This book is an introduction to game studies, written in an approachable way that outlines useful perspectives that readers can use to interrogate games as a primary text. It provides the reader with a toolset that can ‘level up’ their own critical perspectives.
This book is an introduction to game studies, written in an approachable way that outlines useful perspectives that readers can use to interrogate games as a primary text. It provides the reader with a toolset that can ‘level up’ their own critical perspectives.
The book is organized around several evaluative lenses, each supported with case studies. These lenses approach the analysis of games from different perspectives, outlining some of the important foundational work from game studies and other relevant disciplines, and then relating it widely across a corpus of modern titles. The book cover video games, roleplaying games and board-games, along with digressions into other more obscure areas such as LARPs, Mega-Games, and Non-Games. Each of the main areas calls back to how each of the evaluative lenses of the book could be used to illuminate intersections of medium and theoretical perspectives. The provided case studies then offer deeper dives into titles of particular significance.
This book will be suitable for students in games-related courses at multiple levels of the curriculum, game critics, and those that simply want to develop more interesting and nuanced opinions on games.
1. An Introduction to Game Studies
Michael Heron
2. Critical Perspectives in Game Studies
Michael Heron
3. Secret Hitler: Political Symbolism and Metagaming in Social Deduction
Constantina EdesaFilios
4. Systemic Perspectives in Game Studies
Michael Heron
5. Box Classification and Puzzle Logic in the Video Game Wilmots Warehouse:
Its Relation to Language and Semantics Categorization and Language in
Wilmots Warehouse Gameplay
Nayat AstaizaSoriano and Eleni Gianntizi
6. Experiential Perspectives in Game Studies
Michael Heron
7. The Melancholy of Hollow Knight: A Study of the Dichotomy between Charm
and Tragedy in the Artistic Elements of Hollow Knight
Klara Aune
8. Other Perspectives in Game Studies
Michael Heron
9. Animal Crossing: Turning a Space into a Place: A Reflection on the
Psychogeography of Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Pauline Belford
10. Domain Knowledge in Tabletop Roleplaying Games
Michael Heron
11. The Tension of Blades in the Dark
Anna Brannen and Edvin Skog
12. Domain Knowledge in Video Games
Michael Heron
13. How Chants of Sennaar Creates Intriguing Gameplay around Learning
Culturally Infused Languages
Luise Donat and Julius Lilie
14. Domain Knowledge in Board Games
Michael Heron and Pauline Belford
15. Conclusion
Michael Heron
Dr Michael Heron is Associate Professor in Games at the School of Computer Science and Engineering in Gothenburg, Sweden, and programme administrator for the Game Design and Technology programme. Michael is also the author of Tabletop Game Accessibility: Meeple Centred Design (CRC Press, 2024) and A Case Study in Computer Ethics in Context: The Scandal in Academia (CRC Press, 2024).
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