Selected as an Outstanding Academic Title by Choice Magazine, January 2010 The Encyclopedia of Play: A Social History explores the concept of play in history and modern society in the United States and internationally. Its scope encompasses leisure and recreation activities of children as well as adults throughout the ages, from dice games in the Roman empire to video games today. As an academic social history, it includes the perspectives of several curricular disciplines, from sociology to child psychology, from lifestyle history to social epidemiology. This two-volume set will serve as a general, non-technical resource for students in education and human development, health and sports psychology, leisure and recreation studies and kinesiology, history, and other social sciences to understand the importance of play as it has developed globally throughout history and to appreciate the affects of play on child and adult development, particularly on health, creativity, and imagination.

In this full-colour, beautifully illustrated book, Gailand MacQueen uses myth, history, and personal experience to explore the spiritual meanings of mazes and labyrinths. Convinced that labyrinths and mazes have much to teach us, Gailand MacQueen invites readers on a sometimes mystical, sometimes mysterious, journey of spiritual discovery.

Automatic content generation is the production of content for games, web pages, or other purposes by procedural means. Search-based automatic content generation employs search-based algorithms to accomplish automatic content generation. This book presents a number of different techniques for search-based automatic content generation where the search algorithm is an evolutionary algorithm. The chapters treat puzzle design, the creation of small maps or mazes, the use of L-systems and a generalization of L-system to create terrain maps, the use of cellular automata to create maps, and, finally, the decomposition of the design problem for large, complex maps culminating in the creation of a map for a fantasy game module with designersupplied content and tactical features. The evolutionary algorithms used for the different types of content are generic and similar, with the exception of the novel sparse initialization technique are presented in Chapter 2. The points where the content generation systems vary are in the design of their fitness functions and in the way the space of objects being searched is represented. A large variety of different fitness functions are designed and explained, and similarly radically different representations are applied to the design of digital objects all of which are, essentially, maps for use in games.

Following on the success of his books Math Hysteria and How to Cut a Cake, Ian Stewart is back with more stories and puzzles that are as quirky as they are fascinating, and each from the cutting edge of the world of mathematics. From the math of mazes, to cones with a twist, and the amazing sphericon--and how to make one--Cows in the Maze takes readers on an exhilarating tour of the world of mathematics. We find out about the mathematics of time travel, explore the shape of teardrops (which are not tear-drop shaped, but something much, much more strange), dance with dodecahedra, and play the game of Hex, among many more strange and delightful mathematical diversions. In the title essay, Stewart introduces readers to Robert Abbott's mind-bending "Where Are the Cows?" maze, which changes every time you pass through it, and is said to be the most difficult maze ever invented. In addition, he shows how a 90-year old woman and a computer scientist cracked a long-standing question about counting magic squares, describes the mathematical patterns in animal movement (walk, trot, gallop), looks at a fusion of art, mathematics, and the physics of sand piles, and reveals how mathematicians can--and do--prove a negative. Populated by amazing creatures, strange characters, and astonishing mathematics explained in an accessible and fun way, and illustrated with quirky cartoons by artist Spike Gerrell, Cows in the Maze will delight everyone who loves mathematics, puzzles and mathematical conundrums.

Know kids who just love one specific kind of activity? Give them just what they want, and make them happy! Answer keys are provided.