I’m not especially acclimated to academic writing, so take my review with a grain of salt. By and large, I found the book to be well-considered, clear and thorough with it’s reasoning and citations, and compelling in its analytical content.

The overall theoretical construction that’s developed in the book becomes less focal as the chapters proceed, and by the end I felt a bit of distance between the specific readings of games and the ways that they invoked or benefited from the core theoretical framework of “mechanics of speculation”. I think I can see how to fill in these gaps myself, but the connections were laid out less clearly than elsewhere in the book, at least the way I understood it.

I appreciate the focus on the affective and ethical outcomes of games, especially in the context of when they are or are not attempting to convey a specific ideological stance. The strength of the argument lies in its application to both cases, and it’s interesting to see it applied deeply across a few broad examples.

In many ways, I think my response to this book is muted by my distance from any academic practice in which I could apply it, but it’s still an interesting analytical lens to bring with me into my own personal critical readings of video games. In that way, it’s an approachable introduction to a much deeper field, and I frequently found citations that I might be curious enough to follow up on.

Extremely clearly written and thoroughly argued, and scratches an affect theory itch I've missed since grad school while offering a compelling theory of speculation in games. Kunzelman's focus on mechanics of speculation within video games is measured and the limits of the theory are well-defined, but even so, the potential possibilities still feel vast for what analyzing and thinking about how games (not just video games) prompt speculations about the world at the moment of your interaction with their mechanics is fascinating. Perhaps even more compelling are his readings of how games determine and restrict those speculations over the course of play in ways both potentially liberatory and oppressive. The second chapter examining anti-blackness in The Last of Us and sci-fi more broadly was especially interesting and gave me plenty of additional reading to do on the pervasive structured absences of blackness in modern American science fiction!

Really enjoyed this, particularly chapters 2 and 3. Despite not being an academic I found it easy to understand and there's sections I think require no previous knowledge and I could recommend without having to also warn people of impending headaches, but some previous exposure to game studies ideas definitely helps.