February 22, 2008
Jeff Howard’s Quests
Many of you will be interested to know that Jeff Howard’s book Quests: Design, Theory, and History in Games and Narratives is now out from A K Peters. Jeff’s dissertation was discussed on here, and he sent us a writeup of an ACM symposium. The book is a very nice contribution which I read shortly before publication. Here’s the endorsement of it that I wrote:
Jeff Howard’s Quests is an incisive and highly accessible book that leads the reader on an exploration of literature, computer games, and a connection between them. Howard includes valuable tutorials and exercises which draw on literary works, including Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, while also dealing with the specifics of how to use tools to create computer RPG modules. The book offers useful discussion of the history of adventure games and detailed analysis of quest elements using concepts from narrative theory, poetics, game studies, and other fields. Quests equips students and scholars as they journey onward to read, play, and fashion games and narratives.
February 22nd, 2008 at 7:27 am
You beat me to the punch!
I’m at GDC and dropped by the A K Peters booth. Kevin Jackson-Mead, the editor for Quests, was only about a sentence into describing it before I realized what it was and knew I had to buy it. I also picked up another book about which I’ll post soon.
In other news, it’s worth noting that Kevin has recently started blogging with some other interesting folks.
February 22nd, 2008 at 10:00 am
Thanks for the word.. I just ordered a copy.
February 25th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Thank you to Nick for posting this and to Noah and Dennis for taking an interest in my book. It’s also very good to see Kevin Jackson-Mead blogging, because he is a very perceptive and helpful person.
August 20th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Sitting in Jeff’s panel right now at Games in Education Symposium. These are massively mportant connections! Posting this to the Second Life Community who are investigating Games in Education!
October 23rd, 2008 at 5:23 am
A colleague and I recently filmed the first in a series of web videos that illustrate and expand on the chapters of Quests. The first episode is about quest spaces and level design, and it can be seen on my blog here.
October 23rd, 2008 at 5:50 am
This video is very slick as well as being informative – a great resource for scholars and game makers to watch and for teachers to share with students. Thanks for this, Jeff.