Experimental Games
Critique, Play, and Design in the Age of Gamification
9780226629971
9780226629834
9780226630038
Experimental Games
Critique, Play, and Design in the Age of Gamification
In our unprecedentedly networked world, games have come to occupy an important space in many of our everyday lives. Digital games alone engage an estimated 2.5 billion people worldwide as of 2020, and other forms of gaming, such as board games, role playing, escape rooms, and puzzles, command an ever-expanding audience. At the same time, “gamification”—the application of game mechanics to traditionally nongame spheres, such as personal health and fitness, shopping, habit tracking, and more—has imposed unprecedented levels of competition, repetition, and quantification on daily life.
Drawing from his own experience as a game designer, Patrick Jagoda argues that games need not be synonymous with gamification. He studies experimental games that intervene in the neoliberal project from the inside out, examining a broad variety of mainstream and independent games, including StarCraft, Candy Crush Saga, Stardew Valley, Dys4ia, Braid, and Undertale. Beyond a diagnosis of gamification, Jagoda imagines ways that games can be experimental—not only in the sense of problem solving, but also the more nuanced notion of problem making that embraces the complexities of our digital present. The result is a game-changing book on the sociopolitical potential of this form of mass entertainment.
Drawing from his own experience as a game designer, Patrick Jagoda argues that games need not be synonymous with gamification. He studies experimental games that intervene in the neoliberal project from the inside out, examining a broad variety of mainstream and independent games, including StarCraft, Candy Crush Saga, Stardew Valley, Dys4ia, Braid, and Undertale. Beyond a diagnosis of gamification, Jagoda imagines ways that games can be experimental—not only in the sense of problem solving, but also the more nuanced notion of problem making that embraces the complexities of our digital present. The result is a game-changing book on the sociopolitical potential of this form of mass entertainment.
320 pages | 46 halftones | 6 x 9 | © 2020
Art: Art Criticism
Literature and Literary Criticism: General Criticism and Critical Theory
Reviews
Table of Contents
List of Figures
Prologue: Game Experiments
Prologue: Game Experiments
Part I Framework
Introduction: Society of the Game
1 Gamification
2 Experimentation
Part II Concepts
3 Choice
4 Control
5 Difficulty
6 Failure
Part III Design
7 Improvisation
Coda: Joy
Acknowledgments
Notes
Ludography
Index
Notes
Ludography
Index
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