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Symposium on Games and Play Story Press are excited to release the Symposium on Games 2025 Conference Proceedings, edited by Jennifer J. Joy. These are the Proceedings of the 2025 Symposium on Games, which was held on November 14, 2025, at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. It was the sixth biennial games research symposium held at Ball State University. The Symposium on Games explores all facets of games, including cultural impact of games, educational use of games, and practical aspects of game design and development. The event attracts game scholars as well as undergraduate and graduate students from around...

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Play Story Press is excited to release The Psychgeist of Pop Culture: Sleep No More, edited by Rachel Kowert and Betsy Sullivan. Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More is an immersive reimagining of Macbeth through Hitchcock’s lens set inside the 1930s-era McKittrick Hotel. Guests are invited to discover their own paths as they wear masks and roam freely through intricately designed rooms across multiple floors, piecing together the story through wordless choreography, cinematic set and sound design, and voyeuristic encounters. This volume explores various psychological underpinnings of the aesthetics, fandoms, and experience of Sleep No More. The Psychgeist of Pop Culture: Sleep...

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Games And Horror, a Psychgeist series, edited by Chrstine Tomlinson. The allure of horror in media is sometimes difficult to fully understand. It can be uncomfortable, engaging us in discourse, content, and aesthetics that are disturbing, frightening, and sometimes disgusting. This is seemingly at odds with the major typical reasons to engage with media: relaxation and leisure. Despite these elements of horror, however, it can be found across media types and has been reflecting cultural fears and finding audiences since gothic horror literature emerged in the late 1700s, providing those consuming this media with allegories, metaphorical representations of cultural fears,...

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The Psychgeist of Pop Culture: Studio Ghibli, edited by Alex MacLellan Studio Ghibli, founded in 1985, is known around the world as the animation studio bringing works such as Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke and My Neighbour Totoro to the big and small screens. With a characteristic art style indelibly linked with childlike joy and a strong focus on moral storytelling, Ghibli movies are eagerly anticipated and cherished by fans old and new alike. The influence of the studio beyond Japan and the animation industry is clear, with comparisons to the studio or legendary director Hayao Miyazaki a byword for quality,...

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Games And Thirst, a Psychgeist series, edited by Kristine Ask, Ashley Guajardo, and Tanja Sihvonen. Game characters are hot. From Leon Kennedy’s slutty little waist (Resident Evil 4) to Mel Medara’s graceful political maneuvering (League of Legends), videogames present us with magnetic, desirable, and sexy characters to thirst after. Thirst, in common internet slang, references a strong sexual attraction or desire for something. Just as a person who is thirsty in a traditional sense badly needs water, thirsty people in the slang sense crave a fictional character with the same desperation and intensity. If you have ever thirsted after a...

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Play Story Press is excited to release IndieCade: A History — The Interdependence of Independents, by Celia Pearce. IndieCade: A History — The Interdependence of Independents chronicles the story of IndieCade as told by one of its three co-founders—its modest beginnings and evolving role in the larger independent games ecosystem over its decade-plus history. More broadly, it situates IndieCade within a historical context, looking at the various factors of the indie ecosystem that have contributed to making independent games writ large such a major force in today’s video game industry. IndieCade: A History — The Interdependence of Independents

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