Accomplished researcher and storyteller Kendall Haven, establishes the need for understanding the research findings in neural psychology and brain development and the value of a common definition of story if one is to fully grasp the importance and necessity of story to the development of the human mind. To support his case, he reviews a wealth of research from storytellers, teachers, and others who have experienced the power of story firsthand.The author has collected anecdotal experiences from over 100 performing storytellers and from 1,800 story practitioners (mostly teachers) who have made extensive use of stories. He has read more than 150 qualitative and quantitative research studies that discuss the effectiveness of stories and/or storytelling for one or more specific applications (education, organizational management, knowledge management, medical and narrative therapy, etc.). Forty of these studies were literature reviews and comparative studies including analysis of over 1,000 studies and descriptive articles. He has also gathered research evidence from his own story performances for total audiences of over 4 million and from conducting story writing workshops with 200,000 students and 40,000 teachers.

    D&D captured the attention of a small but influential group of players, many of whom also gravitated to the computer networks that were then appearing on college campuses around the globe. With the subsequent emergence of the personal computer, a generation of geeky storytellers arose that translated communal D&D playing experiences into the virtual world of computer games. The result of that 40-year journey is today's massive global community of players who, through games, have forged very real friendships and built thriving lives in virtual worlds. Dungeons & Dreamers follows the designers, developers, and players who built the virtual games and communities that define today's digital entertainment landscape and explores the nature of what it means to live and thrive in virtual communities.

    Now in its fourteenth edition, the most popular anthology in sociology includes new articles on our changing world while also retaining its classic must-read essays. Focusing on social interaction in everyday life, the forty-six selections bring students face-to-face with the twin projects of contemporary sociology: understanding the individual's experience of society and analyzing social structure. The fourteenth edition's exceptional new readings include selections on the role of sympathy in everyday life, mistaken perceptions of the American family, the effects of a criminal record on getting a job, and the major social trends affecting our future. Together with these essential new articles, the selections by Peter Berger, Herbert Gans, Erving Goffman, Donna Eder, Zella Luria, C. Wright Mills, Deborah Tannen, Barrie Thorne, Sidney Katz, Philip Zimbardo, and many others provide firsthand reporting that gives students a sense of "being there." Henslin also explains basic methods of social research, providing insight into how sociologists explore the social world. The selections in Down to Earth Sociology highlight the most significant themes of contemporary sociology, ranging from the sociology of gender, power, politics, and religion to the contemporary crises of racial tension, crime, rape, poverty, and homelessness.

    But as the field evolves, designers enter the field from many disciplines. Practitioners today have enough experience in UI design that they have been exposed to design rules, but it is essential that they understand the psychology behind the rules in order to effectively apply them. In "Designing with the Mind in Mind," Jeff Johnson, author of the best selling "GUI Bloopers," provides designers with just enough background in perceptual and cognitive psychology that UI design guidelines make intuitive sense rather than being just a list of rules to follow. * The first practical, all-in-one source for practitioners on user interface design rules and why, when and how to apply them.* Provides just enough background into the reasoning behind interface design rules that practitioners can make informed decisions in every project.* Gives practitioners the insight they need to make educated design decisions when confronted with tradeoffs, including competing design rules, time constrictions, or limited resources.

    You'll master the Unity toolset from the ground up, adding the skills you need to go from application coder to game developer. Based on Unity version 5.About the BookThis book helps readers build successful games with the Unity game development platform. You will use the powerful C# language, Unity's intuitive workflow tools, and a state-of-the-art rendering engine to build and deploy mobile, desktop, and console games. Unity's single codebase approach minimizes inefficient switching among development tools and concentrates your attention on making great interactive experiences.Unity in Action teaches you how to write and deploy games. You'll master the Unity toolset from the ground up, adding the skills you need to go from application coder to game developer. Each sample project illuminates specific Unity features and game development strategies. As you read and practice, you'll build up a well-rounded skill set for creating graphically driven 2D and 3D game applications.You'll need to know how to program, in C# or a similar OO language. No previous Unity experience or game development knowledge is assumed.

    Combining practical, theoretical, and historical, this book is a must for graphic artists, editors, or anyone working with the printed page using digital or traditional methods.Having established itself as a standard in its field The Elements of Typographic Style is house manual at most American university presses, a standard university text, and a reference work in studios of designers around the world. It has been translated into italian and greek, and dutch.

    A huge step beyond the text-oriented games that preceded it, the genre took the world by storm, and proved immensely popular with computers over the next decade. A combination of storytelling and puzzle solving, they provided the ability to explore a world and experience a narrative without the need for twitchy reflexes demanded of arcade games. This nearly comprehensive book includes reviews for over 250 games from the golden age of the graphic adventure genre, running from 1984 to roughly 2000, focusing on promiminent publishers such as: -LucasArts (Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island, Sam & Max, Grim Fandango) -Sierra On-Line (King's Quest, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Gabriel Knight) -Legend (Spellcasting, Eric the Unready, Callahan's Crosstime Saloon) -And several other popular and not-so-popular series and games (Zork, Myst, Broken Sword, The Longest Journey, Simon the Sorcerer, The Last Express, and dozens of others) -Also includes interviews with several adventure game developers, including Al Lowe (creator of Leisure Suit Larry), Corey Cole (creator of Quest for Glory), Bob Bates (founder of Legend Entertainment) and Josh Mandel (writer and designer for Sierra).

