A Game of Fox & Squirrels

Author: Jenn Reese
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company (BYR)
ISBN: 1250243025
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 164

Book Description
A 2021 Oregon Book Award Winner An NPR Best Book of 2020 A Finalist for the 2021-22 Maine Student Book Award A 2021 Mythopoeic Awards Finalist Andre Norton Award finalist Jenn Reese explores the often thin line between magic and reality, light and darkness in her enchanting middle grade standalone. "Brings to life, viscerally, what it is like to live in fear of abuse—even after the abuse itself is over. But there is magic here too, and the promise of a better future that comes with learning to let people who care about you into your world." —Alan Gratz, New York Times-bestselling author of Refugee “A captivating and touching story... both whimsical and emotionally—sometimes frighteningly—compelling.” —Ingrid Law, Newbery Honor-winning author of Savvy "Magically creative and deeply honest, A Game of Fox & Squirrels merges games and grimness in a fantasy tale that tells the truth." —Elana K. Arnold, Printz Honor-winning author of Damsel and A Boy Called Bat After an incident shatters their family, eleven-year old Samantha and her older sister Caitlin are sent to live in rural Oregon with an aunt they've never met. Sam wants nothing more than to go back to the way things were... before she spoke up about their father's anger. When Aunt Vicky gives Sam a mysterious card game called "A Game of Fox & Squirrels," Sam falls in love with the animal characters, especially the charming trickster fox, Ashander. Then one day Ashander shows up in Sam’s room and offers her an adventure and a promise: find the Golden Acorn, and Sam can have anything she desires. But the fox is hiding rules that Sam isn't prepared for, and her new home feels more tempting than she'd ever expected. As Sam is swept up in the dangerous quest, the line between magic and reality grows thin. If she makes the wrong move, she'll lose far more than just a game. Perfect for fans of Barbara O'Connor, Lauren Wolk, and Ali Benjamin, A Game of Fox & Squirrels is a stunning, heartbreaking novel about a girl who finds the light in the darkness... and ultimately discovers the true meaning of home.

No Game for Boys to Play

Author: Kathleen Bachynski
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469653710
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 297

Book Description
From the untimely deaths of young athletes to chronic disease among retired players, roiling debates over tackle football have profound implications for more than one million American boys—some as young as five years old—who play the sport every year. In this book, Kathleen Bachynski offers the first history of youth tackle football and debates over its safety. In the postwar United States, high school football was celebrated as a "moral" sport for young boys, one that promised and celebrated the creation of the honorable male citizen. Even so, Bachynski shows that throughout the twentieth century, coaches, sports equipment manufacturers, and even doctors were more concerned with "saving the game" than young boys' safety—even though injuries ranged from concussions and broken bones to paralysis and death. By exploring sport, masculinity, and citizenship, Bachynski uncovers the cultural priorities other than child health that made a collision sport the most popular high school game for American boys. These deep-rooted beliefs continue to shape the safety debate and the possible future of youth tackle football.

The Reality Game

Author: Samuel Woolley
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1541768248
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 221

Book Description
Fake news posts and Twitter trolls were just the beginning. What will happen when misinformation moves from our social media feeds into our everyday lives? Online disinformation stormed our political process in 2016 and has only worsened since. Yet as Samuel Woolley shows in this urgent book, it may pale in comparison to what's to come: humanlike automated voice systems, machine learning, "deepfake" AI-edited videos and images, interactive memes, virtual reality, and more. These technologies have the power not just to manipulate our politics, but to make us doubt our eyes and ears and even feelings. Deeply researched and compellingly written, The Reality Game describes the profound impact these technologies will have on our lives. Each new invention built without regard for its consequences edges us further into this digital dystopia. Yet Woolley does not despair. Instead, he argues pointedly for a new culture of innovation, one built around accountability and especially transparency. With social media dragging us into a never-ending culture war, we must learn to stop fighting and instead prevent future manipulation. This book shows how we can use our new tools not to control people but to empower them.

