|
absolute difficulty | The difficulty of a challenge, taking into account both the intrinsic skill required and the stress on the player, as compared to the trivial case of a similar challenge. See also relative difficulty and perceived difficulty.
|
|
abstract | (adjective) A quality of a game that indicates it bears little relationship to the real world, and the player may not rely on his understanding of the real world in playing the game; its rules are arbitrary. Abstract is one end of the realism scale; the other end is representational.
|
|
abstract | (verb) To remove a complex mechanism from a simulation (often a mechanism intended to simulate a real-world phenomenon) and replace it with a simpler mechanism or none at all.
|
|
action game | A game whose gameplay consists primarily of physical coordination challenges.
|
|
action-adventure | A hybrid genre of action game and adventure game. The action-adventure is now more popular than either of its two constituents.
|
|
actions | Player behaviors permitted by the rules. Many game actions are intended to overcome challenges, but others serve to add to the player’s enjoyment in other ways.
|
|
adventure game | An interactive story in which the player takes the role of the protagonist. Puzzlesolving and conceptual reasoning challenges form the majority of the gameplay; physical coordination challenges are few or nonexistent.
|
|
art-driven game | A game whose design is primarily driven by the goal of showing off the game’s artwork.
|
|
artificial intelligence | A suite of programming techniques that allow a computer to mimic human behavior in certain domains. Video games use AI to provide artificial opponents for players to play against, among other functions.
|
|
asymmetric game | A game in which the players do not start with identical conditions, do not play by the same rules, or do not seek to achieve the same victory condition.
|
|
atomic challenge | A challenge that the player faces immediately during play. One of the lowest-level challenges in the hierarchy of challenges. A challenge that is not composed of other subchallenges.
|
|
attract loop | A continuously cycling noninteractive demonstration on an arcade game designed to attract the attention of passersby.
|
|
attributes | Data values that describe one or more qualities of a character or unit. These may be symbolic, numeric, or collections of data. See characterization attributes, status attributes, functional attributes, and cosmetic attributes for the different kinds of attributes.
|
|
augmented reality | A form of computerized interaction in which computer-presented data and input mechanisms are combined with real-world events. The computer is said to augment the player’s experience of the real world.
|
|
avatar | A fictional character in a game with whom the player identifies as the personification of herself within the game world. The character need not be human; it may even be a vehicle.
|
|
avatar-based interaction model | An interaction model in which the player is represented by a single character, vehicle, or other entity in the game world, the key point of which is that the player may influence the game world only through the avatar and, therefore, only those regions of the game world where the avatar is present.
|
| Click here to go to the top of the page
|
|
backgrounder | A document that describes the personality, attitudes, and other characteristics of a game character.
|
|
balance | In a player-versus-player game, the design task of making the game fair to all players. In a player-versus-environment game, the design task of managing the difficulty level of the game.
|
|
boss | A large and particularly difficult challenge that must be overcome, typically the last one required in order to complete a level of a game.
|
|
bot | An artificially intelligent opponent, usually in a first-person shooter, that players may implement as a modification to the game.
|
|
branching story | An interactive story whose plot is pre-planned by the designer, but may take alternative paths as a result of actions the player takes.
|
| Click here to go to the top of the page |
|
challenge | A nontrivial task the player seeks to perform in order to move toward the game’s goals.
|
|
character level | A numeric status attribute that roughly describes a character's power to perform certain activities. In role-playing games, characters rise from level to level with experience.
|
|
characterization attributes | Attributes that describe something fundamental about a character or unit and change only slowly by small amounts or not at all. Maximum speed might be a characterization attribute for a vehicle. See attributes.
|
|
checkpoints | Points in a game level at which the game may be saved or at which the avatar will be reincarnated if he dies.
|
|
collectible | A game world object that is in the player’s interest to find and collect.
|
|
combinatorial explosion | An undesirable property of branching stories such that the number of plot lines grows to unmanageable numbers as each line offers more and more branch points.
|
|
combo move | A rapid sequence of joystick movements and button presses that must be performed perfectly to produce an avatar action. Usually found in fighting games.
