Videogame history is not just a history of one successful technology replacing the next. It is also a history of platforms and communities that never quite made it; that struggled to make their voices heard; that aggravated against the conventions of the day; and that never enjoyed the commercial success or recognition of their major counterparts. In Minor Platforms in Videogame History, Benjamin Nicoll argues that 'minor' videogame histories are anything but insignificant. Through an analysis of transitional, decolonial, imaginary, residual, and minor videogame platforms, Nicoll highlights moments of difference and discontinuity in videogame history. From the domestication of vector graphics in the early years of videogame consoles to the 'cloning' of Japanese computer games in South Korea in the 1980s, this book explores case studies that challenge taken-for-granted approaches to videogames, platforms, and their histories.

Unlock the secrets to creating random mazes! Whether you're a game developer, an algorithm connoisseur, or simply in search of a new puzzle, you're about to level up. Learn algorithms to randomly generate mazes in a variety of shapes, sizes, and dimensions. Bend them into Moebius strips, fold them into cubes, and wrap them around spheres. Stretch them into other dimensions, squeeze them into arbitrary outlines, and tile them in a dizzying variety of ways. From twelve little algorithms, you'll discover a vast reservoir of ideas and inspiration. From video games to movies, mazes are ubiquitous. Explore a dozen algorithms for generating these puzzles randomly, from Binary Tree to Eller's, each copiously illustrated and accompanied by working implementations in Ruby. You'll learn their pros and cons, and how to choose the right one for the job. You'll start by learning six maze algorithms and transition from making mazes on paper to writing programs that generate and draw them. You'll be introduced to Dijkstra's algorithm and see how it can help solve, analyze, and visualize mazes. Part 2 shows you how to constrain your mazes to different shapes and outlines, such as text, circles, hex and triangle grids, and more. You'll learn techniques for culling dead-ends, and for making your passages weave over and under each other. Part 3 looks at six more algorithms, taking it all to the next level. You'll learn how to build your mazes in multiple dimensions, and even on curved surfaces. Through it all, you'll discover yourself brimming with ideas, the best medicine for programmer's block, burn-out, and the grayest of days. By the time you're done, you'll be energized and full of maze-related possibilities! What You Need: The example code requires version 2 of the Ruby programming language. Some examples depend on the ChunkyPNG library to generate PNG images, and one chapter uses POV-Ray version 3.7 to render 3D graphics

Learn the fundamentals of Godot by diving headfirst into creating a 2D platformer from scratch. This book is a hands-on, practical guide to developing 2D games using the Godot Engine 3.2.3/3.3, with the help of GDScript. Author Maithili Dhule begins by explaining some basic tools and techniques used to make games, the factors that need to be considered while choosing a game engine, and pointing out the benefits of using Godot. She then walks you through downloading the engine and guides you as you explore key features of its interface. Next, you'll receive a concise introduction to the basics of GDScript, the main scripting language used in Godot, before moving on to essential topics such as Godot's node-scene architecture, the interaction of various physics bodies, the creation of game scenes, and writing scripts. As the book progresses, you'll learn how to create and animate your game character, design the game world, add enemies, and implement a coin-collection system. You'll also see how the user's gaming experience can be enhanced through the addition of parallax backgrounds, a title screen, music, and sound effects. Toward the end of the book, you'll learn how to export your game to different platforms, both mobile and PC, as well as possible avenues for monetizing the game. Throughout the book, theoretical concepts are supplemented with concrete, ready-to-implement examples that you can try out. Upon finishing this book, you'll be able to make and publish your first 2D platform game. Beginning Game Development with Godot is for game development enthusiasts of all levels interested in creating their own games. What You Will Learn Understand the Godot engine and the benefits of using it for game development Master the fundamentals of programming in GDScript Use the Godot graphical interface to design and animate players, the game world, menus, and various games scenes Create your first 2D game in Godot and publish it to various platforms Who This Book Is For Aspiring game developers who may be new to game development, as well as experts exploring the potential of the Godot Engine.

