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Video games are so much more than just full throttle blasts of gunfights, violence and white-knuckle competition. They can also be beautiful, cosy and even emotionally uplifting journeys too. The ideal escapism after a day you’d sooner forget or the perfect sedative following a particularly stress-filled afternoon. The Most Relaxing Video Games will walk you through a selection of gaming experiences sure to help you unwind. From the familiar warmth of sitting down with a good classic board game (51 of them to be exact) through to the solving of hundreds of puzzles on a mysterious island using nothing but lines, there’s a world of delightfully comforting video games just waiting to sooth your gaming soul. Covering over 50 video games and spanning nearly thirty years, this comprehensive guide includes detailed explanations of every peaceful entry along with full-color screenshots, standout moments, fascinating facts and of course what it is that makes them such a relaxing alternative. Whether you’re a fan of racers, management sims, puzzles or platformers, there’s something here for everyone. So trade in your firearms for farming gear and punching fists for puzzles. Sit back, get comfy and discover the relaxing side that video games have to offer.
Asking Questions about Video Games by Marie Powell Pdf
The world of gaming has changed a lot since the days of Pong and PacMan. Asking Questions about Video Games gives young readers a look at the technology behind today's games, the messages they send, and what they say about our values as a culture. Case studies prompt inquiry, further thinking, and close examination of specific issues. Additional text features and search tools, including a glossary and an index, help students locate information and learn new words.
How to Do Things with Videogames by Ian Bogost Pdf
In recent years, computer games have moved from the margins of popular culture to its center. Reviews of new games and profiles of game designers now regularly appear in the New York Times and the New Yorker, and sales figures for games are reported alongside those of books, music, and movies. They are increasingly used for purposes other than entertainment, yet debates about videogames still fork along one of two paths: accusations of debasement through violence and isolation or defensive paeans to their potential as serious cultural works. In How to Do Things with Videogames, Ian Bogost contends that such generalizations obscure the limitless possibilities offered by the medium’s ability to create complex simulated realities. Bogost, a leading scholar of videogames and an award-winning game designer, explores the many ways computer games are used today: documenting important historical and cultural events; educating both children and adults; promoting commercial products; and serving as platforms for art, pornography, exercise, relaxation, pranks, and politics. Examining these applications in a series of short, inviting, and provocative essays, he argues that together they make the medium broader, richer, and more relevant to a wider audience. Bogost concludes that as videogames become ever more enmeshed with contemporary life, the idea of gamers as social identities will become obsolete, giving rise to gaming by the masses. But until games are understood to have valid applications across the cultural spectrum, their true potential will remain unrealized. How to Do Things with Videogames offers a fresh starting point to more fully consider games’ progress today and promise for the future.
In Extra Lives, acclaimed writer and life-long video game enthusiast Tom Bissell takes the reader on an insightful and entertaining tour of the art and meaning of video games. In just a few decades, video games have grown increasingly complex and sophisticated, and the companies that produce them are now among the most profitable in the entertainment industry. Yet few outside this world have thought deeply about how these games work, why they are so appealing, and what they are capable of artistically. Blending memoir, criticism, and first-rate reportage, Extra Lives is a milestone work about what might be the dominant popular art form of our time.
Being the Person Your Dog Thinks You Are by Jim Davies Pdf
A crisp and sparkling blend of cognitive science and human behavior that offers meaningful and attainable pathways towards becoming our best selves. Why do we feel like in order to be productive, happy, or good, we must sacrifice everything else? Is it possible to feel all three at once? Without even knowing it, we’re doing things everyday to sabotage ourselves and our societies, habits that prevent us from optimizing long term happiness. Where most books imagine solutions that, when enacted, fail to fundamentally improve our lives, Jim Davies grounds his research in cognitive science to show you not only what works, but how much it works. Being the Person Your Dog Thinks You Are shows us how we can use science to become our best selves, using resources we already have within our own brains. Davies's book challenges and inspires us to approach the big picture while also staying mindful of the everyday details in real life. Davies proves why multitasking is bad for you, when a little unmindfulness can be good for you, how to best justify which charities to donate to, and how to hack your brain. The most surprising truth Davies offers us spreads across these pages like wildfire: you too can lead an optimally good life, not through uprooting your life from the ground up, but from adapting your mentality to your given present. A better life doesn’t need to look like a massive change—like our beloved dogs who already view us as our best selves, it’s already much closer than you think.
