Overview

Video Games, Literature, and Close Playing: A Practical Guide offers 24 case studies of mainstream and independent video games from Tetris to The Sims, Undertale to Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and Assassin’s Creed to Gone Home in order to introduce key video game and literary studies concepts, ideas, definitions, and possibilities. This book also includes a brief history of video games and literature, critical questions and suggested readings for each chapter, and a collection of prompts, activities, and assignments for students and instructors to engage, adapt, and explore. This book is designed to be useful, modular, and playful, to provoke questions and conversation, to encourage connections and collaboration, and to inspire critical thinking.

Full Product Details

Author:   Edmond Y. Chang ,  Timothy J. Welsh
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Routledge
Weight:   0.380kg
ISBN:  

9781032468822

ISBN 10:   1032468823
Pages:   196
Publication Date:   07 November 2025
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available  
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Table of Contents

Introduction: Close Playing Our Classrooms LORE I: Literary Gaming 01 ImmorTall 02 Tetris 03 Beginner’s Guide 04 Oblivion 05 BioShock 06 Assassin’s Creed 07 Undertale SIDE QUESTS I: Activities and Assignments LORE II: Literature and Video Games 08 The Sims 09 The Walking Dead 10 Portal 11 Red Dead Redemption 12 Super Columbine Massacre RPG 13 Dark Souls 14 NBA2K18 15 Pokèmon Go 16 Minecraft SIDE QUESTS II: Activities and Assignments LORE III: Gamifying Literature 17 Loved 18 Animal Crossing: New Horizons 19 Dragon Age 20 Barbie Dreamtopia: Adventure Games 21 Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas 22 Queers in Love at the End of the World 23 When Rivers Were Trails 24 Gone Home SIDE QUESTS III: Activities and Assignments LORE IV: Getting Messy

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Author Information

Edmond Y. Chang is Associate Professor of English at Ohio University. He has published on queer games, digital humanities, popular culture, and speculative literature of color including “Queergaming” in Queer Game Studies (2017), “Why Are the Digital Humanities So Straight?” in Alternative Historiographies of the Digital Humanities (2021), and “Gaming While Asian” in Made in Asia/America (2024). He is an editor for Analog Game Studies and a contributing editor for Gamers with Glasses. Timothy J. Welsh is Associate Professor of English at Loyola University New Orleans. He is the author of Mixed Realism: Videogames and the Violence of Fiction (University of Minnesota Press, 2016) as well as articles on video games, interactive narrative, and digital society such as “(Re)Mastering Dark Souls” (Game Studies, 2021) and “Doing Nothing in San Andreas: Contesting the Value of Play in Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto V” (Configurations, 2024). He is managing editor of the Journal of Games Criticism.

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