Ressources

A collection of (links to) ressources for analyzing and researching games – and uploads from the members of the work group.

Text Ressources

Image & Video Ressources

Tools & Interesting Projects

  • GameNet: A hypertext-network to explore relations as well as differences between games using latent semantic analysis (LSA). Information for each game is taken from Wikipedia, YouTube and Google Images. Project by the Game Metadata and Citation Project (GAMECIP) of the UC Santa Cruz, Stanford University Library and former members of the Preserving Virtual Worlds Project. http://gamecip-projects.soe.ucsc.edu/gamenet / https://gamecip.soe.ucsc.edu/projects.
  • GameGlobs: Cluster-visualisation of GameNet (see above). http://gamecip-projects.soe.ucsc.edu/gameglobs.
  • Student StarCraft AI Tournament: The SSCAIT is a competition between bots made by computer science as well as artificial intelligence students. The project is hosted by the Comenius University in Bratislava and the Czech Technical University in Prague. It inspired several publications and further inquiries into AI research using real-time strategy games. Matches are streamed daily via Twitch, including occasional tournaments with human commentary. https://www.twitch.tv/sscait / https://sscaitournament.com/.
  • The Interactive Fiction Archive: Starting with Zork (1977), interactive fiction or IF developed as text- or parser-based as well as choice-based digital games. The IF Archive was founded in 1992 by Volker Blasius as an FTP archive at the Gesellschaft für Mathematik und Datenverarbeitung (GMD) in Bonn. Since the GMD merged with the Fraunhofer society in 2001, a mirror archive by Andrew Plotkin and Paul Mazaitis stepped in. It is now maintained by the Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation (IFTF) and contains historical IF games, programming ressources and further information about developers such as Infocom. http://www.ifarchive.org/ / https://iftechfoundation.org/.
  • The Video Game Level Corpus: A collection of game levels ready to be used for A. I. research. Provided by Adam Summerville, Sam Snodgrass, Michael Mateas, and Santiago Ontañón. https://github.com/TheVGLC/TheVGLC / https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1606.07487

Internet Archive Collections

The Internet Archive offers additional collections related to digital media, primarily curated by historian and archivist Jason Scott. When it comes to digital games specifically, they range from in-browser emulation to several forms of paratexts like manuals, advertisements, and magazines.

  • The Magazine Rack: Digitized magazines from all over the world, including those about computers and digital games. https://archive.org/details/magazine_rack.
  • The Manual Library: Digitized manuals for all kinds of devices and software, including digital games and their platforms. https://archive.org/details/manuals.
  • The Emulation Station: In-browser emulation for arcade machines, home computers, consoles and other defunct or historical platforms for digital games such as Adobe Flash. Some are excluded for legal reasons. https://archive.org/details/emulation.
  • MUD-Dev Archive: From 1996 to 2004 the MUD Development mailing list was the international discussion forum for developers, designers, and community managers of virtual worlds. It is now offered as a primary source, often referenced in publications by Richard Bartle and other designers or researchers of virtual worlds such as multi-user dungeons or modern MMORPGs. https://archive.org/details/mud-archive.

Ressources Provided By Hobbyists

Working with digital media, especially historical games and their platforms, often requires insights and archived material maintained by fan communities. Despite their potential defects for scholarship purposes, in many cases these are the only sources available to us and, at the very least, a good starting point.

  • MobyGames: The go-to database for those working with digital games. However, its information is heavily focused on the international market and thus may very from more specialized projects. https://www.mobygames.com/.
  • Kultboy.com: Archive of digitised gaming and home computing magazines, offering several different search functions. Although it is made by German-speaking fans, it includes magazines of the following languages as well: English, Italian, French, Polish, Portuguese, Dutch, Japanese and Spanish. https://www.kultboy.com/index.php.
  • The Video Game Atlas: Database for ingame maps and level screenshots of digital games accross different platforms. https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/index.htm.
  • Pong Picture Page: Database focused on consoles, especially useful to identify various “Pong consoles”, second generation consoles and clones or country-specific versions of devices made by mainstream manufacturers. http://old.pong.at/catalog/index.php.
  • Atarimania: Fansite about devices as well as software by Atari, including related magazines. http://www.atarimania.com/index.html.
  • The C64-Wiki: Mainly run by German-speaking users, the C64-Wiki provides software and hardware information for the Commodore 64, including guides on how to operate the home computer in the present day. https://www.c64-wiki.de/ / https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/Main_Page.
  • The C-64 Scene Database: The CSDb documents the history and current projects of the international Commodore 64 community, mainly the members and works of cracker- as well as demogroups. Programmers, sound and graphic artists offer their creations as downloadable files to be run via emulators or on original hardware. https://csdb.dk/.
  • Hall of Light: Database for Amiga games, primarily those released commercially. http://hol.abime.net/.
  • Museum of the Game: Database about coin-operated games, including arcade as well as pinball machines and related promotional materials. https://www.arcade-museum.com/ / https://flyers.arcade-museum.com/.
  • Interactive Fiction Database: A database and platform to catalogue as well as play historical and modern IF games (see Interactive Fiction Archive above). https://ifdb.org/.

to be continued …

If you have any suggestions for additions in this list, please write us an email.