Description
With contributions from a distinguished group of world-builders, including academics, writers, and designers, this anthology of essays describes the process and discusses the nature of subcreation and the construction of worlds.
From Oz to MUD, Walden to Rockall, all the worlds featured in this volume share one thing in common: they began in someone’s imagination, grew from there, and became worlds built with the assistance of multiple authors and a variety of different ideas and media, including designs, imagery, sound, music, stories, and more. The book examines this development, with examples and discussions pertaining to the process and the final product of the building of imaginary worlds, including some transmedial worlds.
World-Builders on World-Building is a fascinating deep dive into the practical problems of world-building as well as its theoretical aspects. It is ideal for students, scholars, and even practitioners interested in media studies, game studies, subcreation studies, franchise studies, transmedia studies, and pop culture.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Mark J. P. Wolf
"Matter, Dark Matter, Doesn’t Matter": An Interview With Lost in Oz's Bureau of Magic
Henry Jenkins
The Making of MUD: Three Stories of Genesis
Richard A. Bartle
Rockall: A Liminal, Transauthorial World Founded on the Atlantis Myth
Mark Sebanc
Making Worlds into Games – A Methodology
Clara Fernández-Vara and Matthew Wiese
Surveying the Soul: Creating the World of Walden, a Game
Tracy Fullerton
The Place of Culture, Society, and Politics in Video Game World-Building
Mark R. Johnson
Concerning the "Sub" in "Subcreation": The Act of Creating Under
Mark J. P. Wolf
Appendix: Types of World-Building
Mark J. P. Wolf
