Description
Book Synopsis This book is an overview of the ongoing revolution in tabletop gaming design and culture, which exploded to unprecedented levels of vitality in the 21st century, leading to new ways of creating, marketing, and experiencing a game. Designers have become superstars, publishers have improved quality control, and the community of players is expanding. Most importantly, new and old players have started engaging with the games in a more meaningful way.
The book explores the reasons for these changes. It describes how games have begun to keep players engaged until the end. It analyzes the ways in which traditional mechanics have been reimagined to give them more variety and complexity, and reviews the unprecedented mechanics found and perfected. Very interesting is the exploration of how games have performed novel tasks such as reducing conflict, fostering cooperation, creating aesthetic experiences, and telling stories. The book is aimed at scholars, dedicated and aspiring fan
Table of Contents
- Table of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1. You Should Be Playing
- 2. Now with More Choices
- 3. Reimagining the Components
- 4. Two Case Studies
- 5. Rethinking the Big Ideas
- 6. The Cogs of the Machine: Classics Reimagined
- 7. The Cogs of the Machine: New Perspectives
- 8. The Aesthetics of Hobby Games
- 9. Eurogaming
- 10. Cooperative Gaming
- 11. Storytelling
- Conclusions
- Chapter Notes
- Works Cited
- Index
