The Aesthetic of Play

Brian Upton

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English

MIT Press
13 April 2021

Biology, life sciences

"A game designer considers the experience of play, why games have rules, and the relationship of play and narrative.

A game designer considers the experience of play, why games have rules, and the relationship of play and narrative.

The 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 & 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."

By: Brian Upton
Imprint: MIT Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 1mm
Weight: 1g
ISBN: 9780262542630
ISBN 10: 0262542633
Pages: 336
Publication Date: 13 April 2021
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

"Brian 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."

Reviews for The Aesthetic of Play

This thoughtful book is unusual in that the author has extensive experience in video game development and also has a strong interest in philosophy, aesthetics, and epistemology.--Choice--