Play--and survive--in the game of Fortnite! Zombies. Battle. Survival. Fortnite has it all--and if you want to keep your gameplay going until the bitter end to outlast your competition, this book is the ace in your back pocket! Choose a gaming platform Download and optimize the game Play in each of the gameplay modes Scavenge, loot, and collect resources Avoid death and outlast your opponents Who will be the last person standing? When you want to outlast the competition and make Fortnite yours, this book makes it easier than ever to come out on top.

Weigh the past and seize your destiny-wherever the darkened path may lead-with The Sanctuary Tarot Deck and Guidebook, inspired by the mythos of Blizzard Entertainment's Diablo and its magic-infused world of Sanctuary. In this deluxe boxed set featuring 78 oversize cards and a 96-page guidebook, rekindle the traditions of those who threw bones, read tea leaves, and invoked the supernatural to light their path. With a team of artists led by Konstantin Vavilov and a comprehensive guidebook by Barbara Moore, this tarot set channels the beauty and terror of Sanctuary into an all-encompassing, visually stunning experience that holds the key to understanding-and embracing-your own inner demons.

In the past, not being able to program meant not being able to make video games. Now if you can draw a flow-chart you can use powerful State Machine technology to create your dream game! No-Code Video Game Development using Unity and Playmaker will teach you how to substitute flow-charts for code. As a complete course, it uses a project-based approach. The FPS project comes with over a hundred dollars worth of free #gamedev DLC: Unity Packages, Playmaker Templates, Character Models, Animations, Materials, and more! You'll also learn game design documentation and theory, Mecanim, Particle Systems, and UI. By the time you're done you'll have gained the skills needed to create your own dream game, all without writing any code!

Understanding Video Game Music develops a musicology of video game music by providing methods and concepts for understanding music in this medium. From the practicalities of investigating the video game as a musical source to the critical perspectives on game music - using examples including Final Fantasy VII, Monkey Island 2, SSX Tricky and Silent Hill - these explorations not only illuminate aspects of game music, but also provide conceptual ideas valuable for future analysis. Music is not a redundant echo of other textual levels of the game, but central to the experience of interacting with video games. As the author likes to describe it, this book is about music for racing a rally car, music for evading zombies, music for dancing, music for solving puzzles, music for saving the Earth from aliens, music for managing a city, music for being a hero; in short, it is about music for playing.

Video games have become an increasingly ubiquitous part of society due to the proliferation and use of mobile devices. Video Games and Creativity explores research on the relationship between video games and creativity with regard to play, learning, and game design. It answers such questions as: Can video games be used to develop or enhance creativity? Is there a place for video games in the classroom? What types of creativity are needed to develop video games? While video games can be sources of entertainment, the role of video games in the classroom has emerged as an important component of improving the education system. The research and development of game-based learning has revealed the power of using games to teach and promote learning. In parallel, the role and importance of creativity in everyday life has been identified as a requisite skill for success.

Game Audio Implementation offers a unique practical approach to learning all about game audio. If you've always wanted to hear your sound or music in a real game then this is the book for you. Each chapter is accompanied by its own game level where you can see the techniques and theories in action before working through over 70 exercises to develop your own demo level. Taking you all the way from first principles to complex interactive systems in the industry standard Unreal Engine (c) you'll gain the skills to implement your sound and music along with a deep transferable knowledge of the principles you can apply across a range of other game development tools. The accompanying website (www.gameaudioimplementation.com) includes: 12 downloadable demonstration games A unique exercise level for you to develop for your portfolio An up-to-date online bibliography with further reading for each chapter A free sound library with hundreds of game SFX

Minecraft Master Builder: Dragons is a step-by-step player's manual to help children aged 9+ - as well as 'kids of all ages' (i.e. mum and dad) - build incredible masterpieces inspired by monsters from ancient legend, as well real-life dragon-like creatures. There's even information on all kinds of dragons, including pictures, facts and mythology. Featuring everything from cockatrices to dragonets, komodo dragons to ice dragons, this fun and interactive guide will inspire readers to build amazing monstrous Minecraft models. Each build is rated a Quick, Intermediate, Master or Supreme Master Build; a list of materials is provided for each project, plus guidance on how long each build will take.

