Games
Resources geared toward the research, creative, and training needs of game developers.
What books do we have on game development?
Marriott Library gets new resources on Animation and Video Game Design regularly. Please suggest a purchase for needed books! Browse the Library's Catalog for books and eBooks:
- Library Catalog - Usearch This link opens in a new windowFind items available from campus libraries.
Here are a few books:
Game Audio Implementation: A practical guide using the unreal engine by Call Number: eBook
Game Design Workshop: A playcentric approach to creating innovative games by
Master the craft of game design so you can create that elusive combination of challenge, competition, and interaction that players seek. This design workshop begins with an examination of the fundamental elements of game design; then puts you to work in prototyping, playtesting and redesigning your own games with exercises that teach essential design skills. Workshop exercises require no background in programming or artwork, releasing you from the intricacies of electronic game production, so you can develop a working understanding of the essentials of game design.
Call Number: Marriott Reserve 4 Hour (QA76.76.C672 F84 2008)ISBN: 9780240809748
The GameDev Business Handbook by Call Number: HD9993.E45 F8 2017The GameDev Business Handbook is a deeply researched instructional guide for creating and sustaining your independent video game studio. Designed from the start for both students and experienced developers who want to get a better handle on a totally, completely, super-not-glamourous, mundane, but necessary side of game development.
Game Development Essentials Series by 1. Game project management - Marriott Library Level 2: General Collection (HD9993.E452 H54 2008)
2. An introduction - Marriott Library Level 1: General Collection (QA76.76.C672 N69 2012)
3. Game interface design - Marriott Library Level 1: General Collection (QA76.76.C672 N68 2013)
4. Mobile Game Development - Marriott Library Level 1: General Collection (QA76.76.C672 U54 2012)
Game Development with Unity by
The Unity engine game development tool is a multi-platform engine and editor rolled into one. It is an ideal development tool for independent developers and students, and many pro studios turn to it for fast prototyping. Unity allows developers to create a single game and release it on many platforms including Android, iOS, and the web. This completely updated edition of GAME DEVELOPMENT WITH UNITY is a tutorial-style guide that provides a complete overview of the Unity editor along with step-by-step projects covering every basic functional aspect, from asset importing to publishing. Each chapter includes tutorials and small assignments geared toward making a larger game. You will learn the basics of design and level theory and prototyping concepts in the virtual world. You will also learn how to polish and publish your finished game. A companion website features software, sample levels, source code and more. Start learning Unity today with GAME DEVELOPMENT WITH UNITY, SECOND EDITION.
Call Number: eBook
Gaming Representation: Race, gender, and sexuality in video games by
Recent years have seen an increase in public attention to identity and representation in video games, including journalists and bloggers holding the digital game industry accountable for the discrimination routinely endured by female gamers, queer gamers, and gamers of color. Video game developers are responding to these critiques, but scholarly discussion of representation in games has lagged far behind. Gaming Representation examines portrayals of race, gender, and sexuality in a range of games, from casuals like Diner Dash, to indies like Journey and The Binding of Isaac, to mainstream games from the Grand Theft Auto, BioShock, Spec Ops, The Last of Us, and Max Payne franchises. Arguing that representation and identity function as systems in games that share a stronger connection to code and platforms than it may first appear, the contributors to this volume push gaming scholarship to new levels of inquiry, theorizing, and imagination.
Call Number: Marriott Library GV1469.17.S63 G38 2017
Getting started with Unity 2018: A beginner's guide to 2D and 3D game development with Unity by
The Unity game engine has revolutionized the gaming industry with its complete set of intuitive tools. This book will guide you through the entire process of creating a 3D VR game, from downloading the Unity game engine to publishing your game. It not only gives you a strong foundation, but puts you on the path to game development.
