaces and proposes a framework to analyse video game architecture, ultimately explaining how to employ architectural solutions in video games in a systematic and effective way.

The Semiotics of Toys and Games

The Semiotics of Toys and Games PDF Author: Theo van Leeuwen
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350324906
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
Drawing on extensive research over more than two decades, this book focuses on toys and games as resources for play. It analyses their functionalities as well as their symbolic meaning potentials, exemplifying how they are used in different contexts, such as home and preschool, and how these uses are regulated by parental, pedagogic and marketing discourses. Building on the work of semioticians such as Barthes, Baudrillard and Krampen, as well as on the social semiotics of Halliday, Hodge, Kress, and others, the book introduces a framework for the multimodal semiotic analysis of physical objects, and the ways in which they are digitally translated into words, images and sounds. It also introduces a multimodal framework with a focus on designs for and in learning. It then applies these frameworks to a range of toys and games for young children including teddy bears, dolls, construction toys, war toys and digital games. Throughout it shows how the toy and games industry contributes to changing the nature of childhood and the way children learn about the world. Accessibly written, the book will not only be relevant to students and scholars of multimodality and semiotics, but also to early childhood educators and parents of young children.

The Semiotics of the COVID-19 Pandemic

The Semiotics of the COVID-19 Pandemic PDF Author: Sebastián Moreno Barreneche
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350359572
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Focusing on the discursive dimension of the COVID-19 pandemic from a semiotic perspective, this book uses semiotic theory and methods to analyse the meaning-making mechanisms and dynamics that occurred during, and revolved around, the pandemic. Demonstrating the utility of semiotic theory, concepts and analytical methods to make sense of discursive phenomena like those triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, the book explores in detail: · the blame-attribution discourses that emerged at the beginning of the pandemic; · how the coronavirus was brought to life in plastic and visual manifestations as a monster that poses a threat to humans; · how the collective actor 'the healthcare workers' was constructed in discourse and axiologised in positive terms; · the semiotics of the body during the pandemic, with a focus on the face, facemasks, social distancing and the uses of the body in online environments; · the idea of a 'new' normality following the pandemic. The book examines different dimensions of the COVID-19 pandemic, including examples from Europe, Latin America and the United States and a wide range of images, texts, practices and objects, in order to highlight the importance of its discursive and semiotic nature.

Video Game Spaces

Video Game Spaces PDF Author: Michael Nitsche
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262293013
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 315

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Book Description
An exploration of how we see, use, and make sense of modern video game worlds. The move to 3D graphics represents a dramatic artistic and technical development in the history of video games that suggests an overall transformation of games as media. The experience of space has become a key element of how we understand games and how we play them. In Video Game Spaces, Michael Nitsche investigates what this shift means for video game design and analysis. Navigable 3D spaces allow us to crawl, jump, fly, or even teleport through fictional worlds that come to life in our imagination. We encounter these spaces through a combination of perception and interaction. Drawing on concepts from literary studies, architecture, and cinema, Nitsche argues that game spaces can evoke narratives because the player is interpreting them in order to engage with them. Consequently, Nitsche approaches game spaces not as pure visual spectacles but as meaningful virtual locations. His argument investigates what structures are at work in these locations, proceeds to an in-depth analysis of the audiovisual presentation of gameworlds, and ultimately explores how we use and comprehend their functionality. Nitsche introduces five analytical layers—rule-based space, mediated space, fictional space, play space, and social space—and uses them in the analyses of games that range from early classics to recent titles. He revisits current topics in game research, including narrative, rules, and play, from this new perspective. Video Game Spaces provides a range of necessary arguments and tools for media scholars, designers, and game researchers with an interest in 3D game worlds and the new challenges they pose.

Expressive Space

Expressive Space PDF Author: Gregory Whistance-Smith
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110723840
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Video game spaces have vastly expanded the built environment, offering new worlds to explore and inhabit. Like buildings, cities, and gardens before them, these virtual environments express meaning and communicate ideas and affects through the spatial experiences they afford. Drawing on the emerging field of embodied cognition, this book explores the dynamic interplay between mind, body, and environment that sits at the heart of spatial communication. To capture the wide diversity of forms that spatial expression can take, the book builds a comparative analysis of twelve video games across four types of space, spanning ones designed for exploration and inhabitation, kinetic enjoyment, enacting a situated role, and enhancing perception. Together, these diverse virtual environments suggest the many ways that video games enhance and extend our embodied lives.

