This book explores video games as important cultural artifacts and as sources of powerful, compelling storytelling. It begins by considering the fundamental structures of video games-including immersion and player agency-and deepens the exploration of such elements by considering how each plays a role in storytelling. The book moves from the theoretical to the practical by considering numerous modern games and the stories they tell through careful, considered analysis of each title's story. Games considered at length include the Mass Effect series, BioShock, The Last of Us and many more. The book also explores genres like the visual novel, which are less frequently considered in video game study. What emerges from this book, which appeals to academics, game enthusiasts, and the general public, is the importance of considering video games as serious and important sources of storytelling exploring complex thematic subjects like identity, morality, and the impact of player choice.

The Rules of Winning Chess provides you with the key fundamentals of the game, principles that you can easily learn and remember, and that will help you to achieve both greater understanding and enjoyment of chess.

Who had the most commercial success in their lifetime, Ernest Hemingway or Agatha Christie? Whose work has the most adaptations, F. Scott Fitzgerald or Franz Kafka? Who courted the most scandal, Colette or James Joyce? Pit 32 of the world's greatest modern writers against each other with these beautifully illustrated cards. An ideal gift for the book lover in your life.

Part magical university, part museum, part tourist attraction, the great Collegium of Artistry had flourished in Felstad's final days. Under the leadership of the seemingly immortal Malcor the Mad, the vast complex expanded, with new wings being built wherever they would fit, including up and down the rock face, and even buried within the mountain itself. Visitors called it one of the architectural wonders of the world; the students, who often got lost in its endless tunnels, simply called it 'The Maze'.

With a titanic crash, an immense ice shelf tears free from the mountains that that loom above Frostgrave, revealing the lost Collegium, and the race for its secrets begins. The Maze is known to have contained many rare and unique treasures, and who knows what may have survived...

This new, expanded supplement for Frostgrave contains a host of new adventures, treasures, and creatures to challenge players. It also includes its own, unique campaign and experience system, as well as information about several of the mythical lost schools of magic.

Last Days: Zombie Apocalypse is a skirmish-scale miniatures game of survival horror. It pits players against each other in a nightmarish near-future where the dead have returned to life and are feasting on the living.

Players build their own factions, representing desperate civilians, military personnel, or hardened survivors, and must explore, scavenge, and fight in order to survive another day. Rival gangs are only one of the dangers they face - mindless zombies wander the streets, driven by insatiable hunger and drawn by the sound of combat!

A gang's ability to scavenge is as vital as their combat ability, and players must ensure that they have the resources to survive in this hostile world. Scenarios and campaigns allow you to develop your gang, gain experience and recruit new henchmen to build up your strength or replace the inevitable casualties of the zombie apocalypse.

Puzzle over these sudoku challenges that range in difficulty

Featuring interviews with the creators of 35 popular video games-including John Madden Football, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3, WCW/nWo Revenge, and RBI Baseball-this book gives a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of some of the most influential and iconic (and sometimes forgotten) sports video games of all time. Recounting endless hours of painstaking development, the challenges of working with mega-publishers and the uncertainties of public reception, the interviewees reveal the creative processes that produced some of gaming's classic titles.

These slot-together building cards are creative fun for all the family Turrets, ramparts, portcullises, arrow-slit windows, walls, roofs, flags and more - create your own medieval masterpiece. Each box contains 64 cards (105 x 69 mm) in a variety of graphic designs. Clever paper engineering allows you to slot the cards together, building up and out in whichever way you like! Also included is a short booklet, with information on the architecture of castles and suggestions of card building methods. The instructions tell you how to build a castle, or you can let your imagination run riot and design your own! Renowned illustrator Paul Farrell has designed these cards in a cool, graphic style - turning the image of a castle into a work of art.

Video games are a complex, compelling medium in which established art forms intersect with technology to create an interactive text. Visual arts, architectural design, music, narrative and rules of play all find a place within, and are constrained by, computer systems whose purpose is to create an immersive player experience. In the relatively short life of video game studies, many authors have approached the question of how games function, some focusing on technical aspects of game design, others on rules of play. Taking a holistic view, this study explores how ludology, narratology, visual rhetoric, musical theory and player psychology work (or don't work) together to create a cohesive experience and to provide a unified framework for understanding video games.

