• Ch.
• 1. Introduction
• Defining Artificial Intelligence
• Knowledge Management
• AI Put Simply
• Defining Artificial Life
• Top-Down versus Bottom-Up Intelligence
• Ch.
• 2. Using Artificial Intelligence in Video Games
• AI in Video Games
• Applying the Theories
• Ch.
• 3. Uses for Artificial Life in Video Games
• Modeling Natural Behavior
• AI Techniques in A-Life
• Using A-Life in Video Game Development
• A-Life in the Design Phase
• A-Life in the Development Phase
• A-Life in Video Game Testing
• Post-Development A-Life
• Ch.
• 4. The A-Life Programming Paradigm
• A-Life: The Game within the Game
• Evolving Behavior
• Planning the A-Life Implementation
• Summary
• Ch.
• 5. Building Blocks
• AI and A-Life Building Blocks
• Deploying the Building Blocks
• Ground-Up Deployment
• Summary
• Ch.
• 6. The Power of Emergent Behavior
• Defining Emergent Behavior
• The "Sum of Parts" Emergence Design
• The Individual Dynamic Emergence Design
• The Group Dynamic Emergence Design
• The Reproductive Mechanism in Emergence
• Ch.
• 7. Testing with artificial Life
• Testing A-Life
• Bottom-Up Testing
• Testing AI with A-Life
• Testing A-Life with A-Life
• Ch.
• 8. Several A-Life Examples
• Movement and Interaction
• A-Life Control Systems
• A-Life in Puzzles, Board Games, Simulations
• Video Game Personalities
• Ch.
• 9. Multiplayer AI and A-Life
• Managing Emergence
• Enhancing the Experience
• Implementing A-Life in Multiplayer Environments
• Ch.
• 10. The Application of A-Life Outside the Lab
• Simple Genetic Algorithms
• Breeding Behavioral Patterns
• Datasets versus Functionality.

• Foreword. Preface. Evaluation Function Tuning via Ordinal Correlation-- D. Gomboc, T.A. Marsland, M. Buro. First Experimental Results of ProbCut Applied to Chess-- A.X. Jiang, M. Buro. Search versus Knowledge: An Empirical Study of Minimax on KRK-- A. Sadikov, I. Bratko, I. Kononenko. Static Recognition of Potential Wins in KNNKB and KNNKN-- E.A. Heinz. Model Endgame Analysis-- G.McC. Haworth, R.B. Andrist. Chess Endgames: Data and Strategy-- J.A. Tamplin, G.McC. Haworth. Evaluation in Go by a Neural Network using Soft Segmentation-- M. Enzenberger. When One Eye is Sufficient: A Static Classification-- R. Vila, T. Cazenave. DF-PN in Go: An Application to the One-Eye Problem-- A. Kishimoto, M. Muller. Learning to Score Final Positions in the Game of Go-- E.C.D. van der Werf, H.J. van den Herik, J.W.H.M. Uiterwijk. Monte-Carlo Go Developments-- B. Bouzy, B. Helmstetter. Static Analysis by Incremental Computation in Go Programming-- K. Nakamura. Building the Checkers 10-piece Endgame Databases-- J. Schaeffer, Y. Bjoernsson, N. Burch, R. Lake, P. Lu, S. Sutphen. The 7-piece Perfect Play Lookup Database for the Game of Checkers-- E. Trice, G. Dodgen. Search and Knowledge in Lines of Action-- D. Billings, Y. Bjoernsson. An Evaluation Function for Lines of Action-- M.H.M. Winands, H.J. van den Herik, J.W.H.M. Uiterwijk. Solving 7x7 Hex: Virtual Connections and Game-State Reduction-- R. Hayward, Y. Bjoernsson, M. Johanson, M. Kan, N. Po, J. van Rijswijck. Automated Identification of Patterns in Evaluation Functions-- T. Kaneko, K. Yamaguchi, S. Kawai. An Evaluation Function for the Game of Amazons-- J. Lieberum. Opponent-Model Search in Bao: Conditions for a SuccessfulApplication-- H.H.L.M. Donkers, H.J. van den Herik, J.W.H.M. Uiterwijk. Computer Programming of Kriegspiel Endings: The Case of KR versus K-- A. Bolognesi, P. Ciancarini. Searching with Analysis of Dependencies in a Solitaire Card Game-- B. Helmstetter, T. Cazenave. Solving the Oshi-Zumo Game-- M. Buro. New Games Related to Old and New Sequences-- S. Fraenkel. Author Index.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

