World-Builders on World-Building

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.

Mark J. P. Wolf is Professor in the Communication Department at Concordia University Wisconsin. His 23 books include The Video Game Theory Reader 1 and 2 (2003, 2008), The Video Game Explosion (2007), Myst & Riven: The World of the D'ni (2011), Before the Crash: An Anthology of Early Video Game History (2012), Encyclopedia of Video Games (2012), Building Imaginary Worlds (2012), The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies (2014), LEGO Studies (2014), Video Games Around the World (2015), Revisiting Imaginary Worlds (2016), Video Games FAQ (2017), The World of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (2017), The Routledge Companion to Imaginary Worlds (2017), The Routledge Companion to Media Technology and Obsolescence (2018), which won the SCMS 2020 award for best edited collection, and the puzzle book 101 Enigmatic Puzzles: Fractal Mazes, Quantum Chess, Anagram Sudoku, and More (2020).

1. Introduction 2. "Matter, Dark Matter, Doesn't Matter": An Interview With Lost in Oz's Bureau of Magic 3. The Making of MUD: Three Stories of Genesis 4. Rockall: A Liminal, Transauthorial World Founded on the Atlantis Myth 5. Making Worlds into Games - A Methodology 6. Surveying the Soul: Creating the World of Walden, a Game 7. The Place of Culture, Society, and Politics in Video Game World-Building 8. Concerning the "Sub" in "Subcreation": The Act of Creating Under 9. Appendix: Types of World-Building