An comical essay where the author analyses the "life lessons" embedded in some of the classical videogames from 8 and 16 bits home consoles (namely NES, Super NES, Genesis). For example, the two-players mode in Contra is about having a best friend, while Paperboy will teach you the basics of customer service. The quality of the different book chapters is very variable, but some chapters are excellent and they will undoubtedly makes you smile or laugh (in particular the hilarious chapte
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Keywords : humor, nes, super nes, genesis, life lessons
DownLoad is a magazine dedicated to videogames available solely through online distribution channels, with a clear focus towards indie games. About ten titles are detailed in each issue, with an in-depth interview of the game creators, who provide us with many unique and interesting details about how they made their game. This magazine, which looks more like a book (thick paper, content not directly related to current news but focused on in-depth interviews...), has unfortunately stopped after t
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Keywords : indie games, dematerialized
Unlike what is stated in its title ("how to design a serious game for training courses"), this book doesn't explain how to design a Serious Game, but how to hire someone to create a Serious Game for you (i.e. how to be an "aware client" regarding Serious Games). After a short definition of what a Serious Game is, this book details very clearly the different ways to integrate a Serious Game inside a training course (advantages of Serious Games, how they work with other methods
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Keywords : serious game, ordering, client, project management
This bible is dedicated to the Nintendo NES home console (also known as Famicom). The first part of the book tells you the history of this console through a quite detailed chapter featuring a lot of pictures. The second and main part of the book is dedicated to a list of every game ever released for this console, featuring all games using cartridge or disk (Famicom Disk System) formats. Each one of the 1900 games is presented through a couple of screenshots alongside with a small text
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Keywords : history, nintendo, nes, famicom, nintendo entertainment system, bible
An excellent book featuring a deep analysis of the experiences offered to players by videogames. Being at the same time a gamer and a scholar, the author provides us with his very thoughtful and stimulating ideas on this topic. The first three chapters are tackling the issue of defining games, video games, and the relation between games and movies / storytelling. As they are full of concepts and references, these chapters are a bit harder to read than the others. The three following chapters are
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Keywords : history, philosophy, sociology, experience, critical, gamification
Without a doubt, this book is the most interesting story about the birth of Mario available! Written in the spirit of a PhD thesis (analysis of references in order to build and prove an hypothesis) while remaining easy to read, this book finally answers to a fundamental question: why Mario? In other words, this book will tell you how and why this character became the icon of Nintendo instead of a then more popular character: Donkey Kong. A book that any Mario fan should read as they will discove
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Keywords : history, mario, donkey kong
This tiny 100 pages book attempts to tackle a broad question: "Why do people like video games?" The author starts with a quick definition of video games and game genres. He then details the different kind of pleasures video games have to offer: freedom, multiplayer cooperation, immersion, artistic feeling, exploration, and relationship with a virtual pet. While the book is pleasant to read and filled with many relevant examples, the small number of pages prevent the author to fully dev
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Keywords : video game, pleasure, freedom, social interaction, immersion
The purpose of this chapter is to introduce an overall classification system for Serious Games. ?The intention of this classification is to guide people through the vast field of Serious Games by providing them with a general overview. For example, it may appeal to teachers who wish to find games with strong educational potential though they may be outside the “edugames” field. This chapter will start by discussing the definition of Serious Games, and define them as having a combinat
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Keywords : serious games, definition, classification
Over a series of 7 books, Florent Gorges wrote the most complete history of Nintendo. The texts are easy to read and full of unique information, and are illustrated with many pictures of all the games and toys created by the company. This third book in the series is focused on the most famous home console built by Nintendo: the NES / Famicom, and reveals much details about the birth of this machine and its impact in Japan, US and France. An absolutely recommended book to read.
Keywords : history, nintendo, famicom, nes
This scientific book gathers contributions from 12 researchers, coming from different fields, who are studying different sides of videogames: identification of the Game Designer knowledge, using videogames in schools, space in videogames, how to dissect a videogame to analyze it, analysis of MMORPG as social spaces...N.B.: The members of Ludoscience wrote a chapter of this book, about "Serious Games".
Keywords : scientific research, education, sociology, computer science, geography