Promotional Information

How the tools and concepts for making games are connected to what games can and do mean; with examples ranging from Papers, Please to Dys4ia

Table of Contents

Chapter One: Operational Logics and Playable Models
Chapter Two: Alternative Approaches
Chapter Three: Expansive Approaches
Chapter Four: Six Questions About Logics and Models
Chapter Five: Inventive Approaches
Chapter Six: Understanding Games Through Logics and Models
Chapter Seven: Inventing Graphical Logics
Chapter Eight: Refinement
Chapter Nine: Doubling
Chapter Ten: Logic Structures
Conclusion: What Games Are About

About the Author

Noah Wardrip-Fruin is Professor of Computational Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he codirects the Expressive Intelligent Studio. He is the author of Expressive Processing- Digital Fictions, Computer Games, and Software Studies (MIT Press).

Reviews

"This is the heart of this book - a new abstraction, a new tool for discussing something that we've always felt was there, but didn't have a good way to identify. This tool lets us broaden our conversations as we discuss game design: we can talk about mechanics and systems not just in terms of what they do, but also what they will mean to the player.”
- Robert Zubek, author of Elements of Game Design, Gamasutra 


“Wardrip-Fruin's use of logics and models works impressively well at offering readings of what his chosen games are about in ways that a focus on story, mechanics, or rules alone cannot.”
- Rainforest Scully-Blaker, Critical Studies in Media Communication 


“The creative form of the video game has entered a phase of development that is both fraught and promising, attracting notably intelligent designers and scholars. How Pac-Man Eats should figure prominently in the way these makers take on a catastrophic world.”
- Stuart Moulthrop, Electronic Book Review