The Art Of Computer Game Design
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The Art Of Computer Game Design
''The Art of Computer Game Design'' by Chris Crawford is the first book page 4 devoted to the theory of computer and video games. The book attempts to categorize computer games and talks about design precepts that serve as guidelines for game designers. It was originally published in Berkeley, California by McGraw-Hill/Osborne Media in 1984. The original edition became available as a free download from a site maintained by Washington State University, Pullman in 1997. In 2011 the free download was removed and the text is currently available as a Kindle e-book. Background Crawford in 1981 and 1982 coauthored a series of technical articles in ''BYTE'' on developing games for the Atari 8-bit computers. The articles were collected into ''De Re Atari''. In December 1982 he published an article in ''BYTE'' on abstract aspects of game design, using ''Legionnaire'' as example. Reception Calling the author "a master of computer game design", ''PC Magazine'' complimented Crawford using h ...
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Chris Crawford (game Designer)
Christopher Crawford (born June 1, 1950) is an American video game designer and writer. Hired by Alan Kay to work at Atari, Inc., he wrote the computer wargame ''Eastern Front (1941)'' for the Atari 8-bit family which was sold through the Atari Program Exchange and later Atari's official product line. After leaving Atari, he wrote a string of games beginning with '' Balance of Power'' for Macintosh. Writing about the process of developing games, he became known among other creators in the nascent home computer game industry for his passionate advocacy of game design as an art form. He self-published '' The Journal of Computer Game Design'' and founded the Computer Game Developers Conference (later renamed to the Game Developers Conference). In 1992 Crawford withdrew from commercial game development and began experimenting with ideas for a next generation interactive storytelling system. In 2018, Crawford announced that he had halted his work on interactive storytelling, concluding ...
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De Re Atari
''De Re Atari'' ("All About Atari"), subtitled "A Guide to Effective Programming," is a book written by Atari, Inc. employees in 1981 and published by the Atari Program Exchange in 1982 as an unbound, shrink-wrapped set of three-holed punched pages. Targeted at developers, it documents the advanced features of the Atari 8-bit family of home computers and includes ideas for how to use them in applications. The information in the book was not available in a single, collected source at the time of publication. The information in ''De Re Atari'' was serialized in ''Byte'' beginning in 1981, prior to the book's publication. The release of Atari 8-bit technical details through the magazine and book quickly resulted in other sources being published, such as ''COMPUTE!'s First Book of Atari Graphics'' (1982). Atari released official documentation for the hardware and a source listing of the operating system the same year, 1982, but they were not as easily obtainable as ''De Re Atari ...
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Books About Video Games
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arrangement is ''codex'' (plural, ''codices''). In the history of hand-held physical supports for extended written compositions or records, the codex replaces its predecessor, the scroll. A single sheet in a codex is a leaf and each side of a leaf is a page. As an intellectual object, a book is prototypically a composition of such great length that it takes a considerable investment of time to compose and still considered as an investment of time to read. In a restricted sense, a book is a self-sufficient section or part of a longer composition, a usage reflecting that, in antiquity, long works had to be written on several scrolls and each scroll had to be identified by the book it contained. Each part of Aristotle's ''Physics'' is called a bo ...
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Video Game Culture
Video game culture is a worldwide new media subculture formed by video gamers. As video games have exponentially increased in popularity over time, they have had a significant influence on popular culture. Video game culture has also evolved with Internet culture and the increasing popularity of mobile games. Many people who play video games identify as gamers, which can mean anything from someone who enjoys games to someone passionate about it. As video games become more social with multiplayer and online capability, gamers find themselves in growing social networks. Playing video games can both be entertainment as well as competition, as the trend known as electronic sports has become more widely accepted. Definition Video game culture is broadly considered a description of the subculture of those who play video games. This not only includes gamers, players that frequently dedicate time and effort to playing video games, but also those players that participate less frequently ...
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1984 Non-fiction Books
Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). * January 10 ** The United States and the Vatican City, Vatican (Holy See) restore full diplomatic relations. ** The Victoria, Seychelles, Victoria Agreement is signed, institutionalising the Indian Ocean Commission. *January 24 – Steve Jobs launches the Macintosh 128K, Macintosh personal computer in the United States. February * February 3 ** Dr. John Buster and the research team at Harbor–UCLA Medical Center announce history's first embryo transfer from one woman to another, resulting in a live birth. ** STS-41-B: Space Shuttle Challenger, Space Shuttle ''Challenger'' is launched on the 10th Space Shuttle mission. * February 7 – Astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart make the first untethered spac ...
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List Of Books About Video Games
The following is a list of books about video games, which range from development, theory, history, to game art design books. Business ; ''Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made'': () by Jason Schreier ; ''Business & Legal Primer for Game Development'': () by Brian Green and S. Gregory Boyd ; ''Changing the Game: How Video Games Are Transforming the Future of Business'': () by David Edery and Ethan Mollick ; ''Gamers at Work: Stories Behind the Games People Play'': () by Morgan Ramsay ; ''Innovation and Marketing in the Video Game Industry: Avoiding the Performance Trap'': () by David Wesley and Gloria Barczak ; ''Online Game Pioneers at Work'': () by Morgan Ramsay ; ''Opening the Xbox: Inside Microsoft's Plan to Unleash an Entertainment Revolution'': () by Dean Takahashi. The behind-the-scenes story of Microsoft's first gaming console reported by an award-winning journalist and gaming-industry expert. ; ''Not All Fairy Tales H ...
