#Star stable database series

Routes Into Books: Many popular book series, such as Beast Quest, offer a range of video games as an easy first step into those worlds that lead to then reading the books themselves.Ĭommunication Around Games: As well as reading, games encourage all sorts of creative output.

#Star stable database series

Knights and Bikes, for example, has spin off books, a cartoon series and recipes to read. This can be official novels that expand the world or guide books that offer instructions and help. Reading Around Games: Video games create worlds that often spawn secondary texts. Then there are games like Thousand Threads that help players think about the power and the consequence of words. This can be from simple narrative in a game like Florence to dialogue in a game like Mutazione or even just identifying useful items and game mechanics with in-game descriptions in a game like Zelda Breath of the Wild. Reading In Games: Video games offer all sorts of reading at all levels. There are different ways that video games create this kind of collateral reading and aid literacy: The rise of video games on smartphones and tablets, as well as more affordable game consoles has made the sharing of interactive stories easier. Video games also have benefits for families where parents may not be confident readers, meaning that sharing stories as a family is still accessible to all. They give them access to stories through interaction and world building which they may not have been able to read in print. Video games have significant benefits for children who are reluctant or struggling readers. The National Literacy Trust is a charity dedicated to improving the reading, writing, speaking and listening skills of children and young people who need it most, giving them the best possible chance of success in school, work and life. We have partnered with the National Literacy Trust to create this resource of video games that encourage and enable reading and writing skills. In some ways the resurgence of retro games could be seen in a similar light, although here the sentimental nostalgia is for virtual entertainment rather than rural lifestyle. Unsurprisingly this has become more popular on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic. These games emphasize simplicity and the slow pace of pastoral life as an escape from the modern world in favour of the bucolic. The Guardian called it a 'visual and lifestyle movement designed to fetishize the wholesome purity of the outdoors.'

The New York Times described it as a reaction to hustle culture and the advent of personal branding. However it plays out in the game, Cottagecore aims to satisfy a desire for aspirational nostalgia and an escape from stress or trauma. Others use Cottagecore as a guide to how they look and feel, like Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, The Stillness of the Wind and Mutazione. Games sometimes use these rural pursuits as play mechanics, like Stardew Valley, Potion Craft, Terraria and Fantasy Life. Although games are usually considered to be hard, harsh and technological, many of them play to this aesthetic that is sentimental about traditional skills and crafts such as foraging, baking, and pottery. Cottagecore is an online term celebrating an idealised rural life.