The Sicilian Defence is by far the most popular chess opening. If you play 1 e4 as White, on average you are likely to meet the Sicilian in virtually every other game! You need to be prepared to face the Sicilian at all times, and a ready-to-use repertoire against it is an indispensible weapon.In this book, Gawain Jones confronts the challenge of meeting the Sicilian head on. He has constructed a comprehensive Anti-Sicilian repertoire for White, which is based on lines he has successfully employed at grandmaster level. These are sound, reliable options for White, but don't be fooled - they also contain more than a drop of poison. Variations covered include the popular King's Indian Attack, various Bb5 systems and weapons against Black's offbeat tries.

• A Grandmaster's repertoire against the Sicilian
• Packed with new ideas and critical analysis
• Highlights key tactical and positional ideas

The French Defence is one of the most popular and reliable responses to 1.e4. This book covers the most critical variation of the Winawer, which occurs after the opening moves 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e5 c5 5.a3 Bxc3 6.bxc3 Ne7 7.Qg4. This volume presents three contrasting ways of meeting Whites aggressive opening system: 7...cxd4 leading to the notorious Winawer Poisoned Pawn; 7...00 8.Bd3 f5, a solid yet strategically complex system; and 7...00 8.Bd3 Nbc6, which leads to a tense, full-blooded battle.

A follow-up to the perennial best-seller, 25 Bridge Conventions You Should Know, which has sold almost 35,000 copies and has been translated into French, German and Japanese, and won the American Bridge Teachers' Book of the Year Award in 1999. This book uses the same successful format as its predecessor, and will appeal to those who liked the original so much.

The biggest Flip-Mats in history just got bigger! Introducing Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Enormous Forest, a brand-new amazingly giant Flip-Mat bigger than any Paizo has produced before! Measuring a titanic 30" by 46" when unfolded, this exciting new map presents a sprawling section of forest on each side-one side dense and primeval, and the other cut through with a shaded road just perfect for ambushing player characters. Spread this woodland across your tabletop and watch your players' eyes pop out at the enormity of it all! Your player character's biggest problems just got even bigger! A special coating on each Flip-Mat allows you to use wet erase, dry erase, AND permanent markers with ease! Removing permanent ink is easy-simply trace over any permanent mark with a dry erase marker, wait 10 seconds, then wipe off both marks with a dry cloth or paper towel. Each Enormous Flip-Mat measures 30" x 46" unfolded, and 8" x 10" folded. On tabletops across the world, the Flip-Mat Revolution is changing the way players run their fantasy roleplaying games! Why take the time to sketch out ugly scenery on a smudgy plastic mat when dynamic encounters and easy cleanup is just a Flip away?

Frank Legato is not only a recognised slot expert, but he also knows what it's like to take on the one-armed bandits; he's a player first and foremost. In this funny and insightful book, Frank shares his 20 years of experience researching, writing about, and playing the slots. You'll learn: exactly how slot machines work; which machines pay back the most money, and which pay most frequently; which slot beliefs are merely silly myths and which are facts; how to recognise phoney (and funny) slot systems that should be avoided; Frank's own strategies for increasing your winning potential; how to maximise your returns from slot clubs; and more... States. From Las Vegas to Atlantic City to Tunica, Mississippi, from Indian casinos to riverboats to 'racinos', Frank explains the character and history of each slot venue and reveals his favorite places to play slots in each location. After reading this book, you'll know everything there is to know about slot machines, including how to win millions playing them... or lose trying.