How games are being harnessed as instruments of exploitation—and what we can do about it Warehouse workers pack boxes while a virtual dragon races across their screen. If they beat their colleagues, they get an award. If not, they can be fired. Uber presents exhausted drivers with challenges to keep them driving. China scores its citizens so they behave well, and games with in-app purchases use achievements to empty your wallet. Points, badges, and leaderboards are creeping into every aspect of modern life. In You’ve Been Played, game designer Adrian Hon delivers a blistering takedown of how corporations, schools, and governments use games and gamification as tools for profit and coercion. These are games that we often have no choice but to play, where losing has heavy penalties. You’ve Been Played is a scathing indictment of a tech-driven world that wants to convince us that misery is fun, and a call to arms for anyone who hopes to preserve their dignity and autonomy.
Engaging with Videogames: Play, Theory and Practice by Dawn Stobbart,Monica Evans Pdf
This volume was first published by Inter-Disciplinary Press in 2014. Engaging with Videogames focuses on the multiplicity of lenses through which the digital game can be understood, particularly as a cultural artefact, economic product, educational tool, and narrative experience. Game studies remains a highly interdisciplinary field, and as such tends to bring together scholars and researchers from a wide variety of fields and analytical practices. As such, this volume includes explorations of videogames from the fields of literature, visual art, history, classics, film studies, new media studies, phenomenology, education, philosophy, psychology, and the social sciences, as well as game studies, design, and development. The chapters are organised thematically into four sections focusing on educational game practices, videogame cultures, videogame theory, and the practice of critical analysis. Within these chapters are explorations of sexual identity and health, videogame history, slapstick, player mythology and belief systems, gender and racial ideologies, games as a ‘body-without organs,’ and controversial games from Mass Effect 3 to Raid over Moscow. This volume aims to inspire further research in this rapidly evolving and expanding field.
There’s no such thing as a bad kid. That’s what a lifetime of experience has taught Dr. Stuart Shanker. No matter how difficult, out of control, distracted, or exhausted a child might seem, there’s a way forward: self-regulation. Overturning decades of conventional wisdom, this radical new technique allows children and the adults who care for them to regain their composure and peace of mind. Self-Reg is a groundbreaking book that presents an entirely new understanding of your child’s emotions and behavior and a practical guide for parents to help their kids engage calmly and successfully in learning and life. Grounded in decades of research and working with children and parents by Dr. Shanker, Self-Reg realigns the power of the parent-child relationship for positive change. Self-regulation is the nervous system’s way of responding to stress. We are seeing a generation of children and teens with excessively high levels of stress, and, as a result, an explosion of emotional, social, learning, behavior, and physical health problems. But few parents recognize the “hidden stressors” that their children are struggling with: physiological as well as social and emotional. An entrenched view of child rearing sees our children as lacking self-control or willpower, but the real basis for these problems lies in excessive stress. Self-regulation can dramatically improve a child’s mood, attention, and concentration. It can help children to feel empathy, and to cultivate the sorts of virtues that most parents know are vital for their child’s long-term wellbeing. Self-regulation brings about profound and lasting transformation that continues throughout life. Dr. Shanker translates decades of his findings from working with children into practical, prescriptive advice for parents, giving them concrete ways to develop their self-regulation skills and teach their children to do the same and engage successfully with life for optimal learning, social, and emotional growth.
Interviews with female gamers about structural sexism across the gaming landscape When the Nintendo Wii was released in 2006, it ushered forward a new era of casual gaming in which video games appealed to not just the stereotypical hardcore male gamer, but also to a much broader, more diverse audience. However, the GamerGate controversy six years later, and other similar public incidents since, laid bare the internalized misogyny and gender stereotypes in the gaming community. Today, even as women make up nearly half of all gamers, sexist assumptions about the what and how of women’s gaming are more actively enforced. In Gaming Sexism, Amanda C. Cote explores the video game industry and its players to explain this contradiction, how it affects female gamers, and what it means in terms of power and gender equality. Across in-depth interviews with women-identified gamers, Cote delves into the conflict between diversification and resistance to understand their impact on gaming, both casual and “core” alike. From video game magazines to male reactions to female opponents, she explores the shifting expectations about who gamers are, perceived changes in gaming spaces, and the experiences of female gamers amidst this gendered turmoil. While Cote reveals extensive, persistent problems in gaming spaces, she also emphasizes the power of this motivated, marginalized audience, and draws on their experiences to explore how structural inequalities in gaming spaces can be overcome. Gaming Sexism is a well-timed investigation of equality, power, and control over the future of technology.
Do you live in constant fear? Shallow breathing, tension in the gut, chest pains, rapid hearbeat... Anxiety destroys your confidence, your productivity, you relationships, your ability to enjoy life. You can put an end to your suffering. You can start living again. And it's not as hard as you think.
