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Course syllabus from Spring 2013 at Olin College

"Video games are a real revolution in the world of computers, programming and amusement. It all started from a small experiment of a programmer and has exploded into a great unstoppable industry producing even video games addicts. Basics: A video game is an electronic game that involves human interaction with a user interface to generate visual feedback on a video device."

"Wired correspondent Gus Mastrapa was on the scene in Los Angeles to witness the recovery of a piece of gaming history. LOS ANGELES - Jordan Mechner saved everything. He saved all the videotape he took in October 1985 of his brother running and jumping around their old neighborhood, footage that he rotoscoped into the animations for his Apple II game Prince of Persia ."

"The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the historical origins of
Serious Games to try to understand where the current wave of "Serious Games"
comes from. We first review the origins of the "Serious Games" oxymoron. We
will then analyse digital games designed for serious purposes before the 2000's.
Such games can be traced back to the beginning of the history of video games. We
will use all these elements to discuss how the current wave of "Serious Games"
began; and to highlight the differences between "Serious Games" and their
ancestors.

From the abstract :"The Vikings! is an asynchronous multiplayer social game that adapts Viking Age
(700s-1000s C.E.) social practices and structures in the hopes of producing a synthetic
Viking society. Players manage Viking households, sail the open seas, raid Viking and
foreigner households, and develop economic and political relationships with other players
to ensure their own survival and prosperity. To successfully prosecute this project, the
author came to devise: a semi-formal method for adapting historical situations to
interactive simulations; a set of criteria for evaluating the quality, internal consistency,
and historical fidelity of such simulations; and a technique for constraining the scope of
adaptation to only what is necessary for the player's enjoyment and the designer's
aesthetic goals."

Abstract: "This thesis is a presentation of the design and development of a novel computational artifact: the educational videogame Desperate Fishwives, which harnesses the idea of procedural rhetoric to instruct players on aspects of early modern (cc. 17th century) English life. Herein is detailed the validity of using games as rhetorical and educational devices and the process of designing a game to reflect a particular client's pedagogical style and interpretation of history. This thesis, using the ideas of procedural rhetoric, procedural literacy, and expressive processing, seeks to bridge the gaps between humanities, rhetoric, and software development."

"Mill Creek teen creates monorail video game

Computer game lets players drive past major Seattle landmarks"

Video games have vastly evolved since their introduction nearly 40 years ago. Some, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, would argue that this creative evolution gives video games the honor of being an art form. From March 16 through September 30, an exhibition titled "The Art of Video Games" will be on view at the museum, Smithsonian Magazine reports.

This year, the video game turns 40. Let's call it an occasion to spend a few more hours in front of our TVs, the place where it all started. In 1951, some 12 million television sets were in existence and Ralph Baer, a television engineer at Loral Electronics, wondered what extracurricular tricks...