|
|
competition mode | One of a variety of different forms of competitive or cooperative play, such as team play or multiplayer cooperative play. Many video games allow players to choose a competition mode.
|
|
compound entity | An entity made up of more than one datum. An entity describing the wind that included both speed and direction would be a compound entity consisting of two attributes, one for wind speed and one for direction.
|
|
concept | See game concept.
|
|
concept art | Sketches drawn during the early stages of game design to give developers and publishers an idea of how game world features and characters may look in the game. Concept art is not incorporated into the final product.
|
|
concept stage | The first major stage of game design, in which the designer works to turn an idea for a game into a game concept.
|
|
conflict challenge | A challenge requiring the direct opposition of forces under the player’s control. Not to be confused with conflict of interest.
|
|
conflict of interest | The defining quality of a game in formal game theory: a situation in which the players seek mutually incompatible outcomes.
|
|
constrained creative play | Creative play artificially constrained by rules. The rules may impose physical, aesthetic, or economic limitations on what the player may create. Contrast with freeform creative play.
|
|
contestant-based interaction model | An interaction model in which the player acts like a contestant in a TV game show. Interactions consist of answering questions, choosing correct answers, and making simple strategic decisions.
|
|
context-sensitive perspective | A perspective in which the camera moves in response to the events and circumstances of the game rather than being fixed with respect to the game world or the avatar.
|
|
continuous scrolling | A characteristic of scrolling 2D perspectives such that the landscape scrolls continuously in one direction; the player is unable to change it but has to deal with whatever appears.
|
|
converter | A mechanic, sometimes automated, that converts one or more resources into one or more other resources.
|
|
cooperation | A form of play in which the players act together to achieve the same goals.
|
|
core mechanics | A symbolic and mathematical model of the game’s rules that can be implemented algorithmically.
|
|
cosmetic attributes | Attributes of a character, vehicle, or other object that affect only its appearance, not its interaction with the core mechanics of the game. The paint color of a car is a cosmetic attribute. Contrast with functional attributes.
|
|
crane | To move the game’s virtual camera up or down in space.
|
|
CRPG | Acronym for computer role-playing game, used to distinguish it from noncomputerized tabletop role-playing games.
|
|
cut-scenes | Short noninteractive visual sequences that momentarily interrupt play.
|
| Click here to go to the top of the page |
|
deadlock | A condition of the game’s internal economy in which either (a) a production mechanism cannot begin to operate because it requires a resource that is not available and no means exists to produce the needed resource or (b) a production mechanism ceases to operate because it has run out of some needed input resource and no means exist to produce the needed resource. Deadlocks are caused by the presence of a feedback loop or a mutual dependency in the flow of resources.
|
|
deathmatch | A multiplayer competitive competition mode.
|
|
degree of freedom | The number of possible dimensions that an input device can move through.
|
|
designer-driven game | A game whose designer retains all creative control. Such games usually reflect the designer’s own personal desires rather than a wish to entertain others.
|
|
desktop model | An interaction model that mimics a computer or a real desktop.
|
|
dialog tree | A structure documenting player dialog choices and nonplayer character responses to those choices in a scripted conversation, which can be drawn on paper in a diagram that looks rather like a tree. Each player option produces a new branch in the tree.
|
|
difficulty | One of several measures that determines how hard a game is to play. See absolute difficulty, relative difficulty, and perceived difficulty.
|
|
dimensions | Collections of related properties that define how the player experiences the game world, e.g., the physical dimension, emotional dimension, ethical dimension, etc.
|
|
dolly | To move the game’s virtual camera forward or backward along a line in the same direction that it is facing.
|
|
dominant strategy | A strategy so effective that the player has no reason to use any other strategy. A game containing a dominant strategy is said to be poorly balanced.
|
|
drain | A mechanic that permanently removes resources from the game world without introducing anything in exchange.
|
|
dramatic action | An action the player takes that changes the direction of the plot and, thus, future events in the story as the player will experience it. Many player actions contribute to a story but are not dramatic actions; they do not change the future.
|
|
dramatic freedom | The player’s freedom to take dramatic action, that is, to change the direction of the plot in a story.
|
|
dramatic tension | An audience’s sense that an important problem or situation in a story is not yet resolved, leaving the audience wondering how it will come out. Do not confuse with gameplay tension.
