EST310 / ISE340 Final Review
This online review is intended to be used as a study guide for the final exam.
Here you will find a series of questions related to the material we will have
covered. These questions are representative of the questions that will appear
on the exam. Chapter and section references correspond to chapters and sections
in Salen & Zimmerman's textbook, Rules of Play.
I strongly suggest that you work with other students in the class
on these questions. That way you can check each other's answers ... and
possibly give one another insights that you might not otherwise have.
Chapter 22: Defining play
- What is play? Be aware of the many different uses of the word.
- What is the difference between game play, ludic activities, and being playful? Be sure you can give examples.
- What is transformative play? How might it occur in each of the 3 categories of play?
Chapter 23: Games as the play of experience
- What is meant by experience? How does the game player get that experience?
- What are the psychological processes by which video games are experienced? Give examples.
- How is game design a second-order design problem?
- What is meant by core mechanic?
- How are interactivity and repetition part of the experience?
Chapter 24: Games as the play of pleasure
- How are games autotelic?
- Explain how the value of playing a game can be intrinsic and extrinsic.
- What is meant by double-seduction in games?
- LeBlanc defines 8 kinds of pleasure players can derive from playing games. Think of a game you think of as fun: which of these pleasures do you derive from that game?
- What is game flow? How can this be achieved?
- How are games same-but-different?
- What is entrianment?
- Compare and contrast short-term goals with long-term goals in a game.
- What are reinforcement schedules? How can they be made fixed or variable?
- What happens when the challenge of a game is not right for a player?
Chapter 25: Games as the play of meaning
- Explain how meaning emerges from the interaction between system and context.
- What is the space of representational possibility? How do players navigate that space?
- How are meanings derived within the magic circle of a game?
- What is a cognitive frame?
- What is metacommunication? Give an example from your experience.
Chapter 26: Games as narrative play
- How are all games narrative?
- What are embedded and emergent narrative structures?
- How do the following affect narrative play?
- goals
- conflict
- uncertainty
- core mechanic
- space
- What is a narrative descriptor? What 2 roles can it play in a game?
- What do we mean when we say that a game is a narrative system?
- What are cutscences? What are they for?
- What are some ways of retelling play?
Chapter 27: Games as the play of simulation
- What is a simulation? How is it that all games can be understood as simulations?
- What is meant by a simulation operating metaphorically?
- What is a procedural representation?
- Understand how and why simulations are ...
- abstract
- numerical
- limited
- systemic
- What is the benefit of using generalized logic, as opposed to case-based logic, in structuring digital game simulations?
- What is the immersive fallacy?
- What is the process of remediation?
Chapter 28: Games as social play
- What are social play communities? When do they arise?
- How do social play interactions emerge?
- What do player roles refer to?
- What are the 4 categories of player roles in Bartle's model?
- Explain how games are emergent social systems. Be sure you can give an example.
- What's the difference between a bounded play community and one that is not bounded? What determines which of these a play community will be?
- What sort of social contract arises in a bounded play community?
- What relevance do safety and trust have in a game?
- What is transformative play? Give an example.
- What is the difference between the ideal rules and the real rules of a game?
- What is forbidden play?
- What is metagaming?
Chapter 29: Defining culture
- What is culture?
- What does it mean to consider games as culture?
- How can games reflect or transform culture? Give an example of each.
- What does it mean to consider games as cultural text?
Chapter 30: Games as cultural rhetoric
- What is meant by cultural rhetoric? What are some ways that cutural rhetoric are manifest?
- Explain how games are social contexts for cutural learning.
- What are Sutton-Smith's 7 rhetorics of play?
- What is transformative cultural play?
Chapter 31: Games as open culture
- What does it mean to be culturally emergent?
- If a game is designed as open culture, what does that mean?
- What is the player-as-producer paradigm? Explain what players-as-producers can do.
- What is metagaming?
- What is open source? How does it relate to open culture games?
- What is a game system? Give an example.
- What are machinima?
Chapter 32: Games as cultural resistance
- What is meant by cultural resistance? Be sure you can give an example.
- What is DIY gaming?
- What are game mods? In what ways do they enact cultural resistance?
- Be sure you can explain the 3 categories of game mods:
- alteration
- juxtaposition
- reinvention
Chapter 33: Games as cultural environment
- What do we mean by "games that bleed over into their cultural environment"? Be sure you can give one example.
- What are implicit rules? What forms can they take?
- Can the boundaries of the magic circle ever really be erased? Why?
- Are all games artificial? Why?