Case studies
The semester is turning towards it end and I’m starting to have more time and space to concentrate on my dissertation again. I have the feeling that I need to find some rythm and structure to work precise, concentrate and find continuity and patience. Sometimes researching feels like trying to find the needle in the hay, but there is no hay, just needles. But that’s for the coming weeks.
I had a good talk with my colleague Pierre-Yves Hurel and discussed his inquire into Aventura. Some parallels to Robox showed up, both being early examples of amateur games. If I can aquire the source code of both games, the dataset for them would be complete. Executable game, interviews and source code is the bare minimum I need to test my proposed methodology for critical code analysis of video game graphics. I’d love to have such complete datasets for some amateur games, some professional developed ones and some stuff in between, like Robox or Ball Raider. Like that I could look at a variety of games that were made in the 80ies and 90ies in the shift from amateur to professional game development.
Also
- finalized the blog post on Of Bare Chested Men and Violence: Barbarians and War in 1980s games and press coverage
- gave a lecture with Aurelia Brandenburg around how we proceeded in said case study in the DH introductory lecture series on video game studies