A beginner's guide to game studies literature

Having just graduated from college, I've got a lot of friends who grew up playing video games and are deeply interested in the medium, but it never quite hit them until recently that "game studies is a thing." For anyone curious about exploring games on the same level we explore literature and film in school, here are a few recommendations of books you should read. Some of these come from college courses I've taken, and others I've simply stumbled upon.

A Theory of Fun for Game Design by Raph Koster

This is a must-read entry-level book for game analysis, and it's nearing its tenth anniversary. A Theory of Fun is a quick read that introduces audiences to many of the basic concepts of game design. Author Raph Koster is an MMO veteran; he was the lead designer on Ultima Online. Koster's other work includes Star Wars Galaxies and EverQuest II.

Jake's five favorite videogames of 2012

I've done "best of 2012" lists for music, Lego, sports, and film, but at the end of the day this is really a gaming blog. So without further ado, my final Five Favorite list for 2012:

5. I Am Alive (game site)

All the other games on this list have gained some sort of cult following and are widely respected by the independent gaming community. I Am Alive, though, is underrappreciated by just about everyone. The game was in development at Ubisoft for nearly nine years, and although it gained attention with the glimpses shown during production, by the time it finally released on Xbox Live Arcade in March, it was completely overlooked. Although it's a downloadable title, you can tell I Am Alive had ambitions beyond what it could ever actually achieve.

It's a survival game in the truest sense of the word--you play as a man searching for his family in post-apocalyptic American city. He's not a typical superhuman game protagonist; he can climb abandoned buildings, but can only hold his weight for a certain amount of time before he wears out. He finds a gun, but he typically never has more than one bullet. As a result, the player is forced to bluff their way through hostile situations, threatening enemies with a gun that they know is empty. While most games today are about empowerment, I Am Alive is about weakness. I wish we could see more small games from major publishers like this in the future.