1 feel privileged that the J(jh Advances in Computer Games Conference (ACG 10) takes place in Graz, Styria, Austria. It is the frrst time that Austria acts as host country for this major event. The series of conferences started in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1975 and was then held four times in England, three times in The Netherlands, and once in Germany. The ACG-10 conference in Graz is special in that it is organised together with the 11th World Computer- Chess Championship (WCCC), the Sth Computer Olympiad (CO), and the European Union Y outh Chess Championship. The 11 th WCCC and ACG 10 take place in the Dom im Berg (Dome in the Mountain), a high-tech space with multimedia equipment, located in the Schlossberg, in the centre of the city. The help of many sponsors (large and small) is gratefully acknowledged. They will make the organisation of this conference a success. In particular, 1 would like to thank the European Union for designating Graz as the Cultural Capital of Europe 2003. There are 24 accepted contributions by participants from all over the world: Europe, Japan, USA, and Canada. The specific research results ofthe ACG 10 are expected to tind their way to general applications. The results are described in the pages that follow. The international stature together with the technical importance of this conference reaffrrms the mandate of the International Computer Games Association (ICGA) to represent the computer-games community.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Agony (on The Cave) Allegory (on The Sims) America (on Civilization III) Analog (on Katamari Damacy) Atopia (on Vice City) Battle (on Rez) Boredom (on State of Emergency) Complex (on Deus Ex) Conclusions (on SimEarth) Cuts (List of Samples).
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Listen to a short interview with McKenzie WarkHost: Chris Gondek
(source: Nielsen Book Data)
Ever get the feeling that life's a game with changing rules and no clear sides? Welcome to gamespace, the world in which we live. Where others argue obsessively over violence in games, Wark contends that digital computer games are our society's emergent cultural form, a utopian version of the world as it is. Gamer Theory uncovers the significance of games in the gap between the near-perfection of actual games and the imperfect gamespace of everyday life in the rat race of free-market society.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• 1. Studying the computer game complex
• Computer games as a mass culture
• Computer games as mass media
• Computer games as psychophysiological force
• Computer games as economic force
• Computer games as instructional force
• So, why study computer games?
• 2. A grammar of gamework
• Rhetoric and dialectic
• Propositions of the gamework
• The problematic of play
• The grammar of gameworks: analyzing the computer game complex
• 3. Capturing imaginations: rhetoric in the art of computer game development
• Rhetorical functions revisited
• Rhetoric in the discourse of game developers
• Working through the grammar of gameworks: agents, influences, manifestations, and transformative locales
• 4. Making meanings out of contradictions: the work of computer game reviewing
• Computer game reviewing online
• Computer game reviewing in print
• Playing up influence to influence play
• Reviewing the meanings of the computer game complex
• 5. The economies of black & white
• Defining economies
• The "purchase" of natural resources
• The "purchase" of spiritual resources
• The "purchase" of temporal resources
• The work of black & white
• Transformative locales: economic force as game work.