|
|
dungeon exit | See level exit.
|
| Click here to go to the top of the page |
|
elaboration stage | The second and longest stage of game design, during which the designers elaborate on the game concept they built during the concept stage.
|
|
embedded narrative | Narrative material that is written by the designer and built into the game software (embedded) during development. See narrative and narrative events.
|
|
emergent narrative | Events that are produced by the core mechanics as part of an interactive story, rather than being written by the designer in advance. Should really be called emergent storytelling, because narrative refers to narrated material.
|
|
entity | A datum or collection of data that describes some object, character, quantity, or state of affairs in the game. See simple entity and compound entity.
|
|
exclusionary material | Content or features that tend to drive players away from a game they might otherwise like, e.g., racist or sexist content.
|
|
experience points | A resource earned by the player through combat and other activities in a roleplaying game.
|
|
explicit challenge | A challenge the player is explicitly told about by the game. Typically the explicit challenges are the victory condition and the atomic challenges.
|
| Click here to go to the top of the page |
|
factories | Entities, usually characterized as buildings, under player control that convert or produce resources of use to the player.
|
|
fair | (1) In a player-versus-player game, a perception on the part of the players that they all have an equal chance of winning the game when it begins and that the rules do not create advantages for one player over another other than by the operation of chance. (2) In a player-versus-environment game, a set of player expectations about the nature of the game experience.
|
|
feedback | (1) Information provided to the player to let him know the effects of his actions upon the game world and other data he may need to evaluate his status and plan future actions. Used in the context of user interfaces. See feedback element. (2) A phenomenon occurring in automated internal economies; see feedback loop for further information. (3) A common phenomenon occurring in the balance of a game such that the player’s successful efforts make the game easier or harder. See positive feedback and negative feedback.
|
|
feedback element | An audible or visible part of the user interface that informs the player about the effects of his actions upon the game world and other data he may need to evaluate his status and plan future actions. Sound effects and visible indicators are feedback elements.
|
|
feedback loop | In an internal economy, a situation in which some of the resource produced by a production mechanism must either (a) be used to initiate the production mechanism in the first place or (b) be fed back into the production mechanism to keep it operating. Feedback loops run the risk of creating a deadlock.
|
|
first playable level | The first level created by the level design team that actually includes gameplay, as opposed to being a prototype or mockup. It should be a typical example of a level, not the first level that the player will play.
|
|
first-person perspective | A perspective always used with avatar-based interaction models in which the virtual camera displays the game world from the point of view of the avatar’s own eyes.
|
|
first-person shooter (FPS) | A shooter game in which the game world is displayed from the first-person perspective. Also sometimes called a POV (point of view) shooter and, in Europe, an egoshooter.
|
|
fog of war | (1) The technique of hiding unexplored regions of a terrain from the player using an aerial perspective by showing them as featureless, usually black. (2) The technique of hiding regions or some aspects of terrain, even if previously explored, from a player using an aerial perspective, if the player has no units in the region to see what is going on there. Typically used in war games to prevent the player from observing enemy troop movements unless he has units nearby to see them.
|
|
foldback stories | A variant of a branching story in which the branching plot lines eventually return to an inevitable event that the player will experience regardless of his choices before branching out again.
|
|
freeform creative play | Creative play constrained only by the options that the game offers and the technological limitations of the machine but not by rules. Contrast with constrained creative play.
|
|
free-roaming camera | A perspective used in 3D game worlds, normally with multipresent interaction models, in which the virtual camera may move anywhere around the world often under player control.
|
|
functional attributes | Attributes of an avatar or other character that influence gameplay through their effect on the core mechanics. Contrast with cosmetic attributes.
|
| Click here to go to the top of the page |
|
game | A type of play activity conducted in the context of a pretended reality in which the participant(s) try to achieve at least one arbitrary, nontrivial goal by acting in accordance with rules.
|
|
game concept | A statement of a group of design choices sufficient to convey, among other things, what a game will be like to play, for what audience it is intended, and on what machine it will run.
|
|
game engine | That part of the game’s software that implements the core mechanics.
