Concept art and creator commentary from Academy Award Winner Guillermo del Toro and the talented minds behind the Emmy® Award-winning animated series! Dark Horse Books and DreamWorks Animation have crossed Arcadia Oaks, the Troll Market, and the Darklands to bring you the definitive chronicle of the making of Trollhunters. Including hundreds of pieces of never-before-seen concept art and exclusive artists' commentary, this masterfully designed and gorgeously printed volume offers readers the chance to take in the magic of these fantastical worlds and unforgettable characters like never before!
Explore the world of all three Total War: WARHAMMER games in this stunning compendium, packed with concept art, final designs, storyboards, and artist commentary. Total War: WARHAMMER is the award-winning PC strategy game trilogy from Creative Assembly. Set in the world of Warhammer Fantasy Battles, it combines grand campaigns of epic empire-building with battles of breathtaking scale, brimming with the warriors, wizards, and monsters that fans know and love. Delve into the rich lore of Games Workshop’s world of Warhammer Fantasy Battles, as viewed through the Total War lens. Total War: WARHAMMER – The Art of the Games offers Creative Assembly’s insights into the development of the series. Pore over concept sketches, texture studies, character art, and fully rendered paintings, accompanied by commentary from the artists themselves. Featuring artwork of iconic characters and scenes from parts I and II, as well as never-before-seen art from the trilogy’s thundering grand finale, this coffee-table tome is an essential collector’s item for any Warhammer or Total War fan.
Dread Trident examines the rise of imaginary worlds in tabletop role-playing games (TRPGs), such as Dungeons and Dragons. With the combination of analog and digital mechanisms, from traditional books to the internet, new ways of engaging the fantastic have become increasingly realized in recent years, and this book seeks an understanding of this phenomenon within the discourses of trans- and posthumanism, as well as within a gameist mode. The book explores a number of case studies of foundational TRPGs. Dungeons and Dragons provides an illustration of pulp-driven fantasy, particularly in the way it harmonizes its many campaign settings into a functional multiverse. It also acts as a supreme example of depth within its archive of official and unofficial published material, stretching back four decades. Warhammer 40k and the Worlds of Darkness present an interesting dialogue between Gothic and science-fantasy elements. The Mythos of HP Lovecraft also features prominently in the book as an example of a realized world that spans the literary and gameist modes. Realized fantasy worlds are becoming ever more popular as a way of experiencing a touch of the magical within modern life. Reworking Northrop Frye's definition of irony, Dread Trident theorizes an ironic understanding of this process and in particular of its embodied forms.
A look at wargaming’s past, present, and future—from digital games to tabletop games—and its use in entertainment, education, and military planning. With examples from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Harpoon, Warhammer 40,000, and more! Games with military themes date back to antiquity, and yet they are curiously neglected in much of the academic and trade literature on games and game history. This volume fills that gap, providing a diverse set of perspectives on wargaming’s past, present, and future. In Zones of Control, contributors consider wargames played for entertainment, education, and military planning, in terms of design, critical analysis, and historical contexts. They consider both digital and especially tabletop games, most of which cover specific historical conflicts or are grounded in recognizable real-world geopolitics. Game designers and players will find the historical and critical contexts often missing from design and hobby literature; military analysts will find connections to game design and the humanities; and academics will find documentation and critique of a sophisticated body of cultural work in which the complexity of military conflict is represented in ludic systems and procedures. Each section begins with a long anchoring chapter by an established authority, which is followed by a variety of shorter pieces both analytic and anecdotal. Topics include the history of playing at war; operations research and systems design; wargaming and military history; wargaming’s ethics and politics; gaming irregular and non-kinetic warfare; and wargames as artistic practice.
Magic Realms celebrates the incredible art of the brilliant and highly respected fantasy and science fiction artists who, over the years, worked with the Fighting Fantasy authors to bring their interactive adventures to vivid life. Each artist is profiled along with select examples of their best work – in vibrant full colour, the astonishing detail on display in all its glory. It features the work some of the world’s best fantasy artists including Chris Achilléos, John Blanche, Jim Burns, Les Edwards, Karl Kopinski, Iain McCaig, Martin McKenna, Ian Miller and Russ Nicholson, among others. Written by Fighting Fantasy co-creator Ian Livingstone and Fighting Fantasy historian Jonathan Green, Magic Realms is a Who’s Who of fantasy art – an absolutely essential collector's item for any Fighting Fantasy fan.