As the popularity of computer games has exploded over the past decade, both scholars and game industry professionals have recognized the necessity of treating games less as frivolous entertainment and more as artifacts of culture worthy of political, social, economic, rhetorical, and aesthetic analysis. Ken McAllister notes in his introduction to Game Work that, even though games are essentially impractical, they are nevertheless important mediating agents for the broad exercise of socio-political power. In considering how the languages, images, gestures, and sounds of video games influence those who play them, McAllister highlights the ways in which ideology is coded into games. Computer games, he argues, have transformative effects on the consciousness of players, like poetry, fiction, journalism, and film, but the implications of these transformations are not always clear. Games can work to maintain the status quo or celebrate liberation or tolerate enslavement, and they can conjure feelings of hope or despair, assent or dissent, clarity or confusion. Overall, by making and managing meanings, computer games - and the work they involve and the industry they spring from - are also negotiating power. This book sets out a method for "recollecting" some of the diverse and copious influences on computer games and the industry they have spawned. Specifically written for use in computer game theory classes, advanced media studies, and communications courses, Game Work will also be welcome by computer gamers and designers.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• 1. Studying the computer game complex
• Computer games as a mass culture
• Computer games as mass media
• Computer games as psychophysiological force
• Computer games as economic force
• Computer games as instructional force
• So, why study computer games?
• 2. A grammar of gamework
• Rhetoric and dialectic
• Propositions of the gamework
• The problematic of play
• The grammar of gameworks: analyzing the computer game complex
• 3. Capturing imaginations: rhetoric in the art of computer game development
• Rhetorical functions revisited
• Rhetoric in the discourse of game developers
• Working through the grammar of gameworks: agents, influences, manifestations, and transformative locales
• 4. Making meanings out of contradictions: the work of computer game reviewing
• Computer game reviewing online
• Computer game reviewing in print
• Playing up influence to influence play
• Reviewing the meanings of the computer game complex
• 5. The economies of black & white
• Defining economies
• The "purchase" of natural resources
• The "purchase" of spiritual resources
• The "purchase" of temporal resources
• The work of black & white
• Transformative locales: economic force as game work.

"Ken McAllister notes in his introduction to Game Work that, even though computer games are essentially entertainment, they are in fact important mediating agents for the broad exercise of socio-political power." "In considering how the languages, images, gestures, and sounds of video games influence those who build, market, and play them, McAllister highlights the ways in which ideology is coded into games. Computer games, he argues, have transformative effects on the consciousness of players, like poetry, fiction, journalism, and film, but the implications of these transformations are not always clear. Games can work to maintain the status quo or celebrate liberation of tolerate exploitation, and they can conjure feelings of hope or despair, assent or dissent, clarity or confusion."--Jacket.