|
|
game theory | A branch of mathematics aimed at discovering optimal solutions in situations where the parties to the situation have a conflict of interest.
|
|
game tree | A hypothetical specification of all possible future events in a game, which can be drawn on paper in a diagram that looks like a tree, as future choices branch out. Normally used only for twoplayer turn-based games.
|
|
game world | An imaginary universe in which the events of the game take place. Most computer game worlds are simulated two- and three-dimensional spaces containing characters and objects.
|
|
gameplay | The challenges presented to a player and the actions the player is permitted to take to overcome those challenges.
|
|
gameplay mode | The subset of its gameplay that a game offers at any particular time, along with the perspective from which it displays the game world and the interaction model with which the player acts upon the world. Whenever any of these changes significantly, the game has entered a new gameplay mode.
|
|
gameplay tension | The player’s uncertainty about whether he will overcome the challenges he faces and, in a player-versus-player game, what his opponent will do next. Do not confuse with dramatic tension.
|
|
global mechanic | A mechanic that operates throughout the game regardless of which gameplay mode the game may be in.
|
|
goals | Desired results or conditions that the player seeks to achieve. The goals of a game need not be achievable, so long as players can work toward them. Games usually have many goals, defined by the hierarchy of challenges. The victory condition, if the game has one, is always one of these goals.
|
|
granularity | The frequency with which the game presents narrative elements to the player.
|
|
group play | A form of social play in which a group of people take turns at playing a single-player game while the others watch. Also called hot seat play.
|
| Click here to go to the top of the page |
|
handicap | An adjustment to the rules of the game (often of the victory condition) intended to balance differential skill among the players and give the less skilled an equal chance of winning with the others.
|
|
harmony | An aesthetic quality of a game such that it feels as if all its elements—visual, auditory, gameplay, and others—belong together and complement each other.
|
|
hierarchy of challenges | A theoretical hierarchy of goals the player tries to achieve at any given moment, consisting (from the top down) of completing the entire game, winning the current level, completing a sub-mission within the level, if any, and so on down to the challenge immediately facing him at the moment, an atomic challenge.
|
|
high concept | A very short description, no more than two or three sentences long, that conveys the most important aspects of an idea for a game.
|
|
hypersexualized | Quality of a character whose sexual attributes have been exaggerated to an extreme extent.
|
| Click here to go to the top of the page |
|
immersion | The feeling of being submerged in a form of entertainment and unaware that you are experiencing an artificial world. Players become immersed in several ways: tactically, strategically, and narratively.
|
|
immutable rules | Rules that may not change during play.
|
|
implicit challenge | A challenge the player is not told about directly but must infer from the rules, observation of the game, trial-and-error, or by knowing what the explicit challenges are.
|
|
indicator | Any visual user interface element that shows the status of some important value in the game and changes continually as the value changes. Digits, power bars, lights, gauges, small multiples, and many other design elements are used as indicators.
|
|
influence map | A map maintained internally by the game software that records how a building in the game world landscape influences the area around it. Used to simplify logistics by having units in the neighborhood of the building receive support automatically.
|
|
in-game events | Events performed by the core mechanics of a game as part of an interactive story.
|
|
in-game experience | Experience the player has gained from confronting a particular type of challenge during the course of a game. A factor in computing the perceived difficulty of a challenge at a given point in the game.
|
|
interaction model | The means by which the player projects her will into the game world, which is facilitated by the user interface. Common interaction models include avatar-based, party-based, multipresent, contestant-based, and desktop.
|
|
interactive fiction | Text-only adventure games, played by typing on a keyboard.
|
|
interactive story | A story that a player interacts with by contributing player events and possibly by changing its plot through dramatic actions.
|
|
internal economy | That subset of the core mechanics that deals with the numeric relationships among entities in the game and the way those relationships change over time and in response to events in the game.
|
|
intrinsic skill required | The amount of skill a player must have to meet a challenge independently of time pressure, as compared to the trivial case of the same challenge. One component of absolute difficulty.
|
| Click here to go to the top of the page |
|
LAN parties | Multiplayer networked play in which all the players are in the same location but each has her own machine networked to the others over a local-area network (LAN).
