This two-volume set examines dreams and dreaming from a variety of angles—biological, psychological, and sociocultural—in order to provide readers with a holistic introduction to this fascinating subject. Whether good or bad and whether we remember them or not, each night every one of us dreams. But what biological or psychological function do dreams serve? What do these vivid images and strange storylines mean? How have psychologists, religions, and society at large interpreted dreams, and how can a closer examination of our dreams provide useful insights? Dreams: Understanding Biology, Psychology, and Culture presents a holistic view of dreams and the dreaming experience that answers these and many other questions. Divided thematically, this two-volume book examines the complex and often misunderstood subject of dreaming through a variety of lenses. This collection is written by a large and diverse team of experts and edited by leading members of the International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD) but remains an approachable and accessible introduction to this captivating topic for all readers.

A feast for the eyes with literally thousands of vivid, high-resolution screen shots, this book provides a comprehensive visual tour through the world of PC and video gaming. Sorted by genre, 150 of the most exciting current software titles are reviewed with information of interest to players, parents, and industry professionals. Each game is featured in a two-page spread that includes detailed game summary, analysis, and strategy, nine representative in-game screen shots, games with similar skill and strategy requirements, appropriate age range, ESRB content ratings, complete technological specifications, and more. Feature stories are included throughout the book, covering game-related topics such as multiplayer online gaming, games in movies, and the future of gaming. The book also includes useful reference tools such as an illustrated glossary, an overview of game publishers, and information on current and upcoming hardware platforms such as Sony's new PS3 and Nintendo's Wii.

As for film and literature, the horror genre has been very popular in the video game. The World of Scary Video Games provides a comprehensive overview of the videoludic horror, dealing with the games labelled as “survival horror” as well as the mainstream and independent works associated with the genre. It examines the ways in which video games have elicited horror, terror and fear since Haunted House (1981). Bernard Perron combines an historical account with a theoretical approach in order to offer a broad history of the genre, outline its formal singularities and explore its principal issues. It studies the most important games and game series, from Haunted House (1981) to Alone in the Dark (1992- ), Resident Evil (1996-present), Silent Hill (1999-present), Fatal Frame (2001-present), Dead Space (2008-2013), Amnesia: the Dark Descent (2010), and The Evil Within (2014). Accessibly written, The World of Scary Video Games helps the reader to trace the history of an important genre of the video game.

The friends must face the terrifying Mr. Bedtime and his ghoulish army of nightmares in a final showdown, or it's lights out for all of them.

How does literature illuminate the way we live? Maurice Natanson, a prominent champion of phenomenology, draws upon this method's unique power to show how fiction can highlight aspects of experience that are normally left unexamined. By exploring the structure of the everyday world, Natanson reveals the "uncanny" that lies at the core of the ordinary. Phenomenology--which involves the questioning of that which we usually take for granted--is for Natanson the essence of philosophy. Drawing upon his philosophical predecessors Edmund Husserl, Alfred Schutz, and Jean-Paul Sartre, Natanson paves his own way with stories and examples that themselves bear witness to how phenomenology occurs in literature. In considering such works as Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, and Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, Natanson shows how literature opens us to the domain of possibility and how metaphor offers philosophical power when we think about freedom and change. This book, written by one of the twentieth century's leading phenomenologists, will interest students in philosophy and in literature. They will value the work particularly for its clarification of concepts and terms that frequently emerge in the contemporary intellectual climate.

Emotions, Technology, and Digital Games explores the need for people to experience enjoyment, excitement, anxiety, anger, frustration, and many other emotions. The book provides essential information on why it is necessary to have a greater understanding of the power these emotions have on players, and how they affect players during, and after, a game. This book takes this understanding and shows how it can be used in practical ways, including the design of video games for teaching and learning, creating tools to measure social and emotional development of children, determining how empathy-related thought processes affect ethical decision-making, and examining how the fictional world of game play can influence and shape real-life experiences. - Details how games affect emotions—both during and after play - Describes how we can manage a player's affective reactions - Applies the emotional affect to making games more immersive - Examines game-based learning and education - Identifies which components of online games support socio-emotional development - Discusses the impact of game-based emotions beyond the context of games

