Reading about Games

[jmbossy]

I've become increasingly interested in the academic theories on game design (from both developers and enthusiasts) but I'm having an incredibly difficult time finding sites/aggregates dedicated to such written work. As this fascination is almost 100% because of my increased listening to idle thumbs, I figured maybe some of you could make suggestions on websites or writers.

 

Maybe moving forward this topic could act as a place to turn other thumbs onto articles of note. 

 

The one writer I have been reading into is Tom Bissell (known for his appearance on Tone Control (hosted by Idle Thumbs)).

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8157257/ to get the ball rolling.

[elmuerte]

GDC vault is quite a holy grail.

[clyde]

I'll be putting articles I enjoy here. Very much. Thank you.

[TychoCelchuuu]

Neither of those are academic - do you actually want academic stuff, or just good games writing? I don't know much about the former, but some links for the latter:

http://www.critical-distance.com/

http://iam.benabraham.net/

http://nightmaremode.net/

http://this.isnotablog.com/freeplay/

[TychoCelchuuu]

ROUND TWO

Note that listing a blog does not mean I endorse all the thoughts written about on the blog. Read responsibly.

http://goodgameswriting.com/

http://www.hitselfdestruct.com/ (see the "video games" section in the bottom right)

http://exploringbelievability.blogspot.com/

http://gamesthatexist.com/

http://www.reactionzine.com/

http://twofoldsilence.diogenes-lamp.info/

http://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/

http://thiscageisworms.com/

[sclpls]

Good list so far! I'm not sure I have much to add off the top of my head...

 

http://jonshaferondesign.com/page/7/ (This is Jon Shafer, the lead designer for Civ 5's blog. Note I linked to further back on his blog because these days it is mostly updates about his Kickstarter game - At the Gates, and updates with new episodes of his game design podcast. The link here takes you back to the time period when he was writing a lot more general game design articles although the At the Gates updates are always fascinating as well, and the podcast is a good listen if you want to get into how game designers consider making various kinds of trade-offs when developing game mechanics)

 

http://www.portfolio.debacle.us/ (Robert Yang's blog, I especially like his writing and criticism of the immersive sims genre)

[jmbossy]

Neither of those are academic - do you actually want academic stuff, or just good games writing?

 

I think that my not knowing the difference says a lot sorry.

 

 

 

And thanks everyone (especially Tycho) for the reading material! Greatly appreciated.

[jmbossy]

GDC vault is quite a holy grail.

 

Wait!? Is this an archive of GDC talks?! That's amazing!

[elmuerte]

GDC vault is everything from GDC since 1996. It requires a membership to view it all though (quite pricy). But it's the largest "academic" database on game development.

 

There's also the Game Dev Magazine archive: http://www.gdcvault.com/gdmag

They usually contain: postmortem, various tech articles, product info, and some generic (game) dev insights. It's usually an interesting read. I'm currently in the process of reading back from when I became a subscriber (2005)

[jmbossy]

If only I could reliably load video on my shotty connection

[Stuart]

Leigh Alexander's Stuffs

 

Chris Franklin's Stuffs

 

George Wiedman's Stuffs

 

Mattie Brice's Stuffs

 

That's all I got for now.

[clyde]

Here's talk about designing text-games from Jon Ingold one of the co-founders of Inkle (also the script writer for the Sorcery! app). Unless you are completely unfamiliar with what text-games are, I would recommend skipping to the 15 minute mark (you can do this easily by clicking on "Reading can be hard" in the chapter select on the left). I had never thought about the advantages of making text appear in chunks. I also really enjoyed his description of making choice more "analogue" by branching narratives with the results of many smaller decisions rather than branching them with epic, one-time decisions. I'm convinced.

http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1019346/A-World-from-Words-Highly

[Joewintergreen]

I tend to enjoy Claire Hosking's stuffs

[jmbossy]

I tend to enjoy Claire Hosking's stuffs

 

agreed. thanks for sharing

[Joewintergreen]

are you claire hosking

 

i met her and she said she was on here but wanted to remain anonymous

[Justin Leego]

I heard that Spartacus is active on the Three Moves Ahead boards

[TychoCelchuuu]

I'm active on these boards.

[TychoCelchuuu]

This Year in Video Game Blogging: 2013.

[juv3nal]

If they've not been mentioned (apologies, I am a filthy skimmer):

http://www.lostgarden.com/

and

http://www.psychologyofgames.com/

 

have interesting stuff

 

edit: oh also 

http://emshort.wordpress.com/

[TychoCelchuuu]

Funny you should mention The Psychology of Video Games - I just discovered (or maybe rediscovered) that site a few days ago and posted some comments on the latest article, but I'm not super impressed with it. Most of the articles boil down to "here is a thing in psychology. Here is that thing in a video game. The end!" I always come out the other end feeling like I got a portion of a psychology textbook that is easily explained with a video game example, but nothing more. Maybe that just says more about how much I enjoy psychology textbooks than about how good the site is...

[juv3nal]

Most of the articles boil down to "here is a thing in psychology. Here is that thing in a video game. The end!"

 

Isn't that kind of the whole point of the site?

 

edit: some more if you have an interest in the history of video games:

http://www.filfre.net/

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/

[TychoCelchuuu]

Isn't that kind of the whole point of the site?

Apparently it is, yes.

[juv3nal]

one more: http://www.playthepast.org

 

edit: I lie, also http://gamestudies.org/

[clyde]

A person with an exo-imperceptible disability is reminded of their circumstance while playing Octodad.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/video-games/10610001/How-Octodad-works-as-an-analogy-for-invisible-illnesses.html

[ihavefivehat]

This is an interesting essay where the author tries to establish a serious academic theory of narrative in games. It's from 2003, so it was probably one of the earlier attempts at doing so. I think it's a little bit over-essentialist, but it's well thought out and provocative.

 

http://www.ludology.org/articles/VGT_final.pdf