|
|
level | Ordinarily refers to a portion of a video game, usually with its own victory condition, that must be completed before moving on to the next portion. Levels are often, but not always, completed in a prescribed sequence. In storytelling terms, levels may be thought of as chapters; in war games, they are missions; in fighting games, they are individual bouts; in simulations, they are scenarios. Used with a qualifier, however, the word may take on a different meaning. See character level.
|
|
level exit | In a game that involves exploration, the standard transition point from the current level to the next.
|
|
level warp | In a game that involves exploration, a transition point other than the standard level exit that enables the player to jump to the next level (or even several levels ahead) without completing the current level.
|
|
leveling up or leveling | In a game that implements character levels, the attainment of some accomplishment (usually arriving at a threshold number of experience points) that causes the character to gain a level and with it an increase in characterization attributes.
|
|
license | A contract between the owner of an intellectual property such as a character, movie, book, or sports league, and a game developer or publisher to use that property in a game. The term license is often used to refer to the property itself, as in “Electronic Arts has the Harry Potter license.”
|
|
linear stories | Stories whose plots do not change in response to player actions.
|
|
localization | The process of modifying game content to make the game suitable for sale in a country other than the one it was originally developed for.
|
|
loss condition | An unambiguous true-or-false condition that determines when a player has lost a game. Not all games have a loss condition. Many games may not be lost; they simply remain unfinished.
|
| Click here to go to the top of the page |
|
magic circle | A theoretical concept related to the act of pretending that occurs when we choose to play a game. When we begin to play and agree to abide by the rules, we enter the magic circle. Within the magic circle, actions that would be meaningless in the real world take on meaning in the context of the game.
|
|
mana | An expendable resource of magical power consumed by casting magic spells. The word is of Polynesian origin, although in that context its meaning is considerably more complex.
|
|
market-driven game | A game whose features are included simply because they are known to appeal to a given market, whether or not those features are consistent with the game’s real premise.
|
|
mini-map | A small, dynamically updated map of a game world, usually displayed in the corner of the screen in the primary gameplay mode, for quick reference. Also sometimes called a radar screen.
|
|
mixed reality | See augmented reality.
|
|
model sheet | A sheet of paper containing a large number of drawings of a single character showing a number of different poses and facial expressions.
|
|
mods | Player-created modifications to a game that provide new content and sometimes new ways to play the game.
|
|
monster generator | A device visible in the environment that serves as a source for enemies entering the game world.
|
|
moveset | A list of animations that shows how a character can move, both voluntarily and involuntarily.
|
|
multiplayer distributed gaming | Playing games among multiple players at distributed locations (i.e., over a network), which enables each to have her own video screen and individual view of the game world. Contrast with multiplayer local gaming.
|
|
multiplayer local gaming | Playing games in the same room with other people, all looking at the same video screen. This approach makes it impossible to provide individual players with secret information.
|
|
multipresent interaction model | An interaction model in which the player may influence many areas of the game world at one time.
|
|
mutable rules | Rules that can be changed during a game according to other rules that define how the changes may take place.
|
|
mutual dependency | A condition of an internal economy in which two processes each require the output of the other as an input in order to function. If one of the input supplies is diverted elsewhere and no more becomes available, a deadlock will occur.
|
| Click here to go to the top of the page |
|
narrative | Noninteractive story material that is presented by the game to the player, consisting of narrative events. It differs from in-game events in that narrative is written as part of the design process rather than produced by the core mechanics.
|
|
narrative events | Events that are shown to the player through narration rather than through the action of the player or the core mechanics. Equivalent to embedded narrative.
|
|
native talent | The inherent ability that a player brings to a game.
|
|
natural language | Ordinary language as spoken or written by human beings.
|
|
negative feedback | A phenomenon of the game’s balance such that successful player action makes subsequent challenges more difficult.
|
|
networked play | Play among characters on computers connected together by a network. See multiplayer distributed gaming.
|
|
nonlinear stories | Stories whose plot can change in response to dramatic actions on the part of the player.
|
| Click here to go to the top of the page |
|
pace | The rate at which the player is obliged to interact with the game; the speed at which the game presents challenges.
