I really liked Nick Montfort's earlier book, Twisty Little Passages, which covered text adventures. I'd be curious what you think of Ian Bogost's Unit Operations, which pretty much made Bogost a household name among game studies folks. I have to admit, I'm not really into heavy critical theory these days (left most of my interest in that back in graduate school), preferring history or biography instead.
Thanks for the link to Bogost's book as I haven't read it. However, I think the book isn't written for me as I neither question the cultural meaning of videogames and their standing in society nor am I too keen in reading more or less philosophical texts about parallels to other forms of art.
I don't see a personal use for me here, though I can imagine that people who see themselves as "ambassadors" for videogames in society or what you call game studies folks may like it.
What I personally like is the more journalistic approach people like you pursue: Stating the facts, documenting them as neutral as possible, drawing conclusions - based on your findings and your knowledge of older games and sometimes including opinions from different sources to show other perspectives.
Game criticism definitely wasn't the reason why I bought Racing the Beam but my interest in this limited platform and my knowledge of 6502. Because of that I figured that I could more easily understand the text - but I was wrong: The book can easily be understood by anyone with an interest in the subject and at least a slight understanding of the tech.
Montfort doesn't criticize the games he carefully selected, though a bit of praise is sometimes not exactly hidden. He not only analyzes the technical side of things ("how" was it done - and "why" doesn't it look differently) but also describes their coming into life - whether by being co-developed with the VCS itself or by converting an arcade game or by being a merchandise product for a popular movie.
There certainly is a lot of anecdotal videogame lore in this book and Montfort often wanders off the path of a give game. These excursions, like the one with Asteroids, often seem to be random in character at first but provide more depth to the game that is being analyzed.
It's certainly not an esoteric or too academic book, though it did cement my already high opinion of VCS game developers.
I really liked Nick Montfort's earlier book, Twisty Little Passages, which covered text adventures. I'd be curious what you think of Ian Bogost's Unit Operations, which pretty much made Bogost a household name among game studies folks. I have to admit, I'm not really into heavy critical theory these days (left most of my interest in that back in graduate school), preferring history or biography instead.
Thanks for the link to Bogost's book as I haven't read it. However, I think the book isn't written for me as I neither question the cultural meaning of videogames and their standing in society nor am I too keen in reading more or less philosophical texts about parallels to other forms of art.
I don't see a personal use for me here, though I can imagine that people who see themselves as "ambassadors" for videogames in society or what you call game studies folks may like it.
What I personally like is the more journalistic approach people like you pursue: Stating the facts, documenting them as neutral as possible, drawing conclusions - based on your findings and your knowledge of older games and sometimes including opinions from different sources to show other perspectives.
Game criticism definitely wasn't the reason why I bought Racing the Beam but my interest in this limited platform and my knowledge of 6502. Because of that I figured that I could more easily understand the text - but I was wrong: The book can easily be understood by anyone with an interest in the subject and at least a slight understanding of the tech.
Montfort doesn't criticize the games he carefully selected, though a bit of praise is sometimes not exactly hidden. He not only analyzes the technical side of things ("how" was it done - and "why" doesn't it look differently) but also describes their coming into life - whether by being co-developed with the VCS itself or by converting an arcade game or by being a merchandise product for a popular movie.
There certainly is a lot of anecdotal videogame lore in this book and Montfort often wanders off the path of a give game. These excursions, like the one with Asteroids, often seem to be random in character at first but provide more depth to the game that is being analyzed.
It's certainly not an esoteric or too academic book, though it did cement my already high opinion of VCS game developers.
take care,
Calibrator
take care,
Calibrator