Essays discuss the terminology, etymology, and history of key terms, offering a foundation for critical historical studies of games. Even as the field of game studies has flourished, critical historical studies of games have lagged behind other areas of research. Histories have generally been fact-by-fact chronicles; fundamental terms of game design and development, technology, and play have rarely been examined in the context of their historical, etymological, and conceptual underpinnings. This volume attempts to “debug” the flawed historiography of video games. It offers original essays on key concepts in game studies, arranged as in a lexicon—from “Amusement Arcade” to “Embodiment” and “Game Art” to “Simulation” and “World Building.” Written by scholars and practitioners from a variety of disciplines, including game development, curatorship, media archaeology, cultural studies, and technology studies, the essays offer a series of distinctive critical “takes” on historical topics. The majority of essays look at game history from the outside in; some take deep dives into the histories of play and simulation to provide context for the development of electronic and digital games; others take on such technological components of games as code and audio. Not all essays are history or historical etymology—there is an analysis of game design, and a discussion of intellectual property—but they nonetheless raise questions for historians to consider. Taken together, the essays offer a foundation for the emerging study of game history. Contributors Marcelo Aranda, Brooke Belisle, Caetlin Benson-Allott, Stephanie Boluk, Jennifer deWinter, J. P. Dyson, Kate Edwards, Mary Flanagan, Jacob Gaboury, William Gibbons, Raiford Guins, Erkki Huhtamo, Don Ihde, Jon Ippolito, Katherine Isbister, Mikael Jakobsson, Steven E. Jones, Jesper Juul, Eric Kaltman, Matthew G. Kirschenbaum, Carly A. Kocurek, Peter Krapp, Patrick LeMieux, Henry Lowood, Esther MacCallum-Stewart, Ken S. McAllister, Nick Monfort, David Myers, James Newman, Jenna Ng, Michael Nitsche, Laine Nooney, Hector Postigo, Jas Purewal, Reneé H. Reynolds, Judd Ethan Ruggill, Marie-Laure Ryan, Katie Salen Tekinbaş, Anastasia Salter, Mark Sample, Bobby Schweizer, John Sharp, Miguel Sicart, Rebecca Elisabeth Skinner, Melanie Swalwell, David Thomas, Samuel Tobin, Emma Witkowski, Mark J.P. Wolf

The Digital Gaming Handbook covers the state-of-the-art in video and digital game research and development, from traditional to emerging elements of gaming across multiple disciplines. Chapters are presented with applicability across all gaming platforms over a broad range of topics, from game content creation through gameplay at a level accessible for the professional game developer while being deep enough to provide a valuable reference of the state-of-the-art research in this field. Key Features: International experts share their research and experience in game development and design Provides readers with inside perspectives on the cross-disciplinary aspects of the industry Includes retrospective and forward-looking examinations of gaming Editor: Dr. Roberto Dillon is a leading game studies educator with more than 15 years of experience in the field of game design and development.

This title was first published in 2000. Incorporating studies of Freudian and Marxist approaches to questions of history and memory, this timely collection illuminates how history is being refigured in contemporary literary, cultural and theoretical studies. The contributors to this volume invite the reader to attend to the forms - linguistic, visual, monumental - by which a connection with, or separation from, the past takes place. It is current thinking about memory's relationship to history, and the ongoing critical reassessment of historicism, that preoccupies this collection. The volume explores the ways in which current thinking about the past operates within a dialogic space and can be located in relation to multiple perspectives. Thus cultural memory can be seen not just as a recent development within the field of cultural studies, but as constructing a between-space which also draws in aspects of psychoanalysis. Similarly, trauma theory may usefully be conceptualized as operating in a rich and complex dynamic between deconstruction and the work of Freud. Temporality, memory and the past are attended to here in terms of the dislocations of narrative, of resistances to linear genealogies, to aid the reader in making unanticipated connections between theories and cultures, and between the demands of the psyche and the polis.

Written by a game developer and professor trained in architecture, An Architectural Approach to Level Design is one of the first books to integrate architectural and spatial design theory with the field of level design. It explores the principles of level design through the context and history of architecture. Now in its second edition, An Architectural Approach to Level Design presents architectural techniques and theories for you to use in your own work. The author connects architecture and level design in different ways that address the practical elements of how designers construct space and the experiential elements of how and why humans interact with that space. It also addresses industry issues like how to build interesting tutorial levels and how to use computer-generated level design systems without losing the player-focused design of handmade levels. Throughout the text, you will learn skills for spatial layout, evoking emotion through gamespaces, and creating better levels through architectural theory. FEATURES Presents case studies that offer insight on modern level design practices, methods, and tools Presents perspectives from industry designers, independent game developers, scientists, psychologists, and academics Explores how historical structures can teach us about good level design Shows how to use space to guide or elicit emotion from players Includes chapter exercises that encourage you to use principles from the chapter in digital prototypes, playtesting sessions, paper mock-ups, and design journals Bringing together topics in game design and architecture, this book helps you create better spaces for your games. Software independent, the book discusses tools and techniques that you can use in crafting your interactive worlds.