This is a book about recovery. Not recovery from drugs, alcohol, or surgery, but recovery from the numerous and relentless demands we face in handling our everyday obligations. These demands take a toll on us. Regardless of whether they come from paid employment, caring for young children, looking after elderly parents, or trying to get through graduate school, our daily obligations weigh heavily on us. They deplete our energy. They drain us of motivation. They leave us feeling weary and exhausted. If you tend to feel worn out and want to know how to replenish yourself, this book is for you. We should be able to recover from our daily obligations during our downtime. But many of us don’t. In this book we will explain why downtime is inadequate for helping us recharge our batteries, and present you with an effective alternative. Recent scientific developments from around the globe have shed light on the processes that reverse the draining effects of our obligations and help us successfully recover in our leisure time. Not only that, research also reveals that when effective recovery occurs it not only recharges our batteries, but makes us feel happier, makes us healthier, and makes us better at handling the demands that drained us in the first place. We call this boosting to reflect the multi-pronged benefits of successful recovery. In this book we draw on the most cutting-edge science to explain how to transform our ineffective downtime into valuable uptime. Uptime is the time away from our obligations that successfully satisfies the factors that lead us to feel replenished, recharged, recovered, and gives us a boost. Praise for Boost: “Boost has deep implications for everyone” ~ From the Foreword by Shawn Achor, New York Times, bestselling author of Big Potential and The Happiness Advantage “This book is bound to change your life! Writing in an informative, and highly engaging style, Gruman and Healey bring to light a revolutionary new way of dealing with the intensity of everyday obligations. This is by far one of the most comprehensive integrations of modern science and seasoned wisdom in positive psychology. I highly recommend this book.” ~ Mirella De Civita, PhD President of Papillon MDC, Founder of Grand Heron International, author of The Courage to Fall into Life "'Boost' does just that! It gives you a lift! This book provides practical and encouraging examples of how to re-energize in the midst of our challenged and time pressured lives. An enjoyable and extremely beneficial read." ~ Chris Kotsopoulos CEO, Children’s Wish Foundation of Canada "Do you want to know how to recharge? Boost is a must read for you. This fantastic book helps those of us wanting to understand the impact of replenishing ourselves on enhancing our connections, productivity, and happiness, and provides strategies to seriously improve the quality of our lives." ~ Lola Bendana Director, Multi-Languages Corporation “In the age of doing more with less, what every busy working person needs most is proven, practical strategies for staying productive and focused. This book delivers. After all I’ve read and heard about the energy crisis in today’s workplace, Boost told me a lot I didn’t know—and will apply, starting now.” ~ Rona Maynard Former Editor of Chatelaine, Author of My Mother’s Daughter “In today’s world of smartphones, tablets, and relentless connectivity, it is almost impossible to find a reprieve from the stresses of our day to day lives. Gruman and Healey provide clear, well articulated, evidence-based guidance in their expertly written book. Boost is an essential read for anyone looking to live life to the fullest.” ~ Marie-Helene Budworth, PhD Associate Professor, School of Human Resource Management, York University
100 Best Video Games (That Never Existed) by Nate Crowley Pdf
THE WORLD’S FIRST POST-TRUTH GAMING BOOK After rashly tweeting he would dream up an imaginary computer game for every ‘like’ received, Nate Crowley found himself on an epic quest to conjure up hundreds of entirely fictional titles. From 1980s hits like BeastEnders to modern classics like 90s Goth Soccer and BinCrab Destiny, this beautiful retrospective takes the reader on a lavish tour of the most memorable and groundbreaking games never made. Brought to hilarious life by a team of genuine videogame industry concept artists and written by a professional over-imaginer, this book doesn’t just throw out silly ideas – it expands on them in relentless, excruciating detail.
What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. Second Edition by James Paul Gee Pdf
James Paul Gee begins his classic book with "I want to talk about video games--yes, even violent video games--and say some positive things about them." With this simple but explosive statement, one of America's most well-respected educators looks seriously at the good that can come from playing video games. In this revised edition of What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, new games like World of WarCraft and Half Life 2 are evaluated and theories of cognitive development are expanded. Gee looks at major cognitive activities including how individuals develop a sense of identity, how we grasp meaning, how we evaluate and follow a command, pick a role model, and perceive the world.
Like a yoga class you can hold in your hand, a beautiful, full-color guide to letting sh*t go Our world is filled with annoyances, and sometimes you need a little dose of humor to cope with the news cycle, your irritating co-worker, or that telemarketer who won’t stop calling. This refreshingly honest self-help book will guide you through a meditation to “breathe in strength, and breathe out bullsh*t.” An excellent gift for yourself or others, F*ck That is the very embodiment of modern-day self-care. May it help you find peace with the challenges that surround you…because they are f*cking everywhere. Based on the viral video that had everyone from yogis to workaholics raving, F*ck That is the completely truthful and oddly tranquil guide to relieving stress and achieving inner peace.