Guide:Texts
From Game Making Tools Wiki
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
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
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.