This entry in the BEA Electronic Media Research Series, born out of the April 2017 BEA Research Symposium, takes a look at video games, outlining the characteristics of them as cognitive, emotional, physical, and social demanding technologies, and introduces readers to current research on video games. The diverse array of contributors in this volume offer bleeding-edge perspectives on both current and emerging scholarship. The chapters here contain radical approaches that add to the literature on electronic media studies generally and video game studies specifically. By taking such a forward-looking approach, this volume aims to collect foundational writings for the future of gaming studies.

Ideology and the Virtual City is an exploration of modern society and the critical value of popular culture. It combines a prescient social theory that describes how `neoliberal' ideology in today's societies dominates our economic, political and cultural ideals, with an entertaining exploration of narratives, characters and play structures in some of today's most interesting videogames. The book takes readers into a range of simulated urban environments that symbolise the hidden antagonisms of social life and create outlandish resolutions through their power fantasies. Interactive entertainment can help us understand the ways in which people relate to a modern `common sense' neoliberal background, in terms of absorbing assumptions, and questioning them.

Corona SDK is one of the most powerful tools used to create games and apps for mobile devices. The market requires speed; new developers need to operate quickly and efficiently. Create 2D Mobile Games with Corona SDK gives you the tools needed to master Corona - even within the framework of professional constraints. A must-read guide, this book gives you fast, accurate tips to learn the programming language necessary to create games. Read it sequentially or as an FAQ and you will have the tools you need to create any base game before moving on to advanced topics. The tutorial-based format: Contains step-by-step directions complete with coding and screenshots Is filled with tutorials, tips, and links to useful online resources Includes a comprehensive companion website featuring online exercise files to practice coding, full build samples from the text, additional book details, and more!

When making games for kids, it's tempting to simply wing-it on the design. We were all children once, right? The reality is that adults are far removed from the cognitive changes and the motor skill challenges that are the hallmark of the developing child. Designing Games for Children, helps you understand these developmental needs of children and how to effectively apply them to games. Whether you're a seasoned game designer, a children's media professional, or an instructor teaching the next generation of game designers, Designing Games for Children is the first book dedicated to service the specific needs of children's game designers. This is a hands-on manual of child psychology as it relates to game design and the common challenges designers face. Designing Games for Children is the definitive, comprehensive guide to making great games for kids, featuring: Guidelines and recommendations divided by the most common target audiences - babies and toddlers (0-2), preschoolers (3-5), early elementary students (6-8), and tweens (9-12). Approachable and actionable breakdown of child developmental psychology, including cognitive, physical, social, and emotional development, as it applies to game design Game design insights and guidelines for all aspects of game production, from ideation to marketing

This book is aimed at giving novice coders an understanding of the methods and techniques used in professional games development. Designed to help develop and strengthen problem solving and basic C/C++ skills, it also will help to develop familiarity targeting and using fixed/restricted hardware, which are key skills in console development. It allows the reader to increase their confidence as game programmers by walking them through increasingly involved game concepts, while maintaining the understanding that despite the increased complexity, the core methods remain consistent with the advancement of the technology; the technology only enhances the gaming experience. It also demonstrates underlying principles of game coding in practical step by step ways to increase exposure and confidence in game coding concepts. Key Features: Increases the confidence of new coders by demonstrating how to get things done. Introduces evolving projects to reinforce concepts, both directly and indirectly that the reader will use to produce and then enhance the project. Provides tutorials on Graphics API's that can be easily understood by a novice. Demystifies hardware used to gain new effects without blinding the user to the technical wizardry going on under the system. Gives a sense of achievement to the reader and pushes them toward improvement.

