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.

 This week there's major maintenance on the rail line I usually ride to work, so I've decided to stay home and write instead. It's a bit of a retreat, although I do enjoy going to Lund and meeting people. Now I wake up, have breakfast, go to my desk and start working. It's been a long time since I've talked to anyone about how I write, so I'll share it here. I've a clear outline in Scrivener so I can see where I need to write. Right now it's the middle part of my thesis, which is about phenomenology and how you think about experiences with art and games. Some days I can just sit down and write, other days I've to do a lot of reading. A day of reading is usually followed by a day of writing, frantically backtracking my reading, checking sources to make sure I understand them, and adding proper footnotes. I usually need breaks to eat lunch, take a walk, or go to the gym. A normal day would include both. And in the evenings, when I'm too tired to wr...

 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...

I got some new hardware, and it's pretty much focused on Nintendo. And thats because Nintendo makes the kind of games I enjoy (Zelda, Mario). So at home I have a Wii U and a Switch, and at my office I have a Switch and a PS3. I also play on my iPhone, iPad and Mac. But no PS5, no Xbox and no gaming PC (so none of the major platforms). This might be a problem and then I might have to get some more hardware, but I'm planning to compensate that with Twitch. Twitch is a livestreaming platform for (mostly) gamers playing game and talking. It makes it really easy to see games in action, and by not playing myself I can see more and take notes although I miss some central aspects of gaming itself. I'm a viewer and not a player.  I am thinking about this now; I do not plan to write about playing but about being in the game world. There is a difference. But perhaps I need to play more varied games. On the other hand I feel very little difference considering the "being-in-the-gam...