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Book Cover
E-book
Author DeKoven, Bernie, 1941-2018, author.

Title Infinite playground : a player's guide to imagination / Bernard de Koven ; with Holly Gramazio ; edited by Celia Pearce and Eric Zimmerman
Published Cambridge : MIT Press, [2020]
©2020

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Description 1 online resource
Contents Foreword: Press play / Celia Pearce -- Introduction / Holly Gramazio -- What-if-ing / Rocky De Koven -- Introductory -- The fundamentals of play -- The private imagination -- The shared imagination -- The working imagination -- Being in the world -- A lack of conclusion
Summary A play-centered invitation to experience the power and delight unlocked by imagination. Bernard De Koven (1941-2018) was a pioneering designer of games and theorist of fun. He studied games long before the field of game studies existed. For De Koven, games could not be reduced to artifacts and rules; they were about a sense of transcendent fun. This book, his last, is about the imagination: the imagination as a playground, a possibility space, and a gateway to wonder. The Infinite Playground extends a play-centered invitation to experience the power and delight unlocked by imagination. It offers a curriculum for playful learning. De Koven guides the readers through a series of observations and techniques, interspersed with games. He begins with the fundamentals of play, and proceeds through the private imagination, the shared imagination, and imagining the world--observing, the things we imagine can become the world. Along the way, he reminisces about playing ping-pong with basketball great Bill Russell; begins the instructions for a game called Reception Line with Mill around; and introduces blathering games--Blather, Group Blather, Singing Blather, and The Blather Chorale--that allow the player's consciousness to meander freely. Delivered during the last months of his life, The Infinite Playground has been painstakingly cowritten with Holly Gramazio, who worked together with coeditors Celia Pearce and Eric Zimmerman to complete the project as Bernie De Koven's illness made it impossible for him to continue writing. Other prominent game scholars and designers influenced by De Koven, including Katie Salen Tekinbas, Jesper Juul, Frank Lantz, and members of Bernie's own family, contribute short interstitial essays. ContributorsIan Bogost, Stephen Conway, Adriaan de Jongh, Elyon De Koven, Rocky De Koven, Mary Flanagan, Gonzalo Frasca, Tracy Fullerton, Holly Gramazio, Catherine Herdlick, Jesper Juul, Frank Lantz, Colleen Macklin, Celia Pearce, Sebastian Quack, Lee Rush, Katie Salen Tekinbas, John Sharp, Tassos Stevens, Akira Thompson, Greg Trefry, Douglas Wilson, Zach Wood, Eric Zimmerman
Analysis GAME STUDIES/Games & Culture
GAME STUDIES/Game History
PHILOSOPHY/General
GAMES & ACTIVITIES / General
PSYCHOLOGY / Cognitive Neuroscience & Cognitive Neuropsychology
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references
Subject Games.
Games -- Social aspects
Play.
Imagination.
Play and Playthings
play (recreation)
GAMES & ACTIVITIES -- General.
Games
Games -- Social aspects
Imagination
Play
Form Electronic book
Author Gramazio, Holly, author.
Pearce, Celia, editor.
Zimmerman, Eric, 1969- editor.
ISBN 9780262358804
0262358808
9780262358811
0262358816