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Ahoy!
''Ahoy!'' was a computer magazine published between January 1984 and January 1989 in the US, focusing on all Commodore color computers, but especially the Commodore 64 and Amiga. History The first issue of ''Ahoy!'' was published in January 1984. The magazine was published monthly by Ion International and was headquartered in New York City. It published many games in BASIC and machine language, occasionally also printing assembly language source code. ''Ahoy!'' published a checksum A checksum is a small-sized block of data derived from another block of digital data for the purpose of detecting errors that may have been introduced during its transmission or storage. By themselves, checksums are often used to verify data ... program called ''Flankspeed'' for entering machine language listings. ''Ahoy!'s AmigaUser'' was a related but separate publication dedicated to the Amiga. It was spun off from a series of columns in ''Ahoy!'' with the same title, and the first two issu ...
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Orson Scott Card
Orson Scott Card (born August 24, 1951) is an American writer known best for his science fiction works. He is the first and (as of 2022) only person to win both a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award in consecutive years, winning both awards for both his novel ''Ender's Game'' (1985) and its sequel ''Speaker for the Dead'' (1986). A feature film adaptation of ''Ender's Game'', which Card co-produced, was released in 2013. Card also wrote the Locus Fantasy Award-winning series ''The Tales of Alvin Maker'' (1987–2003). Card's works were influenced by classic literature, popular fantasy, and science fiction; he often uses tropes from genre fiction. His background as a screenwriter has helped Card make his works accessible. Card's early fiction is original but contains graphic violence. His fiction often features characters with exceptional gifts who make difficult choices with high stakes. Card has also written political, religious, and social commentary in his columns and other writi ...
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PC Magazine
''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and have continued to the present day. Overview ''PC Magazine'' provides reviews and previews of the latest hardware and software for the information technology professional. Articles are written by leading experts including John C. Dvorak, whose regular column and "Inside Track" feature were among the magazine's most popular attractions. Other regular departments include columns by long-time editor-in-chief Michael J. Miller ("Forward Thinking"), Bill Machrone, and Jim Louderback, as well as: * "First Looks" (a collection of reviews of newly released products) * "Pipeline" (a collection of short articles and snippets on computer-industry developments) * "Solutions" (which includes various how-to articles) * "User-to-User" (a section in which the magazine's experts answ ...
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Legionnaire (computer Game)
''Legionnaire'' is a computer wargame for the Atari 8-bit family, Atari 8-bit series created by Chris Crawford (game designer), Chris Crawford in 1982 in video gaming, 1982, and released through Avalon Hill. Recreating Julius Caesar's campaigns in a semi-historical setting, the player takes command of the Roman legions in real-time battles against the barbarians. Gameplay Similar to Crawford's earlier groundbreaking ''Eastern Front (computer game), Eastern Front (1941)'' in terms of display and general gameplay, ''Legionnaire'' added a turns, rounds and time-keeping systems in games, real-time computer opponent, and is one of the earliest examples of a real-time tactics (RTT) game. In the game, the player takes the side of the Romans, playing the role of Julius Caesar and giving orders to their forces in real time. The computer plays as generic barbarian tribes, in blue, with the player's legions in pink. There are three types of units: infantry is represented by a sword, cavalry ...
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Atari 8-bit
The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers introduced by Atari, Inc. in 1979 as the Atari 400 and Atari 800. The series was successively upgraded to Atari 1200XL , Atari 600XL, Atari 800XL, Atari 65XE, Atari 130XE, Atari 800XE, and Atari XEGS, the last discontinued in 1992. They differ primarily in packaging, each based on the MOS Technology 6502 CPU at and the same custom coprocessor chips. As the first home computer architecture with coprocessors, it has graphics and sound more advanced than most contemporary machines. Video games were a major draw, and first-person space combat simulator ''Star Raiders'' is considered the platform's killer app. The plug-and-play peripherals use the Atari SIO serial bus, with one developer eventually also co-patenting USB. While using the same internal technology, the Atari 800 was sold as a high-end model, while the 400 was more affordable. The 400 has a pressure-sensitive, spillproof membrane keyboard and initially shipped ...
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Video Game
Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This feedback mostly commonly is shown on a video display device, such as a TV set, monitor, touchscreen, or virtual reality headset. Some computer games do not always depend on a graphics display, for example text adventure games and computer chess can be played through teletype printers. Video games are often augmented with audio feedback delivered through speakers or headphones, and sometimes with other types of feedback, including haptic technology. Video games are defined based on their platform, which include arcade video games, console games, and personal computer (PC) games. More recently, the industry has expanded onto mobile gaming through smartphones and tablet computers, virtual and augmented reality systems, and remote c ...
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