Voorhees (2008) did include strategies in his analysis of StarCraft in a relevant way, but using what he sees as common strategies as if they were fixed narratives rather than a changing ecosystem. Christian McCrea’s article on StarCraft spectatorship (2009) is a clear and precise response to Galloway’s analysis, although its description of the rock-paper-scissors dynamic in-between the different factions is not representative of actual strategies. Galloway (2007) suggests that strategies in StarCraft: Brood War (Blizzard Entertainment, 1998) are algorithmically inscribed in the game, thus arguing that “zerg rush” is inherent to this faction rather than having emerged from gaming practices. There are of course some contributions on the strategic aspects. Most articles on the genre focus on its audiovisual representation, either to question its political implications (Mauco, 2005) or its cultural bias (Dillon, 2008 Ghys, 2012), or to understand the subject’s perspective on the narrative (Voorhees, 2008). Studying Real-Time Strategy games (RTS) is not commonplace in game studies today. Keywords: starcraft, brood war, real-time strategy, strategy, cognition, perception, gameplay, schema This conceptualization of strategy as a process and its usefulness for the understanding of real-time strategy games is then illustrated by a specific StarCraft game session analysis. This model is based on three levels of strategic plans (operational, mobilized and projected plans) as well as on three levels of game states in the player’s mind (immediate, inferred and anticipated game states).

By using cognitive psychology works, as well as their applications to chess and in film studies, the goal of this article is to summarize cognitive and perceptive processes in the heuristic circle of real-time strategy process.

Strategy is defined as a process using game plans (strategies) and game states. This article aims to describe competitive playing experience in StarCraft: Brood War.

The Heuristic Circle of Real-Time Strategy Process: A StarCraft: Brood War Case Study by Simon Dor Abstract

Starcraft game