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The SmartMonsters Bookstore
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SmartMonsters' games are not for everyone. We write for
adults with fairly rich educational and cultural backgrounds.
We assume our players like to read, and know how to type. We don't
write for kids. If this sounds like you, welcome!
Click
here
to read our essay, "Can a Game be Literature?"
The works listed here have all been used in some way as
background for
TriadCity,
our flagship game.
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Gadgets
Grado RS1 Reference Series Headphones, Grado Labs, Grado Labs n/a
Herman Miller Aeron Chair - Posture Fit - Large Size (C), Herman Miller, Herman Miller n/a
Sennheiser HD-280 Dynamic Collapsible Headphones, Sennheiser, Sennheiser n/a
Sennheiser HD650 Audiophile Open Dynamic Stereo Headphones, Sennheiser, Sennheiser n/a
Ultrasone PROline 2500 professional headphones, Ultrasone, Ultrasone n/a
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| © 2012 SmartMonsters, Inc. All Rights are Reserved. |
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"Two of the most common approaches [to academic study of] adventure games seem to be apologetics and trivialization. Both generally fail to grasp the intrinsic qualities of the genre, because they both privilege the aesthetic ideals of another genre, that of narrative literature, typically the novel. For the apologists, adventure games may one day -- when their Cervantes or Dickens comes along -- reach their true potential, produce works of literary value that rival the current narrative masterpieces, and claim their place in the canon. For the trivialists, this will never happen; adventure games are games, they cannot possibly be taken seriously as literature nor attain the level of sophistication of a good novel. Although the trivialists are right -- adventure games will never become good novels -- they are also making an irrelevant point, because adventure games are not novels at all. The adventure game is an artistic genre of its own, a unique aesthetic field of possibilities, which must be judged on its own terms. And while the apologists certainly are wrong, in that the games will never be considered good novels, they are right in insisting that the genre may improve and eventually turn out something rich and wonderful. This may or may not happen, so the only way to understand the genre is to study the various works that already exist and how they are played."
-- Espen J. Aarseth,
Cybertext (info)
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