Computer and video game genres
Encyclopedia
Video game genres are used to categorize video games based on their gameplay
interaction rather than visual
or narrative
differences. A video game genre is defined by a set of gameplay challenges. They are classified independent of their setting
or game-world content, unlike other works of fiction
such as film
s or book
s. For example, an action game is still an action game, regardless of whether it takes place in a fantasy world or outer space. Within game studies
there is a lack of consensus in reaching accepted formal definitions for game genres, some being more observed than others. Like any typical taxonomy, a video game genre requires certain constants. Most video games feature obstacles to overcome, so video game genres can be defined where obstacles are completed in substantially similar ways.
Following is a listing of commonly used video game genres with brief descriptions and examples of each. This list is by no means complete or comprehensive. Chris Crawford
notes that "the state of computer game design is changing quickly. We would therefore expect the taxonomy presented here to become obsolete or inadequate in a short time." As with nearly all varieties of genre classification, the matter of any individual video game's specific genre is open to personal interpretation. Moreover, it is important to be able to "think of each individual game as belonging to several genres at once."
requires players to use quick reflexes, accuracy, and timing to overcome obstacles. It is perhaps the most basic of gaming genres, and certainly one of the broadest. Action games tend to have gameplay with emphasis on combat. There are many subgenres of action games, such as fighting game
s and first-person shooters.
The predecessor of all console game genres, a ball-and-paddle game was the first game implemented on a home console (Pong
). Later renditions have included Breakout, which was a driving influence behind the Apple II computer, and Arkanoid
, an arcade staple for many years. A version of Breakout called Block Buster was also packaged with the first handheld console with swappable cartridges, the Microvision
.
Beat 'em up
and hack and slash
games have an emphasis on one-on-many close quarters combat
, beating large numbers of computer-controlled enemies. Gameplay involves the player fighting through a series of increasingly difficult levels. The sole distinction between these two genres are that beat 'em ups feature hand-to-hand combat, and hack and slash games feature melee
weaponry, particularly bladed weapons. Both genres feature little to no use of firearms or projectile combat. This genre became popular in 1987 with the release of Double Dragon
, leading to a large number of similar games. The fighting style is usually simpler than for versus fighting game
s. In recent times, the genre has largely merged with that of action-adventure, with side-scrolling levels giving way to more open three-dimensional areas, and melee combat co-existing with shooting and puzzle elements.
Fighting game
s emphasize one-on-one combat
between two characters, one of which may be computer controlled. These games are usually played by linking together long chains of button presses on the controller to use physical attacks to fight. Many of the movements employed by the characters are usually dramatic and occasionally physically impossible. Combat is almost always one-on-one, though there are some exceptions such as the Super Smash Bros. series and Guilty Gear Isuka
, pitting up to four combatants in the fight at one time. This genre first appeared in 1976 with the release of Sega
's Heavyweight Boxing and later became a phenomenon, particularly in the arcades, with the release of Street Fighter II
.
Maze games have a playing field which is entirely a maze
, which players must navigate. Quick thinking and fast reaction times are encouraged by the use of a timer, monsters obstructing the player's way, or multiple players racing to the finish. The most famous game of this genre is Pac-Man
.
Pinball games are designed to replicate the look and feel of a real-life pinball table in virtual reality. Most pinball games feature the same gameplay style, where the player controls a right and left flipper, and tries to make the ball hit various parts of the playfield to gather up points. The control scheme in pinball games is, for the most part, the same. On consoles, left and right "shoulder" buttons are often used to approximate the left and right flipper buttons of a real-world pinball game. In some cases, a pinball game may feature more than two flippers: two are generally located at the bottom of the playfield, and others (generally only one or two more) are found above the bottom two. Some games automatically fire the ball into the playfield, while others require the player to press a button to pull down the spring-loaded plug and fire the ball into the playfield. One significant way that video game pinball games can progress beyond pinball table emulation is the inclusion of features impossible to incorporate in a real pinball table, such as multiple table layouts or direct ball control. Pinball games have become more popular in recent years on handheld systems, as opposed to consoles.
Platform game
s (platformers) are a subgenre of action game. These games involve traveling between platforms by jumping (very occasionally other means are substituted for jumping, like swinging or bouncing, but these are considered variations on the same mechanic). Other traditional elements include running and climbing ladders and ledges. Platformers frequently borrow elements from other genres like fighting and shooting (such as the Castlevania
series, which incorporates role-playing). They are most often associated with iconic cartoon mascots like Donkey Kong
, Sonic the Hedgehog
, Mario, Megaman
, Samus
and Rayman
, though platform games may have any theme. The term itself first came into use to describe any game in which the player traveled between platforms, and Space Panic
, a 1980 arcade release, has been cited as the first platform game for featuring obstacles and gaps to jump over, making it a platformer by the modern sense of the term. Pitfall!
can also be classified as an early platformer. Traditionally, platform games were 2D
, with players viewing the environment from a profile, "cutaway" perspective. This could be done easily with sprites
and was simple for early computers to handle. 3D computer graphics
have opened these games up for movement in all directions. However, 3D perspectives make it more difficult to judge distance, which is an important part of platformers. Because of this, many 3D platformers have a feature to make this easier, such as a player shadow that will always be cast straight down, tracking their location on the ground while the character is jumping. At their peak, platformers were the most popular games on the market. The genre experienced a sharp decline, from 15% of total market share
in 1998 to 2% in 2002. Although there are many 3D platform games, few have proven to have the universal appeal of their older games. However, this could merely be a result of a changing market and an increase in game variety.
focuses primarily on combat involving projectile weapons, such as guns and missiles. They can be divided into first-person and third-person shooters, depending on the camera perspective. Some first-person shooters use light gun
technology.
First-person shooter
video games, commonly known as FPSs, emphasize shooting and combat from the perspective of the character controlled by the player. This perspective is meant to give the player the feeling of "being there", and allows the player to focus on aiming. Most FPSs are very fast-paced and require quick reflexes on high difficulty levels. The fast-paced and 3D elements required to create an effective looking FPS made the genre technologically unattainable for most consumer hardware systems until the early 1990s. Wolfenstein 3D
was the first widely known FPS, and Doom was the first major breakthrough in graphics; it used a number of clever techniques to make the game run fast enough to play on consumer-grade machines. Since the release of Doom, most FPS games now have a multi-player feature to allow competition between multiple players. Games such as Team Fortress
, Halo, Killzone
, Metroid Prime
, Unreal Tournament
, Call of Duty
, and TimeSplitters
are in the ever-expanding first-person shooter genre.
Massively multiplayer online first person shooter games (MMOFPS) are a genre of massively multiplayer online game
s that combines first-person shooter
gameplay with a virtual world in which a large number of players may interact over the Internet
. Whereas standard FPS games limit the number of players able to compete in a multiplayer match (generally the maximum is 64), hundreds of players can battle each other on the same server in an MMOFPS.
Light gun shooter
s are a genre of shooter genre designed for use with a pointing device
for computer
s and a control device
for arcade and home consoles
. The first light guns appeared in the 1930s, following the development of light-sensing vacuum tube
s. It wasn't long before the technology began appearing in arcade
shooting games, beginning with the Seeburg Ray-O-Lite
in 1936. These early light gun games used small (usually moving) targets onto which a light-sensing tube was mounted; the player used a gun (usually a rifle) that emitted a beam of light when the trigger was pulled. If the beam struck the target, a "hit" was scored. Modern screen-based light guns work on the opposite principle—the sensor is built into the gun itself, and the on-screen target(s) emit light rather than the gun. The first light gun of this type was used on the MIT Whirlwind computer. Some "light gun" games actually use guns mounted on joysticks, giving the illusion of using a light beam, but all control is transferred through the movement of the stick; notable examples of this include T2: The Arcade Game and Revolution X
.
A shoot 'em up
(or shmup for short), or arcade shooter, is a genre of shooter game
in which the player controls a character or vehicle (most often a spacecraft
) and shoots large numbers of enemies, while dodging incoming projectiles. Games in this genre call for fast reactions and memorization of enemy patterns. The first game of this type was Spacewar!, developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
in 1961, for the amusement of the developers; it was later released as an arcade game. The genre became prolific with the release of Space Invaders
in 1978 and this popularity continued as the genre evolved throughout the 1980s and 90s. Shoot 'em ups currently retain a niche appeal, particularly in Japan.
Tactical shooter
s are variations on the first- and third-person shooter genre, which focus on realism and emphasize tactical play such as planning and teamwork (for example, co-ordination and specialised roles). In single player modes, the player commands a squad of AI controlled characters in addition to their own; in multi-player modes, players must work in teams to win the game. Winning is likely to be dependent on capturing an objective of some sort rather than gaining the most kills.
A rail shooter is a sub-genre of the first-person shooter in which the player's navigation through the game environment is not under their explicit control. A rail shooter restricts the player's interactions to the tactical objectives in each scene, and progresses between scenes by moving the player's camera into specific positions along the game map.
Third-person shooter
video games, known as TPSs or 3PSs, emphasize shooting and combat from a camera perspective in which the player character
is seen at a distance. This perspective gives the player a wider view of their surroundings as opposed to the limited viewpoint of first-person shooters. Furthermore, third-person shooters allow for more elaborate movement such as rolling or diving, as opposed to simple jumping and crouching common in FPS games. Greater interaction with the player's environment is often possible. The emphasis remains on shooting, however; these games lack the platforming and puzzle elements of action-adventure shooting games. Some 3PSs have a function that allows you to switch to first-person in-game, such as in the "Star Wars Battlefront" and classic "Ratchet And Clank" series. Third person shooters have recently begun incorporating dedicated cover systems, an example of which would be Gears of War
. Other genres of games have begun incorporating elements of third person shooters, such as the RPG Mass Effect
.
s combine elements of their two component genres, typically featuring long-term obstacles that must be overcome using a tool or item as leverage (which is collected earlier), as well as many smaller obstacles almost constantly in the way, that require elements of action games to overcome. Action-adventure games tend to focus on exploration and usually involve item gathering, simple puzzle solving, and combat. "Action-adventure" has become a label which is sometimes attached to games which do not fit neatly into another well known genre.
The first action-adventure game was the Atari 2600
game Adventure
(1979). It was directly inspired by the original text adventure, Colossal Cave Adventure
. In the process of adapting a text game to a console with only a joystick for control, designer Warren Robinett
created a new genre. Because of their prevalence on video game console
s and the absence of typical adventure game
s, action-adventure games are often confusingly called "adventure games" by gamers.
Stealth games are a somewhat recent sub-genre, sometimes referred to as "sneakers" or "creepers" to contrast with the action-oriented "shooter" sub-genre. These games tend to emphasize subterfuge and precision strikes over the more overt mayhem of shooters. Most have first- or third-person shooter elements.
Survival horror games focus on fear and attempt to scare the player via traditional horror fiction
elements such as atmospherics, death
, the undead
, blood
and gore. One crucial gameplay
element in many of these games is the low quantity of ammunition, or number of breakable mêlée weapons.
s were some of the earliest games created, beginning with the text adventure Colossal Cave Adventure
in the 1970s. That game was originally titled simply "Adventure," and is the namesake of the genre. Over time, graphics have been introduced to the genre and the interface has evolved.
Unlike adventure films, adventure games are not defined by story or content. Rather, adventure describes a manner of gameplay without reflex challenges or action. They normally require the player to solve various puzzles by interacting with people or the environment, most often in a non-confrontational way. It is considered a "purist" genre and tends to exclude anything which includes action elements beyond a mini game.
Because they put little pressure on the player in the form of action-based challenges or time constraints, adventure games have had the unique ability to appeal to people who do not normally play video games. The genre peaked in popularity with the 1993 release of Myst
, the best-selling PC game of all time up to that point. The simple point and click interface, detailed worlds and casual pace made it accessible, and its sense of artistic surrealism caused news outlets such as Wired Magazine, The New York Times
and the San Francisco Chronicle
to declare that the gaming industry had matured. It had four proper sequels, but none managed to experience the same level of success. The success of Myst also inspired many others to create similar games with first person perspectives, surreal environments and minimal or no dialogue, but these neither recaptured the success of Myst nor of earlier personality-driven adventures.
In the late 1990s the genre suffered a large drop in popularity, mass-market releases became rare, and many proclaimed the adventure game to be dead. More accurately, it has become a niche genre. Adventure games are not entirely uncommon, but they tend to be very low budget in anticipation of modest sales. The genre was somewhat rejuvenated with the release of The Longest Journey
in 1999, which emphasized stronger story elements and more interaction with different characters. A recent resurgence of adventure games on Nintendo consoles might signify a new interest in the genre.
Around this time, real-time 3D adventure games appeared. These included Nightfall in 1998, realMyst
in 2000, and Uru: Ages Beyond Myst
in 2003. They augmented traditional adventure gameplay with some of the attributes more commonly associated with action games. For example, freedom of motion and physics based behavior. None of these games permitted game entities to be wounded or killed, which distinguishes them from action/adventure games such as the original Unreal
and Trespasser
.
The earliest adventure games were text adventures, also known as interactive fiction
. Games such as the popular Zork
series of the late 1970s and early 1980s allowed the player to use a keyboard to enter commands such as "get rope" or "go west" while the computer describes what is happening. A great deal of programming went into parsing the player's text input
.
Graphic adventure game
s emerged as graphics became more common. Adventure games began to supplement and later on replace textual descriptions with visuals (for example, a picture of the current location). Early graphic adventure games used text-parsers to input commands. The growing use of mice led to the "point-and-click
" genre of adventure games, where the player would no longer have to type commands. The player could, for example, click on a hand icon
and then on a rope to pick up the rope.
A is an adventure game featuring mostly static graphics, usually with anime
-style art. As the name might suggest, they resemble mixed-media novels or tableau vivant
stage plays. Many visual novels track statistics that the player must build in order to advance the plot, and permit a variety of endings, allowing more dynamic reactions to the player's actions than a typical linear adventure plot. Many visual novels are dating sims, including bishōjo game
s. Visual novels are especially prevalent in Japan
, where they make up nearly 70% of PC games released. They are rarely produced for video game consoles, but the more popular games are sometimes ported
to systems such as the Dreamcast or the PlayStation 2
. The market for visual novels outside of Japan, however, was nearly non-existent prior to the success of the Nintendo DS
, for which several Japanese visual novels were released in the West, such as the Ace Attorney series.
