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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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New IF work Book & Volume explores consumerism, work
by Ian Bogost November 26, 2005

Nick Montfort, who also blogs on Grand Text Auto, has released Book & Volume, an interactive fiction (IF) piece about one night in the life of a sysadmin for nWare, the curious and increasingly dubious corporate hub of the fictional world nTopia.

Nick is one of the foremost authorities on IF, both as a practitioner and a theorist, having previously released Ad Verbum (2000) and Winchester's Nightmare (1999), and also having authored Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction (MIT Press, 2003).

Nick was kind enough to let me play several pre-release versions, and I completed the game to great satisfaction. It does take some effort to complete successfully, but persistence is rewarded. I highly recommend the game to IF experts and newbies alike. In fact, in my opinion, Book & Volume makes a number of interesting and worthwhile statements about the medium itself.

You can read the launch announcement at Grand Text Auto, and you can download Book & Volume for free, along with an interpreter, if you need one. You can also play a preview edition in-browser.

Some may wonder why I've categorized this entry under advertising and politics. Well, in my opinion Book & Volume is really about consumerism, the culture of work, and numerous other related things. But you'll have to play to get the full story.

Comments (6)

Comments have been broken on WCG for the past few days. They should be fixed now.

Ian is being quite modest in thanking me for letting him play those pre-release versions - he uncovered many bugs and problems, supplied me with some useful transcripts and comments, and was one of only four testers to complete Book and Volume prior to its release.

Thanks for the kind post, Ian; I'm very glad you enjoyed the piece. You have uncovered some of the central themes of the work - ones that may actually be more important than the classic appearance versus reality, although that one is certainly in there, too.

I think this is very well written and I enjoyed the whole of it.

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