Exterior photo of Smathers Library (formerly Library East) at the University of Florida, photo from the University of Florida Digital Collections

Spring 2006: LIT 4930 :: Gaming Cultures

Project 1 (due Feb 3-Mar 10)

If you're reviewing a single game (or game series) address these concerns in your review:

1. Provide some background on your game: is it a stand-alone game, one in a series, one made after a film, after a tv show, made as a game-type clone, in a particularly codified genre (FPS, RPG).
   • This may include issues of game play, game controls, important game designer/company, game visual layout, game engine, game narrative premise, character archetypes, use of embedded games (riddles, puzzles, game as board, trivia, mini quests)
2. Explain the rules involved in the game.
3. Explain the etiquette involved in playing this game.
4. Explain the game's audience (girls, boys, older players, younger players, rich, poor, whomever)
5. Tell what's important about this game in particular. Why did you choose it? How does it exemplify, complicate, or expand aspects of gaming in Rules of Play or in your game-theory text?
6. How does this game fit or not fit within the history of gaming?

Brief Notes Example: Elecktroplanton

1. Provide some background on your game: is it a stand-alone game, one in a series, one made after a film, after a tv show, made as a game-type clone, in a particularly codified genre (FPS, RPG).
   • This may include issues of game play, game controls, important game designer/company, game visual layout, game engine, game narrative premise, character archetypes, use of embedded games (riddles, puzzles, game as board, trivia, mini quests)
   game play: Nintendo DS, so stylus
   controls: playing with stylus and mic
   designer: nintendo
   visual layout: two screens, simplistic/iconic graphics, elegant design/primary colors (Google), different types of play, changes color, basic shapes
   no narrative, other than that electroplankton are cute, just like Pikmin
   character archetypes: cute?
   embedded games: the whole thing is like an embedded game


2. Explain the rules involved in the game.
   it's a casual game, if it could be called a game, so the rules are how the game works and then to enjoy it and to make music and think


3. Explain the etiquette involved in playing this game.
   With most handheld games, players should use headphones so that the sound of the game does not disrupt those around them. However, with a game like this, that's so beautiful and inviting, in some situations it could actually be nicer to share the game with others. In playing my clamshell Nintendo GBA and DS in the airport, I've found that most people who see me playing want to talk to me about the games. Perhaps this occurs because I don't fit most people's expectations of what a gamer (a woman in her mid-twenties) should be. In my experience, most people do want to talk about the games, to find out why I play games at all, and to learn about the games and game systems themselves.
   
   Given my experiences, games like Electroplankton could allow for exceptions to the normal etiquette rules provided the game player wanted to share the game with others and to contextualize the game within a conversation on gaming.


4. Explain the game's audience: literally anyone, which is strange, but particularly hardcore gamers (in the sense that they view games as art and want games to innovate and develop), and atypical gamers: girls, grandparents


5. Tell what's important about this game in particular. Why did you choose it? How does it exemplify, complicate, or expand aspects of gaming in Rules of Play or in your game-theory text?
   explodes structuralist definitions of games
   explores how games can be played and what play means, what art means
   explores what beauty means (critical issues with beauty--normally used in a high vs low art or people in power vs those not in power, this is pleasing, evocative, and for the masses)
   explores what gaming can do--not just better graphics and longer, an argument that every Nintendo game seems to also make


6. How does this game fit or not fit within the history of gaming?
   it isn't technically a game, it would be considered a toy:
   toy
   1. An object for children to play with.
   2. Something of little importance; a trifle.
   3. An amusement; a pastime: thought of the business as a toy.
   4. A small ornament; a bauble.
   5. A diminutive thing or person.
   In this, it connects games and toys more generally. This is important to see how people have evaluated toys and games theoretically and culturally. To see how toys are denigrated even when intelligent and complex, and to see how games can be beautiful (many toys and dolls are collected for their aesthetic design, less so with games). To show how all games can be played within an open realm of play.

Book Review

Places to send the book review to:

• Currents in Electronic Literacy An electronic journal for the scholarly discussion of issues pertaining to electronic literacy
• Design Philosophy Interdisciplinary Discussions on Design
• EBR The Electronic Book Review
• Game Studies A journal of video and computer games.
• ImageTexT Interdisciplinary Comics Studies
• The Lion and the Unicorn Children's Literature Journals
• Mechademia, a journal on Anime, Manga, andthe Fan Arts
• NMEDIAC A journal of new media and culture.
• RCCS

Writing the Review

Check the guidelines at the places above. See what they require and what the general book review format is. For most places, it's something like:

• 1,000-3,000 words
• MLA format (sometimes APA or Chicago, but this is an easy fix)
• Look at this for structure.

Sending in the Review

Send from an email account that you check and that has a name that makes sense and doesn't sound weird (nothing with cute/uf/hot in the email name).

Sample review query letter:
Hello,

I am a student in (English/Education) at the University of Florida. I've attached a book review of (book name) for consideration for (Journal Name). Please email me if you have any questions.

(Best),
(name)

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