Ian Bogost - Water Cooler Games - My new column: Videogame Vignette

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Water Cooler Games

Water Cooler Games served as the web's primary forum for "videogames with an agenda" — coverage of the uses of video games in advertising, politics, education, and other everyday activities, outside the sphere of entertainment.

The site was maintained at watercoolergames.org from 2003-2009, where it was edited by myself and Gonzalo Frasca. It is now archived here in full.

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My new column: Videogame Vignette

by Ian Bogost February 12, 2008

categories: Articles , Game Design , Political Games

Gamasutra has published my latest "Persuasive Games" column, this one on a student game from USC Interactive Media called Hush, an unusual game about an unusual historical and political moment. The article uses Hush as and the idea of adapting the vignette style to videogames.

In literature, poetry, and film, a vignette is a brief, indefinite, evocative description or account of a person or situation. Vignettes are usually meant to give a sense of a character rather than to advance a narrative. ... Hush offers a glimpse, as it were, of how vignette might be used successfully in games.

You can read the whole thing over at Gamasutra

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