Sanger Rainsford is a big-game hunter, who finds himself washed up on an island owned by the eccentric General Zaroff. Zaroff, a big-game hunter himself, has heard of Rainsford’s abilities with a gun and organises a hunt. However, they’re not after animals – they’re after people. When he protests, Rainsford the hunter becomes Rainsford the hunted. Sharing similarities with "The Hunger Games", starring Jennifer Lawrence, this is the story that created the template for pitting man against man. Born in New York, Richard Connell (1893 – 1949) went on to become an acclaimed author, screenwriter, and journalist. He is best remembered for the gripping novel "The Most Dangerous Game" and for receiving an Oscar nomination for the screenplay "Meet John Doe".

How filling life with play-whether soccer or lawn mowing, counting sheep or tossing Angry Birds -- forges a new path for creativity and joy in our impatient age Life is boring: filled with meetings and traffic, errands and emails. Nothing we'd ever call fun. But what if we've gotten fun wrong? In Play Anything, visionary game designer and philosopher Ian Bogost shows how we can overcome our daily anxiety; transforming the boring, ordinary world around us into one of endless, playful possibilities. The key to this playful mindset lies in discovering the secret truth of fun and games. Play Anything, reveals that games appeal to us not because they are fun, but because they set limitations. Soccer wouldn't be soccer if it wasn't composed of two teams of eleven players using only their feet, heads, and torsos to get a ball into a goal; Tetris wouldn't be Tetris without falling pieces in characteristic shapes. Such rules seem needless, arbitrary, and difficult. Yet it is the limitations that make games enjoyable, just like it's the hard things in life that give it meaning. Play is what happens when we accept these limitations, narrow our focus, and, consequently, have fun. Which is also how to live a good life. Manipulating a soccer ball into a goal is no different than treating ordinary circumstances- like grocery shopping, lawn mowing, and making PowerPoints-as sources for meaning and joy. We can "play anything" by filling our days with attention and discipline, devotion and love for the world as it really is, beyond our desires and fears. Ranging from Internet culture to moral philosophy, ancient poetry to modern consumerism, Bogost shows us how today's chaotic world can only be tamed-and enjoyed-when we first impose boundaries on ourselves.

Powered by HTML, this Zweihander eBook edition is published with a nuanced reflowable document layout. It includes: Reflowable text and images Sidebar navigation via device contents Hyperlinked Table of Contents and Index for fast, easy searches Hyperlinked cross-references throughout the book Tap and zoom illustrations This digital format differs from standard fixed layouts and PDFs. We highly suggest users download a sample before purchasing. WELCOME TO GRIM & PERILOUS GAMING Featured on Forbes.com, ranked one of the best-selling fantasy tabletop role-playing games at DriveThruRPG, and having sold over 90,000 copies worldwide, ZWEIHÄNDER Grim & Perilous RPG is a bloodier, grimmer, and grittier version of classical tabletop role-playing games. This revised edition is published in celebration with Andrews McMeel Publishing and features a refreshed layout, new artwork, rules clarifications, color plates by Dejan Mandic, and errata. ZWEIHÄNDER Grim & Perilous RPG is a game where your characters will: Live in a gritty, "realistic" fantasy world Make morally grey decisions & enact vicious reprisals Uncover insidious plots & political intrigue Take part in heart-pumping chase scenes Venture into the wilderness & survive its perils Desperately fight in clandestine & open field combat Defend themselves from injuries, madness, & mutations Encounter sanity-blasting creatures & their minions Using the Powered By ZWEIHÄNDER d100 game engine, you will create grim characters, write perilous adventures, and build your own low fantasy & dark fantasy campaigns. These rules are a perfect fit for Renaissance and medieval-styled adventures, too. You can also use this book to create your own home-brewed worlds, whether inspired by the works of Andrzej Sapkowski’s The Witcher, George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones, Glen Cook’s Black Company, Myke Cole’s The Armored Saint, Robert E. Howard’s Solomon Kane, Scott Lynch’s Gentlemen Bastard series, or other "grimdark"-inspired media. This all-in-one game includes most of what you need to play: a character creation guide, game mastery rules, and a bestiary brimming with creatures both fair & foul. All that’s left are a few friends, pencils, and a handful of dice. ZWEIHÄNDER Grim & Perilous RPG awaits, and the fate of your grim & perilous tale hangs in the balance!

Metagames: Games about Games scrutinizes how various meta devices, such as breaking the fourth wall and unreliable narrator, change and adapt when translated into the uniquely interactive medium of digital games. Through its theoretical analyses and case studies, the book shows how metafictional experimentation can be used to both challenge and push the boundaries of what a game is and what a player’s role is in play, and to raise more profound topics such as those describing experiences of people of oppressed identities. The book is divided into six chapters that deal with the following meta devices: breaking the fourth wall, hypermediation, unreliable narrator, abusive game design, fragmentation, and parody. The book will predominantly interest scholars and students of media studies and game studies as it continues discourses held in the discipline regarding the metareferential character of digital games.

The Ironic Temper and the Comic Imagination examines and illuminates the role which the ironic temper plays in the creation of complex literary comedy. The book focuses on ironic comedy, though not of the kind that is characterized by the surprises and shocks, the incongruities and reversals, of circumstantial irony. Circumstantial—or situational—irony cannot stand alone; it serves, for example, the aggressive functions of satire, or the irrational impulses of farce, or the benevolent, whimsical, or pain-defeating energies of humor.