Building SimCity: How to Put the World in a Machine (Game Histories)

children are actually active builders of knowledge—little scientists who are constantly creating and testing their own theories of the world.

I hope to demonstrate the value of adopting a play-centric, rather than game-centric, perspective.

Since analogies don’t come to us fully formed, we must tinker with and reformulate domain representations in order to establish workable mappings. Such re-representation and restructuring is a creative process that forces us to reconceptualize domains in a search for coherence.73 Playing with analogy and building analogs is a deeply creative, clari

Construction that takes place “in the head” often happens especially felicitously when it is supported by construction of a more public sort “in the world”—a

Play is structured performance. It involves agency: striving, action, and movement.

and SimLife (1992).

Urban Dynamics was roundly slammed by urban planners, social scientists, and experienced urban simulation practitioners,

what would happen if children could play at building little artificial minds.

helps you understand what happened but does not tell you how you should feel about it.