    The video game has arrived as entertainment and as an art form. This is the first serious critical evaluation ever published of the best video games and is a testament to the medium’s innovativeness and increasing emphasis on aesthetics. Organized chronologically and for all platforms (PC, Xbox, PlayStation, etc.) and covering all genres from the bold (Grand Theft Auto and Halo) and dark (Resident Evil and Silent Hill) to the spiritual (Final Fantasy) and whimsical (Legend of Zelda), the book traces the video game from the rough early days of Pong to the latest visual fantasia.

    It shows how similar principles can help students understand what people experience when interacting with computers. The book also describes how the user's enjoyment of a computer system should be the biggest design consideration.

    But how did an obscure Soviet programmer, working on frail, antiquated computers, create a product which has now earned nearly 1 billion in sales? How did a makeshift game turn into a worldwide sensation, which has been displayed at the Museum of Modern Art, inspired a big-budget sci-fi movie, and been played in outer space? A quiet but brilliant young man, Alexey Pajitnov had long nurtured a love for the obscure puzzle game pentominoes, and became obsessed with turning it into a computer game. Little did he know that the project that he labored on alone, hour after hour, would soon become the most addictive game ever made. In this fast-paced business story, reporter Dan Ackerman reveals how Tetris became one of the world's first viral hits, passed from player to player, eventually breaking through the Iron Curtain into the West. British, American, and Japanese moguls waged a bitter fight over the rights, sending their fixers racing around the globe to secure backroom deals, while a secretive Soviet organization named ELORG chased down the game's growing global profits.The Tetris Effect is an homage to both creator and creation, and a must-read for anyone who's ever played the game-which is to say everyone.

    Connecting games to math, science, and psychology, GameTek has grown to be one of the most popular parts of the show.This volume commemorates the anniversary with a collection of over seventy of the best segments, many with annotations and illustrations.With chapters on everything from Rock, Paper, Scissors to the Prisoner’s Dilemma to Player Engagement to Quasicrystals to Buddha’s Forbidden Games, GameTek is sure to delight not just game designers and players, but anyone who wants to learn about the world from a new perspective.Sections:• Game Theory• Math• Psychology• Science• Game Mechanics• Psychology Games• HistoryFrom the first time I heard it, the GameTek segment in The Dice Tower podcast became my favorite part of the show. Listening to Geoff is like going to your favorite lesson with your favorite teacher. He teaches about games (yay!) and does it in a very interesting way with lots of examples. He does amazing stuff. He knows about the construction of games, he knows the theory, he knows all that stuff behind the scenes that we gamers do not see when just playing a game and having fun.Ignacy Trzewiczek, Portal GamesThere are many hobby game 'experts' out there, dying to give you their opinion on how the industry works, how games work, what types of games are best, and so on. Geoff Engelstein is the expert that requires your attention. He is a scholar of games, and his research on games and other principles that apply to gaming is matched by none.Stephen Buonocore, Stronghold GamesOver the years, I’ve listened to a lot of people talk about board games, yet the short snippets that Geoff puts out are the ones that I find myself thinking about in the quiet of the night. His are the segments that you laugh at and say, “I have NO idea what you are talking about” — but later on use to show people just how intellectual you are.Tom Vasel, The Dice Tower

    With a blend of software engineering facts and thought-provoking opinions, Fred Brooks offers insight for anyone managing complex projects. These essays draw from his experience as project manager for the IBM System/360 computer family and then for OS/360, its massive software system. Now, 45 years after the initial publication of his book, Brooks has revisited his original ideas and added new thoughts and advice, both for readers already familiar with his work and for readers discovering it for the first time.The added chapters contain (1) a crisp condensation of all the propositions asserted in the original book, including Brooks' central argument in The Mythical Man-Month: that large programming projects suffer management problems different from small ones due to the division of labor; that the conceptual integrity of the product is therefore critical; and that it is difficult but possible to achieve this unity; (2) Brooks' view of these propositions a generation later; (3) a reprint of his classic 1986 paper "No Silver Bullet"; and (4) today's thoughts on the 1986 assertion, "There will be no silver bullet within ten years."

    Communications expert Carmine Gallo has studied and analyzed the very best of Jobs's performances, offering point-by-point examples, tried-and-true techniques, and proven presentation secrets in 18 "scenes," including:Develop a messianic sense of purposeReveal the Conquering heroChannel your inner ZenStage your presentation with propsMake it look effortlessWith this revolutionary approach, you'll be surprised at how easy it is to sell your ideas, share your enthusiasm, and wow your audience the Steve Jobs way."No other leader captures an audience like Steve Jobs does and, like no other book, The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs captures the formula Steve uses to enthrall audiences."--Rob Enderle, The Enderle Group"Now you can learn from the best there is--both Jobs and Gallo. No matter whether you are a novice presenter or a professional speaker like me, you will read and reread this book with the same enthusiasm that people bring to their iPods."--David Meerman Scott, bestselling author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR and World Wide Rave

    Topics covered range from the difference between deductive and inductive reasoning, to a discussion of how to highlight the structure of information.

    Techniques covered include state- and goal-based behavior, inter-agent communication, individual and group steering behaviors, team AI, graph theory, search, path planning and optimization, triggers, scripting, scripted finite state machines, perceptual modeling, goal evaluation, goal arbitration, and fuzzy logic.