Unity 2020 Mobile Game Development

Author: John P. Doran
Publisher: Packt Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1838980997
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 455

Book Description
A practical guide on how to use Unity for building cross-platform mobile games and Augmented Reality apps using the latest Unity 2020 toolset Key FeaturesCreate, deploy, and monetize captivating and immersive games on Android and iOS platformsTake your games into the real world by adding augmented reality features to your mobile projectsKick-start your mobile game development journey with step-by-step instructions and a demo game projectBook Description Unity 2020 brings a lot of new features that can be harnessed for building powerful games for popular mobile platforms. This updated second edition delves into Unity development, covering the new features of Unity, modern development practices, and augmented reality (AR) for creating an immersive mobile experience. The book takes a step-by-step approach to building an endless runner game using Unity to help you learn the concepts of mobile game development. This new edition also covers AR features and explains how to implement them using ARCore and ARKit with Unity. The book explores the new mobile notification package and helps you add notifications for your games. You’ll learn how to add touch gestures and design UI elements that can be used in both landscape and portrait modes at different resolutions. The book then covers the best ways to monetize your games using Unity Ads and in-app purchases before you learn how to integrate your game with various social networks. Next, using Unity’s analytics tools, you’ll enhance your game by gaining insights into how players like and use your game. Finally, you’ll take your games into the real world by implementing AR capabilities and publishing them on both Android and iOS app stores. By the end of this book, you will have learned Unity tools and techniques and be able to use them to build robust cross-platform mobile games. What you will learnDesign responsive user interfaces for your mobile gamesDetect collisions, receive user input, and create player movements for your mobile gamesCreate interesting gameplay elements using inputs from your mobile deviceExplore the mobile notification package in Unity game engine to keep players engagedCreate interactive and visually appealing content for Android and iOS devicesMonetize your game projects using Unity Ads and in-app purchasesWho this book is for If you are a game developer or mobile developer who wants to learn Unity and use it to build mobile games for iOS and Android, then this Unity book is for you. Prior knowledge of C# and Unity will be beneficial but is not mandatory.

Game On! 2021

Author: Scholastic
Publisher: Game On!
ISBN: 9781338670875
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Book Description
Check out the ultimate annual video game guide from Scholastic AFK! Game On! 2021 is full of the latest information on the hottest games of 2021, how they were developed, and how to beat them. Get ready for another awesome year of gaming with this ultimate guide to all your favorite games, including a definitive list of the biggest games of the past year and hottest new ones coming in 2021! Game On! 2021 is the most comprehensive guide to all the best games, tech, and streamers, featuring a bunch of the year's greatest gaming moments. This complete guide is packed with secrets, stats, tips, and tricks for all your favorite games. All games featured in AFK's Game On! 2021 are rated T for Teen or younger -- perfect for young gamers.

One Up

Author: Joost van Dreunen
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231552211
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 317

Book Description
What explains the massive worldwide success of video games such as Fortnite, Minecraft, and Pokémon Go? Game companies and their popularity are poorly understood and often ignored from the standpoint of traditional business strategy. Yet this industry generates billions in revenue by thinking creatively about digital distribution, free-to-play content, and phenomena like e-sports and live streaming. What lessons can we draw from its major successes and failures about the future of entertainment? One Up offers a pioneering empirical analysis of innovation and strategy in the video game industry to explain how it has evolved from a fringe activity to become a mainstream form of entertainment. Joost van Dreunen, a widely recognized industry expert with over twenty years of experience, analyzes how game makers, publishers, and platform holders have tackled strategic challenges to make the video game industry what it is today. Using more than three decades of rigorously compiled industry data, he demonstrates that video game companies flourish when they bring the same level of creativity to business strategy that they bring to game design. Filled with case studies of companies such as Activision Blizzard, Apple, Electronic Arts, Epic Games, Microsoft, Nexon, Sony, Take-Two Interactive, Tencent, and Valve, this book forces us to rethink common misconceptions around the emergence of digital and mobile gaming. One Up is required reading for investors, creatives, managers, and anyone looking to learn about the major drivers of change and growth in contemporary entertainment.

Gaming Sexism

Author: Amanda C. Cote
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479802204
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274

Book Description
Interviews with female gamers about structural sexism across the gaming landscape When the Nintendo Wii was released in 2006, it ushered forward a new era of casual gaming in which video games appealed to not just the stereotypical hardcore male gamer, but also to a much broader, more diverse audience. However, the GamerGate controversy six years later, and other similar public incidents since, laid bare the internalized misogyny and gender stereotypes in the gaming community. Today, even as women make up nearly half of all gamers, sexist assumptions about the what and how of women’s gaming are more actively enforced. In Gaming Sexism, Amanda C. Cote explores the video game industry and its players to explain this contradiction, how it affects female gamers, and what it means in terms of power and gender equality. Across in-depth interviews with women-identified gamers, Cote delves into the conflict between diversification and resistance to understand their impact on gaming, both casual and “core” alike. From video game magazines to male reactions to female opponents, she explores the shifting expectations about who gamers are, perceived changes in gaming spaces, and the experiences of female gamers amidst this gendered turmoil. While Cote reveals extensive, persistent problems in gaming spaces, she also emphasizes the power of this motivated, marginalized audience, and draws on their experiences to explore how structural inequalities in gaming spaces can be overcome. Gaming Sexism is a well-timed investigation of equality, power, and control over the future of technology.

