How Pac-Man Eats by Noah Wardrip-Fruin - ISBN: 9780262044653
Hardcover
Unlock game meaning: tools shape play in surprising, expressive ways.

How Pac-Man Eats

$77.73

  • Hardcover

    368 pages

  • Release Date

    16 March 2021

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Summary

In How Pac-Man Eats, Noah Wardrip-Fruin considers two questions: What are the fundamental ways that games work? And how can games be about something? Wardrip-Fruin argues that the two issues are related. Bridging formalist and culturally engaged approaches, he shows how the tools and concepts for making games are connected to what games can and do mean.

Wardrip-Fruin proposes that games work at a fundamental level on which their mechanics depend: operational logics. Games are…

Book Details

ISBN-13:9780262044653
ISBN-10:026204465X
Author:Noah Wardrip-Fruin
Publisher:MIT Press Ltd
Imprint:MIT Press
Format:Hardcover
Number of Pages:368
Release Date:16 March 2021
Weight:894g
Dimensions:229mm x 178mm
What They're Saying

Critics Review

“This is the heart of this book - a new abstraction, a new tool for discussing something that we’ve always felt was there, but didn’t have a good way to identify. This tool lets us broaden our conversations as we discuss game design: we can talk about mechanics and systems not just in terms of what they do, but also what they will mean to the player.”
- Robert Zubek, author of Elements of Game Design, Gamasutra


“Wardrip-Fruin’s use of logics and models works impressively well at offering readings of what his chosen games are about in ways that a focus on story, mechanics, or rules alone cannot.”
- Rainforest Scully-Blaker, Critical Studies in Media Communication


“The creative form of the video game has entered a phase of development that is both fraught and promising, attracting notably intelligent designers and scholars. How Pac-Man Eats should figure prominently in the way these makers take on a catastrophic world.”
- Stuart Moulthrop, Electronic Book Review

About The Author

Noah Wardrip-Fruin

Noah Wardrip-Fruin is Professor of Computational Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he codirects the Expressive Intelligent Studio. He is the author of Expressive Processing- Digital Fictions, Computer Games, and Software Studies (MIT Press).

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