Call Number: eBook
Learning Unreal Engine Game Development by
A step-by-step guide that paves the way for developing fantastic games with Unreal Engine 4 About This Book Learn about game development and the building blocks that go into creating a game A simple tutorial for beginners to get acquainted with the Unreal Engine architecture Learn about the features and functionalities of Unreal Engine 4 and how to use them to create your own games Who This Book Is For If you are new to game development and want to learn how games are created using Unreal Engine 4, this book is the right choice for you. You do not need prior game development experience, but it is expected that you have played games before. Knowledge of C++ would prove to be useful. What You Will Learn Learn what a game engine is, the history of Unreal Engine, and how game studios create games Explore the Unreal Engine 4 editor controls and learn how to use the editor to create a room in a game level Understand the basic structures of objects in a game, such as the differences between BSP and static meshes Make objects interactive using level blueprints Learn more about computer graphics rendering; how materials and light are rendered in your game Get acquainted with the Material Editor to create materials and use different types of lights in the game levels Utilize the various editors, tools, and features such as UI, the particle system, audio, terrain manipulation, and cinematics in Unreal Engine 4 to create game levels In Detail Unreal Engine 4 is a powerful game development engine that provides rich functionalities to create 2D and 3D games across multiple platforms. Many people know what a game is and they play games every day, but how many of them know how to create a game? Unreal Engine technology powers hundreds of games, and thousands of individuals have built careers and companies around skills developed using this engine. Learning Unreal Engine 4 Game Development starts with small, simple game ideas and playable projects that you can actually finish. The book first teaches you the basics of using Unreal Engine to create a simple game level. Then, you'll learn how to add details such as actors, animation, effects, and so on to the game. The complexity will increase over the chapters and the examples chosen will help you learn a wide variety of game development techniques. This book aims to equip you with the confidence and skills to design and build your own games using Unreal Engine 4. By the end of this book, you'll have learnt about the entire Unreal suite and know how to successfully create fun, simple games. Style and approach This book explains in detail what goes into the development of a game, provides hands-on examples that you can follow to create the different components of a game, and provides sufficient background/theory to equip you with a solid foundation for creating your own games."
Call Number: eBook
The Machinima Reader by
The first critical overview of an emerging field, with contributions from both scholars and artist-practitioners. Over the last decade, machinima--the use of computer game engines to create movies--has emerged as a vibrant area in digital culture. Machinima as a filmmaking tool grew from the bottom up, driven by enthusiasts who taught themselves to deploy technologies from computer games to create animated films quickly and cheaply. The Machinima Reader is the first critical overview of this rapidly developing field. The contributors include both academics and artist-practitioners. They explore machinima from multiple perspectives, ranging from technical aspects of machinima, from real-time production to machinima as a performative and cinematic medium, while paying close attention to the legal, cultural, and pedagogical contexts for machinima. The Machinima Reader extends critical debates originating within the machinima community to a wider audience and provides a foundation for scholarly work from a variety of disciplines. This is the first book to chart the emergence of machinima as a game-based cultural production that spans technologies and media, forming new communities of practice on its way to a history, an aesthetic, and a market.
Call Number: eBook & Marriott Library Level 1: General Collection (TR897.74 .M337 2011)
Mobile game development with Unity: Build once, deploy anywhere by
Do you want to build mobile games, but lack game development experience? No problem. This practical guide shows you how to create beautiful, interactive content for iOS and Android devices with the Unity game engine.
Call Number: eBook
Multithreading for Visual Effects by
Tackle the Challenges of Parallel Programming in the Visual Effects Industry In Multithreading for Visual Effects, developers from DreamWorks Animation, Pixar, Side Effects, Intel, and AMD share their successes and failures in the messy real-world application area of production software. They provide practical advice on multithreading techniques and visual effects used in popular visual effects libraries (such as Bullet, OpenVDB, and OpenSubdiv), one of the industry's leading visual effects packages (Houdini), and proprietary animation systems. This information is valuable not just to those in the visual effects arena, but also to developers of high performance software looking to increase performance of their code. Diverse Solutions to Solve Performance Problems After an introductory chapter, each subsequent chapter presents a case study that illustrates how the authors used multithreading techniques to achieve better performance. The authors discuss the problems that occurred and explain how they solved them. The case studies encompass solutions for shaving milliseconds, solutions for optimizing longer running tasks, multithreading techniques for modern CPU architectures, and massive parallelism using GPUs. Some of the case studies include open source projects so you can try out these techniques for yourself and see how well they work.
