Written by one of the best Scrabble players in the world, Breaking the Game delves into Scrabble like you've never seen before. Whether you are a new player who wants to beat your friends and family, an avid word lover who wants to know about Scrabble, an avid game player who wants to pick up the game, or an experienced Scrabble master, Breaking the Game can help anyone become a better Scrabble player. Breaking the Game covers basic Scrabble concepts (such as anagramming and board vision) to more complex concepts such as leaves, fishing, setups, and endgame. While it describes these concepts at a high level, it is written simply, at a level that anyone can understand! This book will become a reference for any Scrabble enthusiast that they can come back to time and time again!
A New York Times bestseller, David Halberstam's The Breaks of the Game focuses on one grim season (1979-80) in the life of the Bill Walton-led Portland Trail Blazers, a team that only three years before had been NBA champions. More than six years after his death David Halberstam remains one of this country's most respected journalists and revered authorities on American life and history in the years since WWII. A Pulitzer Prize-winner for his groundbreaking reporting on the Vietnam War, Halberstam wrote more than 20 books, almost all of them bestsellers. His work has stood the test of time and has become the standard by which all journalists measure themselves. The tactile authenticity of Halberstam's knowledge of the basketball world is unrivaled. Yet he is writing here about far more than just basketball. This is a story about a place in our society where power, money, and talent collide and sometimes corrupt, a place where both national obsessions and naked greed are exposed. It's about the influence of big media, the fans and the hype they subsist on, the clash of ethics, the terrible physical demands of modern sports (from drugs to body size), the unreal salaries, the conflicts of race and class, and the consequences of sport converted into mass entertainment and athletes transformed into superstars -- all presented in a way that puts the reader in the room and on the court, and The Breaks of the Game in a league of its own.
National bestselling author Charles Wilson delivers a cutting-edge thriller based on real-life experiments at improving human intelligence currently underway in both government and private circles. Imagine a computer chip no bigger than the tip of a pencil. This chip, if implanted in a human brain, could give someone encyclopedic knowledge, lightning-fast reflexes and superior learning skills. In a remote military hospital in Montana, an experiment is being performed: implant the chip into the brains of five volunteers. These volunteers, four men and one woman, are all serving life sentences in prison. The experiment works...but the five criminals escape. One young doctor is pulled into the intrigue by the baffling murder of his medical school mentor. Can this one doctor stop the conspiracy of five powerful opponents...whose driving desire is absolute and total control?
Fake news posts and Twitter trolls were just the beginning. What will happen when misinformation moves from our social media feeds into our everyday lives? Online disinformation stormed our political process in 2016 and has only worsened since. Yet as Samuel Woolley shows in this urgent book, it may pale in comparison to what's to come: humanlike automated voice systems, machine learning, "deepfake" AI-edited videos and images, interactive memes, virtual reality, and more. These technologies have the power not just to manipulate our politics, but to make us doubt our eyes and ears and even feelings. Deeply researched and compellingly written, The Reality Game describes the profound impact these technologies will have on our lives. Each new invention built without regard for its consequences edges us further into this digital dystopia. Yet Woolley does not despair. Instead, he argues pointedly for a new culture of innovation, one built around accountability and especially transparency. With social media dragging us into a never-ending culture war, we must learn to stop fighting and instead prevent future manipulation. This book shows how we can use our new tools not to control people but to empower them.
Videogame development is usually seen as a male dominated field; even playing videogames is often wrongly viewed as a pastime for men only. But behind the curtain, women have always played myriad important roles in gaming. From programmers to artists, designers to producers, female videogame developers endure not only the pressures of their jobs but also epic levels of harassment and hostility. Jennifer Brandes Hepler’s Women in Game Development: Breaking the Glass Level-Cap gives voice to talented and experienced female game developers from a variety of backgrounds, letting them share the passion that drives them to keep making games. Key Features Experience the unique stories of nearly two dozen female game developers, from old-school veterans to rising stars. Understand the role of women in videogames, from the earliest days of development to the present day. Hear first-hand perspectives from working professionals in fields including coding, design, art, writing, community management, production and journalism. Get tips for how to be a better ally and make your company and teams more inclusive. Learn about the obstacles you face if you’re an aspiring female developer, and how to overcome them. Meet the human face of some of the women who have endured the industry’s worst harassment... and kept on going.
From Remedy Entertainment, the masters of cinematic action games such as Max Payne and Alan Wake, comes a gripping novelization of this time-amplified suspenseful blockbuster. The Quantum Break experience is part game, part show—where decisions in one dramatically affect the other. Both experiences share the same incredible cast of actors who have played leading roles in Lost, X-Men, Game of Thrones and more. The novel, Quantum Break: Zero State, is the story of the game’s hero, Jack Joyce, who, with his newly gained superpowers, fights the nefarious Monarch corporation to stop the end of time. Epic moments of destruction, frozen in chaotic “time stutters,” become playgrounds for intense combat and gripping story. The novel greatly expands on the game’s narrative, offering intriguing new timelines and characters to explore! At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Make it! Code it! Break it! Mod it! Meg Ray's CODE THIS GAME! is a nonfiction visual guide, illustrated by Keith Zoo, that teaches young readers, 10-14, how to program and create their very own video game. Each chapter introduces key coding concepts as kids build an action strategy game in Python, an open-source programming language. The book features an innovative stand-up format that allows kids to read, program, and play their game simultaneously. With easy-to-follow step-by-step instructions, CODE THIS GAME! teaches kids to build a strategy action game called “Attack of the Vampire Pizzas!” The book also teaches how to modify the game and follow one's imagination by incorporating downloadable art assets. By the time kids finish the book, they'll have mastered basic coding concepts and created a personalized game.
The greatest trick the videogame industry ever pulled was convincing the world that videogames were games rather than a medium for making metagames. Elegantly defined as “games about games,” metagames implicate a diverse range of practices that stray outside the boundaries and bend the rules: from technical glitches and forbidden strategies to Renaissance painting, algorithmic trading, professional sports, and the War on Terror. In Metagaming, Stephanie Boluk and Patrick LeMieux demonstrate how games always extend beyond the screen, and how modders, mappers, streamers, spectators, analysts, and artists are changing the way we play. Metagaming uncovers these alternative histories of play by exploring the strange experiences and unexpected effects that emerge in, on, around, and through videogames. Players puzzle through the problems of perspectival rendering in Portal, perform clandestine acts of electronic espionage in EVE Online, compete and commentate in Korean StarCraft, and speedrun The Legend of Zelda in record times (with or without the use of vision). Companies like Valve attempt to capture the metagame through international e-sports and online marketplaces while the corporate history of Super Mario Bros. is undermined by the endless levels of Infinite Mario, the frustrating pranks of Asshole Mario, and even Super Mario Clouds, a ROM hack exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art. One of the only books to include original software alongside each chapter, Metagaming transforms videogames from packaged products into instruments, equipment, tools, and toys for intervening in the sensory and political economies of everyday life. And although videogames conflate the creativity, criticality, and craft of play with the act of consumption, we don’t simply play videogames—we make metagames.
Provides an inside view of the lives of the Polgar sisters, each with their own goals and aspirations. This book takes readers through the incredible development of the three sisters as they pursued their dreams. It also includes a compilation of some of the Polgar sisters' most stunning chess games.
