Videogames for Humans

"Thanks to tools like Twine and to a vigorous creative scene, alternative creators have seized control of that creaky word, hypertext, hybridized it with the videogames they grew up loving, and have turned it into a powerful, in-your-face, diverse, exciting field. Voices we have never heard before. Experiences we have never had before. Art that, well, hasn’t been arted before. And here it is, reflected back at you through playthroughs by some of the most interesting writers in games. There is no better snapshot of the scene as it stands than this book."
—Raph Koster, author of A Theory of Fun for Game Design and designer of Ultima Online

Behind the fluorescent veil of modern big-business video games, a quiet revolution is happening, and it’s centered on a tool called Twine. Taken up by nontraditional game authors to describe distinctly nontraditional subjects—from struggles with depression, explorations of queer identity, and analyses of the world of modern sex and dating to visions of breeding crustacean horses in a dystopian future—the Twine movement to date has created space for those who have previously been voiceless within games culture to tell their own stories, as well as to invent new visions outside of traditional channels of commerce.

Videogames for Humans, curated and introduced by Twine author and games theorist merritt kopas, puts Twine authors, literary writers, and games critics into conversation with one another’s work, reacting to, elaborating on, and being affected by the same. The result is an unprecedented kind of book about video games, one that will jump-start the discussions that will define the games culture of tomorrow.

ADVANCE REVIEWS

“With each chapter in Videogames for Humans I immediately felt a specific kind of affectation I often associate with Twine games—contemplative, slow, mysterious and exciting. These are games that often beg for reflection and context, and it’s apt that artists working in a medium as seemingly antiquated as interactive fiction are developing works of digital play and storytelling with such depth.”—VICE Motherboard

“[Kopas’s] new book Videogames for Humans . . . documents a movement with women at the front, as ‘friends, lovers, or something in between’ . . . the anthology displays the mottled breadth of its contributors.”—Hazlitt

“Videogames for Humans contains invaluable criticism presented by thoughtful voices. . . . Those who are at least somewhat familiar with Twine shouldn’t pass up this massive, engaging tome.”—Paste Magazine

“[Kopas has] gathered Twine game creators and critics to annotate and discuss one another's works—the result isn't just a unique angle on games criticism; it's a gathering of many of the most prominent creators in that unique space.”—BoingBoing