{"product_id":"the-aesthetic-of-play-isbn-9780262542630","title":"The Aesthetic of Play","description":"\u003cb\u003eA game designer considers the experience of play, why games have rules, and the relationship of play and narrative.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe impulse toward play is very ancient, not only pre-cultural but pre-human; zoologists have identified play behaviors in turtles and in chimpanzees. Games have existed since antiquity; 5,000-year-old board games have been recovered from Egyptian tombs. And yet we still lack a critical language for thinking about play. Game designers are better at answering small questions (\"Why is this battle boring?\") than big ones (\"What does this game mean?\"). In this book, the game designer Brian Upton analyzes the experience of play--how playful activities unfold from moment to moment and how the rules we adopt constrain that unfolding. Drawing on games that range from Monopoly to Dungeons \u0026amp; Dragons to Guitar Hero, Upton develops a framework for understanding play, introducing a set of critical tools that can help us analyze games and game designs and identify ways in which they succeed or fail.Acknowledgments ix\u003cbr\u003eIntroduction 1\u003cbr\u003eI Games\u003cbr\u003e1 Defining Play 9\u003cbr\u003e2 Interactivity 23\u003cbr\u003e3 Play Spaces 39\u003cbr\u003e4 Heuristics 51\u003cbr\u003e5 Anticipation 73\u003cbr\u003e6 Mastery 93\u003cbr\u003eII Minds\u003cbr\u003e7 Understanding 117\u003cbr\u003e8 Epistemology 127\u003cbr\u003e9 Neurons 145\u003cbr\u003e10 Signs 161\u003cbr\u003eIII Stories\u003cbr\u003e11 Playing without Winning 183\u003cbr\u003e12 Performance 199\u003cbr\u003e13 Narrative Play 215\u003cbr\u003e14 Narrative Structure 237\u003cbr\u003e15 Play and Meaning 259\u003cbr\u003e16 Critical Play 283\u003cbr\u003eBibliography 307\u003cbr\u003eIndex 319Brian Upton cofounded Red Storm Entertainment, where he was lead designer of the popular games Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon. He is now a \"script doctor for games\" at Sony's Santa Monica Studio.A game designer considers the experience of play, why games have rules, and the relationship of play and narrative.","brand":"The MIT Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44885117567205,"sku":"NP9780262542630","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780262542630.jpg?v=1767738018","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-aesthetic-of-play-isbn-9780262542630","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}