• An Introduction to Game Audio.- Essential Skill sets and Tools.- Getting organized and ready for business.- Finding and Getting the Jobs.- The Bidding Process.- Making the Deals.- Setting the Stage .- Creating Music for Games.- Creating Sound Effects for Games.- Blending the Total Soundscape.- Understanding Game Platforms and their Audio Development Issues.- For the Developer.- Game over - Not hardly!.- Appendix A - The Grammy's and other awards.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Turn your musical passion into a profitable career with this exhaustive, indispensable resource for game audio. Develop the business and technical skills you need to succeed in the multibillion dollar games industry. Step-by-step instructions lead you through the entire music and sound effects process-from developing the essential skills and purchasing the right equipment to keeping your clients happy. Create music and sound effects for games. Master the exacting specifications for composing music and creating sound effects on the various gaming platforms and systems. Technical considerations are explained in detail so that game audio professionals can make sense of complicated systems, learn about the highly involved programming elements, and create high quality audio without a hitch. This new edition includes: * Information on hot new next-generation game consoles - Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, Nintendo DS, and Sony PSP. * The companion DVD features audio and cinematic examples and sample business contracts.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)
Turn your musical passion into a profitable career with this essential guide to the business and technical skills you need to succeed in the multi-billion dollar games industry. Step-by-step instructions lead you through the entire music and sound effects process - from developing the essential skills and purchasing the right equipment to keeping your clients happy. Learn everything you need to: Find the jobs. Identify your niche, implement a business and marketing plan that includes a great demo reel, and plug into the established network to find clients. Make the deals. Make the bidding and contract process work for you by knowing the standard industry terminology, understanding how to set fees, and employing non-confrontational negotiating tactics to reach sound agreements that establish acceptable boundaries for change orders, reworks, payment options, and other essentials. Create music and sound effects for games. Master the exacting specifications for composing music and creating sound effects on the various gaming platforms and systems. The companion DVD features audio and cinematic examples, demos of useful sound editing and sequencing programs, and sample business contracts.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction
• 1. History
• 2. Aesthetics
• 3. Spectators Conclusion.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Digital entertainment, from video games to simulation rides, is now a central feature of popular culture. Computer-based or digital technologies are supplanting the traditional production methods of television, film and video, provoking intense speculation about their impact on the character of art. Examining the digital imaging techniques across a wide range of media, including film, music video, computer games, theme parks and simulation rides, Visual Digital Culture explores the relationship between evolving digital technologies and existing media and considers the effect of these new image forms on the experience of visual culture. Andrew Darley first traces the development of digital computing from the 1960s and its use in the production of visual digital entertainment. Through case studies of films such as Toy Story, key pop videos such as Michael Jackson's Black or White, and computer games like Quake and Blade Runner, Andrew Darley asks whether digital visual forms mark a break with traditional emphases on story, representation, meaning and reading towards a focus on style, image performance and sensation. He questions the implications of digital culture for theories of spectatorship, suggesting that these new visual forms create new forms of spectatorship within mass culture.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Adding Expert Knowledge and Exploration in Monte-Carlo Tree Search.- A Lock-Free Multithreaded Monte-Carlo Tree Search Algorithm.- Monte-Carlo Tree Search in Settlers of Catan.- Evaluation Function Based Monte-Carlo LOA.- Monte-Carlo Kakuro.- A Study of UCT and Its Enhancements in an Artificial Game.- Creating an Upper-Confidence-Tree Program for Havannah.- Randomized Parallel Proof-Number Search.- Hex, Braids, the Crossing Rule, and XH-Search.- Performance and Prediction: Bayesian Modelling of Fallible Choice in Chess.- Plans, Patterns, and Move Categories Guiding a Highly Selective Search.- 6-Man Chess and Zugzwangs.- Solving Kriegspiel Endings with Brute Force: The Case of KR vs. K.- Conflict Resolution of Chinese Chess Endgame Knowledge Base.- On Drawn K-In-A-Row Games.- Optimal Analyses for 3xn AB Games in the Worst Case.- Automated Discovery of Search-Extension Features.- Deriving Concepts and Strategies from Chess Tablebases.- Incongruity-Based Adaptive Game Balancing.- Data Assurance in Opaque Computations.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

This book contains the papers of the 12th Advances in Computer Games C- ference (ACG 2009) held in Pamplona, Spain. The conference took place during th th May 11-13,2009 in conjunction with the 13 Computer Olympiad and the 16 World Computer Chess Championship. The Advances in Computer Games conference series is a major international forum for researchers and developers interested in all aspects of arti?cial int- ligence and computer game playing. The Pamplona conference was de?nitively characterized by fresh ideas for a large variety of games. The Program Committee (PC) received 41 submissions. Each paper was i- tiallysenttoatleastthreereferees.Ifcon?ictingviewsonapaperwerere ported, it was sent to an additional referee. Out of the 41 submissions, one was wi- drawn before the ?nal decisions were made. With the help of many referees (see after the preface), the PC accepted 20 papers for presentation at the conference and publication in these proceedings. Theabove-mentionedsetof20paperscoversawiderangeofcomputergames. The papers deal with many di?erent research topics. We mention: Monte-Carlo Tree Search, Bayesian Modeling, SelectiveSearch, theUseofBruteForce, C- ?ict Resolution, Solving Games, Optimization, Concept Discovery, Incongruity Theory, and Data Assurance. The 17 games that are discussed are: Arimaa, Breakthrough, Chess, Chinese Chess, Go, Havannah, Hex, Kakuro, k-in-a-Row, Kriegspiel, LOA, 3 x n AB Games, Poker, Roshambo, SettlersofCatan, SumofSwitches, andVideoGames. We hope that the readers will enjoy the research e?orts performed by the authors. Below we provide a brief characterization of the 20 contributions, in the order in which they are published in the book.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• This is a library, not an arcade, and other entirely artificial distinctions
• The gaming world, and how it can be appropriately appropriated into the library world
• Software, hardware, and other ware
• Planning your events, or, getting geeky with it
• How to promote your events, or, infecting the growth medium
• Setting it up, or, more about cables than you ever wanted to know
• Running a tournament, or why the thirty-third player always shows up right after you make the bracket
• Now what, or, how to leverage the interesting smell you've discovered
• Links, resources, and even a book or two.