Trapped in a Video Game

Author: Dustin Brady
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
ISBN: 1449496261
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 132

Book Description
Jesse Rigsby hates video games—and for good reason. You see, a video game character is trying to kill him. After getting sucked in the new game Full Blast with his friend Eric, Jesse starts to see the appeal of vaporizing man-size praying mantis while cruising around by jet pack. But pretty soon, a mysterious figure begins following Eric and Jesse, and they discover they can't leave the game. If they don't figure out what's going on fast, they'll be trapped for good! With black-and-white illustrations throughout and a cliff hanger at the end of every chapter, this is a great series for kids who think they don’t like to read!

Hands-On Unity 2020 Game Development

Author: Nicolas Alejandro Borromeo
Publisher: Packt Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1838647600
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 581

Book Description
Build immersive game experiences using the new Unity 2020 features with this practical guide Key FeaturesUnleash the capabilities of C# scripting for creating immersive UI, graphics, Game AI agents and much moreExplore Unity's latest tools, including Universal Render Pipeline, Shader Graph, and VFX graph, to enhance graphics and animationGet started with building augmented reality experience using Unity’s AR FoundationBook Description Over the years, the Unity game engine has extended its scope from just being about creating video games to building AR/VR experiences, complex simulations, real-time realistic rendering, films, and serious games for training and education. Its features for implementing gameplay, graphics, and customization using C# programming make Unity a comprehensive platform for developing professional-level, rich experiences. With this book, you'll be able to build impressive Unity projects in a step-by-step manner and apply your knowledge of Unity concepts to create a real-world game. Complete with hands-on tutorials and projects, this easy-to-follow guide will show you how to develop your first complete game using a variety of Unity tools. As you make progress, you'll learn how to make the most of the Unity Editor and create scripts using the C# programming language. This Unity game development book will then take you through integrating graphics, sound, and animations and manipulating physics to create impressive mechanics for your games. You'll also learn how to code a simple AI agent to challenge the user and use profiling tools to ensure that the code runs in a performant way. Finally, you'll get to grips with Unity's AR Foundation for creating AR experiences for 3D apps and games. By the end of this book, you'll have developed a complete game and will have built a solid foundation using Unity's tooling ecosystem to develop game projects of any scale. What you will learnWrite scripts for customizing various aspects of a game, such as physics, gameplay, and UIProgram rich shaders and effects using Unity's new Shader Graph and Universal Render PipelineImplement postprocessing to increase graphics quality with full-screen effectsCreate rich particle systems for your Unity games from scratch using VFX Graph and ShurikenAdd animations to your game using the Animator, Cinemachine, and TimelineImplement game artificial intelligence (AI) to control character behaviorDetect and fix optimization issues using profilers and batchingWho this book is for This book is for game developers looking to migrate to the Unity game engine. If you are a developer with some exposure to Unity, this book will help you explore its latest features. Prior experience with C# programming is required to get the most out of the book.

Game On? Brain On!

Author: Lindsay Portnoy
Publisher: Dave Burgess Consulting
ISBN: 9781951600426
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 174

Book Description
Get in the game! The research is clear: human beings are born to play. In Game On? Brain On!, Lindsay Portnoy unpacks the games and playful experiences that invite engagement and deep learning. Using cognitive science to explore the ways in which play helps students acquire and maintain critical skills, Portnoy shows how inviting creativity and excitement into the classroom results in big gains for everyone. She also shares how, by being intentional, educators can create equitable access to playful learning experiences for all children. Through relatable vignettes, ready-to-use examples, and informative "Level Up" toolboxes, Portnoy empowers educators to teach a better way--through play! "Whether you're a n00b or a pro, you'll gain a deeper appreciation for what happens in the mind when engaged in play." --Amber Coleman-Mortley, director of social engagement, iCivics "Lindsay Portnoy brilliantly shows us why and how to bring play's power into classrooms through games." --Peter Gray, research professor of psychology at Boston College "Lindsay Portnoy does a wonderful job emphasizing the importance of play in learning and how we need to ensure that we are addressing equity in terms of play." --Steve Isaacs, teacher, game design and development, Bernards Township Public Schools "Game On? Brain On! is guaranteed to make you feel good while learning about play--just like a great, fun game!"--Dr. Kat (Karen) Schrier, author of Knowledge Games