|
|
pan | To turn the game’s virtual camera about its vertical axis.
|
|
parallax scrolling | A display technique in which background objects in 2D environments scroll by more slowly than foreground objects, creating the impression that they are farther away. Normally used in the side-scrolling perspective to create an illusion of depth.
|
|
party | A group of characters, normally under the control of one or more players, who act cooperatively in a game, most commonly a role-playing game.
|
|
party-based interaction model | An interaction model in which the player influences the game world through a party of characters who generally stay together in one area but may sometimes separate briefly. The player controls most or all the members of the party.
|
|
pathfinding | An artificial intelligence technique for finding the most efficient route from one point in a landscape to another while avoiding obstacles along the way.
|
|
perceived difficulty | The player’s actual perception of how hard a challenge is to overcome. It takes into account four factors: intrinsic skill required, stress, power provided by the game, and the player’s in-game experience at surmounting similar challenges.
|
|
perfect information | A quality of a game such that each player has full knowledge of his own status and the other players’ status including all previous actions taken; no information is hidden, and there is no element of chance.
|
|
permanent upgrade | An upgrade to the capabilities of the player’s avatar or units that lasts for the remainder of the game.
|
|
persistent world | A large online game with no definite beginning or ending that allows players to join, play, and depart at any time. Most frequently implemented as a server-based computer role-playing game played over the Internet.
|
|
perspective | The point of view ordinarily adopted by the game’s virtual camera when displaying the game world, along with instructions about how the camera should behave during play. The perspective is one component of a gameplay mode.
|
|
plan-and-build | A construction play mechanic in which the player plans a new object at a location in the environment and the resources necessary to construct it are consumed over time as the object is built. See purchase-and-place.
|
|
platformers | Action or action-adventure games in which a common avatar action involves jumping on and off platforms in the game world.
|
|
play | Nonessential, recreational human activities. One of the four key elements of a game.
|
|
player events | Actions performed by the player as part of an interactive story.
|
|
player-centric | An approach to game design that requires the designer to empathize with the player and concentrate on entertaining that player.
|
|
positive feedback | A phenomenon of the game’s balance such that successful player action makes subsequent challenges easier.
|
|
power provided | The resources, actions, capabilities, and other game features under the player’s control that enable him to meet challenges.
|
|
powerup | An object in the game world that, when found by a character (usually the avatar), gives that character added powers.
|
|
presentation layer | Another term for the user interface.
|
|
pretending | The mental ability to establish a notional reality that the pretender knows is different from the real world. One of the four key elements of a game.
|
|
previous experience | The amount of time the player has spent playing games similar to the one under development. This factor influences the perceived difficulty of the game but lies outside the designer’s knowledge or control.
|
|
primary gameplay mode | The gameplay mode in which the player spends the largest part of her time in the game. In a few games, the player divides her time equally between two or more gameplay modes, but these are rare.
|
|
production mechanism | A mechanic that either is a source of a resource or converts an unusable resource (such as buried gold) into a usable one.
|
|
purchase-and-place | A construction play mechanic in which the player purchases a new object by expending some resource and immediately places it in the game world. See plan-and-build.
|
|
puzzle | A mental challenge with at least one correct solution state that the player must find.
|
|
PvE | Short for player-versus-environment. A type of game in which the player seeks to overcome challenges provided by the game’s environment but does not directly compete with or oppose other players. Most single-player nonnetworked games are PvE games.
|
|
PvP | Short for player-versus-player. A type of game in which multiple players compete to see who will be the winner or, in a persistent world, who will prevail in a particular conflict between players. In a singleplayer PvP game, the sole human player plays against an artificial opponent simulated by the computer.
|
| Click here to go to the top of the page |
|
realism | A continuous scale upon which the game’s relationship to the real world is measured. One end of the scale is abstract (little or no relationship); the other end is representational (very close relationship). Different aspects of the game may have their own levels of realism (such as the graphics and the physics), which combine to form the game’s overall level of realism.
|
|
relative difficulty | A measure of the difficulty of a challenge relative to the power provided by the game to meet the challenge. Relative difficulty is computed from the absolute difficulty of the challenge and the power provided.
