Expressive processing : digital fictions, computer games, and software studies / Noah Wardrip-Fruin.

Originally published: 2009.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction -- The Eliza effect -- Computer game fictions -- Making models -- The tale-spin effect -- Character and author intelligence -- Authoring systems -- The SimCity effect -- Playable language and nonsimulative processes -- Conclusion -- Afterword.

"What matters in understanding digital media? Is looking at the external appearance and audience experience of software enough--or should we look further? In Expressive Processing, Noah Wardrip-Fruin argues that understanding what goes on beneath the surface, the computational processes that make digital media function, is essential. Wardrip-Fruin suggests that it is the authors and artists with knowledge of these processes eho will use the expressive potential of computation to define the future of fiction and games. He also explores how computational processes themselves express meanings through distinctive designs, histories, and intellectual kinships that may not be visible to audiences. Wardrip-Fruin looks at "expressive processing" by exmaining specific works of digital media ranging from the simulated therapist Eliza to the complex city-planning game SimCity. Digital media, he contends, offer particularly intelligible examples of things we need to understand about software in general; if we understand, for instance, the capabilities and histories of artificial intelligence techniques in the context of a computer game, we can use that understanding to judge the use of similar techniques in such higher-stakes social contexts as surveillance."--Back cover.