Bernard De Koven's Books

The Well-Played Game

A Player's Philosophy

By: Bernard De Koven

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Well-Played Game

A Player's Philosophy

By: Bernard De Koven

The return of the classic book on games and play that illuminates the relationship between the well-played game and the well-lived life. In The Well-Played Game, games guru Bernard De Koven explores the interaction of play and games, offering players—as well as game designers, educators, and scholars—a guide to how games work. De Koven’s classic treatise on how human beings play together, first published in 1978, investigates many issues newly resonant in the era of video and computer games, including social gameplay and player modification. The digital game industry, now moving beyond its emphasis on graphic techniques to focus on player interaction, has much to learn from The Well-Played Game. De Koven explains that when players congratulate each other on a “well-played” game, they are expressing a unique and profound synthesis that combines the concepts of play (with its associations of playfulness and fun) and game (with its associations of rule-following). This, he tells us, yields a larger concept: the experience and expression of excellence. De Koven—affectionately and appreciatively hailed by Eric Zimmerman as “our shaman of play”—explores the experience of a well-played game, how we share it, and how we can experience it again; issues of cheating, fairness, keeping score, changing old games (why not change the rules in pursuit of new ways to play?), and making up new games; playing for keeps; and winning. His book belongs on the bookshelves of players who want to find a game in which they can play well, who are looking for others with whom they can play well, and who have discovered the relationship between the well-played game and the well-lived life.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

173

Publisher

MIT Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0262019175

ISBN 13

9780262019170

Well-Played Game

A Player's Philosophy

By: Bernard De Koven

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Well-Played Game

A Player's Philosophy

By: Bernard De Koven

In The Well-Played Game, games guru Bernard De Koven explores the interaction of play and games, offering players -- as well as game designers, educators, and scholars -- a guide to how games work. De Koven's classic treatise on how human beings play together, first published in 1978, investigates many issues newly resonant in the era of video and computer games, including social gameplay and player modification. The digital game industry, now moving beyond its emphasis on graphic techniques to focus on player interaction, has much to learn from The Well-Played Game.De Koven explains that when players congratulate each other on a "well-played" game, they are expressing a unique and profound synthesis that combines the concepts of play (with its associations of playfulness and fun) and game (with its associations of rule-following). This, he tells us, yields a larger concept: the experience and expression of excellence. De Koven -- affectionately and appreciatively hailed by Eric Zimmerman as "our shaman of play" -- explores the experience of a well-played game, how we share it, and how we can experience it again; issues of cheating, fairness, keeping score, changing old games (why not change the rules in pursuit of new ways to play?), and making up new games; playing for keeps; and winning. His book belongs on the bookshelves of players who want to find a game in which they can play well, who are looking for others with whom they can play well, and who have discovered the relationship between the well-played game and the well-lived life.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

176

Published Date

ISBN 10

0262316803

ISBN 13

9780262316804

The Infinite Playground

A Player's Guide to Imagination

By: Bernard De Koven

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Infinite Playground

A Player's Guide to Imagination

By: Bernard De Koven

In his final work, a visionary game designer reveals how a surprising range of play-based experiences can unlock our imagination and help us capture the power of fun and delight. Bernard De Koven (1941–2018) was a pioneering designer of games and theorist of fun. He studied games long before the field of game studies existed. For De Koven, games could not be reduced to artifacts and rules; they were about a sense of transcendent fun. This book, his last, is about the imagination: the imagination as a playground, a possibility space, and a gateway to wonder. The Infinite Playground extends a play-centered invitation to experience the power and delight unlocked by imagination. It offers a curriculum for playful learning. De Koven guides the readers through a series of observations and techniques, interspersed with games. He begins with the fundamentals of play, and proceeds through the private imagination, the shared imagination, and imagining the world—observing, “the things we imagine can become the world.” Along the way, he reminisces about playing ping-pong with basketball great Bill Russell; begins the instructions for a game called Reception Line with “Mill around”; and introduces blathering games—Blather, Group Blather, Singing Blather, and The Blather Chorale—that allow the player's consciousness to meander freely. Delivered during the last months of his life, The Infinite Playground has been painstakingly cowritten with Holly Gramazio, who worked together with coeditors Celia Pearce and Eric Zimmerman to complete the project as Bernie De Koven's illness made it impossible for him to continue writing. Other prominent game scholars and designers influenced by De Koven, including Katie Salen Tekinbaş, Jesper Juul, Frank Lantz, and members of Bernie's own family, contribute short interstitial essays.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

