First Generation Console Games: Limited Affordance Simulations

Topic Description

War games can be read as simulations of conflict. By examining games about conflict and the platforms that enable them, students get a sense of the history of contemporary gaming and simulation, and the relationship between abstraction and constraint. This unit looks at war games on the Odyssey, Intellivision, and Atari.

Readings

Salen, Katie, and Zimmerman, Eric. "The Rules of Digital Games." In Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780262240451.

Montfort, Nick. "Combat in Context." The International Journal of Computer Game Research 6, no. 1 (December 2006): 1604-7982.

Winnicott, D. W. "Playing: A Theoretical Statement." In Playing and Reality. New York, NY: Routledge, 2005. ISBN: 9780415345460.

Resources

Mattel Electronics, Intellivision Service Manual (Model 2609).

PXL Creative, Intel 8048, The CPU Shack.
(Specs and features of Intel's most common chip)

Mountain Climbing Journal, Coprolite Electronics: Odyssey 2, COPROLITE.COM.
(Collections of articles on software and hardware hacking the O2)

Boris Dan, 'Dan B.s O2 Tech Page.
(Great technical information on O2)

Zork I: The Great Underground Empire.
(Port of Zork I to flash)

Daly Liza, Inform 7, Threepress Consulting.
(Homepage of Inform 7, a natural language interactive fiction development environment)

Nelson Graham, Inform 7: the Program.
(Commented rule sets used by the Inform 7 compiler)