Call Number: Marriott Library Level 1: General Collection (TR897.7 .W38 2015)
Reality Is Broken by
Visionary game designer Jane McGonigal reveals how we can harness the power of games to solve real-world problems and boost global happiness. More than 174 million Americans are gamers, and the average young person in the United States will spend ten thousand hours gaming by the age of twenty-one. According to world-renowned game designer Jane McGonigal, the reason for this mass exodus to virtual worlds is that videogames are increasingly fulfilling genuine human needs. In this groundbreaking exploration of the power and future of gaming, McGonigal reveals how we can use the lessons of game design to fix what is wrong with the real world. Drawing on positive psychology, cognitive science, and sociology, Reality Is Broken uncovers how game designers have hit on core truths about what makes us happy and utilized these discoveriesto astonishing effect in virtual environments. Videogames consistently provide the exhilarating rewards, stimulating challenges, and epic victories that are so often lacking in the real world. But why, McGonigal asks, should we use the power of games for escapist entertainment alone? Her research suggests that gamers are expert problem solvers and collaborators because they regularly cooperate with other players to overcome daunting virtual challenges, and she helped pioneer a fast-growing genre of games that aims to turn gameplay to socially positive ends. In Reality Is Broken, she reveals how these new alternate reality games are already improving the quality of our daily lives, fighting social problems such as depression and obesity, and addressing vital twenty-first-century challenges-and she forecasts the thrilling possibilities that lie ahead. She introduces us to games like World Without Oil, a simulation designed to brainstorm-and therefore avert- the challenges of a worldwide oil shortage, and Evoke, a game commissioned by the World Bank Institute that sends players on missions to address issues from poverty to climate change. McGonigal persuasively argues that those who continue to dismiss games will be at a major disadvantage in the coming years. Gamers, on the other hand, will be able to leverage the collaborative and motivational power of games in their own lives, communities, and businesses. Written for gamers and nongamers alike, Reality Is Broken shows us that the future will belong to those who can understand, , and play games. Watch a Video
Call Number: GV1201.38 .M34 2011 and online eBook
Replay: The history of video games by
A comprehensive overview of the evolution of video games covering topics such as, "Atari revolution;" "rise of cartridge-based consoles;" American video game industry; international video game industry; "Apple Mac;" "Nintendo Entertainment System;" Sega video games; PlayStation video games; and "girl gaming."
Call Number: Marriott Library Level 2 (GV1469.3 .D66 2010)
Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals by
As pop culture, games are as important as film or television -- but game design has yet to develop a theoretical framework or critical vocabulary. In Rules of Play Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman present a much-needed primer for this emerging field. They offer a unified model for looking at all kinds of games, from board games and sports to computer and video games. As active participants in game culture, the authors have written Rules of Play as a catalyst for innovation, filled with new concepts, strategies, and methodologies for creating and understanding games. Building an aesthetics of interactive systems, Salen and Zimmerman define core concepts like "play," "design," and "interactivity." They look at games through a series of eighteen "game design schemas," or conceptual frameworks, including games as systems of emergence and information, as contexts for social play, as a storytelling medium, and as sites of cultural resistance. Written for game scholars, game developers, and interactive designers, Rules of Play is a textbook, reference book, and theoretical guide. It is the first comprehensive attempt to establish a solid theoretical framework for the emerging discipline of game design.