The interactive movie
genre came about with the invention of laserdisc
s. An interactive movie contains pre-filmed full-motion
cartoon
s or live-action sequences, where the player controls some of the moves of the main character. For example, when in danger, the player decides which move, action, or combination to choose. In these games, the only activity the player has is to choose or guess the move the designers intend him to make. Interactive movies usually differ from games that simply use full motion video, FMV, extensively between scenes in that they try to integrate it into the gameplay itself. This has been used in everything from racing games to fighting games. A few adventure game have tried to use the term to liken the storytelling of their games to those in movies, most notably the later Tex Murphy
games and the more recent Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy)
, although they are more aptly classified as genre hybrids. Elements of interactive movies have been adapted for game cut scenes, in the form of Quick Time Event
s, to keep the player alert. Games like Resident Evil 4
present obvious in-game prompts for the player to react to. Not doing so usually results in the player character either getting hurt or outright killed.
s draw their gameplay from traditional role-playing game
s like Dungeons & Dragons
. Most cast the player in the role of one or more "adventurers" who specialize in specific skill sets (such as melee combat or casting magic
spells) while progressing through a predetermined storyline. Many involve maneuvering these character(s) through an overworld
, usually populated with monsters, that allows access to more important game locations, such as towns, dungeons, and castles. Since the emergence of affordable home computer
s coincided with the popularity of paper and pencil
role-playing games, this genre was one of the first in video games and continues to be popular today. Gameplay elements strongly associated with RPGs, such as statistical character development through the acquisition of experience point
s, have been widely adapted to other genres such as action-adventure game
s. Though nearly all of the early entries in the genre were turn-based games, many modern role-playing games progress in real-time. Thus, the genre has followed the strategy game
's trend of moving from turn-based to real-time combat. The move to real-time combat began with the release of Square
's (now Square Enix
's) Final Fantasy IV
, the first game to use the Active Time Battle system; this was quickly followed by truly real-time role-playing games such as the Mana series, Soul Blazer
and Ultima VII
. Some throwbacks to older turn based system did exist such as the Golden Sun series
for Gameboy Advance.
Cultural differences in role-playing video games have caused RPGs to tend towards two sets of characteristics sometimes referred to as Western and Eastern RPGs. The first often involves the player creating a character and a non-linear storyline along which the player makes his own decisions. In the second type, the player controls a party of predefined characters through a dramatically scripted linear
storyline. There are described advantages to -and dedicated fans of- each system, including fans of western RPGs in East Asia and eastern RPGs in Europe/North America.
Due to RPG origins with Dungeons and Dragons and other pen and paper role-playing games, the most popular setting for RPGs by far is a fantasy world, usually with heavy medieval European influences with Diablo series (by Blizzard
), Final Fantasy series, Elder Scrolls series and Baldur's Gate series
(all different kinds of RPGs) all sharing a basic fantasy setting. However exceptions do exist, with some more notable ones being the east Asian Jade Empire
setting, and the science fiction settings of Knights of the Old Republic
and Mass Effect
by Bioware
. The Fallout series is set in a post-apocalyptic retro-futuristic America in which nuclear war destroyed a world in which culture had never advanced beyond that of the 1950s.
Sandbox RPGs allow the player a huge amount of freedom and usually contain a somewhat realistic free-roaming (meaning the player is not confined to a single path restricted by rocks or fences etc.) world. Sandbox RPGs are almost always western rather than eastern and contain similarities to other sandbox games such as the Grand Theft Auto series with a large number of interactable NPCs, large amount of content and typically some of the largest worlds to explore and longest playtimes of all RPGs due to an impressive amount of secondary content not critical to the game's main storyline. Sandbox RPGs often attempt to emulate an entire region of their setting. Good examples of this small subgenre are Morrowind, Oblivion and Fallout 3
by Bethesda
and the Gothic series by Piranha Bytes
.
The action role-playing game
or action RPG is a type of role-playing game which incorporates elements from action game
s or action-adventure game
s. The first action role-playing games were produced by Nihon Falcom in the 1980s, such as the Dragon Slayer series and Ys series. Later so-called "Diablo
clones" are also part of this genre. Although the precise definition of the genre varies, the typical action RPG features a heavy emphasis on combat, often simplifying or removing non-combat attributes and statistics and the effect they have on the character's development. Additionally, combat always takes place using a real-time system (hence the "action") that relies on the player's ability to perform particular actions with speed and accuracy to determine success, rather than mainly using the player character's attributes to determine this. Typically action RPGs focus more on the collection of randomized treasure than story progression that is found in other types of RPGs.
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game
s, or MMORPGs, emerged in the mid to late 1990s as a commercial, graphical variant of text-based MUD
s, which had existed since 1978. By and large, MMORPGs feature the usual RPG objectives of completing quests and strengthening one's player character
, but involve up to hundreds of players interacting with each other on the same persistent world in real-time. The massively multiplayer concept was quickly combined with other genres. Fantasy MMORPGs like The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar
, remain the most popular type of MMOG, with the most popular "pay-to-play" game being World of Warcraft
(by Blizzard), which holds over 60% of the MMORPG market, and the most popular free game being RuneScape
(by Jagex), yet other types of MMORPG are appearing. Sci-fi MMORPGs, which began with Phantasy Star Online
, hold a smaller part of the MMOG market, with the popular space sci-fi game EVE Online
being the most notable. Other massively multiplayer online games which do not have a conventional RPG setting such as Second Life
may still sometimes be classed as RPGs, or they may be more accurately described as MMOG's (discussed elsewhere in this article).
The roguelike
video game sub-genre borrows its name and gameplay elements from the 1980 computer game Rogue
. Superficially, a roguelike is a two-dimensional dungeon crawl
with a high degree of randomness and an emphasis on statistical character development. Though traditionally featuring a text user interface, many such games utilize graphic tiles to overcome character set limitations.
The tactical role-playing game
sub-genre principally refers to games which incorporate gameplay from strategy games
as an alternative to traditional RPG systems. Like standard RPGs, the player controls a finite party and battles a similar number of enemies, but this genre incorporates strategic gameplay such as tactical movement on an isometric grid. The genre has its origins in tabletop role-playing games, where each player has time to decide his or her character's action.
s is a diverse super-category of games, generally designed to closely simulate aspects of a real or fictional reality.
Construction and management simulation
s (or CMSs) are a type of simulation game which task players to build, expand or manage fictional communities or projects with limited resources.
In city-building game
s the player acts as overall planner or leader to meet the needs and wants of game characters by initiating structures for food, shelter, health, spiritual care, economic growth, etc. Success is achieved when the city budget makes a growing profit and citizens experience an upgraded lifestyle in housing, health, and goods. While military development is often included, the emphasis is on economic strength. Perhaps the most known game of this type is SimCity
, which is still popular and has had great influence on later city-building games. SimCity, however, also belongs to the God Games genre since it gives the player god-like abilities in manipulating the world. Caesar
was a long running series in this genre, with the original game spawning three sequels.
Business simulation games generally attempt to simulate an economy or business, with the player controlling the economy of the game.
A government simulation game (or "political game") involves the simulation of the policies, government or politics of a country, but typically excludes warfare. Recently, these types of games have gained the moniker "serious game
".
s (or artificial life games) involve living or controlling one or more artificial lives. A life simulation game can revolve around individuals and relationships, or it could be a simulation of an ecosystem.
Biological simulations may allow the player to experiment with genetics
, survival or ecosystem
s, often in the form of an educational package
. An early example is SimLife
, while relatively recent ones are Jurassic Park:Operation Genesis and Spore
. In other educational simulations such as Wolf
, the player "lives the life" of an individual animal in a relatively realistic way. Hailed as one of the greatest life simulation games, however, is Creatures, Creatures 2, Creatures 3, where the player breeds generations of a species in a hugely detailed ecosystem.
Unlike other genres of games, god game
s often do not have a set goal that allows a player to win the game. The focus of a god game tends to be control over the lives of people, anywhere from micromanaging a family to overseeing the rise of a civilization.
Pet-raising simulations (or digital pet
s) focus more on the relationship between the player and one or few life forms. They are often more limited in scope than other biological simulations. This includes popular examples of virtual pets such as Tamagotchi
, the Petz
series, and Nintendogs
.
Social simulation game
s base their gameplay on the social interaction between multiple artificial lives. The most famous example from this genre is Will Wright's The Sims
.
s are a genre of video games which attempt to provide the player with a realistic interpretation of operating various kinds of vehicles.
A flight simulation tasks the player with flying an aircraft, usually an airplane, as realistically as possible. Combat flight simulator
s are the most popular sub-genre of simulation. The player controls the plane, not only simulating the act of flying, but also combat situations. There are also civilian flight simulators that do not have the combat aspect.
Racing game
s typically place the player in the driver's seat of a high-performance vehicle and require the player to race against other drivers or sometimes just time. This genre of games is one of the staples of the computer gaming world and many of the earliest computer games created were part of this genre. Emerging in the late 1970s, this genre is still very popular today and continues to push the envelope in terms of graphics and performance. These games "tend to fall into organized racing and imaginary racing categories". Organized racing simulators attempt to "reproduce the experience of driving a racing car or motorcycle in an existing racing class: Indycar, NASCAR
, Formula 1, and so on." On the other hand, imaginary racing games involve "imaginary situations, driving madly through cities or the countryside or even fantasy environments". These "imaginary" racing games are sometimes called arcade racing games, in contrast to their more realistic "racing simulation" counterparts. Rollings and Adams note that "racing games are often sold in the sports
category," but "from a design
standpoint, they really belong in ... vehicle simulations".
Space flight simulator game
s are a sub-genre that involve piloting a spacecraft
. Space simulators are different from other sub-genres, and are not generally considered to be simulators, as their simulated objects do not always exist and often disregard the laws of physics. However, simulators of real spacecraft do exist: Orbiter is one example.
Train simulator
s simulate the vehicles, environments and often economics associated with railway transport. These are frequently historical in nature, reminiscing on the evolution and emergence of the railroad in various countries and the economic booms that often accompanied them.
Vehicular combat or car combat games focus on fast-paced action, as the player operates a car
or other vehicle and attempts to disable or destroy CPU or human opponents. Vehicular combat games often allow a player to choose from a variety of potential vehicles, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Vehicular combat was born out of racing/shooter combinations like Spy Hunter
, RoadBlasters
and Rock 'N' Roll Racing, but differs in that the players can, if desired, take their vehicles off predefined routes and do battle wherever they please. A sub-genre of vehicular combat is Mecha
combat, where vehicles generally include giant robot-like tanks.
s focus on gameplay requiring careful and skillful thinking and planning in order to achieve victory. In most strategy video games, says Andrew Rollings, "the player is given a godlike view of the game world, indirectly controlling the units under his command." Rollings also notes that "The origin of strategy games is rooted in their close cousins, board games." Strategy video games generally take one of four archetypal forms, depending on whether the game is turn-based or real-time and whether the game's focus is upon strategy or military tactics. Real time strategy games are often a multiple unit selection game (multiple game characters can be selected at once to perform different tasks, as opposed to only selecting one character at a time) with a sky view (view looking down from above) but some recent games such as Tom Clancy's EndWar
, are single unit selection and third person view. Like many RPG games, many strategy games are gradually moving away from turn based systems to more real-time systems.
4X refers to a genre of strategy video game with four primary goals: eXplore, eXpand, eXploit and eXterminate. A 4X game can be turn-based or real-time
. Perhaps the best known example of this genre is Sid Meier
's Civilization
series. 4X games often cover a very large period of time, giving the player the control of an entire civilization or species. Typically these games have a historical setting, encompassing a large amount of human history (Empire Earth
, Civilization) or a science fiction setting where the player controls a species set to dominate the galaxy (Master of Orion
, Galactic Civilizations
).
Artillery is the generic name for either early two or three-player (usually turn-based) computer games involving tank
s fighting each other in combat or similar derivative games. Artillery games were among the earliest computer games developed; they can be considered an extension of the original uses of computers themselves, which were once used for military-based calculations such as plotting the trajectories of rockets. Artillery games are a type of strategy game, though they have also been described as a "shooting game."
The moniker "real-time strategy
" (RTS), usually applied only to certain computer strategy games, (however, this genre is probably the most well known of strategy games and is what most websites mean when they say "strategy games") indicates that the action in the game is continuous, and players will have to make their decisions and actions within the backdrop of a constantly changing game state. Real-time strategy gameplay is characterised by obtaining resources, building bases, researching technologies and producing units. Probably the most popular RTS game is Blizzard's Starcraft
, which is played competitively in South Korea and televised to large audiences. Other notable games include the Warcraft series
, Age of Empires series, Dawn of War, Command and Conquer and Dune II
(essentially the first RTS game). Very few non-computer strategy games are real-time; A few examples are Icehouse
, Battle for Middle-earth II and Halo Wars
.
A real-time tactics
game shares feature of the simulation and wargame genres, for example the battle system (though not the entire game) in the Total War series. These titles focus on operational aspects and control of warfare. Unlike in real-time strategy games, resource and economical management and building plays no part of the gameplay. These games often feature an overarching "campaign map" with different regions the player must vie for control of -not dissimilar to the board game Risk
. Base building in the traditional sense is usually relegated to building up the infrastructure of regions you own.
Tower defense
games have a very simple layout. Usually, computer-controlled monsters called creeps move along a set path, and the player must place, or "build" towers along this path to kill the creeps. In most tower defense games different towers have different abilities such as poisoning enemies or slowing them down. The player is awarded money for killing creeps, and this money can be used to buy more towers, or buy upgrades for a tower such as increased power or range.
The term "Turn-based strategy
game" (TBS) is usually reserved for certain computer strategy games, to distinguish them from real-time strategy games. A player of a turn-based game is allowed a period of analysis before committing to a game action, and some games allow a certain number of moves or actions to take place in a turn. Like real time strategy games, this genre can include many strategy games which are not solely turn based games, and games which may contain other features not related to whether the game is turn based or not.
The gameplay of turn-based tactics
games is characterized by the expectation of players to complete their tasks using the combat forces provided to them, and usually by the provision of a realistic (or at least believable) representation of military tactics and operations.
Wargames
are a subgenre of strategy video game
s that emphasize strategic or tactical warfare on a map. Wargames generally take one of four archetypal forms, depending on whether the game is turn-based or real-time and whether the game's focus is upon military strategy
or tactics
.
Music games
most commonly challenge the player to follow sequences of movement or develop specific rhythms. Some games require the player to input rhythms by stepping with their feet on a dance pad
, or using a device similar to a specific musical instrument, like a replica drum set. These games have changed the way players' interact with their consoles by making the gaming experience more active and sociable, and paving the way for exergaming
. Music video games have also influenced the music industry by significantly raising the number of legal downloads of songs. Other games avoid rhythm-based gameplay and instead focus on pitch-based, memory-based, or sandbox-style gameplay. Recently, music games such as Guitar Hero
, Rock Band
and Sing Star have achieved huge popularity among casual gamers.
Party games are video games developed specifically for multiplayer games between many players. Normally, party games have a variety of mini-games that range between collecting more of a certain item than other players or having the fastest time at something. Such games include the Mario Party
series, Crash Boom Bang!
, and Rayman Raving Rabbids
. Versus multiplayer games are not generally considered to be party games.
A programming game
is a computer game where the player has no direct influence on the course of the game. Instead, a computer program
or script is written in some domain-specific programming language
in order to control the actions of the characters (usually robot
s, tank
s or bacteria
, which seek to destroy each other). In SpaceChem
, for example, players design circuits used for creating molecules from raw materials. Final Fantasy XII
also includes some elements of a programming game, as the player creates the AI of his characters, although the player can also choose to directly control the action.
Puzzle games require the player to solve logic puzzles or navigate complex locations such as maze
s. This genre frequently crosses over with adventure and educational games. Some arcade games, in particular Tetris
-variants, are often labeled puzzle games, despite the fact that gameplay depends on hand/eye coordination and quick reflexes, rather than thought and logic. Puzzle is a very inclusive genre, and is often used as a general default for games not otherwise easily categorized, especially those with abstract concepts. Before they became commonplace, music games were sometimes called puzzle games, for example.
