INDEPENDENT VIDEOGAMES: CULTURES, NETWORKS, TECHNIQUES AND POLITICS

Review of: RUFFINO, P. (ed.): Independent Videogames: Cultures, Networks, Techniques and Politics. London, New York : Routledge, 2021. 302 p. ISBN 978-0-367-33620-2

Playing My Part in the Chess Boom, or the Rise of a New Esport

It is December 2020, the final month of a year that has felt excruciatingly long. I am sitting at my desk, laptop in front of me and little else. My cat is lying just behind it, leaning on the back of the screen, enjoying the heat emitting from beneath it. This is how I work, this is how I relax

Pen & Paper & Xerox: Early History of Tabletop RPGs in Czechoslovakia

The study presents preliminary research focused on the history of tabletop role-playing games (RPGs) in the former Czechoslovakia, especially Dungeons & Dragons (1974) and its local clone Dračí doupě (transl. Dragon’s Lair, 1990). Based on theoretical literature, period sources and semi-structured interviews with first-generation players, it gives an overview of the first contacts with RPG in the specific post-communist cultural and economic context, focusing on the distribution and reception of Dragon’s Lair, mainly in the Slovak part of the former common state. As a partial outcome of an ongoing research into the local gaming experience, the focus is not on the game itself or its commercial success, but rather on its players, their characteristics and initial experiences with tabletop RPGs in the early 1990s