Call Number: QA76.76.C672 S25 (Marriott Library)
Tabletop Game Design for Video Game Designers by
Learn the mechanics that take your game from an idea to a playable product. Do you aspire to be a game designer but aren't sure where to begin? Tabletop Game Design for Video Game Designers guides you through your initial attempts to design game mechanics. It goes beyond simple description and definition to explore in detail the issues that designers grapple with for every game they create. Learning to design tabletop games builds a solid foundation for game designers and provides methods that can be applied towards creating paper prototypes of computer-targeted games. Presented in a step-by-step format, Tabletop Game Design for Video Game Designers helps the reader understand how the game design skills that are acquired through creating tabletop games can be used when designing video games. Fully playable games accompany every topic so you can truly understand and experience each component that goes into game creation. Tabletop Game Design for Video Game Designers includes: Simple, highly focused games that can be played, analyzed, improved, and/or modified in conjunction with a particular topic in the book. Integrated game design exercises, chapter learning objectives, and in-text sidebars to provide further examples to apply directly to your game creation process. A companion website (www.funmines.com) which includes: "print & play" tabletop games, links to online games, game design resources, and articles about designing and developing games.
Call Number: eBook
Thinking about Video Games: Interviews with the experts by
The growth in popularity and complexity of video games has spurred new interest in how games are developed and in the research and technology behind them. David Heineman brings together some of the most iconic, influential, and interesting voices from across the gaming industry and asks them to weigh in on the past, present, and future of video games. Among them are legendary game designers Nolan Bushnell (Pong) and Eugene Jarvis (Defender), who talk about their history of innovations from the earliest days of the video game industry through to the present; contemporary trailblazers Kellee Santiago (Journey) and Casey Hudson (Mass Effect), who discuss contemporary relationships between those who create games and those who play them; and scholars Ian Bogost (How to Do Things With Videogames) and Edward Castronova (Exodus to the Virtual World), who discuss how to research and write about games in ways that engage a range of audiences. These experts and others offer fascinating perspectives on video games, game studies, gaming culture, and the game industry more broadly.
Call Number: eBook
Understanding Video Games by
From Pong to virtual reality,Understanding Video Games, 4th Edition, takes video game studies into the next decade of the twenty-first century, highlighting changes in the area, including mobile, social, and casual gaming. In this new edition of the pioneering text, students learn to assess the major theories used to analyze games, such as ludology and narratology, and gain familiarity with the commercial and organizational aspects of the game industry. Drawing from historical and contemporary examples, the student-friendly text also explores the aesthetics of games, evaluates the cultural position of video games, and considers the potential effects of both violent and "serious" games. Extensively illustrated and featuring discussion questions, a glossary of key terms, and a detailed video game history timeline, this new edition is an indispensable resource for students, scholars, and teachers interested in examining the ways video games continue to reshape entertainment and society.
Call Number: eBook and GV1469.3 .E44 2020Publication Date: 2020
Understanding Video Games: The Essential Introduction by
From Pong to virtual reality,Understanding Video Games, 4th Edition, takes video game studies into the next decade of the twenty-first century, highlighting changes in the area, including mobile, social, and casual gaming. In this new edition of the pioneering text, students learn to assess the major theories used to analyze games, such as ludology and narratology, and gain familiarity with the commercial and organizational aspects of the game industry. Drawing from historical and contemporary examples, the student-friendly text also explores the aesthetics of games, evaluates the cultural position of video games, and considers the potential effects of both violent and "serious" games. Extensively illustrated and featuring discussion questions, a glossary of key terms, and a detailed video game history timeline, this new edition is an indispensable resource for students, scholars, and teachers interested in examining the ways video games continue to reshape entertainment and society.
Call Number: eBook & GV1469.3 .E43 2013
Video Game Law in a Nutshell by
Video Game Law in a Nutshell guides you through a video game's entire legal life cycle. You can use this book to: Learn to spot legal issues in video game development and publishing; Help your organization/clients avoid liability and maximize legal protections; Confidently chart a path through complex territory, including esports and global game ratings. Written by two practicing, in-house video game lawyers and professors, this book provides a well-organized, practical guide to one of law's most exciting subjects.
