Genius Loci
About The Book
Among the many incredible places that video games take us, it is some of the virtual landscapes, gardens, and natural environments that are the best. From rigorously designed palace gardens, to expansive natural lands, and from alien planets with weird and wonderful plants, to terrains imbued with meaning and symbolism, an expansive range of landscapes can be explored, traversed, and enjoyed in games.
Much like the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century tradition of undertaking a european grand tour to visit cultural landmarks, gardens, and cities, in Genius Loci writer and award-winning landscape designer Rob Dwiar, will guide readers on a journey across video game histories, geographies, and stories, offering detailed appreciation and analysis along the way. Visiting games such as the Dishonored series, Dragon Age Inquisition, the Elder Scrolls and Assassin’s Creed, this grand tour will be an evocative journey for fans of video games and landscapes alike.
The landscapes, gardens, and horticulture found within video games have come on such leaps and bounds in the past few decades, that there is much to talk about, look at, and get lost in. Real-life garden design features and approaches now feature in game design; accurate portrayal, use, and combination of plants finish landscapes to a beautiful degree of detail, environment design has deeper levels of meaning and narrative importance than ever, and even the most prominent and high-profile games can see players engage in horticulture. Genius Loci will see all of this, and more, explored through dozens of places and games – some which feature more than one beautiful landscape or garden.
Genius Loci (phrase); Popularised by 18th century poet Alexander Pope, used to describe the sense of place or distinctive character of a landscape.
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