Through analysis of three case study videogames – Left 4 Dead 2, DayZ and Minecraft – and their online player communities, Digital Zombies, Undead Stories develops a framework for understanding how collective gameplay generates experiences of narrative, as well as the narrative dimensions of players' creative activity on social media platforms. Narrative emergence is addressed as a powerful form of player experience in multiplayer games, one which makes individual games' boundaries and meanings fluid and negotiable by players. The phenomenon is also shown to be recursive in nature, shaping individual and collective understandings of videogame texts over time. Digital Zombies, Undead Stories focuses on games featuring zombies as central antagonists. The recurrent figure of the videogame zombie, which mediates between chaos and rule-driven predictability, serves as both metaphor and mascot for narrative emergence. This book argues that in the zombie genre, emergent experiences are at the heart of narrative experiences for players, and more broadly demonstrates the potential for the phenomenon to be understood as a fundamental part of everyday play experiences across genres.

This book explores the relationship between video games and satire through an in-depth examination of Capcom’s Dead Rising series, which alludes to, recontextualises, and builds upon George A. Romero’s filmic satire on American consumer culture, Dawn of the Dead. Proposing a taxonomy of videoludic satire, this book details how video games can communicate satire through their virtual environments, their characters, their audio, the way they frame the passage of time, and the outcomes of in-game choices that their players can make. By applying this taxonomy to the Dead Rising series, this book presents a compelling case for how video games can function as instruments for social commentary and indicators of ideological tensions. This unique and insightful study will interest students and scholars of media studies, video game studies, satire, visual culture, and zombie studies.

Video games are a global phenomenon, international in their scope and democratic in their appeal. This is the first volume dedicated to the subject of apocalyptic video games. Its two dozen papers engage the subject comprehensively, from game design to player experience, and from the perspectives of content, theme, sound, ludic textures, and social function. The volume offers scholars, students, and general readers a thorough overview of this unique expression of the apocalyptic imagination in popular culture, and novel insights into an important facet of contemporary digital society.

"One of cinema's most enduring monsters, the zombie has been terrifying audiences around the world for decades. Book of the Dead charts the ghoulish history of zombie cinema, from the creature's origins in Haitian voodoo and its cinematic debut in 1932's White Zombie, right up to recent blockbuster hits like 28 Days Later, Shaun of the Dead and Land of the Dead." "Covering hundreds of movies from America, Europe and Asia, this exhaustive history chronicles the zombie's on-screen evolution from Caribbean bogeyman to flesh-eating corpse. Along the way, Book of the Dead takes in Bela Lugosi B-movies, Italian gore films, blind monk zombies, shot-on-video backyard epics, all-time classics such as I Walked with a Zombie, Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, and the videogame phenomenon of Resident Evil." "Complete with hundreds of stills and artwork including 64 pages of colour illustrations, and an exhaustive filmography, Book of the Dead explains why we continue to be so fascinated by these fugitives from the undertaker."--BOOK JACKET.

This guide alphabetically lists 4000 plus horror movies and television shows, some very obscure, that featured monsters. Each entry provides a plot synopsis, identifies the cast and director, and rates the film on a five star scale. No index. Originally published by Billboard Books. c. Book News Inc.