Call Number: Faust Law Library KF3994 .N22 2018
Video Game Marketing: A student handbook by
The video game industry has been one of the fastest-growing cultural phenomena of our times with market conditions that demand a specific skill set from its marketers. To a new generation of "indie gamers", being a game developer isn't just about design and production, a successful video game demands entrepreneurial skills and astute business acumen. The creators need to know what their customers want, how to reach those customers and how to sell to them. 　 Video Game Marketing: A student textbook　is for development students or aspiring developers who want to know how to promote and sell the results of their efforts. This book is a much-needed guide to: 　 * the essentials of marketing strategy; * video games as products or services; * marketing research for game development; * branding video games; * marketing through game: gamification, advergames. 　 Replete with pedagogy to aid learning such as objectives and discussion questions for each chapter, this book is all that aspiring video game developers will need to unleash the potential of their games.
Call Number: eBook
Virtual reality blueprints: Create compelling VR experiences for mobile and desktop by
Are you new to virtual reality? Do you want to create exciting interactive VR applications? There's no need to be daunted by the thought of creating interactive VR applications, it's much easier than you think with this hands-on, project-based guide that will take you through VR development essentials for desktop, mobile, and web-based games.
Call Number: eBook
Wandering Games by
An analysis of wandering within different game worlds, viewed through the lenses of work, colonialism, gender, and death. Wandering in games can be a theme, a formal mode, an aesthetic metaphor, or a player action. It can mean walking, escaping, traversing, meandering, or returning. In this book, game studies scholar Melissa Kagen introduces the concept of "wandering games," exploring the uses of wandering in a variety of game worlds. She shows how the much-derided Walking Simulator-a term that began as an insult, a denigration of games that are less violent, less task-oriented, or less difficult to complete-semi-accidentally tapped into something brilliant- the vast heritage and intellectual history of the concept of walking in fiction, philosophy, pilgrimage, performance, and protest. Kagen examines wandering in a series of games that vary widely in terms of genre, mechanics, themes, player base, studio size, and funding, giving close readings to Return of the Obra Dinn, Eastshade, Ritual of the Moon, 80 Days, Heaven's Vault, Death Stranding, and The Last of Us Part II. Exploring the connotations of wandering within these different game worlds, she considers how ideologies of work, gender, colonialism, and death inflect the ways we wander through digital spaces. Overlapping and intersecting, each provides a multifaceted lens through which to understand what wandering does, lacks, implies, and offers. Kagen's account will attune game designers, players, and scholars to the myriad possibilities of the wandering ludic body.
Call Number: eBookPublication Date: 2022
Making Games for Impact by
Designing games for learning- case studies show how to incorporate impact goals, build a team, and work with experts to create an effective game. Digital games for learning are now commonplace, used in settings that range from K-12 education to advanced medical training. In this book, Kurt Squire examines the ways that games make an impact on learning, investigating how designers and developers incorporate authentic social impact goals, build a team, and work with experts in order to make games that are effective and marketable. Because there is no one design process for making games for impact-specific processes arise in response to local needs and conditions-Squire presents a series of case studies that range from a small, playable game created by a few programmers and an artist to a multimillion-dollar project with funders, outside experts, and external constraints. These cases, drawn from the Games + Learning + Society Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, show designers tackling such key issues as choosing platforms, using data analytics to guide development, and designing for new markets. Although not a how-to guide, the book offers developers, researchers, and students real-world lessons in greenlighting a project, scaling up design teams, game-based assessment, and more. The final chapter examines the commercial development of an impact game in detail, describing the creation of an astronomy game, At Play in the Cosmos, that ships with an introductory college textbook.
Call Number: eBookPublication Date: 2021
Where can I find publishers & presses who publish game studies materials?
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- The MIT PressCategories include Programming Games, Game Theory, Virtual & Augmented Reality, and more
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