The long-awaited sequel to Supercade: A Visual History of the Videogame Age 1971-1984, the first book to illustrate the videogame phenomenon... In the years since the original Supercade was first published, the next generation of gamers have come of age. Raised in the aftermath of the crash - the grand arcade palaces of the early 80s replaced by battered Neo Geo cabinets in laundromats and the few remaining game parlors begging for play - they are the children of the Nintendo Entertainment System, the home console that saved the US game industry after Atari effectively destroyed it. Over the past two decades they have expressed an intense love for the games of their youth including Super Mario, Space Harrier, and Street Fighter. This volume chronicles the next era of gaming history, beginning with the NES and including the release of the Sega Master System, SNES, Genesis, TurboGrafx-16, Amiga, Game Boy, Atari Jaguar, PlayStation, Dreamcast, Xbox and more, as well as the companies, creators, and technologies that drove us into the digital future. Earnestly written and designed by author and game historian Van Burnham, the second book is even more comprehensive than the first - featuring over 500 full-color pages - plus interviews with legendary game developers like Eugene Jarvis, John Romero, and Tim Schafer, as well as premium print upgrades including metallic inks, gatefold inserts, and so much more. Supercade was conceived to pay tribute to the technology, games, and visionaries who created one of the most influential mediums in the history of entertainment - one that profoundly shaped the modern technological landscape, and inspired generations of gamers. Contributors include Nathan Altice, Max Blackley, Ian Bogost, Chris Charla, Brian Crecente, Gabe Durham, Benj Edwards, Scott Fontana, Paul Ford, Darren Gladstone, Raiford Guins, Blake J Harris, Robin Hunicke, Roland Ingram, Alex Kane, Chris Kohler, Tim Lapetino, Kelsey Lewin, Henry Lowood, Chris Melissinos, Mike Mika, Jess Morrissette, Chris Moyse, Laine Nooney, Jeremy Parish, Chris Priestman, Chris Schilling, Brandon Sheffield, Dean Takahashi, Tony Temple, Tom Vanderbilt, Brittany Vincent, John Wills, and Erik Wolpaw.

Despite the rise of HTML5-based game engines, there is no comprehensive book that compares these engines to help developers decide which one is best for their project. This how-to guide covers game design and development and shows how to distribute an HTML5-based game. The book presents an introduction to game development using HTML5 engines, an analysis of the top engines, example game implementations using the engines, and techniques for packaging and distributing the final app. It also contains code, best practices, and many complete game examples.

In this new and improved third edition of the highly popular Game Engine Architecture, Jason Gregory draws on his nearly two decades of experience at Midway, Electronic Arts and Naughty Dog to present both the theory and practice of game engine software development. In this book, the broad range of technologies and techniques used by AAA game studios are each explained in detail, and their roles within a real industrial-strength game engine are illustrated. New to the Third Edition This third edition offers the same comprehensive coverage of game engine architecture provided by previous editions, along with updated coverage of: computer and CPU hardware and memory caches, compiler optimizations, C++ language standardization, the IEEE-754 floating-point representation, 2D user interfaces, plus an entirely new chapter on hardware parallelism and concurrent programming. This book is intended to serve as an introductory text, but it also offers the experienced game programmer a useful perspective on aspects of game development technology with which they may not have deep experience. As always, copious references and citations are provided in this edition, making it an excellent jumping off point for those who wish to dig deeper into any particular aspect of the game development process. Key Features Covers both the theory and practice of game engine software development Examples are grounded in specific technologies, but discussion extends beyond any particular engine or API. Includes all mathematical background needed. Comprehensive text for beginners and also has content for senior engineers.