Imagine: Teen and pre-teen boys, twenty-somethings, parents, and even younger kids streaming into the library. It's your library's monthly videogame tournament! Step boldly into a new arena of library programming with lifetime gamer and Ann Arbor's library technology manager, Eli Neiburger.As a leading expert on producing videogame tournaments and events, Neiburger explains why videogame programming holds huge potential for libraries. He offers the complete toolkit. Follow these practical and proven guidelines to get answers to all your questions - from convincing the skeptics to getting audience feedback through your blog.Learn how to serve this underserved audience and: gain familiarity with the basics of gaming culture, software, and hardware; understand how videogaming events fit into the library; learn what works and what doesn't from the experiences of the nation's leading expert; conduct a tournament in your library - including how to plan, set up, and run any size event; market the events, build an audience, and get feedback.Don't miss out on an entire generation of library users. With game-savvy librarians and this must-have resource, you'll soon be building a brand new audience of library-loyal videogame fans.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• A table of contents is not available for this title.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

*Shows how to create realistic action games without assuming college-level Physics (which the majority of gamers won't have); includes necessary physics and mathematics *Ideal for all budding games programmers, with example code in Java, C#, and C *Complements Apress's platform-specific gaming books, like Advanced Java Games Programming and Beginning .NET Games Programming with C#, and the forthcoming Beginning .NET Games Programming in VB.NET *Palmer has strong contacts in the Microsoft Games Division and Electronic Arts, a major gaming producer.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Unit operations
• Structuralism and computation
• Humanism and object technology
• Comparative videogame criticism
• Videogames and expression
• Encounters across platforms
• Cellular automata and simulation
• An alternative to fun
• The simulation gap
• Complex networks
• Complex worlds
• Critical networks.

In Unit Operations, Ian Bogost argues that similar principles underlie both literary theory and computation, proposing a literary-technical theory that can be used to analyze particular videogames. Moreover, this approach can be applied beyond videogames: Bogost suggests that any medium--from videogames to poetry, literature, cinema, or art--can be read as a configurative system of discrete, interlocking units of meaning, and he illustrates this method of analysis with examples from all these fields. The marriage of literary theory and information technology, he argues, will help humanists take technology more seriously and hep technologists better understand software and videogames as cultural artifacts. This approach is especially useful for the comparative analysis of digital and nondigital artifacts and allows scholars from other fields who are interested in studying videogames to avoid the esoteric isolation of "game studies."The richness of Bogost's comparative approach can be seen in his discussions of works by such philosophers and theorists as Plato, Badiou, Zizek, and McLuhan, and in his analysis of numerous videogames including Pong, Half-Life, and Star Wars Galaxies. Bogost draws on object technology and complex adaptive systems theory for his method of unit analysis, underscoring the configurative aspects of a wide variety of human processes. His extended analysis of freedom in large virtual spaces examines Grand Theft Auto 3, The Legend of Zelda, Flaubert's Madame Bovary, and Joyce's Ulysses. In Unit Operations, Bogost not only offers a new methodology for videogame criticism but argues for the possibility of real collaboration between the humanities and information technology.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• A table of contents is not available for this title.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

