Ultima and Worldbuilding in the Computer Role-Playing Game

<i>Ultima and Worldbuilding in the Computer Role-Playing Game</i> is the first scholarly book to focus exclusively on the long-running <i>Ultima</i> series of computer role-playing games (RPG) and to assess its lasting impact on the RPG genre and video game industry. Through archival and popular media sources, examinations of fan communities, and the game itself, this book historicizes the games and their authors. By attending to the salient moments and sites of game creation throughout the series’ storied past, authors Carly A. Kocurek and Matthew Thomas Payne detail the creative choices and structural forces that brought <i>Ultima</i>’s celebrated brand of role-playing to fruition. This book first considers the contributions of series founder and lead designer, Richard Garriott, examining how his fame and notoriety as a pioneering computer game auteur shaped <i>Ultima</i>’s reception and paved the way for the evolution of the series. Next, the authors retrace the steps that Garriott took in fusing analog, tabletop role-playing with his self-taught lessons in computer programming. Close textual analyses of <i>Ultima I</i> outline how its gameplay elements offered a foundational framework for subsequent innovations in design and storytelling. Moving beyond the game itself, the authors assess how marketing materials and physical collectibles amplified its immersive hold and how the series’ legions of fans have preserved the series. Game designers, long-time gamers, and fans will enjoy digging into the games’ production history and mechanics while media studies and game scholars will find <i>Ultima and Worldbuilding in the Computer Role-Playing Game</i> a useful extension of inquiry into authorship, media history, and the role of fantasy in computer games design. “Ultima and World-Building in the Computer Role-Playing Game offers readers a detailed and thoughtful reflection on authorship and worldbuilding in gaming. The authors guide readers through a rich description of not only Garriott and Ultima’s early history, but also through the major influences and conversations that shaped the series. In addition to providing an informative meditation on a highly influential game and game designer, the work offers an interesting sample methodology for how to approach the study of influential designers and landmark games.” —Wendi Sierra, Texas Christian University "This book performs the very difficult work of giving us readings, contexts for them, and then a historical framework to understand them within." —Cameron Kunzelman, Mercer University <b>Carly A. Kocurek</b> is professor of digital humanities and media studies at the Illinois Institute of Technology. She is the author of <i>Coin-Operated Americans: Rebooting Boyhood at the Video Game Arcade</i> (Minnesota, 2015) and <i>Brenda Laurel: Pioneering Games for Girls</i> (Bloomsbury, 2017). Her current projects include a book on the history of the games for girls movement, part of a National Science Foundation-funded research project, and an anthology on video game historiography, co-edited with Alisha Karabinus, Cody Mejeur, and Emma Vossen. <b>Matthew Thomas Payne</b> is associate professor of film, television, and theatre at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of <i>Playing War: Military Video Games after 9/11</i> (NYU Press, 2016), and is a co-editor of <i>How to Play Video Games</i> (NYU Press, 2019) and <i>Joystick Soldiers: The Politics of Play in Military Video Games</i> (Routledge, 2009). Matthew is currently writing a book about the arcade game designer Eugene Jarvis, and he dabbles in making video essays. <i>An auto-narrated audiobook is available via the "Download" button above.</i>

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