Guide:Texts

Brain-food from a variety of fields.

AI

AI, LLMs, etc.

• Language models can only write ransom notes - Allison Parrish. 2024.

Architecture

• How Buildings Learn. Stewart Brand. 1994.
  • How Buildings Learn - TV series.

Art, Generally

• Against the Supremacy of Thought. Manuel Arturo Abreu. 2018.

Atmosphere

• Atmosphere as the Fundamental Concept of a New Aesthetics. Gernot Böhme. 1993.
• Performing an Aesthetics of Atmospheres. Stuart Grant. 2013.

Audience, Interaction, Participation, Performance ???

• Participation. Edited by Claire Bishop.

Bodies

• Cyberqueen. By Zeiya Speede. 2016.
• This is Crap. Why is abjection making a comeback?. By Hannah Black. 2016.
• What Should We Do With Our Brain?. By Catherine Malabou. 2008.

Distribution

• Warez: The Infrastructure and Aesthetics of Piracy. By Martin Paul Eve. 2021.

Games and Play

• Homo Ludens. By Johan Huizinga. 1955.
  • Homo Ludens on Wikipedia.
  • Homo Ludens for the People - Notes on Homo Ludens, by Mattie Brice.
• Man, Play and Games. By Roger Caillois. 1961.
• Structure and Alchemy in New Fractal Playspaces. By David Kanaga.
• Keywords in Play - Critical Distance thing, interviews.

Game Making

• Flappy Bird Will Have Its Revenge On Indie Games. By Emilie M. Reed. 2019
• Fuck Videogames. By Darius Kazemi. 2013
• Speculation Jam and List Jam are full of inspiring game thoughts.
• Mr Advice. Thoughts for people starting to make games, by My Friend Pokey. 2022.
• Reframing Abundance: Open Tools, Free Games, Distributed Culture. By Em Reed. 2025.

Kind-specific

• Articles section on Roguebasin (Roguelike).

Text Adventure

• Creation Under Capitalism and the Twine Revolution. By Porpentine Charity Heartscape. 2012
• The Craft of Adventure. By Graham Nelson. On the Internet Archive.
• IF Theory Reader. By Kevin Jackson-Mead, J. Robinson Wheeler. 2011.
• https://www.ifwiki.org/Theory

Level Design

• Radiator Blog: Dark Past (part 4): The Useful Post (?) or Randy Smith's "valence theory" of level design. By Robert Yang. 2011.

Particular Games

These of course will talk about other things, but use a particular game as a starting point or reference point.

• A Maze of Murderscapes: Metroid II. By SR Holiwell. 2015.
• Stray Dogs, or: My Only Verb is Kill (Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days). 'ironcupshrug'. 2011.
• Super Metroid. By Ario Barzan. 2009.
• Sons of Big Bucks: Metal Gear Solid 4 and the Video Game Economy. By James Clinton Howell. 2012.

Generally Good Games+ Writers

• Stephen Murphy
• Lana Polansky
• Porpentine Charity Heartscape
• Emilie Reed
• Liz Ryerson

I Don't Want to Categorise

• Hot Allostatic Load. By Porpentine. 2015.

See Also

• The Guides section?
• Video Game collection on aaaaarg.
• Play collection on aaaaarg.
• VG Literature on selectbutton.
• Print Publications about Videogames on selectbutton.