The classic Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) version of Tetris has been enjoyed by millions since its release 25 years ago. However, only a select few players have been able to discover all of the obscurities and nuances of the game in order to truly master it.... until now. With this book learn all of the tricks of the classic NES Tetris masters to push your skills to new limits and take your Tetris game to a whole new level. This comprehensive guide covers all of the advanced techniques that the world's best NES Tetris players use.
The definitive story of a game so great, even the Cold War couldn't stop it Tetris is perhaps the most instantly recognizable, popular video game ever made. But how did an obscure Soviet programmer, working on frail, antiquated computers, create a product which has now earned nearly 1 billion in sales? How did a makeshift game turn into a worldwide sensation, which has been displayed at the Museum of Modern Art, inspired a big-budget sci-fi movie, and been played in outer space? A quiet but brilliant young man, Alexey Pajitnov had long nurtured a love for the obscure puzzle game pentominoes, and became obsessed with turning it into a computer game. Little did he know that the project that he labored on alone, hour after hour, would soon become the most addictive game ever made. In this fast-paced business story, reporter Dan Ackerman reveals how Tetris became one of the world's first viral hits, passed from player to player, eventually breaking through the Iron Curtain into the West. British, American, and Japanese moguls waged a bitter fight over the rights, sending their fixers racing around the globe to secure backroom deals, while a secretive Soviet organization named ELORG chased down the game's growing global profits. The Tetris Effect is an homage to both creator and creation, and a must-read for anyone who's ever played the game-which is to say everyone.
"Game Feel" exposes "feel" as a hidden language in game design that no one has fully articulated yet. The language could be compared to the building blocks of music (time signatures, chord progressions, verse) - no matter the instruments, style or time period - these building blocks come into play. Feel and sensation are similar building blocks whe
Code the Classics Volume 1 not only tells the stories of some of the seminal video games of the 1970s and 1980s, but shows you how to create your own games inspired by them, following examples programmed by Raspberry Pi founder Eben Upton. In this book, you'll learn how to run and edit the games in this book by installing Python, Pygame Zero, and an IDE. You'll also: Get game design tips and tricks from the masters Learn how to code your own games with Pygame Zero Explore the code listings and find out how they work You'll meet these vintage-inspired games, and learn from their code in between rounds of play: Boing!: all it took was a couple of lines and a dot, and gamers would be queuing up to play. Cavern: Enduringly popular, the platform game genre is still packed with creative possibilities. Infinite Bunner: Play around with the benefits that a top-down perspective can lend to the classic platform genre. Myriapod: Some shooters confine the gameplay to a single screen while limiting the player's movement. Restrictions can build challenge and difficulty, making for truly addictive gaming. Substitute Soccer: Top-down games of pinball-style soccer built a huge cult following and kicked off a sports genre that's still going strong.
Cover -- Half-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Preface -- 1 Youth and Media -- 2 Then and Now -- 3 Themes and Theoretical Perspectives -- 4 Infants, Toddlers, and Preschoolers -- 5 Children -- 6 Adolescents -- 7 Media and Violence -- 8 Media and Emotions -- 9 Advertising and Commercialism -- 10 Media and Sex -- 11 Media and Education -- 12 Digital Games -- 13 Social Media -- 14 Media and Parenting -- 15 The End -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- X -- Y -- Z
Playing with Videogames documents the richly productive, playful and social cultures of videogaming that support, surround and sustain this most important of digital media forms and yet which remain largely invisible within existing studies. James Newman details the rich array of activities that surround game-playing, charting the vibrant and productive practices of the vast number of videogame players and the extensive 'shadow' economy of walkthroughs, FAQs, art, narratives, online discussion boards and fan games, as well as the cultures of cheating, copying and piracy that have emerged. Playing with Videogames offers the reader a comprehensive understanding of the meanings of videogames and videogaming within the contemporary media environment.
Design and build cutting-edge video games with help from video game expert Scott Rogers! If you want to design and build cutting-edge video games but aren’t sure where to start, then this is the book for you. Written by leading video game expert Scott Rogers, who has designed the hits Pac Man World, Maxim vs. Army of Zin, and SpongeBob Squarepants, this book is full of Rogers's wit and imaginative style that demonstrates everything you need to know about designing great video games. Features an approachable writing style that considers game designers from all levels of expertise and experience Covers the entire video game creation process, including developing marketable ideas, understanding what gamers want, working with player actions, and more Offers techniques for creating non-human characters and using the camera as a character Shares helpful insight on the business of design and how to create design documents So, put your game face on and start creating memorable, creative, and unique video games with this book!
The complex material histories of the Nintendo Entertainment System platform, from code to silicon, focusing on its technical constraints and its expressive affordances. In the 1987 Nintendo Entertainment System videogame Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, a character famously declared: I AM ERROR. Puzzled players assumed that this cryptic mesage was a programming flaw, but it was actually a clumsy Japanese-English translation of “My Name is Error,” a benign programmer's joke. In I AM ERROR Nathan Altice explores the complex material histories of the Nintendo Entertainment System (and its Japanese predecessor, the Family Computer), offering a detailed analysis of its programming and engineering, its expressive affordances, and its cultural significance. Nintendo games were rife with mistranslated texts, but, as Altice explains, Nintendo's translation challenges were not just linguistic but also material, with consequences beyond simple misinterpretation. Emphasizing the technical and material evolution of Nintendo's first cartridge-based platform, Altice describes the development of the Family Computer (or Famicom) and its computational architecture; the “translation” problems faced while adapting the Famicom for the U.S. videogame market as the redesigned Entertainment System; Nintendo's breakthrough console title Super Mario Bros. and its remarkable software innovations; the introduction of Nintendo's short-lived proprietary disk format and the design repercussions on The Legend of Zelda; Nintendo's efforts to extend their console's lifespan through cartridge augmentations; the Famicom's Audio Processing Unit (APU) and its importance for the chiptunes genre; and the emergence of software emulators and the new kinds of play they enabled.
More American children recognize Super Mario, the hero of one of Nintendo’s video games, than Mickey Mouse. The Japanese company has come to earn more money than the big three computer giants or all Hollywood movie studios combined. Now Sheff tells of the Nintendo invasion–a tale of innovation and cutthroat tactics.