This book presents a much-needed framework for the critical examination of miniatures games and their design. It provides the reader with both a conceptual model for understanding how these games work as well as a toolbox of mechanical approaches to achieving a range of design outcomes and assessing the fit of any given approach within a specific design. Though dating back to the 1820s, tabletop miniatures games have been little explored critically and lack a conceptual vocabulary for their discussion. Active practitioners in the miniature games design community, Glenn Ford and Mike Hutchinson explore what defines these games, proposing the term ‘non-discrete miniatures games’ to encapsulate the essence of these open and immersive hobby gaming experiences. Discarding the term ‘wargame’, they argue against limiting conceptions of these games to direct armed conflict, and champion their diverse narrative potential. The book provides a fresh conceptual framework for miniatures games, abstracting the concepts of positioning and moving markers non-discretely across scale-modelled environments into inclusive and generalised terminology, untethering them from their roots as military simulations and providing the foundations for a fresh consideration of miniatures games design. Written for game designers, and with a foreword by Gav Thorpe, The Fundamentals of Tabletop Miniatures Game Design is a handbook for those that wish to design better miniatures games.
This work explores the diverse ways in which young people are active social agents in the production of youth culture in the digital age. It collects an international range of empirical accounts describing the ways in which young people utilize and appropriate new technology. The contributors draw on a range of theoretical perspectives including cultural studies, social anthropology and feminism.
The game industry continues to grow and evolve as the years pass. Despite this growth, the competition in obtaining a career in video games remains as arduous as ever. Becoming a Video Game Artist helps guide readers from their first steps of making a portfolio, to acing the job interview and beyond. John Pearl explores the different art related jobs and their responsibilities. Questions are posed to industry professionals throughout each chapter to help with the reader’s growth and understanding. Becoming a Video Game Artist is the ultimate roadmap in navigating a career in video games by teaching how to make your portfolio shine, what expect once hired, and how to make the best decisions to help flourish your talents and cultivate an exciting career.
Fighting Fantasy gamebooks have sold over 17 million books worldwide, in over 30 languages. But when Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone sat down to write The Warlock of Firetop Mountain they had no idea this one book would go on to spawn another eighty or more titles, and have an immeasurable impact on a generation of children growing up in the 1980s. Part history, part celebration, YOU ARE THE HERO chronicles more than three decades of Fighting Fantasy. Written by Jonathan Green (author of seven Fighting Fantasy titles), this mighty tome will appeal to anyone who ever wiled away a washed-out summer holiday with only two dice, a pencil, and an eraser for company. This is a fixed format PDF eBook, with all of the same stunning, full-colour artwork as the hardback and paperback. Best viewed on a colour screen of 7" upwards, as a daily reader to keep your precious hardback safe. “YOU ARE THE HERO is as read-under-the-covers immersive as its subject matter; great characters, amazing stories and a surprise behind every door. 5 stars!" -- SCIFI Now “The most comprehensive history of the Fighting Fantasy phenomenon I've ever seen. With its maps, notes, art and photographs it's not just a celebration but a fascinating resource." -- SFX “How many thousands of heroes did these books create? And how many lost their lives with a bad roll of the dice? A publishing phenomenon, without which computer games wouldn't be what they are today. About time these books were celebrated. Now go to page 45 and face your nemesis." -- Charlie Higson
Written by a game developer and professor trained in architecture, An Architectural Approach to Level Design is one of the first books to integrate architectural and spatial design theory with the field of level design. It explores the principles of level design through the context and history of architecture. Now in its second edition, An Architectural Approach to Level Design presents architectural techniques and theories for you to use in your own work. The author connects architecture and level design in different ways that address the practical elements of how designers construct space and the experiential elements of how and why humans interact with that space. It also addresses industry issues like how to build interesting tutorial levels and how to use computer-generated level design systems without losing the player-focused design of handmade levels. Throughout the text, you will learn skills for spatial layout, evoking emotion through gamespaces, and creating better levels through architectural theory. FEATURES Presents case studies that offer insight on modern level design practices, methods, and tools Presents perspectives from industry designers, independent game developers, scientists, psychologists, and academics Explores how historical structures can teach us about good level design Shows how to use space to guide or elicit emotion from players Includes chapter exercises that encourage you to use principles from the chapter in digital prototypes, playtesting sessions, paper mock-ups, and design journals Bringing together topics in game design and architecture, this book helps you create better spaces for your games. Software independent, the book discusses tools and techniques that you can use in crafting your interactive worlds.
