Customer Reviews

Quests: Design, Theory, and History in Games and Narratives

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(First of all, English is not my language... so I will try to write this review the best I can.. sorry for mispellings) I bought this book for my master degree studies and I was surprised with the theoretical analisis mixed with practice... the author get a nice mix of both and made a great analisis of quest's history and theory.
The only thing I don't like too mutch is the design of text that used just a portion of the paper... there is too mutch blank area in this print... but could be nice to someone who likes to make annotations over the text...
The book I've bought was a used one, but the conditions are very good... just like a new one... so... that's it... a good book for those who want to learn more about quests, or who want to design better quests...

Howard's book is a refreshing departure from the usual focus of gaming texts, which give you the option of hands-on coding tutorials or lofty academic screeds. The middle-ground presented here is full of details from literary analysis to gameplay mechanics, and proves that Howard has actually PLAYED his share of games (the same cannot be said of many university gaming professors who are often squeezed in to existing literature or computer science programs). You won't see arguments about ludology vs narratology (i.e. gameplay vs story), or a deconstruction of gaming through a narrow lens like gender politics or whatever academic focus is in vogue at the moment. Rather, Quests provides a holistic view of how to use the vast cultural repositories of myth and folklore to craft better gaming experiences.

In short, Howard is an academic seeking to improve the quality of video games. That's a noble quest indeed!