2025

Since its premiere in 2022, Apple TV’s Severance has grown a significant following amongst fans of sci-fi psychological thrillers. The series explores a world where employees can undergo “severance,” an operation separating their memories and personalities between their “innie” work personas (their lived experience at work), and their pre-existing “outie” selves (their lived experience in their personal lives outside of work), each holding no knowledge of the actions of the other.The show has been praised for everything from its interwoven, mystery-laden plot to its cinematography and musical score, but much of Severance’s popularity comes from the show’s intentionality in setting...

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In Tracy Fullerton’s and Matthew Farber’s new book, The Well-Read Game: On Playing Thoughtfully, part of The MIT Press’ Playful Thinking series, they propose a new framework of interpretive play. This framework is a theory of player response, exploring the ephemeral and emotional responses that occur when people are in a state of play. When we play a game, we experience more than just its formal structures; we may notice its aesthetic details or connect its character to our own lives. We tell ourselves stories as we play, ask questions, and react to the game’s intent. In The Well-Read Game,...

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Play Story Press, in collaboration with the Playful Mind Project, is excited to release Play and Profit: How Purposeful Play Leads to Organizational Success, by Rona Lewis. Play belongs in the workplace—and not just in the break room. In this thought-provoking and delightfully practical guide, Rona Lewis—corporate consultant and renowned Play Instigator—demonstrates why Purposeful and Attuned Play is not child’s play, but a powerful lever for business success. Blending research from neuroscience, psychology, and organizational behavior with real-world stories and actionable tools, Play and Profit explores how play impacts key drivers of success: innovation, adaptability, stress reduction, leadership, collaboration, communication,...

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Play Story Press is excited to announce the upcoming release of Gathering of Gamers: Dungeons & Dragons and other Games through Gen Con, by Matt Shoemaker. Gen Con is the largest and oldest continuously running convention that is focused on analog games. It has been an important fixture in the development of modern tabletop games not just for role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons, but also boardgames, collectible card games, miniature games, live action role-playing games, and others. Each year over 70,000 people make a pilgrimage to Indianapolis, Indiana to celebrate and play these games. Gathering of Gamers explores the...

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Play Story Press is excited to release The Psychgeist of Pop Culture: Dragon Age, edited by Christine Tomlinson, PhD. Have you ever wanted to be the hero? Save the world with an unlikely team of misfits? Spark and inspire change? The Dragon Age video game series allows players to play as a hero and a leader to fight monsters, overcome challenges, and shape a story, leaving a mark on a digital world and the hearts of the virtual people within it. Beginning in 2009, the video games, novels, and graphic novels that explore the game’s world, Thedas, have given role-playing...

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Play Story Press is excited to release Teacher Craft: How Teachers Learn to Use Minecraft in their Classrooms, by Seann Dikkers. Teacher Craft is about how teachers learn to use new digital media. Teacher learning is central to reform and change across subject areas and age levels, but how much do we really know about how teachers learn to try new lessons in classrooms? Minecraft is currently the game of choice for millions of youth and also for these seventeen teachers who claim it has transformed their classrooms. Its rapid adoption also provides a unique window of opportunity to look...

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Play Story Press is excited to release the first four volumes of Analog Game Studies along with the GENeration Analog 2021 Proceedings. Analog Game Studies GENeration Analog 2021

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Play Story Press is excited to release The Pleasure of Playing Less, by Sultan A. Alharthi, Phoebe O. Toups Dugas, Olaa Alsaedi, Theresa Jean Tanenbaum and Jessica Hammer In this book, we explore the pleasure of playing less through a collective experience of playing the Kittens Game -- a self-described “Dark Souls of incremental gaming”. We draw on techniques of close reading and hermeneutics to ground our analysis and supplement our individual reflections on how these games incentivize players to play less and plan more. The Pleasure of Playing Less: A Study of Incremental Games Through the Lens of Kittens

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We’re excited to share that the School of Communication at the University of Miami has joined the Play Story Press™ Society as a founding member. With a focus on the study and practice of communication as foundational to every human endeavor, their generous philanthropic contribution supports the open design and dissemination of knowledge that has a positive impact. We’re powered by input and involvement from our consortium, our contributors, and the community at large. We invite people to participate so that we can explore and create a better future together. Thanks to the UM School of Communication for their support!

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