Sports game
s emulate the playing of traditional physical sports. Some emphasize actually playing the sport, while others emphasize the strategy behind the sport (such as Championship Manager
). Others satirize the sport for comic effect (such as Arch Rivals
). One of the best selling series in this genre is the Madden NFL
series. This genre emerged early in the history of video games (e.g., Pong
) and remains popular today.
Trivia
games are growing in popularity, especially on mobile phone
s where people may only have a few minutes to play the game. One common trivia game for Blackberry is MobileQs.
Many popular board game
s and card game
s have computer versions. AI
opponents can help improve one's skill at traditional games. Chess
, Checkers, Othello (also known as Reversi
), and Backgammon
have world class computer programs. Mah-jongg and related games are immensely popular in China
and Japan
. Go
is popular in East Asia
, though it is infamously difficult to program a computer to play Go
well. Magic: The Gathering
has had computer versions for some time.
Adult video game
s, like adult movies or other media, are intended for an adult audience. In general, the purpose of adult games is to provide erotic entertainment
, rather than just gameplay. There exists a wide variety of adult games, though many lack mainstream appeal and represent a niche category. The object of an adult game may differ from a mainstream video game, in that the reward can be a visual representation of nudity, partial nudity, or sexual activity rather than points, etc. Some games may focus on humor or drama rather than arousal, or simply have normal gameplay accompanied by nudity.
Advergames, in the context of video game genres, refers to promotional software specifically made to advertise a product, organization or viewpoint. The first advergames were distributed on floppy disk by the Chef Boyardee
, Coca-Cola
, and Samsung
brands, while the first cereal box advergame was Chex Quest
in 1996. The majority of advergames are found online and mostly include simple and cheaply made Flash
games.
Art game
s are designed so as to emphasize art or whose structures are intended to produce some kind of non-ludological reaction in its audience. Art games typically go out of their way to have a unique, unconventional look, often standing out for aesthetic beauty or complexity in design. This concept extends to the realm of modified ("modded") gaming when modifications have been made to existing non-art-games to produce graphic results intended to be viewed as an artistic display, as opposed to modifications intended to change game play scenarios or for storytelling. Modified games created for artistic purposes are sometimes referred to as "videogame art."
Casual game
s have very simple rules or play techniques and a very low degree of strategy. They also require no long-term time commitment or special skills to play, making them easy to learn and play as a pastime. There are comparatively low production and distribution costs for the producer. Casual games typically are played on a personal computer online in web browsers, although they now are starting to become popular on game consoles. The purpose of the casual game is to entertain, but with a much lower commitment than other video games.
Christian games
attempt to provide the dual purposes of spreading the Christian religion
to non-believers through the medium of video games, and providing gamers who identify as Christian with a common pool of games that neither challenge their beliefs nor offend them. Christian video games were first developed by Wisdom Tree
for the NES
without license. While largely regarded as derivative titles by the mainstream gaming culture, Christian games have nevertheless expanded in distribution since their inception.
Educational game
s, as the name implies, attempt to teach the user using the game as a vehicle. Most of these types of games target young users from the ages of about three years to mid-teens; past the mid-teens, subjects become so complex (e.g. Calculus
) that teaching via a game is impractical. Numerous sub-genres exist, in fields such as math or typing.
Electronic Sports
games are multiplayer games that are usually played competitively at the professional level. These games are often targeted at the "hardcore" gaming audience, and are usually first-person shooter
games, requiring twitch-based reaction speed and coordination, or real-time strategy
games, requiring high levels of strategic macro- and micromanagement.
An exergame
(portmanteau
of "exercise" and "game") is a video game that provides exercise. "Exergames" sub-divide into two main implementations, those with a game specifically designed to use an exercise input device (for example, the game Wii Fit
using the Wii Balance Board
) and those implementations using a genre of a game. Games fit into the category of entertainment, and similarly "exergames" are a category of "exertainment" (formed from "exercise" and "entertainment
"). "Exertainment" refers to one aspect of adding entertainment to an exercise workout.
Serious game
s are intended to educate or train the player. These games tend to promote "education, science, social change, health care or even the military." Some of these games have no specific ending or goal in the game. Rather, the player learns a real life lesson from the game. For example, games from website
s such as Newsgaming.com and gamesforchange.org raise political issues using the distinct properties of games.
An early attempt at analysis of the action and adventure genres appeared in a Game Developers Conference 2000 paper 'Mostly Armless: Grabbing the 3D World'. This critiqued a variety of adventure and action games to categorize gameplay and interaction for adventure, action, and hybrid genres. It provided a graph of the genres along the axes of 'immediacy' vs 'complexity', with an 'ideal-zone' for gameplay that covered and linked adventure and action games. It detailed various interaction styles present in these genres and extrapolated to future user interface and gameplay possibilities for these and other genres. Some of these have since been adopted by persistent worlds. For example, Second Life
uses some of the gameplay investment and interface elements described in section 4 of the paper.
In a University of Queensland
study, game enjoyment was correlated with attributes such as immersion, social interaction, and the nature of the goals. These may be underlying factors in differentiating game genres.
Statistical scaling techniques were used in a study presented at the 2007 Siggraph Video Game Symposium to convert subject ratings of game similarity into visual maps of game genres. The maps reproduced some of the commonly identified genres such as first-person shooters and god games. A Michigan State University
study found that men have a higher preference for genres that require competition and three-dimensional navigation and manipulation than women do.
Gameplay
Gameplay is the specific way in which players interact with a game, and in particular with video games. Gameplay is the pattern defined through the game rules, connection between player and the game, challenges and overcoming them, plot and player's connection with it...
interaction rather than visual
Computer graphics
Computer graphics are graphics created using computers and, more generally, the representation and manipulation of image data by a computer with help from specialized software and hardware....
or narrative
Narrative
A narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled"...
differences. A video game genre is defined by a set of gameplay challenges. They are classified independent of their setting
Setting (fiction)
In fiction, setting includes the time, location, and everything in which a story takes place, and initiates the main backdrop and mood for a story. Setting has been referred to as story world or milieu to include a context beyond the immediate surroundings of the story. Elements of setting may...
or game-world content, unlike other works of fiction
Fiction
Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...
such as film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
s or book
Book
A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...
s. For example, an action game is still an action game, regardless of whether it takes place in a fantasy world or outer space. Within game studies
Game studies
Game studies or the new modern term "gaming theory" is the discipline of studying games, their design, players, and their role in society and culture more broadly...
there is a lack of consensus in reaching accepted formal definitions for game genres, some being more observed than others. Like any typical taxonomy, a video game genre requires certain constants. Most video games feature obstacles to overcome, so video game genres can be defined where obstacles are completed in substantially similar ways.
Following is a listing of commonly used video game genres with brief descriptions and examples of each. This list is by no means complete or comprehensive. Chris Crawford
Chris Crawford (game designer)
Christopher Crawford is a computer game designer and writer noted for creating a number of important games in the 1980s, founding The Journal of Computer Game Design, and organizing the Computer Game Developers' Conference.- Biography :...
notes that "the state of computer game design is changing quickly. We would therefore expect the taxonomy presented here to become obsolete or inadequate in a short time." As with nearly all varieties of genre classification, the matter of any individual video game's specific genre is open to personal interpretation. Moreover, it is important to be able to "think of each individual game as belonging to several genres at once."
Action
An action gameAction game
Action game is a video game genre that emphasizes physical challenges, including hand–eye coordination and reaction-time. The genre includes diverse subgenres such as fighting games, shooter games, and platform games, which are widely considered the most important action games, though some...
requires players to use quick reflexes, accuracy, and timing to overcome obstacles. It is perhaps the most basic of gaming genres, and certainly one of the broadest. Action games tend to have gameplay with emphasis on combat. There are many subgenres of action games, such as fighting game
Fighting game
Fighting game is a video game genre where the player controls an on-screen character and engages in close combat with an opponent. These characters tend to be of equal power and fight matches consisting of several rounds, which take place in an arena. Players must master techniques such as...
s and first-person shooters.
The predecessor of all console game genres, a ball-and-paddle game was the first game implemented on a home console (Pong
Pong
Pong is one of the earliest arcade video games, and is a tennis sports game featuring simple two-dimensional graphics. While other arcade video games such as Computer Space came before it, Pong was one of the first video games to reach mainstream popularity...
). Later renditions have included Breakout, which was a driving influence behind the Apple II computer, and Arkanoid
Arkanoid
is an arcade game developed by Taito in 1986. It is based upon Atari's Breakout games of the 1970s. The title refers to a doomed "mothership" from which the player's ship, the Vaus, escapes.-Overview:...
, an arcade staple for many years. A version of Breakout called Block Buster was also packaged with the first handheld console with swappable cartridges, the Microvision
Microvision
The Microvision was the very first handheld game console that used interchangeable cartridges. It was released by the Milton Bradley Company in November . The Microvision was designed by Jay Smith, the engineer who would later design the Vectrex gaming console...
.
Beat 'em up
Beat 'em up
Beat 'em up is a video game genre featuring melee combat between the protagonist and a large number of underpowered antagonists. These games typically take place in urban settings and feature crime-fighting and revenge-based plots, though some games may employ historical or fantasy themes...
and hack and slash
Hack and slash
Hack and slash or hack and slay, abbreviated H&S or HnS, refers to a type of gameplay that emphasizes combat. "Hack and slash" was originally used to describe an aspect of pen-and-paper role-playing games , carrying over from there to MUDs, MMORPGs, and video games in general...
games have an emphasis on one-on-many close quarters combat
Combat
Combat, or fighting, is a purposeful violent conflict meant to establish dominance over the opposition, or to terminate the opposition forever, or drive the opposition away from a location where it is not wanted or needed....
, beating large numbers of computer-controlled enemies. Gameplay involves the player fighting through a series of increasingly difficult levels. The sole distinction between these two genres are that beat 'em ups feature hand-to-hand combat, and hack and slash games feature melee
Mêlée
Melee , generally refers to disorganized close combat involving a group of fighters. A melee ensues when groups become locked together in combat with no regard to group tactics or fighting as an organized unit; each participant fights as an individual....
weaponry, particularly bladed weapons. Both genres feature little to no use of firearms or projectile combat. This genre became popular in 1987 with the release of Double Dragon
Double Dragon
is a classic beat 'em up video game series initially developed by Technos Japan Corporation, who also developed the Kunio-kun series ....
, leading to a large number of similar games. The fighting style is usually simpler than for versus fighting game
Fighting game
Fighting game is a video game genre where the player controls an on-screen character and engages in close combat with an opponent. These characters tend to be of equal power and fight matches consisting of several rounds, which take place in an arena. Players must master techniques such as...
s. In recent times, the genre has largely merged with that of action-adventure, with side-scrolling levels giving way to more open three-dimensional areas, and melee combat co-existing with shooting and puzzle elements.
Fighting game
Fighting game
Fighting game is a video game genre where the player controls an on-screen character and engages in close combat with an opponent. These characters tend to be of equal power and fight matches consisting of several rounds, which take place in an arena. Players must master techniques such as...
s emphasize one-on-one combat
Combat
Combat, or fighting, is a purposeful violent conflict meant to establish dominance over the opposition, or to terminate the opposition forever, or drive the opposition away from a location where it is not wanted or needed....
between two characters, one of which may be computer controlled. These games are usually played by linking together long chains of button presses on the controller to use physical attacks to fight. Many of the movements employed by the characters are usually dramatic and occasionally physically impossible. Combat is almost always one-on-one, though there are some exceptions such as the Super Smash Bros. series and Guilty Gear Isuka
Guilty Gear Isuka
is a game in the Guilty Gear series. Unlike previous games of the series, Isuka allows for fights with up to four players, and is exclusively programmed for use in tournament play. It is the first Guilty Gear game to include the character A.B.A...
, pitting up to four combatants in the fight at one time. This genre first appeared in 1976 with the release of Sega
Sega
, usually styled as SEGA, is a multinational video game software developer and an arcade software and hardware development company headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan, with various offices around the world...
's Heavyweight Boxing and later became a phenomenon, particularly in the arcades, with the release of Street Fighter II
Street Fighter II
is a competitive fighting game originally released for the arcades in . It is the arcade sequel to the original Street Fighter released in and was Capcom's fourteenth title that ran on the CP System arcade hardware...
.
Maze games have a playing field which is entirely a maze
Maze
A maze is a tour puzzle in the form of a complex branching passage through which the solver must find a route. In everyday speech, both maze and labyrinth denote a complex and confusing series of pathways, but technically the maze is distinguished from the labyrinth, as the labyrinth has a single...
, which players must navigate. Quick thinking and fast reaction times are encouraged by the use of a timer, monsters obstructing the player's way, or multiple players racing to the finish. The most famous game of this genre is Pac-Man
Pac-Man
is an arcade game developed by Namco and licensed for distribution in the United States by Midway, first released in Japan on May 22, 1980. Immensely popular from its original release to the present day, Pac-Man is considered one of the classics of the medium, virtually synonymous with video games,...
.
Pinball games are designed to replicate the look and feel of a real-life pinball table in virtual reality. Most pinball games feature the same gameplay style, where the player controls a right and left flipper, and tries to make the ball hit various parts of the playfield to gather up points. The control scheme in pinball games is, for the most part, the same. On consoles, left and right "shoulder" buttons are often used to approximate the left and right flipper buttons of a real-world pinball game. In some cases, a pinball game may feature more than two flippers: two are generally located at the bottom of the playfield, and others (generally only one or two more) are found above the bottom two. Some games automatically fire the ball into the playfield, while others require the player to press a button to pull down the spring-loaded plug and fire the ball into the playfield. One significant way that video game pinball games can progress beyond pinball table emulation is the inclusion of features impossible to incorporate in a real pinball table, such as multiple table layouts or direct ball control. Pinball games have become more popular in recent years on handheld systems, as opposed to consoles.
Platform game
Platform game
A platform game is a video game characterized by requiring the player to jump to and from suspended platforms or over obstacles . It must be possible to control these jumps and to fall from platforms or miss jumps...
s (platformers) are a subgenre of action game. These games involve traveling between platforms by jumping (very occasionally other means are substituted for jumping, like swinging or bouncing, but these are considered variations on the same mechanic). Other traditional elements include running and climbing ladders and ledges. Platformers frequently borrow elements from other genres like fighting and shooting (such as the Castlevania
Castlevania
Castlevania, known as in Japan, is a video game series created and developed by Konami. The series debuted in Japan on September 26, 1986, with the release of for the Family Computer Disk System , followed by an alternate version for the MSX 2 platform on October 30...
series, which incorporates role-playing). They are most often associated with iconic cartoon mascots like Donkey Kong
Donkey Kong
is a fictional gorilla in the Donkey Kong and Mario series. He is roughly twice the size of a normal gorilla, weighing approximately 800 pounds. Donkey Kong first appeared in Nintendo's popular 1981 video game of the same name. Since then he has appeared in over 20 games in his own series, as well...
, Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic the Hedgehog (character)
, trademarked Sonic The Hedgehog, is a video game character and the main protagonist of the Sonic video game series released by Sega, as well as in numerous spin-off comics, cartoons, and a feature film. The first game was released on June 23, 1991, to provide Sega with a mascot to rival Nintendo's...
, Mario, Megaman
Mega Man (character)
Mega Man, known as in Japan, is a cybernetic video game character, and the main protagonist of what has been referred to as the original Mega Man series developed by Capcom since 1987. The pixel art for the character was created by the designer of the original game in the series, credited under...