Garry Kasparov on Garry Kasparov: Part II is the second volume in a major three-volume series made unique by the fact that it records the greatest chess battles played by the greatest chessplayer of all-time. Kasparov's series of historical volumes have received great critical and public acclaim for their rigorous analysis and comprehensive detail regarding the developments in chess that occurred both on and off the board. Part I of this series saw Kasparov emerging as a huge talent and eventually toppling his great rival Anatoly Karpov to gain the world title. This volume focuses on the period from 1985-1993 which witnessed three title defences against Karpov as well as a number of shorter matches against elite players including Hubner, Anderssen, Timman and Miles. This period also saw Kasparov achieve spectacular results in both individual and team events. Kasparov won the board gold medal in three Olympiads (Dubai 1986, Thessaloniki 1988 and Manila 1992). The late 1980s also saw the emergence of the World Cup series which Kasparov utterly dominated, finishing either clear first or equal first at Belfort 1988 (111/2/15), Reykjavik 1988 (11/17), Barcelona 1989 (11/16) and Skelleftea 1989 (91/2/15). Other major tournament victories include Brussels 1987 (81/2/11), Amsterdam 1988 (9/12), Tilburg 1989 (12/14), Belgrade 1989 (91/211) and Linares 1990 (8/11). During the late 1980s and early 1990s Kasparov emphasized his huge superiority over his rivals. Despite generally adopting an uncompromising, double-edged attacking style he almost never lost. The games in this volume feature many masterpieces of controlled aggression played against the world's absolute best.

Thirty-six masterpieces are up for auction. Are they bargains to be snapped up or over-hyped drains on your finances? You'll never know unless you bid! In this board game for up to six players, you travel the world as an art collector scouring the auction houses, visiting art fairs, and making private deals in search of elusive artworks to complete your collection. The winner is the player with the most valuable collection and the most cash in hand at the end of the game.

A roleplaying game of fantastical inventions and Machiavellian politics in Renaissance Italy. It is the Year of Our Lord 1510, and one has to wonder how differently history could have played out if Niccolo Machiavelli, the military commissioner of the Republic of Florence, had not understood the true scale of Leonardo da Vinci's genius. In such a world, the visionary might simply have wasted his time painting portraits of women and doodling in a sketchbook. Instead, he unleashed a technological revolution where primitive computers, decorated with delicately painted cupids, run on water clocks; spring-powered tanks whir across the battlefield, cannons thundering from their flanks; and gliders flit across perfectly blue Tuscan skies. Gran Meccanismo is a roleplaying game of swashbuckling adventure in a Renaissance Italy where Florence's winding alleys play host to spies, scholars, and sell-swords alike. Players are nobles, mercenaries, inventors, and artisans who may find themselves crossing wits with Machiavelli, avoiding the dangerous charms of Lucretia Borgia, or hearing Christopher Columbus telling tales of the new world he has discovered...

The Modern Defence is an important opening that can be played by Black against absolutely any White opening system. It is an ambitious, counterattacking weapon, favoured by dynamic players. White is initially allowed to occupy the centre but Black plans to undermine this structure in the middlegame with well-timed blows from the pieces and pawns. If Black gets it right then the white centre can be dramatically swept away. However, when it goes wrong, Black can be overrun. ----- First Steps is a new opening series and is ideal for improving players who want simple and straightforward explanations. First Steps emphasizes: ---- * the basic principles --- * the basic strategies --- * the key tricks and traps ----- First Steps books are based around carefully selected instructive games which demonstrate exactly what both sides are trying to achieve. There is enough theory to enable the improving player to get to grips with the opening without feeling overwhelmed. If you want to take up a new opening, First Steps is the ideal place to start.

Learn the language of flowers in this blossoming memory game. Match flowers to their uses and meanings, and collect the most pairs to win. From lillies at funerals, to 'flower power' carnations - this fun game is an ideal gift for nature lovers. Pair up the flowers with their typical uses and meanings in this beautiful and simple memory game. To play, place the cards face down and see if you can remember where the matching pairs are located. Collect more pairs than your opponent to win! With all kinds of flowers included - from marigolds in Mexican Day of the Dead displays to Japan's cherry blossom season, and from Van Gogh's Sunflowers to the first flower germinated in space - this fun and educational game is an ideal gift for nature lovers everywhere.