Description: "Drawing upon methods from platform studies, software studies, media studies, and literary studies, Adventure Games reveals the genre's ludic (playful) 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"--
Brief description:
Aaron Reed is an award-winning game designer and interactive narrative researcher. His work
has been featured by IndieCade, Kirkus, GDC, South by Southwest, The Book Lab, Slamdance, GaymerX, and PAX. He is the author of Creating Interactive Fiction With Inform 7 (2010) and of Blue Lacuna, voted one of the Top 10 Interactive Fiction games of all time. He holds a PhD in Computer Science and an MFA in Digital Arts, and is currently working on tools to create more dynamic game characters as a co-founder of Spirit AI.
Review Quotes:
"Adventure Games: Playing the Outsider reveals how the Adventure Genre, along with its core principles, has weathered the storms of technological change, while at the same time its splintering fragments and genetic material have interwoven themselves inextricably into a host of other genres, enriching them as we move into the era of VR and AR gaming." --Dr. Mark J. P. Wolf, Professor, Communication Department, Concordia University Wisconsin, USA
"In Adventure Games: Playing the Outsider, the authors take a deep dive into an understudied yet important video game genre. This colorful analysis articulates why adventure games have had a long-lasting effect on the medium that is both historically relevant and currently influential. Spanning games from the classic text adventure Zork through the current indie favorite Kentucky Route Zero, Reed, Murray, and Salter take us on a playful journey, reminding us why this genre remains a significant part of the video game ecosystem." --Shira Chess, Associate Professor of Entertainment and Media Studies, The University of Georgia, USA