, Samus
Samus
Samus Aran is the protagonist of Nintendo's Metroid video game series.Samus may also refer to:*Samus, female variant of the Celtic first name Séamus*Samus, the Latin name of the Someş River...
and Rayman
Rayman (character)
Rayman is a platform video game series developed and published by Ubisoft and created by Michel Ancel.-Gameplay:Rayman games are typically platformer games, although spin-offs have had radically different gameplay. The original Rayman was a 2D sprite based platformer similar to those of the 16 bit...
, though platform games may have any theme. The term itself first came into use to describe any game in which the player traveled between platforms, and Space Panic
Space Panic
Space Panic is a 1980 arcade game designed by Universal, which Chris Crawford calls the first ever platform game, as it pre-dates Nintendo's Donkey Kong which is often cited as the original platform game. Space Panic lacks Donkey Kongs jump mechanic, disqualifying it as a platformer for some...
, a 1980 arcade release, has been cited as the first platform game for featuring obstacles and gaps to jump over, making it a platformer by the modern sense of the term. Pitfall!
Pitfall!
Pitfall! is a video game released by Activision for the Atari 2600 in 1982. It is the second best selling game made for the Atari 2600, with over 4 million copies sold.-Gameplay:...
can also be classified as an early platformer. Traditionally, platform games were 2D
2D computer graphics
2D computer graphics is the computer-based generation of digital images—mostly from two-dimensional models and by techniques specific to them...
, with players viewing the environment from a profile, "cutaway" perspective. This could be done easily with sprites
Sprite (computer graphics)
In computer graphics, a sprite is a two-dimensional image or animation that is integrated into a larger scene...
and was simple for early computers to handle. 3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...
have opened these games up for movement in all directions. However, 3D perspectives make it more difficult to judge distance, which is an important part of platformers. Because of this, many 3D platformers have a feature to make this easier, such as a player shadow that will always be cast straight down, tracking their location on the ground while the character is jumping. At their peak, platformers were the most popular games on the market. The genre experienced a sharp decline, from 15% of total market share
Market share
Market share is the percentage of a market accounted for by a specific entity. In a survey of nearly 200 senior marketing managers, 67 percent responded that they found the "dollar market share" metric very useful, while 61% found "unit market share" very useful.Marketers need to be able to...
in 1998 to 2% in 2002. Although there are many 3D platform games, few have proven to have the universal appeal of their older games. However, this could merely be a result of a changing market and an increase in game variety.
Shooter
A shooter gameShooter game
Shooter games are a sub-genre of action game, which often test the player's speed and reaction time. It includes many subgenres that have the commonality of focusing "on the actions of the avatar using some sort of weapon. Usually this weapon is a gun, or some other long-range weapon". A common...
focuses primarily on combat involving projectile weapons, such as guns and missiles. They can be divided into first-person and third-person shooters, depending on the camera perspective. Some first-person shooters use light gun
Light gun
A light gun is a pointing device for computers and a control device for arcade and video games.Modern screen-based light guns work by building a sensor into the gun itself, and the on-screen target emit light rather than the gun...
technology.
First-person shooter
First-person shooter
First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...
video games, commonly known as FPSs, emphasize shooting and combat from the perspective of the character controlled by the player. This perspective is meant to give the player the feeling of "being there", and allows the player to focus on aiming. Most FPSs are very fast-paced and require quick reflexes on high difficulty levels. The fast-paced and 3D elements required to create an effective looking FPS made the genre technologically unattainable for most consumer hardware systems until the early 1990s. Wolfenstein 3D
Wolfenstein 3D
Wolfenstein 3D is a video game that is generally regarded by critics and gaming journalists as having both popularized the first-person shooter genre on the PC and created the basic archetype upon which all subsequent games of the same genre would be built. It was created by id Software and...
was the first widely known FPS, and Doom was the first major breakthrough in graphics; it used a number of clever techniques to make the game run fast enough to play on consumer-grade machines. Since the release of Doom, most FPS games now have a multi-player feature to allow competition between multiple players. Games such as Team Fortress
Team Fortress
Team Fortress is a team- and class-based online multiplayer video game mod based on id Software's Quake. Team Fortress was designed and written by Robin Walker, John Cook and Ian Caughley in 1996. The mod's gameplay has caught on with a large following of fans, which has spurred many developers to...
, Halo, Killzone
Killzone
Killzone is a first-person shooter exclusive to the PlayStation 2 game console, developed by Netherlands-based Guerrilla Games and released on November 2, 2004 in North America. A sequel, Killzone: Liberation was released on the PlayStation Portable and another followup, Killzone 2 was released for...
, Metroid Prime
Metroid Prime
Metroid Prime is a video game developed by Retro Studios and Nintendo for the Nintendo GameCube, released in North America on November 17, 2002...
, Unreal Tournament
Unreal Tournament
Unreal Tournament is a futuristic first-person shooter video game co-developed by Epic Games and Digital Extremes. It was published in 1999 by GT Interactive. Retrospectively, the game has also been referred to as UT99 or UT Classic to differentiate it from its numbered sequels...
, Call of Duty
Call of Duty
Call of Duty is a first-person shooter video game developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision in 2003. It is the first game in a series with the same name. The game simulates the infantry and combined arms warfare of World War II. The game is based on the Quake III: Team Arena engine...
, and TimeSplitters
TimeSplitters
TimeSplitters is a series of first-person shooter video games created by Free Radical Design. The games are often compared to Rare's shooters GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark since Free Radical Design was founded by a group of ex-Rare employees who developed these games...
are in the ever-expanding first-person shooter genre.
Massively multiplayer online first person shooter games (MMOFPS) are a genre of massively multiplayer online game
Massively multiplayer online game
A massively multiplayer online game is a multiplayer video game which is capable of supporting hundreds or thousands of players simultaneously. By necessity, they are played on the Internet, and usually feature at least one persistent world. They are, however, not necessarily games played on...
s that combines first-person shooter
First-person shooter
First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...
gameplay with a virtual world in which a large number of players may interact over the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
. Whereas standard FPS games limit the number of players able to compete in a multiplayer match (generally the maximum is 64), hundreds of players can battle each other on the same server in an MMOFPS.
Light gun shooter
Light gun shooter
Light gun shooter, also called light gun game or simply gun game, is a shooter video game genre in which the primary design element is aiming and shooting with a gun-shaped controller. Light gun shooters revolve around the protagonist shooting targets, either antagonists or inanimate objects...
s are a genre of shooter genre designed for use with a pointing device
Pointing device
A pointing device is an input interface that allows a user to input spatial data to a computer...
for computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
s and a control device
Game controller
A game controller is a device used with games or entertainment systems used to control a playable character or object, or otherwise provide input in a computer game. A controller is typically connected to a game console or computer by means of a wire, cord or nowadays, by means of wireless connection...
for arcade and home consoles
Video game console
A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or customized computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...
. The first light guns appeared in the 1930s, following the development of light-sensing vacuum tube
Vacuum tube
In electronics, a vacuum tube, electron tube , or thermionic valve , reduced to simply "tube" or "valve" in everyday parlance, is a device that relies on the flow of electric current through a vacuum...
s. It wasn't long before the technology began appearing in arcade
Video arcade
An amusement arcade or video arcade is a venue where people play arcade games such as video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, merchandisers , or coin-operated billiards or air hockey tables...
shooting games, beginning with the Seeburg Ray-O-Lite
Seeburg Ray-O-Lite
The Seeburg Ray-O-Lite was the first light gun game. It was made in January 1936 by Seeburg. Gameplay involved shooting a flying duck which would then drop when hit.-External links:*...
in 1936. These early light gun games used small (usually moving) targets onto which a light-sensing tube was mounted; the player used a gun (usually a rifle) that emitted a beam of light when the trigger was pulled. If the beam struck the target, a "hit" was scored. Modern screen-based light guns work on the opposite principle—the sensor is built into the gun itself, and the on-screen target(s) emit light rather than the gun. The first light gun of this type was used on the MIT Whirlwind computer. Some "light gun" games actually use guns mounted on joysticks, giving the illusion of using a light beam, but all control is transferred through the movement of the stick; notable examples of this include T2: The Arcade Game and Revolution X
Revolution X
Revolution X is a arcade rail shooter game developed and published by Midway, featuring the rock band Aerosmith. The game features gameplay similar to Midway's earlier Terminator 2: Judgment Day...
.
Shoot 'em up
Shoot 'em up is a subgenre of shooter video games. In a shoot 'em up, the player controls a lone character, often in a spacecraft or aircraft, shooting large numbers of enemies while dodging their attacks. The genre in turn encompasses various types or subgenres and critics differ on exactly what...
(or shmup for short), or arcade shooter, is a genre of shooter game
Shooter game
Shooter games are a sub-genre of action game, which often test the player's speed and reaction time. It includes many subgenres that have the commonality of focusing "on the actions of the avatar using some sort of weapon. Usually this weapon is a gun, or some other long-range weapon". A common...
in which the player controls a character or vehicle (most often a spacecraft
Spacecraft
A spacecraft or spaceship is a craft or machine designed for spaceflight. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, earth observation, meteorology, navigation, planetary exploration and transportation of humans and cargo....
) and shoots large numbers of enemies, while dodging incoming projectiles. Games in this genre call for fast reactions and memorization of enemy patterns. The first game of this type was Spacewar!, developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
in 1961, for the amusement of the developers; it was later released as an arcade game. The genre became prolific with the release of Space Invaders
Space Invaders
is an arcade video game designed by Tomohiro Nishikado, and released in 1978. It was originally manufactured and sold by Taito in Japan, and was later licensed for production in the United States by the Midway division of Bally. Space Invaders is one of the earliest shooting games and the aim is to...
in 1978 and this popularity continued as the genre evolved throughout the 1980s and 90s. Shoot 'em ups currently retain a niche appeal, particularly in Japan.
Tactical shooter
Tactical shooter
A tactical shooter is a subgenre of shooter game that includes both first-person shooters and third-person shooters. These games typically simulate realistic combat, thus making tactics and caution more important than quick reflexes in other action games...
s are variations on the first- and third-person shooter genre, which focus on realism and emphasize tactical play such as planning and teamwork (for example, co-ordination and specialised roles). In single player modes, the player commands a squad of AI controlled characters in addition to their own; in multi-player modes, players must work in teams to win the game. Winning is likely to be dependent on capturing an objective of some sort rather than gaining the most kills.
A rail shooter is a sub-genre of the first-person shooter in which the player's navigation through the game environment is not under their explicit control. A rail shooter restricts the player's interactions to the tactical objectives in each scene, and progresses between scenes by moving the player's camera into specific positions along the game map.
Third-person shooter
Third-person shooter
Third-person shooter is a genre of 3D action games in which the player character is visible on-screen, and the gameplay consists primarily of shooting.-Definition:...
video games, known as TPSs or 3PSs, emphasize shooting and combat from a camera perspective in which the player character
Player character
A player character or playable character is a character in a video game or role playing game who is controlled or controllable by a player, and is typically a protagonist of the story told in the course of the game. A player character is a persona of the player who controls it. Player characters...
is seen at a distance. This perspective gives the player a wider view of their surroundings as opposed to the limited viewpoint of first-person shooters. Furthermore, third-person shooters allow for more elaborate movement such as rolling or diving, as opposed to simple jumping and crouching common in FPS games. Greater interaction with the player's environment is often possible. The emphasis remains on shooting, however; these games lack the platforming and puzzle elements of action-adventure shooting games. Some 3PSs have a function that allows you to switch to first-person in-game, such as in the "Star Wars Battlefront" and classic "Ratchet And Clank" series. Third person shooters have recently begun incorporating dedicated cover systems, an example of which would be Gears of War
Gears of War
Gears of War is a military science fiction third-person shooter video game developed by Epic Games and published by Microsoft Game Studios...
. Other genres of games have begun incorporating elements of third person shooters, such as the RPG Mass Effect
Mass Effect
Mass Effect is an action role-playing game developed by BioWare for the Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows by Demiurge Studios. The Xbox 360 version was released worldwide in November 2007 published by Microsoft Game Studios...
.
Action-adventure
Action-adventure gameAction-adventure game
An action-adventure game is a video game that combines elements of the adventure game genre with various action game elements. It is perhaps the broadest and most diverse genre in gaming, and can include many games which might better be categorized under narrow genres...
s combine elements of their two component genres, typically featuring long-term obstacles that must be overcome using a tool or item as leverage (which is collected earlier), as well as many smaller obstacles almost constantly in the way, that require elements of action games to overcome. Action-adventure games tend to focus on exploration and usually involve item gathering, simple puzzle solving, and combat. "Action-adventure" has become a label which is sometimes attached to games which do not fit neatly into another well known genre.
The first action-adventure game was the Atari 2600
Atari 2600
The Atari 2600 is a video game console released in October 1977 by Atari, Inc. It is credited with popularizing the use of microprocessor-based hardware and cartridges containing game code, instead of having non-microprocessor dedicated hardware with all games built in...
game Adventure
Adventure (Atari 2600)
Adventure is a video game for the Atari 2600 video game console and is considered the first action-adventure game. Its creator, Warren Robinett, also introduced the first widely-known Easter egg to the gaming world.-History and design:...
(1979). It was directly inspired by the original text adventure, Colossal Cave Adventure
Colossal Cave Adventure
Colossal Cave Adventure gave its name to the computer adventure game genre . It was originally designed by Will Crowther, a programmer and caving enthusiast who based the layout on part of the Mammoth Cave system in Kentucky...
. In the process of adapting a text game to a console with only a joystick for control, designer Warren Robinett
Warren Robinett
Joseph Warren Robinett, Jr. is a designer of interactive computer graphics software, notable as the developer of the Atari 2600's Adventure — the first graphical adventure video game — and as a founder of The Learning Company, where he designed Rocky's Boots and Robot Odyssey...
created a new genre. Because of their prevalence on video game console
Video game console
A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or customized computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...
s and the absence of typical adventure game
Adventure game
An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media such as literature and film,...
s, action-adventure games are often confusingly called "adventure games" by gamers.
Stealth games are a somewhat recent sub-genre, sometimes referred to as "sneakers" or "creepers" to contrast with the action-oriented "shooter" sub-genre. These games tend to emphasize subterfuge and precision strikes over the more overt mayhem of shooters. Most have first- or third-person shooter elements.
Survival horror games focus on fear and attempt to scare the player via traditional horror fiction
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
elements such as atmospherics, death
Death
Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....
, the undead
Undead
Undead is a collective name for fictional, mythological, or legendary beings that are deceased and yet behave as if alive. Undead may be incorporeal, such as ghosts, or corporeal, such as vampires and zombies...
, blood
Blood
Blood is a specialized bodily fluid in animals that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells....
and gore. One crucial gameplay
Gameplay
Gameplay is the specific way in which players interact with a game, and in particular with video games. Gameplay is the pattern defined through the game rules, connection between player and the game, challenges and overcoming them, plot and player's connection with it...
element in many of these games is the low quantity of ammunition, or number of breakable mêlée weapons.
Adventure
Adventure gameAdventure game
An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media such as literature and film,...
s were some of the earliest games created, beginning with the text adventure Colossal Cave Adventure
Colossal Cave Adventure
Colossal Cave Adventure gave its name to the computer adventure game genre . It was originally designed by Will Crowther, a programmer and caving enthusiast who based the layout on part of the Mammoth Cave system in Kentucky...
in the 1970s. That game was originally titled simply "Adventure," and is the namesake of the genre. Over time, graphics have been introduced to the genre and the interface has evolved.
