Texts, Paratexts and Blocks

Introduction to Game Analysis

Fernández-Vara, C. (2014). Introduction to Game Analysis. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203794777

Reading notes under fernandez-varaIntroductionGameAnalysis2019

Clara Fernández-Vara’s approach proposes to read games like texts, akin to the approach developed by Roland Barthes. The book then contains various aspects of what can be “read”, well organized into three major categories: context, game overview, formal aspects.

• Context: Circumstances of play and production, Paratexts
• Game Overview: Content, Audience, Meaning, Affordances
• Formal Aspects: Construction, Rules and controls, Design, visual styles, etc, Formalism/Structuralism

Within each category she proposed blocks that can be analysised. These blocks, can be selected and arranged to fit different research styles and approaches. The book delivers a lot in where to gather data for your research and how to deal with it, but little in how to analyse the data. The book is mainly geared towards writing a text as output.