Video Games and Spatiality in American Studies

Video Games and Spatiality in American Studies PDF Author: Dietmar Meinel
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110675234
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 423

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Book Description
While video games have blossomed into the foremost expression of contemporary popular culture over the past decades, their critical study occupies a fringe position in American Studies. In its engagement with video games, this book contributes to their study but with a thematic focus on a particularly important subject matter in American Studies: spatiality. The volume explores the production, representation, and experience of places in video games from the perspective of American Studies. Contributions critically interrogate the use of spatial myths ("wilderness," "frontier," or "city upon a hill"), explore games as digital borderlands and contact zones, and offer novel approaches to geographical literacy. Eventually, Playing the Field II brings the rich theoretical repertoire of the study of space in American Studies into conversation with questions about the production, representation, and experience of space in video games.

Cross-Cultural Design. Applications in Learning, Arts, Cultural Heritage, Creative Industries, and Virtual Reality

Cross-Cultural Design. Applications in Learning, Arts, Cultural Heritage, Creative Industries, and Virtual Reality PDF Author: Pei-Luen Patrick Rau
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031060474
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 550

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Book Description
The four-volume set LNCS 13311 - 13314 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Cross-Cultural Design, CCD 2022, which was held as part of HCI International 2022 and took place virtually during June 26 - July 1, 2022. The papers included in the HCII-CCD volume set were organized in topical sections as follows: Part I: Cross-Cultural Interaction Design; Collaborative and Participatory Cross-Cultural Design; Cross-Cultural Differences and HCI; Aspects of Intercultural Design Part II: Cross-Cultural Learning, Training, and Education; Cross-Cultural Design in Arts and Music; Creative Industries and Cultural Heritage under a Cross-Cultural Perspective; Cross-Cultural Virtual Reality and Games Part III: Intercultural Business Communication; Intercultural Business Communication; HCI and the Global Social Change Imposed by COVID-19; Intercultural Design for Well-being and Inclusiveness Part IV: Cross-Cultural Product and Service Design; Cross-Cultural Mobility and Automotive UX Design; Design and Culture in Social Development and Digital Transformation of Cities and Urban Areas; Cross-Cultural Design in Intelligent Environments.

Beyond Choices

Beyond Choices PDF Author: Miguel Sicart
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262019787
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 189

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Book Description
How computer games can be designed to create ethically relevant experiences for players. Today's blockbuster video games—and their never-ending sequels, sagas, and reboots—provide plenty of excitement in high-resolution but for the most part fail to engage a player's moral imagination. In Beyond Choices, Miguel Sicart calls for a new generation of video and computer games that are ethically relevant by design. In the 1970s, mainstream films—including The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, Raging Bull, and Taxi Driver—filled theaters but also treated their audiences as thinking beings. Why can't mainstream video games have the same moral and aesthetic impact? Sicart argues that it is time for games to claim their place in the cultural landscape as vehicles for ethical reflection. Sicart looks at games in many manifestations: toys, analog games, computer and video games, interactive fictions, commercial entertainments, and independent releases. Drawing on philosophy, design theory, literary studies, aesthetics, and interviews with game developers, Sicart provides a systematic account of how games can be designed to challenge and enrich our moral lives. After discussing such topics as definition of ethical gameplay and the structure of the game as a designed object, Sicart offers a theory of the design of ethical game play. He also analyzes the ethical aspects of game play in a number of current games, including Spec Ops: The Line, Beautiful Escape: Dungeoneer, Fallout New Vegas, and Anna Anthropy's Dys4Ia. Games are designed to evoke specific emotions; games that engage players ethically, Sicart argues, enable us to explore and express our values through play.

Trigger Happy

Trigger Happy PDF Author: Steven Poole
Publisher: Arcade Publishing
ISBN: 9781559705981
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
Examines the history and phenomenal success of video games, and argues that the popular games are on the way to becoming a legitimate art form, much in the same way movies did a century earlier.

Rethinking Virtual Places

Rethinking Virtual Places PDF Author: Erik M. Champion
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253058368
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
How would the humanities change if we grappled with the ways in which digital and virtual places are designed, experienced, and critiqued? In Rethinking Virtual Places, Erik Malcolm Champion draws from the fields of computational sciences and other place-related disciplines to argue for a more central role for virtual space in the humanities. For instance, recent developments in neuroscience could improve our understanding of how people experience, store, and recollect place-related encounters. Similarly, game mechanics using virtual place design might make digital environments more engaging and learning content more powerful and salient. In addition, Champion provides a brief introduction to new and emerging software and devices and explains how they help, hinder, or replace our traditional means of designing and exploring places. Perfect for humanities scholars fascinated by the potential of virtual space, Rethinking Virtual Places challenges both traditional and recent evaluation methods to address the complicated problem of understanding how people evaluate and engage with the notion of place.