Videogames and Agency

ISBN-13: 9781032288475 / Angielski / Miękka / 2022 / 248 str.

UK) Bodi Bettina (De Montfort University

Opis

Videogames and Agency explores the trend in videogames and their marketing to offer a player higher volumes, or even more distinct kinds, of player freedom. The book offers a new conceptual framework that helps us understand how this freedom to act is discussed by designers, and how that in turn reflects in their design principles.

Spis treści

Acknowledgements;  Introduction;  1. Understanding Agency;  Agency in Game Studies;  Agency in Game Design;  Toward a Conceptualisation of Agency;  2. A Multidimensional Heuristic Framework for Analysing Player Agency;  Agency Afforded in Space: The Spatial-Explorative Dimension;  Agency Afforded in Time: The Temporal-Ergodic Dimension;  Agency Over the Avatar and its Surroundings: The Configurative-Constructive Dimension;  Agency and Narrativity: The Narrative-Dramatic Dimension;  3. An “Active Cinematic Experience”: Naughty Dog’s Uncharted Series;  Naughty Dog and the Uncharted Franchise;  Developing Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End;  Agency and a “Cinematic Feel”;  4. “A Compelling Story with Choices That Matter”: BioWare’s Mass Effect Series;  BioWare and the Mass Effect Franchise;  Developing Mass Effect: Andromeda;  Narrativity, Eventfulness, and Agency;  5. “The World is Your Play-Doh”: System Era Softworks and Astroneer;  Independent Games: Definitions and Trends
Developing Astroneer;  Agency and Playfulness;  Conclusion;  Index

O autorze

Bettina Bódi is lecturer in media at Leeds Beckett University, UK. Dr Bódi’s research considers agency in and around videogames, as afforded by game design, and as discussed in paratexts and promotional surrounds.