"I HAVE NO WORDS"

This week’s reading is a two parter, but unlike a TV series, there is no “to be continued...” so if you wish to read the full text this week then feel free. The text is…

Costikyan, Greg "I Have No Words & I Must Design: Toward a Critical Vocabulary for Games" Computer Games and Digital Cultures Conference Proceedings, Tampere: Tampere University Press, June, 2002

(Greg Costikyans keynote speak from the 2002 Computer Games and Digital Cultures Conference all papers from the conference can be found here)

And we will be looking at the first section pages 9>26 (up to the “LEBLANC’S TAXONOMY” section). This text although long is a great read and shouldn’t be a struggle. We will be feeding back on our thoughts in the session so it is imperative that you read this text before the session.

For those that are keen on the term gameplay and want to read some more then this article is good - Attempting to Define Gameplay

The Narrative Design Exploratorium

Here is a link to a site I accessed through the IGDA website. It's a great little resource called The Narrative Design Exploratorium. For those on the Narrative Skills module, this is a tool you should all be taking advantage of. I also think it is going to be useful to anybody with even a passing interest in game narratives and game writing.

So check it out and if anyone finds an article of particular interest, post it here and let us know about it and I will do the same.

Cheers all.

There and Back Again

This week we will be reading "There and Back Again: Reuse, Signifiers and Consistency in Created Game Spaces" by Peter Berger. The text is taken from the book Computer Games as a Sociocultural Phenomenon: Games Without Frontiers - War Without Tears. The essay looks at mapped spaces and signifiers.

The book is an amazing collection of essays about games and game culture and way published earlier this year. It is expensive (£48) but i will be researching how to get the library to buy in copies into Salford as we will be using it as a key text in the module next term (H&A4). A sample of the book can be found here, it has the books contents and one of the essays "The Aesthetic Vocabulary of Video Games" by Joost van Dreunen, which is another great essay that you should look at.