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Play Story Press is excited to release Toward a Ludic Architecture: The Space of Play and Games, by Steffen P. Walz. Toward a Ludic Architecture is a pioneering publication, architecturally framing play and games as human practices in and of space. Filling the gap in literature, Steffen P. Walz considers game design theory and practice alongside architectural theory and practice, asking: how are play and games architected? What kind of architecture do they produce and in what way does architecture program play and games? What kind of architecture could be produced by playing and gameplaying? Toward a Ludic Architecture: The Space...

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Play Story Press is excited to release ADE for Games: Approaches to Anti-Racism, Decolonization, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Games Research and Creation, edited by Daniel Harley and Gerald Voorhees. Creating meaningful opportunities for anti-racism, decolonization, equity, diversity, and inclusion in games research and creation requires active knowledge sharing and community-building. Drawing on a year-long speaker and workshop series focused on applying cutting-edge research towards actionable and equitable change, this book synthesizes insights from leading voices in games research and/or creation to help games researchers, educators, makers, and students adopt equity-oriented principles and practices. ADE for Games: Approaches to Anti-Racism,...

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Play Story Press is excited to release The Psychgeist of Pop Culture: Taylor Swift, edited by Rachel Kowert, PhD Taylor Swift is the voice of generations. Her words are the soundtrack to our lives. She is the best selling artist of all time with millions of fans who proudly call themselves Swifties. But her legacy is not just her trail of hits, the records she broke, or her tour through the eras - it is her ability to embody our collective emotions, struggles, and triumphs in her art.  The Psychgeist of Pop Culture: Taylor Swift celebrates the icon herself across...

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Play Story Press is excited to release Well Played: For the Love of Games, edited by Drew Davidson. A lot of us have a special game that inspired us to get more deeply involved in making, studying and playing games as part of our professional and personal lives. It may be *the* game for you or just *a* game that means a lot, and you find yourself replaying it regularly. It could even be a couple of games, or a games series, or a game that disappointed you enough that you were inspired to try and make one even better....

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Play Story Press is excited to release Possible Worlds in Video Games: From Classic Narrative to Meaningful Actions, by Antonio José Planells de la Maza. In current digital games, classic fictional worlds are transformed into ludofictional worlds, spaces rich in characters and emotions that are especially affected by the intervention of a player. In this book, we propose a model, inspired by the Semantics of Fiction and Possible Worlds, which is oriented to the analysis of video games as integrated systems. Possible Worlds in Video Games: From Classic Narrative to Meaningful Actions

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Play Story Press is excited to release the Connected Learning Summit Proceedings from 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022 and 2023. Connect Learning Summit Proceedings

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Play Story Press is excited to release Roll for Learning: 51 Micro Tabletop Role-Playing Games to Use in the Classroom, edited by Camilla Zamboni, Matthew Farber, and William Merchant. Roll for Learning is a curated collection of original micro tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs). Micro TTRPGs have grown in popularity in recent years, particularly in the game jam space, and offer great potential for classroom use, as these games are intended to be easy to learn and quick to play. Further, TTRPGs are also an emerging field in scholarly texts, so there is a rich literature to draw from when introducing them...

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Play Story Press is excited to release Virtual Body Language, by Jeffrey Ventrella. Why does the tail wag the brain? What is virtual autism? Why can't our avatars walk hand-in-hand? Will a nonverbal Babel fish save the world? Jeffrey Ventrella, a seasoned virtual worlds programmer and visual language expert, reviews the history of avatars, smileys, and other expressive forms, and considers a future of spectacular creativity. This book combines thoughtful scholarship with amusing anecdotes from the trenches of Silicon Valley. Virtual Body Language presents a thorough analysis of the neurological, linguistic, aesthetic, and technical aspects of how nonverbal communication can be...

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Play Story Press is excited to release The Psychgeist of Pop Culture: Stranger Things, a collection of essays edited by Anton Roberts. Recent times have witnessed an explosion in forms of media that fall under the umbrella of "pop culture". However, no series represents this phenomenon more clearly than Netflix's own Stranger Things. It is a veritable cornucopia of nostalgic cultural references, an offering of the bygone era of the 1980s suburban America. This book brings together scholars from a diverse set of backgrounds to explore why this show engenders such an intense fandom and lasting impact on the human...

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Update: Deadline for submissions is extended to 3 January 2025. A lot of us have a special game that inspired us to get more deeply involved in making, studying and playing games as part of our professional and personal lives. It may be *the* game for you or just *a* game that means a lot, and you find yourself replaying it regularly. It could even be a couple of games, or a games series, or a game that disappointed you enough that you were inspired to try and make one even better. Whatever the case may be, we welcome submissions...

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