This book looks at the two most popular ways of using Java SE 6 to write 3D games on PCs: Java 3D (a high-level scene graph API) and JOGL (a Java layer over OpenGL). Written by Java gaming expert, Andrew Davison, this book uses the new Java (SE) 6 platform and its features including splash screens, scripting, and the desktop tray interface. This book is also unique in that it covers Java game development using the Java 3D API and Java for OpenGL--both critical components and libraries for Java-based 3D game application development.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Title page; Foreword; Acknowledgements; Supplementary Material Available via the Internet; Contents; Game-Based Learning; Affective Gaming: Advancing the Argument for Game-Based Learning; Didactic Analysis of Digital Games and Game-Based Learning; Immersive Environments: What Can We Learn from Commercial Computer Games?; What Is a Game Ego? (or How the Embodied Mind Plays a Role in Computer Game Environments); Multiple Motivations Framework; An Instructional Design/Development Model for the Creation of Game-Like Learning Environments: The FIDGE Model.

The learning process can be seen as an emotional and personal experience that is addictive and motivates learners to proactive behavior. Divided in three parts, this title discusses major topics such as: emotions, motivation, games, and game-experience.

• 1. Chess for girls? feminism and computer games / by Justine Cassell and Henry Jenkins
• 2. Computer games for girls : what makes them play? / by Kaveri Subrahmanyam and Patricia M. Greenfield
• 3. Girl games and technological desire / by Cornelia Brunner, Dorothy Bennett, and Margaret Honey
• 4. Video game designs by girls and boys : variability and consistency of gender differences / by Yasmin B. Kafai
• 5. An interview with Brenda Laurel (Purple Moon) 6. An interview with Nancie S. Martin (Mattel) 7. An interview with Heather Kelley (Girl Games) 8. Interviews with Theresa Duncan and Monica Gesue (Chop Suey) 9. An Interview with Lee McEnany Caraher (Sega) 10. An interview with Marsha Kinder (Intertexts Multimedia) 11. Retooling play : dystopia, dysphoria, and difference / by Suzanne de Castell and Mary Bryson
• 12. Complete freedom of movement : video games as gendered play spaces / by Henry Jenkins
• 13. Storytelling as a nexus of change in the relationship between gender and technology : a feminist approach to software design / by Justine Cassell
• 14. Voices from the combat zone : game grrlz talk back.

Many parents worry about the influence of video games on their children's lives. The game console may help to prepare children for participation in the digital world, but at the same time it socializes boys into misogyny and excludes girls from all but the most objectified positions. The new "girls' games" movement has addressed these concerns. The contributors to "From Barbie to Mortal Kombat" explore how assumptions about gender, games, and technology shape the design, development, and marketing of games as industry seeks to build the girl market. They describe and analyze the games currently on the market and propose tactical approaches for avoiding the stereotypes that dominate most toy store aisles. The lively mix of perspectives and voices includes those of media and technology scholars, educators, psychologists, developers of today's leading games, industry insiders, and girl gamers.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)
Many parents worry about the influence of video games on their children's lives. The game console may help to prepare children for participation in the digital world, but at the same time it socializes boys into misogyny and excludes girls from all but the most objectified positions. The new "girls' games" movement has addressed these concerns. Although many people associate video games mainly with boys, the girls' games movement has emerged from an unusual alliance between feminists activists (who want to change the "gendering" of digital technology) and industry leader (who want to create a girls' market for their games). Contributors explore how assumptions about gender, games, and technology shape the design, development, and marketing of games as industry seeks to build the girl market. They describe and analyze the games currently on the market and propose tactical approaches for avoiding the steroetypes that dominate most toy store aisles. The lively mix of perspective and voices includes those of media and technology, educators, psychologists, industry insiders, and girl gamers.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)