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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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why buy through us?
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Why buy through us? Three reasons:
1. It helps support the games.
The commission we make on sales through our online store helps
offset some of our operating costs. Many thanks for your support!
2. You'll probably save money.
Because you're buying from amazon.com, you'll receive their standard
discounts on most titles. These are often up to 30% off retail.
Additionally, there's no sales tax on online orders; and now all
orders of $25 or more receive
free shipping
as well. Not a bad deal, really.
3. These are great books.
We read lots of books. (How many? Well, look at it
this way: there are currently 1137
titles available here in our little bookstore, and those are just
the ones I personally read this week. So back off,
understand?) That is to say, these recommendations are the best in their
categories. We know because we've used them to develop
TriadCity.
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| © 2013 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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