Carly A. Kocurek

@sparklebliss.bsky.social

3038 Followers 1284 Following

Experience design, video game history, writing. Prof and associate dean @ Illinois Tech. Books: Coin-Operated Americans (Minnesota), Brenda Laurel (Bloomsbury), Historiographies of Game Studies (Punctum).

The Audacious Book Club Discussion: Roxane Gay & Adriana E. Ramírez. The Violence: My Family's Colombian War by Adriana E. Ramírez. May 27. 8 o.m. E.T. https://tinyurl.com/ytdcw8cr
Black Hyundai old enough to have some rust. There is a rectangular bumpersticker that tags, "I was an honor student. I'm not sure what happened."
A large paved area with a stage at the end. There are small bars and a large tented area for the sound booth. There is a long building to the right. The sky is blur and gold with white fluffy clouds.
A white woman in a beige blazer and c ream sweater with a cute shag haircut and a name badge is standing in front of the ocean. She says "Your friend was messing up my tanks and messing up my whales."
White person's hand holding quarter size fliers that say "Support your SCMS colleagues. Call your rep and senators today to defend NEH." in all caps black on white paper. They are not well designed.
A white tshirt on a gray board background. The tshirt has an oversized text-based graphic in Garamound that reads "Apologies. I can't talk right now. I'm thinking about how much better my life would be if I was on a fake spaceship instead of doing whatever this is" in blue. The Halcyon Daze logo is underneath.
A large derelict farm house. Two stories with columns. In a field with some creepy trees. Hewitt House.
A white middle aged woman with glasses with a green paper diamond shaped plumbob above her head. She yes spring it with one finger.
Carly A. Kocurek, Coin-Operated Americans: Rebooting Boyhood at the Video Game Arcade. Book cover with lime green text over a black and white photo of teen boys playing an arcade game.
Black and white photo of a Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond in an evening gown reclining on a couch smoking. Her eyes are closed and she is wearing a lot of jewelry.
White seersucker dress bodice with thick chainsitch embroidered doodles.
A mix of amber, clear, and blue glass bottles filled with pigments. The labels are handwritten and aged. They are on black shelves on a white wall
Middle aged white woman with bangs and glasses holding a cell phone for a mirror selfie. Wearing a black shirt. Ends of hair are blue.
Book on table display. Book cover days Ultima & World-Building in the Computer Role-Playing Game, Carly A. Kocurek, Matthew Thomas Payne
Rounded bursts of frost on a car window. A brick building is partially obscured by the frost haze.
Silver puffy heart earrings. They have a picot-style edging. The face says "feral" in scratchy text.
Book cover: a pixelated message in a bottle. Text says "Historiographies of Game Studies: What it Has Been, What it Could Be," edited by Alisha Karabinus, Carly A. Kocurek, Cody Mejeur, and Emma Vossen."
Pink Halloween cookies with candy googly eyes and a single black sprinkle as a mouth. They look worried.
Thin white blonde model in a black sheath dress. The dress has a mock turtle neck and is sleeveless. On the bottom left, there is a 3-dimensional "2nd place" ribbon appliqued on.
Two panels. Top panel shows a realistic lion in the middle of a green grass background with some kind of red tent to the right side and is captioned "Do not cite the deep magic to me, witch!" Bottom panel is closer in on the lion's face with the same background and is captioned "I was there when it was written."
A brooch painted weathered silver. The bottom is a flat half circle divided in two. The left side is slightly darker, as if tarnished, and has six white flat backed crystals along the edge. Above the right half is a dome shape with a striped rectangle extended out across the left and beyond the edge of the half circle. It is on a lavender background.
On the left is a vase shaped like a 1960s astronaut with fake orange poppies in it. On the right is a blue tote bag. It has a glittery bottom. The main fabric is stained glass style and shows characters from the original Star Wars. The straps have a blue space print on them. Everything is sitting on a brown wooden table.
Original cast of Murphy Brown. Man in suit on far left, then man in flannel shirt. Candace Bergen in navy suit. Man in suit. Man in shirtsleeves and suspenders. Woman in turtleneck and blazer. Man in shirtsleeves with tie and glasses. Everyone is white. It's very shoulder pads in general.
An advertisement for Atari's ET game. The top says "ET" in big letters with "The Extra-Terrestrial" under it. The rest of the text is too small for me to read. The image shows ET and Elliot side-by-side in front of a blue background. Elliot and ET both look worried. There is a floating telephone, and some looming humanoid shadows. At the bottom, there is one screen shot of ET the game and a picture of the box cover, which has the same picture of ET and Elliott with a different background
Two poster-style images. Left headline: Help every customer have a Golden Day! Underneath, player quote: "This dude in a robe walks in to the store and says 'pie jesu domino donee is requiem' then whacks the customer in the head with a wooden plank! Mustof worked cause the guy walks over to the counter like nothing happened and bought his scratcher. Guess Kevin's gonna get an invoice from the exorcist? I signed something, hope I'm not on the hook for it." The right image has a headline "welcome to golden mart" and a player quote: "I did find it quite tedious ... this felt really appropriate for role playing a service industry position." Underneath is a small picture of a cartoon rat and the words "verminum honorate."