Handmade Pixels

Independent Video Games and the Quest for Authenticity

Jesper Juul (Associate Professor, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts)

$95

Hardback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We then advise you accordingly. If the time taken to get any book is too long for you, you can let us know and we will cancel or adjust your order, and refund as required.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

MIT Press
08 October 2019

Advertising & society; Computer games: strategy guides

Series: The MIT Press

"An investigation of independent video games-creative, personal, strange, and experimental-and their claims to handcrafted authenticity in a purely digital medium.

Video games are often dismissed as mere entertainment products created by faceless corporations. The last twenty years, however, have seen the rise of independent, or ""indie,"" video games- a wave of small, cheaply developed, experimental, and personal video games that react against mainstream video game development and culture. In Handmade Pixels, Jesper Juul examine the paradoxical claims of developers, players, and festivals that portray independent games as unique and hand-crafted objects in a globally distributed digital medium. Juul explains that independent video games are presented not as mass market products, but as cultural works created by people, and are promoted as authentic alternatives to mainstream games. Writing as a game player, scholar, developer, and educator, Juul tells the story of how independent games-creative, personal, strange, and experimental-became a historical movement that borrowed the term ""independent"" from film and music while finding its own kind of independence. Juul describes how the visual style of independent games signals their authenticity-often by referring to older video games or analog visual styles. He shows how developers use strategies for creating games with financial, aesthetic, and cultural independence; discusses the aesthetic innovations of ""walking simulator"" games; and explains the controversies over what is and what isn't a game. Juul offers examples from independent games ranging from Dys4ia to Firewatch; the text is richly illustrated with many color images."

By: Jesper Juul (Associate Professor The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts)
Imprint: MIT Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 178mm, Spine: 22mm
ISBN: 9780262042796
ISBN 10: 0262042797
Series: The MIT Press
Pages: 328
Publication Date: 08 October 2019
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Jesper Juul is Associate Professor in the School of Design at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. He is the author of Half-Real- Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds; A Casual Revolution- Reinventing Video Games and Their Players; and The Art of Failure- An Essay on the Pain of Playing Video Games, all published by the MIT Press.