Unlike adventure films, adventure games are not defined by story or content. Rather, adventure describes a manner of gameplay without reflex challenges or action. They normally require the player to solve various puzzles by interacting with people or the environment, most often in a non-confrontational way. It is considered a "purist" genre and tends to exclude anything which includes action elements beyond a mini game.
Because they put little pressure on the player in the form of action-based challenges or time constraints, adventure games have had the unique ability to appeal to people who do not normally play video games. The genre peaked in popularity with the 1993 release of Myst
Myst
Myst is a graphic adventure video game designed and directed by the brothers Robyn and Rand Miller. It was developed by Cyan , a Spokane, Washington––based studio, and published and distributed by Brøderbund. The Millers began working on Myst in and released it for the Mac OS computer on September...
, the best-selling PC game of all time up to that point. The simple point and click interface, detailed worlds and casual pace made it accessible, and its sense of artistic surrealism caused news outlets such as Wired Magazine, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
and the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
to declare that the gaming industry had matured. It had four proper sequels, but none managed to experience the same level of success. The success of Myst also inspired many others to create similar games with first person perspectives, surreal environments and minimal or no dialogue, but these neither recaptured the success of Myst nor of earlier personality-driven adventures.
In the late 1990s the genre suffered a large drop in popularity, mass-market releases became rare, and many proclaimed the adventure game to be dead. More accurately, it has become a niche genre. Adventure games are not entirely uncommon, but they tend to be very low budget in anticipation of modest sales. The genre was somewhat rejuvenated with the release of The Longest Journey
The Longest Journey
The Longest Journey is a point-and-click adventure game developed by Norwegian studio Funcom for the PC. First published by IQ Media Nordic in Norway in 1999, it was later localized for and released in France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Canada, Spain, Denmark,...
in 1999, which emphasized stronger story elements and more interaction with different characters. A recent resurgence of adventure games on Nintendo consoles might signify a new interest in the genre.
Around this time, real-time 3D adventure games appeared. These included Nightfall in 1998, realMyst
Myst
Myst is a graphic adventure video game designed and directed by the brothers Robyn and Rand Miller. It was developed by Cyan , a Spokane, Washington––based studio, and published and distributed by Brøderbund. The Millers began working on Myst in and released it for the Mac OS computer on September...
in 2000, and Uru: Ages Beyond Myst
Uru: Ages Beyond Myst
Uru: Ages Beyond Myst is an adventure video game developed by Cyan Worlds and published by Ubisoft. Released in 2003, the title is the fourth game in the Myst canon. Departing from previous games of the franchise, Uru takes place in the modern era and allows players to customize their onscreen...
in 2003. They augmented traditional adventure gameplay with some of the attributes more commonly associated with action games. For example, freedom of motion and physics based behavior. None of these games permitted game entities to be wounded or killed, which distinguishes them from action/adventure games such as the original Unreal
Unreal
Unreal is a first-person shooter video game developed by Epic MegaGames and Digital Extremes and published by GT Interactive in May 1998...
and Trespasser
Jurassic Park: Trespasser
Jurassic Park: Trespasser is a video game released in 1998 for Microsoft Windows after much hype and anticipation. The player assumes the role of Anne, the sole survivor of a plane crash on InGen's "Site B" one year after the events of The Lost World: Jurassic Park...
.
The earliest adventure games were text adventures, also known as interactive fiction
Interactive fiction
Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, describes software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives and as video games. In common usage, the term refers to text...
. Games such as the popular Zork
Zork
Zork was one of the first interactive fiction computer games and an early descendant of Colossal Cave Adventure. The first version of Zork was written in 1977–1979 on a DEC PDP-10 computer by Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling, and implemented in the MDL programming language...
series of the late 1970s and early 1980s allowed the player to use a keyboard to enter commands such as "get rope" or "go west" while the computer describes what is happening. A great deal of programming went into parsing the player's text input
Text parser
In an adventure game, a text parser takes typed input from the player and simplifies it to something the game can understand. Usually, words with the same meaning are turned into the same word and certain filler words are dropped .The parser makes it easier for the game's author to react on input...
.
Graphic adventure game
A graphic adventure game is a form of adventure game. They are distinct from text adventures. Whereas a player must actively observe using commands such as "look" in a text-based adventure, graphic adventures revolutionized gameplay by making use of natural human perception...
s emerged as graphics became more common. Adventure games began to supplement and later on replace textual descriptions with visuals (for example, a picture of the current location). Early graphic adventure games used text-parsers to input commands. The growing use of mice led to the "point-and-click
Point-and-click
Point-and-click is the action of a computer user moving a cursor to a certain location on a screen and then pressing a mouse button, usually the left button , or other pointing device...
" genre of adventure games, where the player would no longer have to type commands. The player could, for example, click on a hand icon
Icon
An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Christianity and in certain Eastern Catholic churches...
and then on a rope to pick up the rope.
A is an adventure game featuring mostly static graphics, usually with anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
-style art. As the name might suggest, they resemble mixed-media novels or tableau vivant
Tableau vivant
Tableau vivant is French for "living picture." The term describes a striking group of suitably costumed actors or artist's models, carefully posed and often theatrically lit. Throughout the duration of the display, the people shown do not speak or move...
stage plays. Many visual novels track statistics that the player must build in order to advance the plot, and permit a variety of endings, allowing more dynamic reactions to the player's actions than a typical linear adventure plot. Many visual novels are dating sims, including bishōjo game
Bishojo game
A , or , is "a type of Japanese video game centered on interactions with attractive anime-style girls". These games are a sub-genre of dating sims targeted towards a male audience....
s. Visual novels are especially prevalent in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, where they make up nearly 70% of PC games released. They are rarely produced for video game consoles, but the more popular games are sometimes ported
Porting
In computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed...
to systems such as the Dreamcast or the PlayStation 2
PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
. The market for visual novels outside of Japan, however, was nearly non-existent prior to the success of the Nintendo DS
Nintendo DS
The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...
, for which several Japanese visual novels were released in the West, such as the Ace Attorney series.
The interactive movie
Interactive movie
An interactive movie is a video game that features highly cinematic presentation and heavy use of scripting, often through the use of full-motion video of either animated or live-action footage.-Philosophy:...
genre came about with the invention of laserdisc
Laserdisc
LaserDisc was a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. Initially licensed, sold, and marketed as MCA DiscoVision in North America in 1978, the technology was previously referred to interally as Optical Videodisc System, Reflective Optical Videodisc, Laser Optical...
s. An interactive movie contains pre-filmed full-motion
Full motion video
Full motion video based games are video games that rely upon pre-recorded TV-quality movie or animation rather than sprites, vectors, or 3D models to display action in the game. In the early 1990s a diverse set of games utilized this format...
cartoon
Cartoon
A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...
s or live-action sequences, where the player controls some of the moves of the main character. For example, when in danger, the player decides which move, action, or combination to choose. In these games, the only activity the player has is to choose or guess the move the designers intend him to make. Interactive movies usually differ from games that simply use full motion video, FMV, extensively between scenes in that they try to integrate it into the gameplay itself. This has been used in everything from racing games to fighting games. A few adventure game have tried to use the term to liken the storytelling of their games to those in movies, most notably the later Tex Murphy
Tex Murphy
Tex Murphy is a series of five adventure games from Access Software, designed by Chris Jones. The games feature the titular character, performed by Chris Jones himself...
games and the more recent Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy)
Fahrenheit (video game)
Fahrenheit, also known as Indigo Prophecy in North America, is a cinematic adventure video game developed by Quantic Dream and manufactured and marketed by Atari Europe SAS...
, although they are more aptly classified as genre hybrids. Elements of interactive movies have been adapted for game cut scenes, in the form of Quick Time Event
Quick Time Event
In video games, a Quick Time Event is a method of context-sensitive gameplay in which the player performs actions on the control device shortly after the appearance of an on-screen prompt. It allows for limited control of the game character during cut scenes or cinematic sequences in the game...
s, to keep the player alert. Games like Resident Evil 4
Resident Evil 4
Resident Evil 4, known in Japan as , is a survival horror third-person shooter video game developed by Capcom Production Studio 4 and published by multiple publishers, including Capcom, Ubisoft, Nintendo Australia, Red Ant Enterprises and THQ Asia Pacific...
present obvious in-game prompts for the player to react to. Not doing so usually results in the player character either getting hurt or outright killed.
Role-playing
Role-playing video gameRole-playing video game
Role-playing video games are a video game genre with origins in pen-and-paper role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, using much of the same terminology, settings and game mechanics. The player in RPGs controls one character, or several adventuring party members, fulfilling one or many quests...
s draw their gameplay from traditional role-playing game
Role-playing game
A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...
s like Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. . The game has been published by Wizards of the Coast since 1997...
. Most cast the player in the role of one or more "adventurers" who specialize in specific skill sets (such as melee combat or casting magic
Magic (gaming)
Some role-playing games or game systems can include a set of rules that are used to portray magic in the paranormal sense. These rules simulate the effects that magic would have within the game context, according to how the game designer intended the magic to be portrayed...
spells) while progressing through a predetermined storyline. Many involve maneuvering these character(s) through an overworld
Overworld
An overworld is, in a broad sense, an area within a video game that interconnects all its levels or locations. They are mostly common in role-playing games, though this does not exclude other video game genres....
, usually populated with monsters, that allows access to more important game locations, such as towns, dungeons, and castles. Since the emergence of affordable home computer
Home computer
Home computers were a class of microcomputers entering the market in 1977, and becoming increasingly common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a single nontechnical user...
s coincided with the popularity of paper and pencil
Paper and pencil game
Paper-and-pencil games are games that can be played solely with paper and pencil .In some board games, including some abstract strategy games like Gomoku, a piece once played will not be moved on the board or removed from the board...
role-playing games, this genre was one of the first in video games and continues to be popular today. Gameplay elements strongly associated with RPGs, such as statistical character development through the acquisition of experience point
Experience point
An experience point is a unit of measurement used in many role-playing games and role-playing video games to quantify a player character's progression through the game...
s, have been widely adapted to other genres such as action-adventure game
Action-adventure game
An action-adventure game is a video game that combines elements of the adventure game genre with various action game elements. It is perhaps the broadest and most diverse genre in gaming, and can include many games which might better be categorized under narrow genres...
s. Though nearly all of the early entries in the genre were turn-based games, many modern role-playing games progress in real-time. Thus, the genre has followed the strategy game
Strategy game
A strategy game or strategic game is a game in which the players' uncoerced, and often autonomous decision-making skills have a high significance in determining the outcome...
's trend of moving from turn-based to real-time combat. The move to real-time combat began with the release of Square
Square Co.
was a Japanese video game company founded in September 1983 by Masafumi Miyamoto. It merged with Enix in 2003 and became part of Square Enix...
's (now Square Enix
Square Enix
is a Japanese video game and publishing company best known for its console role-playing game franchises, which include the Final Fantasy series, the Dragon Quest series, and the action-RPG Kingdom Hearts series...
's) Final Fantasy IV
Final Fantasy IV
is a role-playing video game developed and published by Square in 1991 as a part of the Final Fantasy series. The game was originally released for the Super Famicom in Japan and has since then been rereleased for many other platforms with varying modifications. An enhanced remake with 3D graphics...
, the first game to use the Active Time Battle system; this was quickly followed by truly real-time role-playing games such as the Mana series, Soul Blazer
Soul Blazer
The soundtrack of the game was composed by Yukihide Takekawa. It was published in Japan by the record label Apollon on February 21, 1992.- Reception :The game was reviewed in 1993 in Dragon #200 by Sandy Petersen in the "Eye of the Monitor" column...
and Ultima VII
Ultima VII
Ultima VII: The Black Gate is the seventh installment of the Ultima series of computer role-playing games. It was released in 1992.The Black Gate was critically and commercially successful, being widely lauded as a high point in the series and as one of the best isometric RPGs ever created...
. Some throwbacks to older turn based system did exist such as the Golden Sun series
Golden Sun (series)
is a series of fantasy role-playing video games developed by Camelot Software Planning and produced by Nintendo. Golden Sun follows the story of a group of magically-attuned "adepts" who are charged with preventing the potentially destructive power of alchemy from being released as it was in the...
for Gameboy Advance.
Cultural differences in role-playing video games have caused RPGs to tend towards two sets of characteristics sometimes referred to as Western and Eastern RPGs. The first often involves the player creating a character and a non-linear storyline along which the player makes his own decisions. In the second type, the player controls a party of predefined characters through a dramatically scripted linear
Linear
In mathematics, a linear map or function f is a function which satisfies the following two properties:* Additivity : f = f + f...
storyline. There are described advantages to -and dedicated fans of- each system, including fans of western RPGs in East Asia and eastern RPGs in Europe/North America.
Due to RPG origins with Dungeons and Dragons and other pen and paper role-playing games, the most popular setting for RPGs by far is a fantasy world, usually with heavy medieval European influences with Diablo series (by Blizzard
Blizzard
A blizzard is a severe snowstorm characterized by strong winds. By definition, the difference between blizzard and a snowstorm is the strength of the wind. To be a blizzard, a snow storm must have winds in excess of with blowing or drifting snow which reduces visibility to 400 meters or ¼ mile or...
), Final Fantasy series, Elder Scrolls series and Baldur's Gate series
Baldur's Gate series
Baldur's Gate is a franchise of action role-playing games released under the Dungeons & Dragons Video Game Licenses. It is set in the fictional campaign setting of Forgotten Realms and takes place in its fictional continent of Faerûn. It takes place mostly in the Western Heartlands, but has also...
(all different kinds of RPGs) all sharing a basic fantasy setting. However exceptions do exist, with some more notable ones being the east Asian Jade Empire
Jade Empire
Jade Empire is an action role-playing game developed by Canadian developer BioWare and first published in 2005 by Microsoft Game Studios as a worldwide release for the Xbox. The later, two-disc Limited Edition contained extra content...
setting, and the science fiction settings of Knights of the Old Republic
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is a role-playing video game developed by BioWare and published by LucasArts. It was released for the Xbox on July 15, 2003, for Microsoft Windows on November 19, 2003, and on September 7, 2004 for Mac OS X. The Xbox version is playable on Xbox 360 with its...
and Mass Effect
Mass Effect
Mass Effect is an action role-playing game developed by BioWare for the Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows by Demiurge Studios. The Xbox 360 version was released worldwide in November 2007 published by Microsoft Game Studios...
by Bioware
BioWare
BioWare is a Canadian video game developer founded in February 1995 by newly graduated medical doctors Ray Muzyka, Greg Zeschuk, and Augustine Yip. BioWare is currently owned by American company Electronic Arts...
. The Fallout series is set in a post-apocalyptic retro-futuristic America in which nuclear war destroyed a world in which culture had never advanced beyond that of the 1950s.
