Critical Play: Radical Game DesignAn examination of subversive games like The Sims—games designed for political, aesthetic, and social critique. For many players, games are entertainment, diversion, relaxation, fantasy. But what if certain games were something more than this, providing not only outlets for entertainment but a means for creative expression, instruments for conceptual thinking, or tools for social change? In Critical Play, artist and game designer Mary Flanagan examines alternative games—games that challenge the accepted norms embedded within the gaming industry—and argues that games designed by artists and activists are reshaping everyday game culture. Flanagan provides a lively historical context for critical play through twentieth-century art movements, connecting subversive game design to subversive art: her examples of “playing house” include Dadaist puppet shows and The Sims. She looks at artists’ alternative computer-based games and explores games for change, considering the way activist concerns—including worldwide poverty and AIDS—can be incorporated into game design. Arguing that this kind of conscious practice—which now constitutes the avant-garde of the computer game medium—can inspire new working methods for designers, Flanagan offers a model for designing that will encourage the subversion of popular gaming tropes through new styles of game making, and proposes a theory of alternate game design that focuses on the reworking of contemporary popular game practices. |
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action activist activities Alison Knowles American argues artwork avant-garde board games Board Games Chapter Breton century characters chess Claude Cahun collage computer games concept contemporary created creative critical play critique culture Dada Darfur Is Dying developed doll play dollhouse domestic space Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven emerged engage environments everyday example experience explore feminist figure film Fluxus Fluxus artists Formanek-Brunell forms game board game designers game play Games and Objects gender goal Hans Bellmer History human Ibid ideas images interaction intervention Knowles language games Locative Games locative media Marcel Duchamp movement Musée Museum narrative norms Notes to Pages paintings participants Performative Games pieces players Playing House Chapter political popular practices projects reskinning role rules scholars shift Sims Situationist social strategies subversion Surrealism Surrealist Sutton-Smith themes tion traditional Trans unplay urban Video Games women York