The genre of adventure games is frequently overlooked. Lacking the constantly-evolving graphics and graphic violence of their counterparts in first-person and third-person shooters or role-playing games, they are often marketed to and beloved by players outside of mainstream game communities. While often forgotten by both the industry and academia, adventure games have had (and continue to have) a surprisingly wide influence on contemporary games, in categories including walking simulators, hidden object games, visual novels, and bestselling titles from companies like Telltale and Campo Santo. In this examination of heirs to the genre's legacy, the authors examine the genre from multiple perspectives, connecting technical analysis with critical commentary and social context. This will be the first book to consider this important genre from a comprehensive and transdisciplinary perspective. Drawing upon methods from platform studies, software studies, media studies, and literary studies, they reveal the genre's ludic and narrative origins and patterns, where character (and the player's embodiment of a character) is essential to the experience of play and the choices within a game. A deep structural analysis of adventure games also uncovers an unsteady balance between sometimes contradictory elements of story, exploration, and puzzles: with different games and creators employing a multitude of different solutions to resolving this tension.

Lists the most significant writings on computer games, including works that cover recent advances in gaming and the substantial academic research that goes into devising and improving computer games.

A handbook for game development with coverage of both team management topics, such as task tracking and creating the technical design document, and outsourcing strategies for contents, such as motion capture and voice-over talent. It covers various aspects of game development.

Reserved, for a long time, to a small circle of enthusiast developers, 3D is not yet commonly used by independent video games development studios (the Indies). It's for a good reason: the entrance ticket is relatively high. With Blender 2.76 (free and Open Source), you can model, animate, create a 3D rendering and have a game engine. It is a perfect tool for the beginner and for the one that wants to create a commercial game. Blender is also a complement to tools like Unity, CryEngine, Unreal Engine and other commercial engines. Thanks to the resources freely available to everybody on the Internet, you don't have to be graphic designer or programmer to create a game. You don't want to read 400 pages of theory about modeling, animating and programming in python? This book was written for you. You are invited to create directly several game projects: a platform game (like Super mario), a First-person Shooter (like Doom, Far Cry or Half-Life), a Third-person RPG (like Tomb Raider, GTA or Watch Dogs), a voxel sandbox game (like Minecraft), a car race and a flight simulator. With these projects, about a hundred recipes will help you to create any type of game. If you aren't an addict, it'll come to you sooner than you realize. It's more fun to create a game than to play with the last blockbuster. You'll be the architect of a new world, with its own rules. The only limits are the one of your imagination... High technology enthusiast, games addict and 3D geek, the author wants to honor these games that have revolutionized this domain.

They Create Worlds: The Story of the People and Companies That Shaped the Video Game Industry, Vol. 1 is the first in a three-volume set that provides an in-depth analysis of the creation and evolution of the video game industry. Beginning with the advent of computers in the mid-20th century, Alexander Smith’s text comprehensively highlights and examines individuals, companies, and market forces that have shaped the development of the video game industry around the world. Volume one, places an emphasis on the emerging ideas, concepts, and games developed from the commencement of the budding video game art form in the 1950s and 1960s through the first commercial activity in the 1970s and early 1980s. They Create Worlds aims to build a new foundation upon which future scholars and the video game industry itself can chart new paths. Key Features: The most in-depth examination of the video game industry ever written, They Create Worlds charts the technological breakthroughs, design decisions, and market forces in the United States, Europe, and East Asia that birthed a $100 billion industry. The books derive their information from rare primary sources such as little-studied trade publications, personal papers collections, and oral history interviews with designers and executives, many of whom have never told their stories before. Spread over three volumes, They Create Worlds focuses on the creative designers, shrewd marketers, and innovative companies that have shaped video games from their earliest days as a novelty attraction to their current status as the most important entertainment medium of the 21st Century. The books examine the formation of the video game industry in a clear narrative style that will make them useful as teaching aids in classes on the history of game design and economics, but they are not being written specifically as instructional books and can be enjoyed by anyone with a passion for video game history.

Foundation Game Design with HTML5 and JavaScript teaches you everything you need to know about how to make video games. If you’ve never done any programming before and don’t know where to start, this book will show you how to make games from start to finish. You’ll learn all the latest programming technologies (HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript) to create your games. All written in a fun and friendly style with open-ended projects that encourage you to build your own original games. Foundation Game Design with HTML5 and JavaScript starts by showing you how you can use basic programing to create logic games, adventure games, and create interactive game graphics. Design a game character, learn to control it with the keyboard, mouse, or touch screen interface, and then learn how to use collision detection to build an interactive game world. You’ll learn to make maze games, platform jumping games, and fast paced action games that cover all the popular genres of 2D gaming. Create intelligent enemies, use realistic physics, sound effects and music, and learn how to animate game characters. Whether you're creating games for the web or mobile devices, everything you need to get started on a career as a game designer is right here. Focused and friendly introduction to making games with HTML5. Essential programming and graphic design techniques for building games, with each chapter gently building on the skills of preceding chapters. Detailed case studies demonstrating techniques that can be used for making games in a wide variety of genres.

Learn valuable programming skills while building your own Minecraft adventure! If you love playing Minecraft and want to learn how to code and create your own mods, this book was designed just for you. Working within the game itself, you'll learn to set up and run your own local Minecraft server, interact with the game on PC, Mac and Raspberry Pi, and develop Python programming skills that apply way beyond Minecraft. You'll learn how to use coordinates, how to change the player’s position, how to create and delete blocks and how to check when a block has been hit. The adventures aren't limited to the virtual – you'll also learn how to connect Minecraft to a BBC micro:bit so your Minecraft world can sense and control objects in the real world! The companion website gives you access to tutorial videos to make sure you understand the book, starter kits to make setup simple, completed code files, and badges to collect for your accomplishments. Written specifically for young people by professional Minecraft geeks, this fun, easy-to-follow guide helps you expand Minecraft for more exciting adventures, and put your personal stamp on the world you create. Your own Minecraft world will be unlike anyone else's on the planet, and you'll pick up programming skills that will serve you for years to come on other devices and projects. Among other things, you will: Write Minecraft programs in Python® on your Mac®, PC or Raspberry Pi® Build houses, structures, and make a 3D duplicating machine Build intelligent objects and program an alien invasion Build huge 2D and 3D structures like spheres and pyramids Build a custom game controller using a BBC micro:bitTM Plan and write a complete interactive arena game Adventures in Minecraft teaches you how to make your favourite game even better, while you learn to program by customizing your Minecraft journey.