Sandbox RPGs allow the player a huge amount of freedom and usually contain a somewhat realistic free-roaming (meaning the player is not confined to a single path restricted by rocks or fences etc.) world. Sandbox RPGs are almost always western rather than eastern and contain similarities to other sandbox games such as the Grand Theft Auto series with a large number of interactable NPCs, large amount of content and typically some of the largest worlds to explore and longest playtimes of all RPGs due to an impressive amount of secondary content not critical to the game's main storyline. Sandbox RPGs often attempt to emulate an entire region of their setting. Good examples of this small subgenre are Morrowind, Oblivion and Fallout 3
Fallout 3
Fallout 3 is an action role-playing game released by Bethesda Game Studios, and the third major installment in the Fallout series. The game was released in North America, Europe and Australia in October 2008, and in Japan in December 2008 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360...
by Bethesda
Bethesda Softworks
Bethesda Softworks, LLC, is an American video game company. A subsidiary of ZeniMax Media, the company was originally based in Bethesda, Maryland and eventually moved to their current location in Rockville, Maryland...
and the Gothic series by Piranha Bytes
Piranha Bytes
Piranha Bytes is a German computer game developer known for their Gothic computer role-playing game series.-History:On 12 October 1997, as part of the development of the computer game Gothic, the Piranha Bytes Software GmbH founded the company in Greenwood out by Alex Brueggemann, Mike Hoge, Stefan...
.
The action role-playing game
Action role-playing game
Action role-playing games form a loosely defined sub-genre of role-playing video games that incorporate elements of action or action-adventure games, emphasizing real-time action where the player has direct control over characters, instead of turn-based or menu-based combat...
or action RPG is a type of role-playing game which incorporates elements from action game
Action game
Action game is a video game genre that emphasizes physical challenges, including hand–eye coordination and reaction-time. The genre includes diverse subgenres such as fighting games, shooter games, and platform games, which are widely considered the most important action games, though some...
s or action-adventure game
Action-adventure game
An action-adventure game is a video game that combines elements of the adventure game genre with various action game elements. It is perhaps the broadest and most diverse genre in gaming, and can include many games which might better be categorized under narrow genres...
s. The first action role-playing games were produced by Nihon Falcom in the 1980s, such as the Dragon Slayer series and Ys series. Later so-called "Diablo
Diablo (video game)
Diablo is a dark fantasy-themed action role-playing game developed by Blizzard North and released by Blizzard Entertainment on December 31, 1996....
clones" are also part of this genre. Although the precise definition of the genre varies, the typical action RPG features a heavy emphasis on combat, often simplifying or removing non-combat attributes and statistics and the effect they have on the character's development. Additionally, combat always takes place using a real-time system (hence the "action") that relies on the player's ability to perform particular actions with speed and accuracy to determine success, rather than mainly using the player character's attributes to determine this. Typically action RPGs focus more on the collection of randomized treasure than story progression that is found in other types of RPGs.
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....
s, or MMORPGs, emerged in the mid to late 1990s as a commercial, graphical variant of text-based MUD
MUD
A MUD , pronounced , is a multiplayer real-time virtual world, with the term usually referring to text-based instances of these. MUDs combine elements of role-playing games, hack and slash, player versus player, interactive fiction, and online chat...
s, which had existed since 1978. By and large, MMORPGs feature the usual RPG objectives of completing quests and strengthening one's player character
Player character
A player character or playable character is a character in a video game or role playing game who is controlled or controllable by a player, and is typically a protagonist of the story told in the course of the game. A player character is a persona of the player who controls it. Player characters...
, but involve up to hundreds of players interacting with each other on the same persistent world in real-time. The massively multiplayer concept was quickly combined with other genres. Fantasy MMORPGs like The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar
The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar
The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game for Microsoft Windows set in a fantasy universe based upon J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth writings...
, remain the most popular type of MMOG, with the most popular "pay-to-play" game being World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the fourth released game set in the fantasy Warcraft universe, which was first introduced by Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994...
(by Blizzard), which holds over 60% of the MMORPG market, and the most popular free game being RuneScape
RuneScape
RuneScape is a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game released in January 2001 by Andrew and Paul Gower, and developed and published by Jagex Games Studio. It is a graphical browser game implemented on the client-side in Java, and incorporates 3D rendering...
(by Jagex), yet other types of MMORPG are appearing. Sci-fi MMORPGs, which began with Phantasy Star Online
Phantasy Star Online
Phantasy Star Online is an online multiplayer action RPG title, originally released for the Dreamcast in 2000, bundled with a demo of Sonic Adventure 2. Another edition, entitled Phantasy Star Online ver.2, was released for Dreamcast the following year...
, hold a smaller part of the MMOG market, with the popular space sci-fi game EVE Online
EVE Online
Eve Online is a video game by CCP Games. It is a player-driven, persistent-world MMORPG set in a science fiction space setting. Characters pilot customizable ships through a galaxy of over 7,500 star systems. Most star systems are connected to one or more other star systems by means of stargates...
being the most notable. Other massively multiplayer online games which do not have a conventional RPG setting such as Second Life
Second Life
Second Life is an online virtual world developed by Linden Lab. It was launched on June 23, 2003. A number of free client programs, or Viewers, enable Second Life users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars...
may still sometimes be classed as RPGs, or they may be more accurately described as MMOG's (discussed elsewhere in this article).
The roguelike
Roguelike
The roguelike is a sub-genre of role-playing video games, characterized by randomization for replayability, permanent death, and turn-based movement. Most roguelikes feature ASCII graphics, with newer ones increasingly offering tile-based graphics. Games are typically dungeon crawls, with many...
video game sub-genre borrows its name and gameplay elements from the 1980 computer game Rogue
Rogue (computer game)
Rogue is a dungeon crawling video game first developed by Michael Toy and Glenn Wichman around 1980. It was a favorite on college Unix systems in the early to mid-1980s, in part due to the procedural generation of game content. Rogue popularized dungeon crawling as a video game trope, leading...
. Superficially, a roguelike is a two-dimensional dungeon crawl
Dungeon crawl
A dungeon crawl is a type of scenario in fantasy role-playing games in which heroes navigate a labyrinthine environment, battling various monsters, and looting any treasure they may find...
with a high degree of randomness and an emphasis on statistical character development. Though traditionally featuring a text user interface, many such games utilize graphic tiles to overcome character set limitations.
The tactical role-playing game
Tactical role-playing game
A tactical role-playing game is a type of video game which incorporates elements of traditional role-playing video games and strategy games. In Japan these games are known as , a designation which might seem peculiar to native English speakers...
sub-genre principally refers to games which incorporate gameplay from strategy games
Strategy video game
Strategy video games is a video game genre that emphasizes skillful thinking and planning to achieve victory. They emphasize strategic, tactical, and sometimes logistical challenges. Many games also offer economic challenges and exploration...
as an alternative to traditional RPG systems. Like standard RPGs, the player controls a finite party and battles a similar number of enemies, but this genre incorporates strategic gameplay such as tactical movement on an isometric grid. The genre has its origins in tabletop role-playing games, where each player has time to decide his or her character's action.
Simulation
Simulation video gameSimulation video game
A simulation video game describes a diverse super-category of computer and video games, generally designed to closely simulate aspects of a real or fictional reality.-Sub-genres:-Construction and management simulation:...
s is a diverse super-category of games, generally designed to closely simulate aspects of a real or fictional reality.
Construction and management simulation
Construction and management simulation
Construction and management simulation is a type of simulation game in which players build, expand or manage fictional communities or projects with limited resources. Strategy video games sometimes incorporate CMS aspects into their game economy, as players must manage resources while expanding...
s (or CMSs) are a type of simulation game which task players to build, expand or manage fictional communities or projects with limited resources.
In city-building game
City-building game
City-building games are a genre of strategy computer game where players act as the overall planner and leader of a city, looking down on it from above, and being responsible for its growth and management...
s the player acts as overall planner or leader to meet the needs and wants of game characters by initiating structures for food, shelter, health, spiritual care, economic growth, etc. Success is achieved when the city budget makes a growing profit and citizens experience an upgraded lifestyle in housing, health, and goods. While military development is often included, the emphasis is on economic strength. Perhaps the most known game of this type is SimCity
SimCity
SimCity is a critically acclaimed city-building simulation video game, first released in 1989, and designed by Will Wright. SimCity was Maxis' first product, which has since been ported into various personal computers and game consoles, and spawned several sequels including SimCity 2000 in 1994,...
, which is still popular and has had great influence on later city-building games. SimCity, however, also belongs to the God Games genre since it gives the player god-like abilities in manipulating the world. Caesar
Caesar (video game)
Caesar is a city-building computer game where the player undertakes the role of a Roman governor, building ancient Roman cities.Released in 1992 on the Amiga, ported the next year to Atari ST, PC and Macintosh, the game was similar to SimCity...
was a long running series in this genre, with the original game spawning three sequels.
Business simulation games generally attempt to simulate an economy or business, with the player controlling the economy of the game.
A government simulation game (or "political game") involves the simulation of the policies, government or politics of a country, but typically excludes warfare. Recently, these types of games have gained the moniker "serious game
Serious game
A serious game is a game designed for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment. The "serious" adjective is generally prepended to refer to products used by industries like defense, education, scientific exploration, health care, emergency management, city planning, engineering, religion,...
".
Life simulation
Life simulation gameLife simulation game
Life simulation games is a sub-genre of simulation video games in which the player lives or controls one or more virtual lifeforms...
s (or artificial life games) involve living or controlling one or more artificial lives. A life simulation game can revolve around individuals and relationships, or it could be a simulation of an ecosystem.
Biological simulations may allow the player to experiment with genetics
Genetics
Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....
, survival or ecosystem
Ecosystem
An ecosystem is a biological environment consisting of all the organisms living in a particular area, as well as all the nonliving , physical components of the environment with which the organisms interact, such as air, soil, water and sunlight....
s, often in the form of an educational package
Serious game
A serious game is a game designed for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment. The "serious" adjective is generally prepended to refer to products used by industries like defense, education, scientific exploration, health care, emergency management, city planning, engineering, religion,...
. An early example is SimLife
SimLife
SimLife: The Genetic Playground is a computer game produced by Maxis in 1992. The concept of the game is to simulate an ecosystem; players may modify the genetics of the plants and animals that inhabit the virtual world. The point of this game is to experiment and create a self sustaining...
, while relatively recent ones are Jurassic Park:Operation Genesis and Spore
Spore (2008 video game)
Spore is a multi-genre single-player god game developed by Maxis and designed by Will Wright. The game was released for the Microsoft Windows and Macintosh operating systems in September 2008 as Spore...
. In other educational simulations such as Wolf
Wolf (Game)
Wolf is a life simulation game where the player takes the role of a wolf.The gameplay is divided into two parts. The first is a sandbox mode, where the player has no predetermined goal. The second is a scenario mode, where the player has to complete specific actions; this is comparable to quests...
, the player "lives the life" of an individual animal in a relatively realistic way. Hailed as one of the greatest life simulation games, however, is Creatures, Creatures 2, Creatures 3, where the player breeds generations of a species in a hugely detailed ecosystem.
Unlike other genres of games, god game
God game
A god game is an artificial life game that casts the player in the position of controlling the game on a large scale, as an entity with divine/supernatural powers, as a great leader, or with no specified character , and places them in charge of a game setting containing autonomous characters to...
s often do not have a set goal that allows a player to win the game. The focus of a god game tends to be control over the lives of people, anywhere from micromanaging a family to overseeing the rise of a civilization.
Pet-raising simulations (or digital pet
Digital pet
A digital pet is a type of artificial human companion. They are usually kept for companionship or enjoyment. People may keep a digital pet in lieu of a real pet....
s) focus more on the relationship between the player and one or few life forms. They are often more limited in scope than other biological simulations. This includes popular examples of virtual pets such as Tamagotchi
Tamagotchi
The is a handheld digital pet, created in Japan by Akihiro Yokoi of WiZ and Aki Maita of Bandai. It was first sold by Bandai in 1996 in Japan. As of 2010, over 76 million Tamagotchis have been sold world-wide...
, the Petz
Petz
Petz is a series of games dating back to 1995, in which the player can adopt, raise, care for and breed their own virtual pets...
series, and Nintendogs
Nintendogs
is a real-time pet simulation video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS handheld video game console. It was first released in Japan, and was later released in North America, Australia, Europe, and other regions. It was originally released in three different versions:...
.
Social simulation game
Social simulation game
Social simulation games are a subgenre of life simulation game that explore social interactions between multiple artificial lives. The most famous example from this genre is The Sims series of games.-Influences and origins:...
s base their gameplay on the social interaction between multiple artificial lives. The most famous example from this genre is Will Wright's The Sims
The Sims
The Sims is a strategic life-simulation computer game developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. Its development was led by game designer Will Wright, also known for developing SimCity...
.
Vehicle simulation
Vehicle simulation gameVehicle simulation game
Vehicle simulation games are a genre of video games which attempt to provide the player with a realistic interpretation of operating various kinds of vehicles. This includes automobiles, aircraft, watercraft, spacecraft, military vehicles, and a variety of other vehicles...
s are a genre of video games which attempt to provide the player with a realistic interpretation of operating various kinds of vehicles.
Combat flight simulator
Combat flight simulators are video games used to simulate military aircraft and their operations...
s are the most popular sub-genre of simulation. The player controls the plane, not only simulating the act of flying, but also combat situations. There are also civilian flight simulators that do not have the combat aspect.
Racing game
Racing game
A racing video game is a genre of video games, either in the first-person or third-person perspective, in which the player partakes in a racing competition with any type of land, air, or sea vehicles. They may be based on anything from real-world racing leagues to entirely fantastical settings...
s typically place the player in the driver's seat of a high-performance vehicle and require the player to race against other drivers or sometimes just time. This genre of games is one of the staples of the computer gaming world and many of the earliest computer games created were part of this genre. Emerging in the late 1970s, this genre is still very popular today and continues to push the envelope in terms of graphics and performance. These games "tend to fall into organized racing and imaginary racing categories". Organized racing simulators attempt to "reproduce the experience of driving a racing car or motorcycle in an existing racing class: Indycar, NASCAR
NASCAR
The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing is a family-owned and -operated business venture that sanctions and governs multiple auto racing sports events. It was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1947–48. As of 2009, the CEO for the company is Brian France, grandson of the late Bill France Sr...
, Formula 1, and so on." On the other hand, imaginary racing games involve "imaginary situations, driving madly through cities or the countryside or even fantasy environments". These "imaginary" racing games are sometimes called arcade racing games, in contrast to their more realistic "racing simulation" counterparts. Rollings and Adams note that "racing games are often sold in the sports
Sports game
A sports game is a computer or video game that simulates the practice of traditional sports. Most sports have been recreated with a game, including team sports, athletics and extreme sports. Some games emphasize actually playing the sport , whilst others emphasize strategy and organization...
category," but "from a design
Game design
Game design, a subset of game development, is the process of designing the content and rules of a game in the pre-production stage and design of gameplay, environment, storyline, and characters during production stage. The term is also used to describe both the game design embodied in a game as...
standpoint, they really belong in ... vehicle simulations".
Space flight simulator game
Space flight simulator game
A space flight simulator game is a genre of simulation video games that lets players experience space flight. Highly realistic examples lacking any sort of combat include Orbiter and Microsoft Space Simulator...
s are a sub-genre that involve piloting a spacecraft
Spacecraft
A spacecraft or spaceship is a craft or machine designed for spaceflight. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, earth observation, meteorology, navigation, planetary exploration and transportation of humans and cargo....
