Course Readings, Broadly Considered

The Play of Writing

Johan Huizinga's Nature and Significance of Play as a Cultural Phenomenon

Chris Bateman's thoughts on Plato's role in game design, posted at Only a Game

from Plato's Laws, Part I(643b-650b and 673c to 674c)

from Plato's Laws, Part II (803a-805b)

Mia Consalvo's "Rule Sets, Cheating, and Magic Circles: Studying Games and Ethics"

Kurt Squire's "Educating the Fighter"

from Epictetus's Discourses and Enchiridion, Ethical Life as a Game

Ian Bogost's "Persuasive Games: Disjunctive Play", from Gamasutra

LUDICA's "Sustainable Play"

Jesper Juul's "The Game, the Player, the World: Looking for a Heart of Gameness"

Markus Montola's "Exploring the Edge of the Magic Circle: Defining Pervasive Games"

Ian Bogost's "Persuasive Games: Why We Need More Boring Games"

Games We Play

Jason Rohrer's Passage, downloadable for Mac or Win

Daniel Benmergui's Moon Stories Trilogy: I Wish I Were the Moon, Today I Die, and Storyteller (Requires Flash-- no iPhone/iTouch/Android)

Tyler Glaiel's Closure, a flash-based web game nominated for several best-of awards this year

Ian Bogost's Debt Ski, a flash-based web game

Vaguely Spectacular's Spectre, (PC/Mac) student-built at USC's Interactive Media Division

Machinarium, by Jakub Dvorsky at Amanita Design in the Czech Republic (demo has three scenarios)

Jason Rohrer's Gravitation, downloadable for PC and Mac

Jason Rohrer's Between, downloadable for PC and Mac

Handouts & Other Resources

A brief handout defining analysis and explication in the context of a short writing assignment

A few vocabulary words to help with Consalvo's essay