Successfully Navigate the Evolving World of Mobile and Social Game Design and Monetization Completely updated, Mobile & Social Game Design: Monetization Methods and Mechanics, Second Edition explains how to use the interconnectedness of social networks to make "stickier," more compelling games on all types of devices. Through the book's many design and marketing techniques, strategies, and examples, you will acquire a better understanding of the design and monetization mechanics of mobile and social games as well as working knowledge of industry practices and terminology. Learn How to Attract-and Retain-Gamers and Make Money The book explores how the gaming sector has changed, including the evolution of free-to-play games on mobile and tablet devices, sophisticated subscription model-based products, and games for social media websites, such as Facebook. It also demystifies the alphabet soup of industry terms that have sprouted up around mobile and social game design and monetization. A major focus of the book is on popular mechanisms for acquiring users and methods of monetizing users. The author explains how to put the right kinds of hooks in your games, gather the appropriate metrics, and evaluate that information to increase the game's overall stickiness and revenue per user. He also discusses the sale of virtual goods and the types of currency used in games, including single and dual currency models. Each chapter includes an interview with industry leaders who share their insight on designing and producing games, analyzing metrics, and much more.

As the Allies advance towards Germany, they face dogged resistance from the hard-pressed German forces. Take command of the Allies in their final push to end the war in Europe, or hold fast as the German defenders as the fight is brought to your door. This new Campaign Book for Bolt Action offers new linked scenarios, rules, troop types and Theatre Selectors, and provides plenty of options for novice and veteran players alike.

The heroes of Overwatch will protect all your notes in this beautiful notebook from tokidoki. Your secrets have never been in better hands!

Follow the adventures of Evan and his archaeologist uncle as they explore for treasure from an ancient kingdom. Help them succeed by building a series of five robots using LEGO's popular MINDSTORMS NXT 2.0 robotics kit. Without your robots, Evan and his uncle are doomed to failure and in grave danger. Your robots are the key to their success in unlocking the secret of The King's Treasure

In this sequel to the immensely popular book, LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT: The Mayan Adventure, you get both an engaging story and a personal tutorial on robotics programming. You'll learn about the motors and sensors in your NXT 2.0 kit. You'll learn to constructively brainstorm solutions to problems. And you'll follow clear, photo-illustrated instructions that help you build, test, and operate a series of five robots corresponding to the five challenges Evan and his uncle must overcome in their search for lost treasure.Provides an excellent series of parent/child projects Builds creative and problem-solving skills Lays a foundation for success and fun with LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT 2.0

Please note: the print version of this title is black & white; the eBook is full color. What you'll learn Build working robots using the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT 2.0 kit Constructively brainstorm solutions to challenging problems Troubleshoot when your robots do not work as you expect Design with a repeatable method, not randomly Document your designs using the Design Journal Worksheet Program your robots using the NXT-G graphical programming language Who this book is for

LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT 2.0: The King's Treasure is written for children ages 10 and up who want to learn to design, build, and operate robots using LEGO's immensely popular MINDSTORMS NXT 2.0 robotics kit. The book leads readers through a series of five projects centered on an engaging story line. It can be read by kids alone, or it can provide the spark for a wonderful series of parent/child activities. Teachers and FIRST LEGO League leaders can use the book teach NXT 2.0 programming, and will find complete instructions for building five sample robots and creating five programs. Table of Contents Turns and Tricks MazerunnerPlanning and Design MazeBotBuild It MazeRunnerProgram It Swing and Switch RopeSwingerDesign and Planning RopeSwingerBuild It RopeSwingerProgram It Hook and Pull RingTosserDesign and Planning RingTosserBuild It RingTosserProgram It Rock and Roll RampRiderDesign and Planning RampRiderBuild It RampRiderProgram It Grab and Release ZipLinerDesign and Planning ZipLinerBuild It ZipLinerProgram It Treasure and Discovery

"Beginning C++ Through Game Programming, Third Edition" approaches learning C++ from the unique and fun perspective of games. Written for the beginning game developer or programmer, the book assumes no previous programming experience and each new skill and concept is taught using simple language and step-by-step instructions. Readers will complete small projects in each chapter to reinforce what they've learned and a final project at the end combines all of the major topics covered in the book. Featuring twenty five percent new material, this third edition covers all the latest technology and advances.