The Neverhood


Book Description

The "official" game book for DreamWorks Interactive, this "Inside Moves" title features copious insider tips, unique strategies to play The Neverhood, and information directly from the game developer teams.




The History of the Adventure Video Game


Book Description

Get ready for the adventure of a lifetime! Adventure video games have provided players with epic and hilarious storytelling for over fifty years. What started from the humble beginnings of text adventures led to a blast of point-and-click and graphic adventure games throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s. Trailblazers like Roberta and Ken Williams, Ron Gilbert, Tim Schaffer and Dave Grossman brought timeless characters, stories and puzzles to life, lighting the imaginations and wracking the brains of gamers around the world. This book showcases the companies, games and creators that have made the adventure video game one of the most passionately-adored genres in the medium. In these pages you’ll find histories on influential companies such as Sierra On-Line, LucasArts and Telltale Games, as well as some of the most revered games in the genre. With a bright future emerging as veterans and newcomers forge ahead with new ideas and visual flourishes for adventure games, there’s never been a better time to become acquainted (or reacquainted!) with a colorful and exciting part of gaming history. So point your cursor over the start button and click that mouse!




Independent Animation


Book Description

With the advent of advanced hand-held technology and the widespread nature of the internet, the world of animated filmmaking is more exciting and accessible than ever. Due to this cultural and technological development, the success of independent animated film makers is on the rise. Independent Animation showcases some of the greatest, most innovated giants in the field and helps guide readers through the artistic process and production techniques. Story development, casting, color, distribution, and the intimidating aspects of production are elucidated using various examples from all over the world. Readers will also explore the changing nature of the audiences’ relationship with animation, granting firsthand guidance in navigating the diverse fields of animated film-making. Key Features Covers the entire process of creating an independent animated film, from story development and casting to editing and distribution Features input from some of the industry’s most noteworthy animation talents and exclusive insight into their working processes Additional resources and interviews available through a special section of Skwigly Online Animation Magazine




PC Mag


Book Description

PCMag.com is a leading authority on technology, delivering Labs-based, independent reviews of the latest products and services. Our expert industry analysis and practical solutions help you make better buying decisions and get more from technology.




Android


Book Description

What Is Android An android is a humanoid robot or other artificial entity that is often fabricated from a substance that mimics the appearance of flesh. In the past, androids were exclusively relegated to the realm of science fiction and were regularly featured in films and television shows. However, with to recent advancements in robot technology, it is now possible to construct humanoid robots that are both useful and lifelike. How You Will Benefit (I) Insights, and validations about the following topics: Chapter 1: Android (robot) Chapter 2: List of fictional robots and androids Chapter 3: Humanoid robot Chapter 4: Gynoid Chapter 5: Uncanny valley Chapter 6: David Hanson (robotics designer) Chapter 7: Actroid Chapter 8: Japanese robotics Chapter 9: Maschinenmensch Chapter 10: EveR Chapter 11: iCub Chapter 12: Outline of artificial intelligence Chapter 13: Index of robotics articles Chapter 14: List of fictional gynoids Chapter 15: Artificial intelligence in fiction Chapter 16: History of robots Chapter 17: Hiroshi Ishiguro Chapter 18: Robotics Chapter 19: Outline of robotics Chapter 20: Ex Machina (film) Chapter 21: Hanson Robotics (II) Answering the public top questions about android. (III) Real world examples for the usage of android in many fields. (IV) 17 appendices to explain, briefly, 266 emerging technologies in each industry to have 360-degree full understanding of android' technologies. Who This Book Is For Professionals, undergraduate and graduate students, enthusiasts, hobbyists, and those who want to go beyond basic knowledge or information for any kind of android.




Well Played 3.0


Book Description

Following on Well Played 1.0 and 2.0, this book will also be full of in-depth close readings of video games that parse out the various meanings to be found in the experience of playing a game. Contributors will analyze sequences in a game in detail in order to illustrate and interpret how the various components of a game can come together to create fulfilling a playing experience unique to this medium. Contributors will again be looking at video games, some that were covered in Well Played 1.0 and 2.0 as well as new ones, in order to provide a variety of perspectives on more great games.




Science Fiction Video Games


Book Description

Understand Video Games as Works of Science Fiction and Interactive Stories Science Fiction Video Games focuses on games that are part of the science fiction genre, rather than set in magical milieux or exaggerated versions of our own world. Unlike many existing books and websites that cover some of the same material, this book emphasizes critical a




Technology and the Rest of Culture


Book Description

From the printing press to Palm Pilots, we often rush to embrace new inventions that promise to make life easier. Yet the history of modern warfare suggests that new technologies can also have drastic and dire consequences. Technology and the Rest of Culture explores this tension by identifying the many ways in which technology shapes our society, investigating whether culture has an impact on the rate and direction of technological achievement, and describing how technology seems to have taken on a life and culture of its own. Nicholas Humphrey, Marvin Minsky, Peter Galison, and Joshua Lederberg explore the complex relationship between science and technology, showing that scientific advancement has often followed technological achievements, rather than the other way around. Ira Katznelson, Alan Ryan, Paul Gewirtz, and Robert McC. Adams consider how shifts in the means and terms of communication affect democracy, free expression, and the law. Rosalind Williams, George Kateb, John Hollander, and Robert L. Herbert challenge the notion that technological images and themes express primarily logic, utility, functionality, and rationality, asserting instead that violent, aggressive, and destructive images are all too often the end result of technology. At times somber, at times playful, but always challenging and thought-provoking, Technology and the Rest of Culture culls many academic disciplines to discover important elements about one of the most central characteristics of life in the twenty-first century.




The Intersection of Animation, Video Games, and Music


Book Description

In both video games and animated films, worlds are constructed through a combination of animation, which defines what players see on the screen, and music and sound, which provide essential cues to action, emotion, and narrative. This book offers a rich exploration of the intersections between animation, video games, and music and sound, bringing together a range of multidisciplinary lenses. In fourteen chapters, the contributors consider similarities and differences in how music and sound structure video games and animation, as well as the animation within video games, and explore core topics of nostalgia, adaptation, gender and sexuality. Offering fresh insights into the aesthetic interplay of animation, video games, and sound, this volume provides a gateway into new areas of study that will be of interest to scholars and students across musicology, animation studies, game studies, and media studies more broadly.




Virtual Interaction: Interaction in Virtual Inhabited 3D Worlds


Book Description

Lars Qvortrup The world of interactive 3D multimedia is a cross-institutional world. Here, researchers from media studies, linguistics, dramaturgy, media technology, 3D modelling, robotics, computer science, sociology etc. etc. meet. In order not to create a new tower of Babel, it is important to develop a set of common concepts and references. This is the aim of the first section of the book. In Chapter 2, Jens F. Jensen identifies the roots of interaction and interactivity in media studies, literature studies and computer science, and presents definitions of interaction as something going on among agents and agents and objects, and of interactivity as a property of media supporting interaction. Similarly, he makes a classification of human users, avatars, autonomous agents and objects, demon strating that no universal differences can be made. We are dealing with a continuum. While Jensen approaches these categories from a semiotic point of view, in Chapter 3 Peer Mylov discusses similar isues from a psychological point of view. Seen from the user's perspective, a basic difference is that between stage and back-stage (or rather: front-stage), i. e. between the real "I" and "we" and the virtual, representational "I" and "we". Focusing on the computer as a stage, in Chapter 4 Kj0lner and Lehmann use the theatre metaphor to conceptualize the stage phenomena and the relationship between stage and front-stage.