Ultima and Worldbuilding in the Computer Role-Playing Game - Brossura

Kocurek, Carly A.; Payne, Matthew Thomas

Brossura

ISBN 10: 1943208654 ISBN 13: 9781943208654

Casa editrice: Amherst College Pr, 2024

Riassunto

Ultima and World-Building in the Computer Role-Playing Game is the ?rst scholarly book to focus exclusively on the long-running Ultima series of computer role-playing games (RPG) and to assess its lasting impact on the RPG genre and video game industry. Through archival and popular media sources, examinations of fan communities, and the game itself, this book historicizes the games and their authors. By attending to the salient moments and sites of game creation throughout the series’ storied past, authors Carly A. Kocurek and Matthew Thomas Payne detail the creative choices and structural forces that brought Ultima’s celebrated brand of role-playing to fruition.

This book ?rst considers the contributions of series founder and lead designer, Richard Garriott, examining how his fame and notoriety as a pioneering computer game auteur shaped Ultima’s reception and paved the way for the evolution of the series. Next, the authors retrace the steps that Garriott took in fusing analog, tabletop role-playing with his self-taught lessons in computer programming. Close textual analyses of Ultima I outline how its gameplay elements o?ered a foundational framework for subsequent innovations in design and storytelling. Moving beyond the game itself, the authors assess how marketing materials and physical collectibles ampli?ed its immersive hold and how the series’ legions of fans have preserved the series. Game designers, long-time gamers, and fans will enjoy digging into the games’ production history and mechanics while media studies and game scholars will ?nd Ultima and World-Building in the Computer Role-Playing Game a useful extension of inquiry into authorship, media history, and the role of fantasy in computer game design.

Su questo libro

Informazioni sull?autore

Carly A. Kocurek is professor of digital humanities and media studies at the Illinois Institute of Technology. She is the author of Coin-Operated Americans: Rebooting Boyhood at the Video Game Arcade (Minnesota, 2015) and Brenda Laurel: Pioneering Games for Girls (Bloomsbury, 2017). 

Matthew Thomas Payne is associate professor of ?lm, television, and theatre at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of Playing War: Military Video Games after 9/11 (NYU Press, 2016), and is a co-editor of How to Play Video Games (NYU Press, 2019) and Joystick Soldiers: The Politics of Play in Military Video Games (Routledge, 2009). 

Dettagli dell'edizione

• Editore: Amherst College Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 2024
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 1943208654
• ISBN 13: 9781943208654
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 184
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile
• Persona responsabile: non disponibile