Game World Phenomenology

This is not the actual book, but a dummy for a final check before the printers start production. There were no errors that needed to be corrected. So there will be typos (a heading slipped down a line, for example), and while that's annoying, it's not relevant enough to stop the process and delay everything. I'm sending out the invitations for the defense and the party and hope everyone gets them. I can't do anything more with the book, it will be frozen in time with ink on paper. My opponent and the committee have already received an advance PDF copy, a public one will be available in Lucris shortly and I'll post a link to it here. 3-4 years of work is now behind me, it's hard to say when it actually started, two years of actual writing. Not bad.

  The seminar went well. I took the first hour to explain the thesis and how the pieces I sent fit into a bigger picture, and I took another five minutes to show videos of the games so that everyone had my material ready. The criticism of my text was then quite extensive, but very well-intentioned. It was not clear and not structured properly. I had already received this in writing from my supervisor, so I was not surprised. At the same time, there were several good suggestions as to how I should structure the material. One participant was particularly knowledgeable about Lefebvre and de Certeau and had a lot of good insights that I can benefit from, and overall there were a lot of good suggestions from everyone present. Restructuring the text and writing it again should take a few days. Tying together all the threads that are in the script takes weeks, but it can be done. One thing I have realized with alarming clarity: It's difficult to accept written criticism. When I received t...

Summer vacation is over and now the really intense writing semester begins. In 129 days I should have a manuscript ready for a final seminar. If the seminar goes well, it will be on to the final adjustment and production of the book and for the dissertation. I am very much looking forward to this and have started the work by doing a lot of reading. Mostly Martin Kemp's The Science of Art , but also some phenomenology and Jason Schreier's Blood, Sweat and Pixels on game development processes. I plan to spend this week reading (there's a two-day kick-off event at work that I also have to attend) and next week going over what I have written so far. Then there will be new material again. Almost everything I read, or at least everything I notice about what I read, makes a connection that makes these game worlds more understandable, it's like I am seeing little pieces of a bigger picture but can not yet grasp it all. About a week ago I came up with a good title for the book,...

 This idea of Christmas writing is working! I'm usually spending 1-4 hours each day, usually early on, reading and writing. I get 500-1000 words a day this way and thats good. When I don't know where to take my text next I go back to reading. At the moment it's all phenomenology; Sokolowski's Introduction to Phenomenology , Gladden's Phenomenology of the Gameworld and Norberg-Schulz's Fenomenet plats (no idea what that is called in English). All three gives me so much to think about and to try to explain in writing. This is my first attempt at writing through this material so it is probably a bit disjointed an lacks coherence, but I know from experience that I need to get my ideas down first and that re-reading and editing, deleting and rewriting in parts is what will make the text work in the end. I have set myself a deadline for this part of the text to the beginning of February, I have a seminar on it planned February 10th, and I need to write and edit a bit...

 So I'm doing a lot of teaching this time of the year, and there is Christmas t enjoy. And I need to produce a few new lectures. But I have also set myself a deadline for a seminar at the beginning of February and I need to write a good part of my chapters on experiencing gameworlds. On small problem here is that I need a lot of writing on the materiality/production of games tjat leads up to this - but for reasons I have decided to have a seminar on that part of my text in May.  I really need to test ut my most important ideas about phenomenology and games from the start. If that part is understandable and good then I can work out the rest from there. Christmas is (almost) over, or at least it's Monday, and i was going to start writing and I had nothing to say. So I sat down to read Sokolowskis Introduction to phenomenology some more and I was back in the flow of thinking about games. There are som many ways of disseminating the experience of being in another world ta get from...

After Reading a lot of Harden, who is great at writing about games and gameworld from a player and developer point of view, I decided to read some basic phenomenology. And In Hardens introduction he recommended Robert Sokolowskis Introduction to Phenomenology. So I've been reading that too and it is a great tool; I'm starting to get a grasp of what I can and can't do with phenomenology and it's clear to me that as a method it is what I need but at the same time it's just the beginning of an interpretive process.  It has given me a clear perspective on one aspect of my two chosen games right from the start; Zelda BotW is an open world and the gameworld seems limitless, it spreads out en embraces me as a player inviting me to walk or ride long distances. In Mario Odyssey each little part of the world is clearly limited like a small intricate construction (a building, a cabinet, a piece of jewelry?). Mario Odyssey is a large world too - but in a very different way. I...