LudoScience

The history of Microsoft BOA (Blog post)

Almost unknown, BOA is a nice little game for MS-DOS created in 1989 by Dean Ballard for Microsoft. It's an arcade game similar to Snake, besides the fact that you are playing a rat trying to avoid being eaten by the snake!   The oddest thing about this game lies in its distribution model: it was solely available through the driver disk of a mouse created by Microsoft, the "Contour Mouse", also known as "Dove Bar." Due to the technological limitations of the era, [...]

Keywords : microsoft boa, history, mouse, pix'n love

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Jacked : L'histoire officieuse de Grand Theft Auto (Book reference)

This book details the captivating story of the scandalous game series "Grand Theft Auto". Over 300 pages, the author tells us about the most epic moments of this saga: humble beginnings as a small arcade game made in Scotland by DMA Design; hiring Max Clifford to use media scandal as a marketing campaign; the hijacking of the series leadership by the Houser brothers and their studio Rockstar during the creation of GTA III; the first legal actions against the game series and the rise of [...]

Keywords : grand theft auto, history, dma design, rockstar, jack thompson, david jones, sam houser, esrb

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New website section: games created by Ludoscience! (Blog post)

As the summer goes, a new section appears on this website: games made at the Ludoscience laboratory! This new section will let you play the various videogames created by the members of the laboratory during their research projects. Hence, this new section is different from our reseach projects section (that gathers research projects that are not games, or games that are not available to the general public) and from our students projects section (that solely gathers games created by the st [...]

Keywords : website updates, videogames

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Games History - tome 3 : Histoire du jeu de course auto (Book reference)

Games History is a series of magazines in a book-like format (similar to Pix'n Love and IG), with 200 pages dedicated to a defined genre of video games. This third issue is focused on the history of racing games on home consoles. The book starts with a brief general history of racing games on arcade cabinets (70-80's) and on 90's home consoles. It then goes into more details about popular series such as Gran Turismo, Forza Motorsport, Ridge Racer, Need for Speed, Burnout, Formula One, Colin M [...]

Keywords : history, racing, console, video game, car, images

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Yoshihisa Kishimoto : Enter the Double Dragon (Book reference)

The biography of Yoshihisa Kishimoto, a japanese game creator unknown by the general public, although he created one of the most famous videogame series: "Double Dragon". This well written book is full of pictures and starts by telling you the childhood of this little-known genius, alongside with his thug-like youth where he was always eager to fight inside and outside of school. He hopefully changed his lifestyle before becoming a real criminal. Fond of movies, he then started to crea [...]

Keywords : yoshihisa kishimoto, double dragon, kunio-kun, renegade, thunder strom, road avenger, vier, biography

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Jacked: The unauthorized behind-the-scenes story of Grand Theft Auto (Book reference)

This book details the captivating story of the scandalous game series "Grand Theft Auto". Over 300 pages, the author tells us about the most epic moments of this saga: humble beginnings as a small arcade game made in Scotland by DMA Design; hiring Max Clifford to use media scandal as a marketing campaign; the hijacking of the series leadership by the Houser brothers and their studio Rockstar during the creation of GTA III; the first legal actions against the game series and the ri [...]

Keywords : grand theft auto, history, dma design, rockstar, jack thompson, sam houser, david jones, esrb

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Philosophie des jeux vidéo (Book reference)

An excellent book featuring a deep analysis of the experiences offered to players by videogames. Being at the same time a gamer and a scholar, the author provides us with his very thoughtful and stimulating ideas on this topic. The first three chapters are tackling the issue of defining games, video games, and the relation between games and movies / storytelling. As they are full of concepts and references, these chapters are a bit harder to read than the others. The three following chapters are [...]

Keywords : history, philosophy, sociology, experience, critical, gamification

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Une matrice se cache derrière nos jeux d'arcade (Broacasting our studies)

An article about using the GamePlay bricks with arcade games  

Keywords : bricks, gameplay, arcade

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Japan Arcade Mania! The Turbo-Charged World of Japan's Game Centers (Book reference)

This book is dedicated to arcade video games in Japan. Each of the 9 chapters of this book is dedicated to a specific kind of arcade game: UFO Catchers (mechanical games where you have to catch objects with a grip), Puriruka (improved photo booths loved by teenagers girls), rhythm games, shoot'em ups, fighting games, games of chance (Pachinko, Mahjong...), dedicated arcade games (for those seeking adrenaline through Taikan games), retrogaming (arcade games from the 80's and 90's still played tod [...]

Keywords : arcade, japan, versus fighting, shoot'em up, ufo catcher, rythm game, purikura, players

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L'Histoire de Nintendo - volume 1 : 1889-1980 (Book reference)

Over a series of 7 books, Florent Gorges wrote the most complete history of Nintendo. The texts are easy to read and full of unique information, and are illustrated with many pictures of all the games and toys created by the company. This first book in the series is focused on the numerous creations made by Nintendo before entering the video and electronic games market: playing cards, toys, arcades, and some weird stuffs like office supplies. An absolute must-read book.This book was translated i [...]

Keywords : history, nintendo, toys, cards

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