207

Publisher

MIT Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0262543869

ISBN 13

9780262543866

The Infinite Playground

A Player's Guide to Imagination

By: Bernard De Koven

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Infinite Playground

A Player's Guide to Imagination

By: Bernard De Koven

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

207

Publisher

MIT Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0262543869

ISBN 13

9780262543866

The Well-Played Game

A Player's Philosophy

By: Bernard De Koven

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Well-Played Game

A Player's Philosophy

By: Bernard De Koven

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

173

Publisher

MIT Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0262019175

ISBN 13

9780262019170

A Century of Musicals in Black and White

An Encyclopedia of Musical Stage Works By, About, or Involving African Americans

By: Bernard L. Peterson Jr.

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

A Century of Musicals in Black and White

An Encyclopedia of Musical Stage Works By, About, or Involving African Americans

By: Bernard L. Peterson Jr.

This comprehensive reference book provides succinct information on almost thirteen hundred musical stage works written and produced from the 1870s to the 1990s involving contributions by black librettists, lyricists, composers, musicians, producers, or performers or containing thematic materials relevant to the black experience. Organized alphabetically, they include tent and outdoor shows, vaudeville, operas and operettas, comedies, farces, spectacles, revues, cabaret and nightclub shows, children's musicals, skits, one-act musicals, one-person shows, and even a musical without songs. In addition to the hundreds of shows independently created, produced, and performed by black writers and theatrical artists, it presents hundreds more representing a collaboration of black and white talents. An appendix organizes the shows chronologically and highlights those that were most significant in the history of the black American musical stage. An extensive bibliography and indexes of names, songs, and subjects complete the work.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

554

Publisher

Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published Date

ISBN 10

0313064547

ISBN 13

9780313064548

Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes

By: Andre Bernard,Clifton Fadiman

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes

By: Andre Bernard,Clifton Fadiman

From Hank Aaron to King Zog, Mao Tse-Tung to Madonna, Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes features more than 2,000 people from around the world, past and present, in all fields. These short anecdotes provide remarkable insight into the human character. Ranging from the humorous to the tearful, they span classical history, recent politics, modern science and the arts. Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes is a gold mine for anyone who gives speeches, is doing research, or simply likes to browse. As an informal tour of history and human nature at its most entertaining & instructive, this is sure to be a perennial favorite for years to come.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

808

Publisher

Little, Brown

Published Date

ISBN 10

0446931268

ISBN 13

9780446931267

A Playful Path

By: Bernard De Koven

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

A Playful Path

By: Bernard De Koven

A Playful Path, the new book by games guru and fun theorist Bernard De Koven, serves as a collection of ideas and tools to help us bring our playfulness back into the open. When we find ourselves forgetting the life of the game or the game of life, the joy of form or the content, the play of brain or mind, body or spirit, this book can help us return to that which our soul is heir.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

305

Publisher

Lulu.com

Published Date

ISBN 10

1304351823

ISBN 13

9781304351821

Book's by Bernard De Koven

The Well-Played Game

The Well-Played Game

Well-Played Game

Well-Played Game

The Infinite Playground

The Infinite Playground

The Infinite Playground

The Infinite Playground

The Well-Played Game

The Well-Played Game

A Century of Musicals in Black and White

A Century of Musicals in Black and White

Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes

Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes

A Playful Path

A Playful Path

Username

Password

Username

Password

Password again

Birthday

Email