. Space simulators are different from other sub-genres, and are not generally considered to be simulators, as their simulated objects do not always exist and often disregard the laws of physics. However, simulators of real spacecraft do exist: Orbiter is one example.
Train simulator
Train simulator
A train simulator is a computer based simulation of rail transport operations.-Industrial train simulations:Like flight simulators, train simulators have been produced for railway training purposes...
s simulate the vehicles, environments and often economics associated with railway transport. These are frequently historical in nature, reminiscing on the evolution and emergence of the railroad in various countries and the economic booms that often accompanied them.
Vehicular combat or car combat games focus on fast-paced action, as the player operates a car
Čar
Čar is a village in the municipality of Bujanovac, Serbia. According to the 2002 census, the town has a population of 296 people.-References:...
or other vehicle and attempts to disable or destroy CPU or human opponents. Vehicular combat games often allow a player to choose from a variety of potential vehicles, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Vehicular combat was born out of racing/shooter combinations like Spy Hunter
Spy Hunter
Spy Hunter is a 1983 arcade game developed and released by Bally Midway. It has also been ported to various home computers and video game systems....
, RoadBlasters
RoadBlasters
RoadBlasters is an arcade game released by Atari Games in 1987. In RoadBlasters, the player must navigate a sports car through 50 different rally races, getting to the finish line before running out of fuel.-Object of the game:...
and Rock 'N' Roll Racing, but differs in that the players can, if desired, take their vehicles off predefined routes and do battle wherever they please. A sub-genre of vehicular combat is Mecha
Mecha
A mech , is a science fiction term for a large walking bipedal tank or robot, including ones on treads and animal shapes.-Characteristics:...
combat, where vehicles generally include giant robot-like tanks.
Strategy
Strategy video gameStrategy video game
Strategy video games is a video game genre that emphasizes skillful thinking and planning to achieve victory. They emphasize strategic, tactical, and sometimes logistical challenges. Many games also offer economic challenges and exploration...
s focus on gameplay requiring careful and skillful thinking and planning in order to achieve victory. In most strategy video games, says Andrew Rollings, "the player is given a godlike view of the game world, indirectly controlling the units under his command." Rollings also notes that "The origin of strategy games is rooted in their close cousins, board games." Strategy video games generally take one of four archetypal forms, depending on whether the game is turn-based or real-time and whether the game's focus is upon strategy or military tactics. Real time strategy games are often a multiple unit selection game (multiple game characters can be selected at once to perform different tasks, as opposed to only selecting one character at a time) with a sky view (view looking down from above) but some recent games such as Tom Clancy's EndWar
Endwar
-Media:*Tom Clancy's EndWar, a video game based on a futuristic global war, in the Tom Clancy series of games*Tom Clancy's EndWar , the novel written by David Michaels which ties in with the game...
, are single unit selection and third person view. Like many RPG games, many strategy games are gradually moving away from turn based systems to more real-time systems.
4X refers to a genre of strategy video game with four primary goals: eXplore, eXpand, eXploit and eXterminate. A 4X game can be turn-based or real-time
Real-time strategy
Real-time strategy is a sub-genre of strategy video game which does not progress incrementally in turns. Brett Sperry is credited with coining the term to market Dune II....
. Perhaps the best known example of this genre is Sid Meier
Sid Meier
Sidney K. "Sid" Meier is a Canadian programmer and designer of several popular computer strategy games, most notably Civilization. He has won accolades for his contributions to the computer games industry...
's Civilization
Civilization (computer game)
Sid Meier's Civilization is a turn-based strategy "4X"-type strategy video game created by Sid Meier and Bruce Shelley for MicroProse in 1991. The game's objective is to "Build an empire to stand the test of time": it begins in 4000 BC and the players attempt to expand and develop their empires...
series. 4X games often cover a very large period of time, giving the player the control of an entire civilization or species. Typically these games have a historical setting, encompassing a large amount of human history (Empire Earth
Empire Earth
Empire Earth, also known as EE, is a real-time strategy computer game developed by Stainless Steel Studios and released on November 23, 2001. It is the first game in the Empire Earth series...
, Civilization) or a science fiction setting where the player controls a species set to dominate the galaxy (Master of Orion
Master of Orion
Master of Orion is a turn-based, 4X science fiction computer strategy game released in 1993 by MicroProse on the MS-DOS and Mac OS operating systems. The purpose of the game is to lead one of ten races to dominate the galaxy through a combination of diplomacy and conquest while developing...
, Galactic Civilizations
Galactic Civilizations
Galactic Civilizations is a turn-based strategy computer game developed by Stardock and released in March 2003. The game is a remake of a vintage OS/2 series of the same name. An expansion pack entitled Altarian Prophecy was released in July 2004...
).
Tank
A tank is a tracked, armoured fighting vehicle designed for front-line combat which combines operational mobility, tactical offensive, and defensive capabilities...
s fighting each other in combat or similar derivative games. Artillery games were among the earliest computer games developed; they can be considered an extension of the original uses of computers themselves, which were once used for military-based calculations such as plotting the trajectories of rockets. Artillery games are a type of strategy game, though they have also been described as a "shooting game."
The moniker "real-time strategy
Real-time strategy
Real-time strategy is a sub-genre of strategy video game which does not progress incrementally in turns. Brett Sperry is credited with coining the term to market Dune II....
" (RTS), usually applied only to certain computer strategy games, (however, this genre is probably the most well known of strategy games and is what most websites mean when they say "strategy games") indicates that the action in the game is continuous, and players will have to make their decisions and actions within the backdrop of a constantly changing game state. Real-time strategy gameplay is characterised by obtaining resources, building bases, researching technologies and producing units. Probably the most popular RTS game is Blizzard's Starcraft
StarCraft
StarCraft is a military science fiction real-time strategy video game developed by Blizzard Entertainment. The first game of the StarCraft series was released for Microsoft Windows on 31 March 1998. With more than 11 million copies sold worldwide as of February 2009, it is one of the best-selling...
, which is played competitively in South Korea and televised to large audiences. Other notable games include the Warcraft series
Warcraft (series)
Warcraft is a franchise of video games, novels, and other media originally created by Blizzard Entertainment. The series is made up of Four core games: Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, and World of Warcraft...
, Age of Empires series, Dawn of War, Command and Conquer and Dune II
Dune II
Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty is a Dune computer game released in 1992 by Westwood Studios...
(essentially the first RTS game). Very few non-computer strategy games are real-time; A few examples are Icehouse
Icehouse (game)
Icehouse is a turnless abstract strategy game invented by Andrew Looney and John Cooper. It was the first of many games played with Icehouse pieces....
, Battle for Middle-earth II and Halo Wars
Halo Wars
Halo Wars is a real-time strategy video game developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360 video game console. It was released in Japan and Australia on February 26, 2009, in PAL territories on February 27, and in North America on March 3...
.
A real-time tactics
Real-time tactics
Real-time tactics or RTT is a subgenre of tactical wargames played in real-time simulating the considerations and circumstances of operational warfare and military tactics...
game shares feature of the simulation and wargame genres, for example the battle system (though not the entire game) in the Total War series. These titles focus on operational aspects and control of warfare. Unlike in real-time strategy games, resource and economical management and building plays no part of the gameplay. These games often feature an overarching "campaign map" with different regions the player must vie for control of -not dissimilar to the board game Risk
Risk
Risk is the potential that a chosen action or activity will lead to a loss . The notion implies that a choice having an influence on the outcome exists . Potential losses themselves may also be called "risks"...
. Base building in the traditional sense is usually relegated to building up the infrastructure of regions you own.
Tower defense
Tower defense
Tower defense is a subgenre of real-time strategy computer games.The goal of tower defense games is to try to stop enemies from crossing a map by building towers which shoot at them as they pass. Enemies and towers usually have varied abilities, costs, and ability costs...
games have a very simple layout. Usually, computer-controlled monsters called creeps move along a set path, and the player must place, or "build" towers along this path to kill the creeps. In most tower defense games different towers have different abilities such as poisoning enemies or slowing them down. The player is awarded money for killing creeps, and this money can be used to buy more towers, or buy upgrades for a tower such as increased power or range.
Turn-based strategy
A turn-based strategy game is a strategy game where players take turns when playing...
game" (TBS) is usually reserved for certain computer strategy games, to distinguish them from real-time strategy games. A player of a turn-based game is allowed a period of analysis before committing to a game action, and some games allow a certain number of moves or actions to take place in a turn. Like real time strategy games, this genre can include many strategy games which are not solely turn based games, and games which may contain other features not related to whether the game is turn based or not.
The gameplay of turn-based tactics
Turn-based tactics
Turn-based tactics , or tactical turn-based , is a computer and video game genre of strategy video games that through stop-action simulates the considerations and circumstances of operational warfare and military tactics in generally small-scale confrontations as opposed to more strategic...
games is characterized by the expectation of players to complete their tasks using the combat forces provided to them, and usually by the provision of a realistic (or at least believable) representation of military tactics and operations.
Wargames
Wargame (video games)
Wargames are a subgenre of strategy video games that emphasize strategic or tactical warfare on a map, as well as historical accuracy.-History:The genre of wargame video games is derived from earlier forms of wargames...
are a subgenre of strategy video game
Strategy video game
Strategy video games is a video game genre that emphasizes skillful thinking and planning to achieve victory. They emphasize strategic, tactical, and sometimes logistical challenges. Many games also offer economic challenges and exploration...
s that emphasize strategic or tactical warfare on a map. Wargames generally take one of four archetypal forms, depending on whether the game is turn-based or real-time and whether the game's focus is upon military strategy
Military strategy
Military strategy is a set of ideas implemented by military organizations to pursue desired strategic goals. Derived from the Greek strategos, strategy when it appeared in use during the 18th century, was seen in its narrow sense as the "art of the general", 'the art of arrangement' of troops...
or tactics
Military tactics
Military tactics, the science and art of organizing an army or an air force, are the techniques for using weapons or military units in combination for engaging and defeating an enemy in battle. Changes in philosophy and technology over time have been reflected in changes to military tactics. In...
.
Other notable genres
Music video game
A music video game, also commonly known as a music game, is a video game where the gameplay is meaningfully and often almost entirely oriented around the player's interactions with a musical score or individual songs...
most commonly challenge the player to follow sequences of movement or develop specific rhythms. Some games require the player to input rhythms by stepping with their feet on a dance pad
Dance pad
A dance pad, also known as a dance mat, dance platform, or jiffer deck is a flat electronic game controller used for input in dance games. Most dance pads are divided into a 3×3 matrix of square panels for the player to stand on, with some or all of the panels corresponding to directions or actions...
, or using a device similar to a specific musical instrument, like a replica drum set. These games have changed the way players' interact with their consoles by making the gaming experience more active and sociable, and paving the way for exergaming
Exergaming
Exergaming or exer-gaming is a term used for video games that are also a form of exercise. Exergaming relies on technology that tracks body movement or reaction. The genre has been credited with upending the stereotype of gaming as a sedentary activity, and promoting an active lifestyle...
. Music video games have also influenced the music industry by significantly raising the number of legal downloads of songs. Other games avoid rhythm-based gameplay and instead focus on pitch-based, memory-based, or sandbox-style gameplay. Recently, music games such as Guitar Hero
Guitar Hero
Guitar Hero is a music video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems and published by RedOctane for the PlayStation 2 video game console. It is the first entry in the Guitar Hero series. Guitar Hero was released on November 8, 2005 in North America, April 7, 2006 in Europe and June 15, 2006 in...
, Rock Band
Rock Band
Rock Band is a music video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems, published by MTV Games and Electronic Arts. It is the first title in the Rock Band series. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions were released in the United States on November 20, 2007, while the PlayStation 2 version was...
and Sing Star have achieved huge popularity among casual gamers.
Party games are video games developed specifically for multiplayer games between many players. Normally, party games have a variety of mini-games that range between collecting more of a certain item than other players or having the fastest time at something. Such games include the Mario Party
Mario Party
is a party video game for the Nintendo 64 game console, developed by Hudson Soft and published by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on December 14, 1998, in North America on February 8, 1999, and in Europe on March 9, 1999...
series, Crash Boom Bang!
Crash Boom Bang!
Crash Boom Bang! is a party game developed by Dimps and published by Sierra Entertainment for the Nintendo DS. It was released in Japan on July 20, 2006, in North America on October 10, 2006, in Europe on October 27, 2006, and in Australia on November 2, 2006...
, and Rayman Raving Rabbids
Rayman Raving Rabbids
Rayman Raving Rabbids, known in French as , is a spinoff in the Rayman series released by the French company Ubisoft as a Wii launch title. The game consists of over 70 minigames...
. Versus multiplayer games are not generally considered to be party games.
A programming game
Programming game
A programming game is a computer game where the player has no direct influence on the course of the game. Instead, a computer program or script is written in some domain-specific programming language in order to control the actions of the characters...
is a computer game where the player has no direct influence on the course of the game. Instead, a computer program
Computer program
A computer program is a sequence of instructions written to perform a specified task with a computer. A computer requires programs to function, typically executing the program's instructions in a central processor. The program has an executable form that the computer can use directly to execute...
or script is written in some domain-specific programming language
Domain-specific programming language
In software development and domain engineering, a domain-specific language is a programming language or specification language dedicated to a particular problem domain, a particular problem representation technique, and/or a particular solution technique...
in order to control the actions of the characters (usually robot
Robot
A robot is a mechanical or virtual intelligent agent that can perform tasks automatically or with guidance, typically by remote control. In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by computer and electronic programming. Robots can be autonomous, semi-autonomous or...
s, tank
Tank
A tank is a tracked, armoured fighting vehicle designed for front-line combat which combines operational mobility, tactical offensive, and defensive capabilities...
s or bacteria
Bacteria
Bacteria are a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals...
, which seek to destroy each other). In SpaceChem
SpaceChem
SpaceChem is a cross-platform indie puzzle game from Zachtronics Industries, creator of Infiniminer which was the main basis of the cult indie game Minecraft...
, for example, players design circuits used for creating molecules from raw materials. Final Fantasy XII
Final Fantasy XII
is a console role-playing video game developed and published by Square Enix for the PlayStation 2. Released in 2006, it is the twelfth title in the Final Fantasy series and the last in the series to be released exclusively on the PlayStation platform...
also includes some elements of a programming game, as the player creates the AI of his characters, although the player can also choose to directly control the action.
Puzzle games require the player to solve logic puzzles or navigate complex locations such as maze
Maze
A maze is a tour puzzle in the form of a complex branching passage through which the solver must find a route. In everyday speech, both maze and labyrinth denote a complex and confusing series of pathways, but technically the maze is distinguished from the labyrinth, as the labyrinth has a single...
s. This genre frequently crosses over with adventure and educational games. Some arcade games, in particular Tetris
Tetris
Tetris is a puzzle video game originally designed and programmed by Alexey Pajitnov in the Soviet Union. It was released on June 6, 1984, while he was working for the Dorodnicyn Computing Centre of the Academy of Science of the USSR in Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic...
-variants, are often labeled puzzle games, despite the fact that gameplay depends on hand/eye coordination and quick reflexes, rather than thought and logic. Puzzle is a very inclusive genre, and is often used as a general default for games not otherwise easily categorized, especially those with abstract concepts. Before they became commonplace, music games were sometimes called puzzle games, for example.
