Just when Gwen thought she could beat any video game hands down, her boyfriend goes and gets her stuck in a top-secret government simulator named Eve 2.0. Being trapped within a couple of her favorite video games doesn't seem so bad at first, but as time becomes a factor and the A.I. program begins to get smarter, Gwen soon realizes that winning or losing isn't just about pride anymore; it’s about making it out alive.

Are videogames bad for us? It’s the question on everyone’s mind, given teenagers’ captive attention to videogames and the media’s tendency to scapegoat them. It’s also—if you ask clinical psychologist Alexander Kriss—the wrong question. In his therapy office, Kriss looks at videogames as a window into the mind. Is his patient Liz really “addicted” to Candy Crush—or is she evading a deeper problem? Why would aspiring model Patricia craft a hideous avatar named “Pat”? And when Jack immerses himself in Mass Effect, is he eroding his social skills—or honing them via relationship-building gameplay? Weaving together Kriss’s personal history, patients’ experiences, and professional insight—and without shying away from complex subjects, such as online harassment—The Gaming Mind disrupts our assumptions about “gamers” and explores how gaming can be good for us. It offers guidance for parents, clinicians, and the rest of us to better understand the gaming mind. Like any mode of play, at their best, videogames reveal who we are—and what we want from our lives.

How do games represent history, and how do we make sense of the history of games? The industry regularly uses history to sell products, while processes of creation and of promotion leave behind markers of a game’s history. The access to this history is often granted by so-called paratexts, which are accompanying elements orbiting texts. Exploring this fully, case studies in this work move the focus of debate from the games themselves to wider, ancillary materials and ask how history is used in, and how we can use history to study games.

Video games take players on a trip through ancient battlefields, to mythic worlds, and across galaxies. They provide players with a way to try on new identities and acquire vast superpowers. Video games also give people the chance to hit reset – to play again and again until they achieve a desired outcome. Their popularity has enabled them to grow far beyond their humble origins and to permeate other forms of popular culture, from comic books and graphic novels to films and television programs. Video games are universal. In 100 Greatest Video Game Franchises, editors Robert Mejia, Jaime Banks, and Aubrie Adams have assembled essays that identify, assess, and reveal the most important video games of all-time. Each entry makes a case for the game’s cultural significance and why it deserves to be on the list, from its influence on other games to its impact on an international scale. In addition to providing information about the game developer and when the franchise was established, these entries explore the connections between the different video games, examining them across genre, theme, and content. This accessible collection of essays gives readers an opportunity to gauge their favorite video game franchises against the best of all time and argue how they each fit among the 100 greatest ever created. Whether casually looking up information on these games or eager to learn how franchises evolved over the years, readers will enjoy this entertaining and informative volume. Comprehensive and engaging, 100 Greatest Video Game Franchises will appeal to fans and scholars alike.

The season’s must-have gift book Some sports seem to have a natural home. Soccer in Brazil, rugby in New Zealand, cricket in India. And Canada’s game? Why hockey, of course. But it wasn’t always that way. By 1982, the Soviets had won every World Junior Hockey Championship except one, while Canada had earned only a single bronze medal. And then Hockey Canada launched the Programme of Excellence, a national development system designed to help put together teams that would be able to square off against the Soviets. The result was immediate. To everyone’s surprise, when Canada took gold in 1982 the American hosts didn’t even have a copy of “O Canada” to play during the championship ceremony. But after that, no one would be surprised by a Canadian win. This Boxing Day will mark the thirtieth anniversary of the program that brought hockey fans many glorious memories and made household names of several of our players. Richly illustrated, Thirty Years of the Game at Its Best takes readers on a year by-year retrospective, with each tournament’s story told from the perspectives of the players, coaches, and journalists who were there. This book is an extraordinary keepsake, published just in time for the 2012 World Junior Hockey Championships. Contributors include Mike Babcock, Brendan Bell, Murray Costello, Damien Cox, Sheldon Ferguson, Gare Joyce, Terry Koshan, Roy MacGregor, Steven Milton, Frank Orr, Donna Spencer, Jesse Wallin, Tim Wharnsby and Ed Willes.

Many aspiring game designers have crippling misconceptions about the process involved in creating a game from scratch, believing a "big idea" is all that is needed to get started. But game design requires action as well as thought, and proper training and practice to do so skillfully. In this indispensible guide, a published commercial game designer and longtime teacher offers practical instruction in the art of video and tabletop game design. The topics explored include the varying types of games, vital preliminaries of making a game, the nuts and bolts of devising a game, creating a prototype, testing, designing levels, technical aspects, and assessing nature of the audience. With practice challenges, a list of resources for further exploration, and a glossary of industry terms, this manual is essential for the nascent game designer and offers food for thought for even the most experienced professional.

Helps librarians who are not themselves seasoned gamers to better understand the plethora of gaming products available and how they might appeal to library users. As games grow ever-more ubiquitous in our culture and communities, they have become popular staples in public library collections and are increasing in prominence in academic ones. Many librarians, especially those who are not themselves gamers or are only acquainted with a handful of games, are ill-prepared to successfully advise patrons who use games. This book provides the tools to help adult and youth services librarians to better understand the gaming landscape and better serve gamers in discovery of new games—whether they are new to gaming or seasoned players—through advisory services. This book maps all types of games—board, roleplaying, digital, and virtual reality—providing all the information needed to understand and appropriately recommend games to library users. Organized by game type, hundreds of descriptions offer not only bibliographic information (title, publication date, series, and format/platform), but genre classifications, target age ranges for players, notes on gameplay and user behavior type, and short descriptions of the game's basic premise and appeals.

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK Tired, stressed, and in need of more help from your partner? Imagine running your household (and life!) in a new way... It started with the Sh*t I Do List. Tired of being the “shefault” parent responsible for all aspects of her busy household, Eve Rodsky counted up all the unpaid, invisible work she was doing for her family—and then sent that list to her husband, asking for things to change. His response was...underwhelming. Rodsky realized that simply identifying the issue of unequal labor on the home front wasn't enough: She needed a solution to this universal problem. Her sanity, identity, career, and marriage depended on it. The result is Fair Play: a time- and anxiety-saving system that offers couples a completely new way to divvy up domestic responsibilities. Rodsky interviewed more than five hundred men and women from all walks of life to figure out what the invisible work in a family actually entails and how to get it all done efficiently. With 4 easy-to-follow rules, 100 household tasks, and a series of conversation starters for you and your partner, Fair Play helps you prioritize what's important to your family and who should take the lead on every chore, from laundry to homework to dinner. “Winning” this game means rebalancing your home life, reigniting your relationship with your significant other, and reclaiming your Unicorn Space—the time to develop the skills and passions that keep you interested and interesting. Stop drowning in to-dos and lose some of that invisible workload that's pulling you down. Are you ready to try Fair Play? Let's deal you in.