Rerolling Boardgames: Essays on Themes, Systems, Experiences and Ideologies

by Douglas Brown (Editor), Esther MacCallum-Stewart (Editor), Matthew Wilhelm Kapell (Editor)

Overview

Despite the advent and explosion of videogames, boardgames—from fast-paced party games to intensely strategic titles—have in recent years become more numerous and more diverse in terms of genre, ethos and content. The growth of gaming events and conventions such as Essen Spiel, Gen Con and the UK Games EXPO, as well as crowdfunding through sites like Kickstarter, has diversified the evolution of game development, which is increasingly driven by fans, and boardgames provide an important glue to geek culture. In academia, boardgames are used in a practical sense to teach elements of design and game mechanics.

Game studies is also recognizing the importance of expanding its focus beyond the digital. As yet, however, no collected work has explored the many different approaches emerging around the critical challenges that boardgaming represents. In this collection, game theorists analyze boardgame play and player behavior, and explore the complex interactions between the sociality, conflict, competition and cooperation that boardgames foster. Game designers discuss the opportunities boardgame system designs offer for narrative and social play. Cultural theorists discuss boardgames' complex history as both beautiful physical artifacts and special places within cultural experiences of play.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476670799
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Publication date:	08/30/2024
Series:	Studies in Gaming
Pages:	227
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.46(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Douglas Brown is the director of the Games Academy at Falmouth University, in Cornwall UK. His research interests surround how games, narrative and imagination work together. He has published widely on games and storytelling. Esther MacCallum-Stewart is an associate professor of games studies at Staffordshire University, UK. Her work examines the ways in which players understand narratives and the stories they tell and she has written widely on this subject. Series editor Matthew Wilhelm Kapell teaches American studies, anthropology, and writing at Pace University in New York.

Table of Contents

Acknowedgments vi

Introduction Douglas Brown Esther MacCallum-Stewart 1

Themes

Playing for Time Paul Booth 15

Collaborative Games Redux: New Lessons from the Past 10 Years José P. Zagal 29

Twilight Struggle, or: How We Stopped Worrying About the Hexagons Giaime Alonge Riccardo Fassone 48

Systems

Materially Mediated: Boardgames as Interactive Media and Mediated Communication Joe A. Wasserman 71

More Than the Sum of Their Bits: Understanding the Gameboard and Components Melissa J. Rogerson Martin Gibbs Wally Smith 88

A Mixed Blessing? Exploring the Use of Computers to Augment and Mediate Boardgames Karl Bergström Staffan Björk 109

Experiences

Gamifying Salvation: Gyan Chaupar Variants as Representations of (Re)Births and Lives Souvik Mukherjee 127

Guilt Trips for the Cardboard Colonialists: The Function of Procedural Rhetoric and the Contact Zone in Archipelago Dean Bowman 144

Playing Games, Splitting Selves C. Thi Nguyen 161

Ideologies

Narrative Machines: A Ludological Approach to Narrative Design Malcolm Ryan Robin Dixon Esther MacCallum-Stewart 179

Designing Analog Learning Games: Genre Affordances, Limitations and Multi-Game Approaches Owen Gottlieb Ian Schreiber 195

About the Contributors 213

Index 217