Sports game
Sports game
A sports game is a computer or video game that simulates the practice of traditional sports. Most sports have been recreated with a game, including team sports, athletics and extreme sports. Some games emphasize actually playing the sport , whilst others emphasize strategy and organization...
s emulate the playing of traditional physical sports. Some emphasize actually playing the sport, while others emphasize the strategy behind the sport (such as Championship Manager
Championship Manager series
The Championship Manager series is a series of British football-management simulation computer games, the first of which was released in 1992.The Championship Manager brand and game was conceived by two brothers: Paul and Oliver Collyer...
). Others satirize the sport for comic effect (such as Arch Rivals
Arch Rivals
Arch Rivals is a basketball arcade game created by Midway in 1989. The game billed itself as "A Basket Brawl." It was also included on Midway Arcade Treasures 2 for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube and Midway Arcade Treasures Deluxe Edition for the PC...
). One of the best selling series in this genre is the Madden NFL
Madden NFL
Madden NFL is an American football video game series developed by Electronic Arts Tiburon for EA Sports. The game series is named after Pro Football Hall of Famer John Madden, a well-known former Super Bowl-winning coach of the Oakland Raiders and color commentator...
series. This genre emerged early in the history of video games (e.g., Pong
Pong
Pong is one of the earliest arcade video games, and is a tennis sports game featuring simple two-dimensional graphics. While other arcade video games such as Computer Space came before it, Pong was one of the first video games to reach mainstream popularity...
) and remains popular today.
Trivia
Trivia
The trivia are the three lower Artes Liberales, i.e. grammar, rhetoric and logic. These were the topics of basic education, foundational to the quadrivia of higher education, and hence the material of basic education, of interest only to undergraduates...
games are growing in popularity, especially on mobile phone
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
s where people may only have a few minutes to play the game. One common trivia game for Blackberry is MobileQs.
Many popular board game
Board game
A board game is a game which involves counters or pieces being moved on a pre-marked surface or "board", according to a set of rules. Games may be based on pure strategy, chance or a mixture of the two, and usually have a goal which a player aims to achieve...
s and card game
Card game
A card game is any game using playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, be they traditional or game-specific. Countless card games exist, including families of related games...
s have computer versions. AI
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
opponents can help improve one's skill at traditional games. Chess
Computer chess
Computer chess is computer architecture encompassing hardware and software capable of playing chess autonomously without human guidance. Computer chess acts as solo entertainment , as aids to chess analysis, for computer chess competitions, and as research to provide insights into human...
, Checkers, Othello (also known as Reversi
Reversi
Reversi is a board game involving abstract strategy and played by two players on a board with 8 rows and 8 columns and a set of distinct pieces for each side. Pieces typically are disks with a light and a dark face, each face belonging to one player...
), and Backgammon
Backgammon
Backgammon is one of the oldest board games for two players. The playing pieces are moved according to the roll of dice, and players win by removing all of their pieces from the board. There are many variants of backgammon, most of which share common traits...
have world class computer programs. Mah-jongg and related games are immensely popular in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. Go
Go (board game)
Go , is an ancient board game for two players that originated in China more than 2,000 years ago...
is popular in East Asia
East Asia
East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...
, though it is infamously difficult to program a computer to play Go
Computer Go
Computer Go is the field of artificial intelligence dedicated to creating a computer program that plays Go, a traditional board game.-Performance:...
well. Magic: The Gathering
Magic: The Gathering
Magic: The Gathering , also known as Magic, is the first collectible trading card game created by mathematics professor Richard Garfield and introduced in 1993 by Wizards of the Coast. Magic continues to thrive, with approximately twelve million players as of 2011...
has had computer versions for some time.
Video game genres by purpose
While most video games are designed as entertainment, many video games are designed with additional purposes. These purposes are as varied as the nature of information itself—to inform, persuade, or stimulate. These games can have any kind of gameplay, from puzzles to action to adventure.Adult video game
Adult video game
An adult video game is a video game which has significant sexual content , and are therefore intended for an adult audience. Adult games can fall into many genres and have diverse gameplay.-PC and console:...
s, like adult movies or other media, are intended for an adult audience. In general, the purpose of adult games is to provide erotic entertainment
Eroge
An or Ero-ga is a Japanese video or computer game that features erotic content, usually in the form of anime-style artwork. Eroge originated from galge, but unlike galge, they feature erotic/pornographic content.-History:...
, rather than just gameplay. There exists a wide variety of adult games, though many lack mainstream appeal and represent a niche category. The object of an adult game may differ from a mainstream video game, in that the reward can be a visual representation of nudity, partial nudity, or sexual activity rather than points, etc. Some games may focus on humor or drama rather than arousal, or simply have normal gameplay accompanied by nudity.
Advergames, in the context of video game genres, refers to promotional software specifically made to advertise a product, organization or viewpoint. The first advergames were distributed on floppy disk by the Chef Boyardee
Chef Boyardee
Chef Boyardee is a brand of canned pasta products sold internationally by ConAgra Foods. Named after its founder, Italian-American immigrant Ettore Boiardi, the company began production in the United States in the 1920s...
, Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants, and vending machines in more than 200 countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Georgia, and is often referred to simply as Coke...
, and Samsung
Samsung
The Samsung Group is a South Korean multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea...
brands, while the first cereal box advergame was Chex Quest
Chex Quest
Chex Quest is a non-violent first-person shooter video game created in 1996 by Digital Café as a Chex cereal promotion aimed at children aged 9 and up...
in 1996. The majority of advergames are found online and mostly include simple and cheaply made Flash
Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...
games.
Art game
Art game
An art game or arthouse game is a video game that is designed in such a way as to emphasize art or whose structure is intended to produce some kind of reaction in its audience. Art games typically go out of their way to have a unique, unconventional look, often standing out for aesthetic beauty or...
s are designed so as to emphasize art or whose structures are intended to produce some kind of non-ludological reaction in its audience. Art games typically go out of their way to have a unique, unconventional look, often standing out for aesthetic beauty or complexity in design. This concept extends to the realm of modified ("modded") gaming when modifications have been made to existing non-art-games to produce graphic results intended to be viewed as an artistic display, as opposed to modifications intended to change game play scenarios or for storytelling. Modified games created for artistic purposes are sometimes referred to as "videogame art."
Casual game
Casual game
A casual game is a video game targeted at or used by a mass audience of casual gamers. Casual games can have any type of gameplay, and fit in any genre. They are typically distinguished by their simple rules and lack of commitment required in contrast to more complex hardcore games...
s have very simple rules or play techniques and a very low degree of strategy. They also require no long-term time commitment or special skills to play, making them easy to learn and play as a pastime. There are comparatively low production and distribution costs for the producer. Casual games typically are played on a personal computer online in web browsers, although they now are starting to become popular on game consoles. The purpose of the casual game is to entertain, but with a much lower commitment than other video games.
Christian games
Christian video games
Christian video games were first marketed successfully by BibleBytes in the early 1980s on several different microcomputer platforms and in the late 1980s for the Nintendo Entertainment System by Wisdom Tree. Now they are made by many different developers...
attempt to provide the dual purposes of spreading the Christian religion
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
to non-believers through the medium of video games, and providing gamers who identify as Christian with a common pool of games that neither challenge their beliefs nor offend them. Christian video games were first developed by Wisdom Tree
Wisdom Tree
Wisdom Tree is an American manufacturer and distributor of unlicensed Christian video games for the Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy, PC, Mac, and Sega Genesis, headquartered in unincorporated Pima County, Tucson, Arizona, United States...
for the NES
Nintendo Entertainment System
The Nintendo Entertainment System is an 8-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America during 1985, in Europe during 1986 and Australia in 1987...
without license. While largely regarded as derivative titles by the mainstream gaming culture, Christian games have nevertheless expanded in distribution since their inception.
Educational game
Educational game
Educational games are games that have been designed to teach people about a certain subject, expand concepts, reinforce development, understand an historical event or culture, or assist them in learning a skill as they play...
s, as the name implies, attempt to teach the user using the game as a vehicle. Most of these types of games target young users from the ages of about three years to mid-teens; past the mid-teens, subjects become so complex (e.g. Calculus
Calculus
Calculus is a branch of mathematics focused on limits, functions, derivatives, integrals, and infinite series. This subject constitutes a major part of modern mathematics education. It has two major branches, differential calculus and integral calculus, which are related by the fundamental theorem...
) that teaching via a game is impractical. Numerous sub-genres exist, in fields such as math or typing.
Electronic Sports
Electronic sports
Electronic sports comprises the competitive play of video games. Other terms include competitive gaming, professional gaming and cybersports...
games are multiplayer games that are usually played competitively at the professional level. These games are often targeted at the "hardcore" gaming audience, and are usually first-person shooter
First-person shooter
First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...
games, requiring twitch-based reaction speed and coordination, or real-time strategy
Real-time strategy
Real-time strategy is a sub-genre of strategy video game which does not progress incrementally in turns. Brett Sperry is credited with coining the term to market Dune II....
games, requiring high levels of strategic macro- and micromanagement.
An exergame
Exergaming
Exergaming or exer-gaming is a term used for video games that are also a form of exercise. Exergaming relies on technology that tracks body movement or reaction. The genre has been credited with upending the stereotype of gaming as a sedentary activity, and promoting an active lifestyle...
(portmanteau
Portmanteau word
A portmanteau or portmanteau word is a blend of two words or morphemes into one new word. A portmanteau word typically combines both sounds and meanings, as in smog, coined by blending smoke and fog. More generally, it may refer to any term or phrase that combines two or more meanings...
of "exercise" and "game") is a video game that provides exercise. "Exergames" sub-divide into two main implementations, those with a game specifically designed to use an exercise input device (for example, the game Wii Fit
Wii Fit
is a video game developed by Nintendo for the company's home video game console, Wii, designed by Hiroshi Matsunaga. It is an exercise game consisting of activities using the Wii Balance Board peripheral...
using the Wii Balance Board
Wii Balance Board
The Wii Balance Board is a balance board accessory for the Nintendo Wii video game console. Along with Wii Fit, it was introduced on July 11, 2007 at the Electronic Entertainment Expo...
) and those implementations using a genre of a game. Games fit into the category of entertainment, and similarly "exergames" are a category of "exertainment" (formed from "exercise" and "entertainment
Entertainment
Entertainment consists of any activity which provides a diversion or permits people to amuse themselves in their leisure time. Entertainment is generally passive, such as watching opera or a movie. Active forms of amusement, such as sports, are more often considered to be recreation...
"). "Exertainment" refers to one aspect of adding entertainment to an exercise workout.
Serious game
Serious game
A serious game is a game designed for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment. The "serious" adjective is generally prepended to refer to products used by industries like defense, education, scientific exploration, health care, emergency management, city planning, engineering, religion,...
s are intended to educate or train the player. These games tend to promote "education, science, social change, health care or even the military." Some of these games have no specific ending or goal in the game. Rather, the player learns a real life lesson from the game. For example, games from website
Website
A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...
s such as Newsgaming.com and gamesforchange.org raise political issues using the distinct properties of games.
Scientific studies
As video games are increasingly the subject of scientific studies, game genres are themselves becoming a subject of study.An early attempt at analysis of the action and adventure genres appeared in a Game Developers Conference 2000 paper 'Mostly Armless: Grabbing the 3D World'. This critiqued a variety of adventure and action games to categorize gameplay and interaction for adventure, action, and hybrid genres. It provided a graph of the genres along the axes of 'immediacy' vs 'complexity', with an 'ideal-zone' for gameplay that covered and linked adventure and action games. It detailed various interaction styles present in these genres and extrapolated to future user interface and gameplay possibilities for these and other genres. Some of these have since been adopted by persistent worlds. For example, Second Life
Second Life
Second Life is an online virtual world developed by Linden Lab. It was launched on June 23, 2003. A number of free client programs, or Viewers, enable Second Life users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars...
uses some of the gameplay investment and interface elements described in section 4 of the paper.
In a University of Queensland
University of Queensland
The University of Queensland, also known as UQ, is a public university located in state of Queensland, Australia. Founded in 1909, it is the oldest and largest university in Queensland and the fifth oldest in the nation...
study, game enjoyment was correlated with attributes such as immersion, social interaction, and the nature of the goals. These may be underlying factors in differentiating game genres.
Statistical scaling techniques were used in a study presented at the 2007 Siggraph Video Game Symposium to convert subject ratings of game similarity into visual maps of game genres. The maps reproduced some of the commonly identified genres such as first-person shooters and god games. A Michigan State University
Michigan State University
Michigan State University is a public research university in East Lansing, Michigan, USA. Founded in 1855, it was the pioneer land-grant institution and served as a model for future land-grant colleges in the United States under the 1862 Morrill Act.MSU pioneered the studies of packaging,...
study found that men have a higher preference for genres that require competition and three-dimensional navigation and manipulation than women do.
Game interfaces
- Audio gameAudio gameAn audio game is an electronic game played on a device such as a personal computer. It is similar to a video game save that the only feedback device is audible rather than visual....
- Browser gameBrowser gameA browser game is a computer game that is played over the Internet using a web browser. Browser games can be created and run using standard web technologies or browser plug-ins. Browser games include all video game genres and can be single-player or multiplayer...
- Text-based game
- Tile-based video games
- Side-scrolling video gameSide-scrolling video gameA side-scrolling game or side-scroller is a video game in which the gameplay action is viewed from a side-view camera angle, and the onscreen characters generally move from the left side of the screen to the right. These games make use of scrolling computer display technology...
Game platforms
- Arcade gameArcade gameAn arcade game is a coin-operated entertainment machine, usually installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars, and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, and merchandisers...
- Console gameConsole gameA console game is a form of interactive multimedia used for entertainment. The game consists of manipulable images generated by a video game console, and displayed on a television or similar audio-video system. The game itself is usually controlled and manipulated using a handheld device connected...
- Handheld video game
- Massively multiplayer online gameMassively multiplayer online gameA massively multiplayer online game is a multiplayer video game which is capable of supporting hundreds or thousands of players simultaneously. By necessity, they are played on the Internet, and usually feature at least one persistent world. They are, however, not necessarily games played on...
- Mobile gameMobile gameA mobile game is a video game played on a mobile phone, smartphone, PDA, tablet computer or portable media player. This does not include games played on handheld video game systems such as Nintendo DS or PlayStation Portable....
- Online gameOnline gameAn online game is a game played over some form of computer network. This almost always means the Internet or equivalent technology, but games have always used whatever technology was current: modems before the Internet, and hard wired terminals before modems...
- Personal computer gamePersonal computer gameA PC game, also known as a computer game, is a video game played on a personal computer, rather than on a video game console or arcade machine...
Other related topics
- Game classificationGame classificationGame classification is the classification of games, forming a game taxonomy. Many different methods of classifying games exist.- Physical education :There are four basic approaches to classifying the games used in physical education:...
- List of gaming topics
- Nonviolent video gameNonviolent video gameNonviolent video games are video games characterized by little or no violence. The term "nonviolent" as applied to video games is objectively ambiguous as virtually any game with conflict contains violence in some form, however minor. The apparent vagueness of the term is resolved by examining the...
- Non-gameNon-gameNon-games define a class of software that lies on the border between video games, toys and applications. The original term non-game game was coined by Nintendo president Satoru Iwata. The main difference between non-games and traditional video games is the apparent lack of goals, objectives and...
- Video game