|
|
representational | A quality of a game such that it represents ideas and relationships familiar from the real world, such as gravity, money, death, parenthood, or fear, and presents its game world in a photorealistic way. Representational games expect players to apply some of their understanding of the real world to the game world. The opposite end of the realism scale from abstract.
|
|
resources | Entities in the game world that may be created, destroyed, gained, lost, transferred from place to place or from player to player, or converted into other entities. Resources must be measured in numeric quantities. An entity in a game that never changes and cannot be traded, such as a hill in a war game, is not a resource.
|
|
rigging | The process part of level design that involves deciding where key events will take place in that level and what will trigger their occurrence.
|
|
role-playing game | A game in which the player controls one or more characters, typically designed by the player, and guides them through a series of quests. Character growth in power and abilities is a key feature of the genre.
|
|
roll | To rotate the game’s virtual camera about a line through the lens, so that the horizon is no longer level.
|
|
rules | Instructions that dictate to the player how to play. Rules normally include lists of required, permitted, and prohibited actions; the sequence of play; the challenges and actions that make up the gameplay; the goals of the game; the termination conditions of the game; definitions of the meanings of symbols in the game (its semiotics); and any metarules if some of the rules are changeable.
|
| Click here to go to the top of the page |
|
sandbox mode | A gameplay mode in which the player is not presented with a victory condition. This mode has few restrictions on what he may do and offers no guidance on what he should do.
|
|
scalar variable | A variable quantity consisting of exactly one value, such as the amount of money in a bank account. The value changes, but there’s only one value at any given time. Contrast with vector variable.
|
|
scripted conversation | A technique that allows a player to have a conversation with a nonplayer character in a game by selecting a line of dialog from a menu of options. His avatar says the line, the NPC responds, and the player receives a new menu of lines to choose from. Scripted conversations may be documented with a dialog tree.
|
|
self-defining play | Game activities that allow the player to choose, customize, or construct an avatar thus defining the player’s imaginary self in the game.
|
|
shadow costs | Secondary or hidden costs that lie behind the apparent costs of goods or services.
|
|
shell menu | A menu of options implemented by game software outside of the game world. Chiefly used for loading and saving games and customizing the user interface.
|
|
shooter | A subgenre of action games whose primary challenge is shooting.
|
|
side quest | A quest or mission, usually found in a role-playing game, that the player is free to accept or reject without his decision affecting the progress of the main storyline.
|
|
side-scrolling perspective | A perspective normally used with avatar-based interaction models in which the game’s virtual camera follows the avatar through a 2D game world presented in a side view.
|
|
simple entity | An entity containing a single datum, such as a number or a symbolic value. The number of points a player has scored is a simple entity.
|
|
simulation | A mathematic or symbolic model of a real-world situation.
|
|
skill tree | A diagram showing the sequence by which a player may add new skills to his avatar or the characters in his party in a role-playing game.
|
|
small multiple | A visual indicator used to show an amount by displaying multiple copies of a small image on the screen. The number of lives remaining in an action game is often shown as a small multiple of pictures of the avatar; as the player gains or loses lives, pictures are added or removed.
|
|
source | A mechanic that introduces resources into the game world without requiring anything in exchange.
|
|
spawn point | A location in the game world where enemies appear (which means it is also a source). Sometimes also used to refer to locations where the avatar reappears after dying, typically in multiplayer first-person shooter games.
|
|
status attributes | Attributes that describe the current state of a character or unit and may change frequently. Current speed and current health are examples. See attributes.
|
|
story | A credible and coherent account of dramatically meaningful events, whether true or fictitious.
|
|
strategy | A plan or approach for playing and winning a game.
|
|
stress | The time pressure placed on a player while she tries to complete a challenge. Stress is one element of the challenge’s absolute difficulty.
|
|
structure of a game | The relationships among a game’s gameplay modes, including a specification of the circumstances in which the game switches from one mode to another.
|
|
survival horror | A subgenre of action or actionadventure game that makes use of some of the qualities of horror movies: lone protagonists, disturbing images, and startling attacks.
|
|
suspension of disbelief | Term originally coined by Samuel Taylor Coleridge to refer to a reader’s willing choice to believe in the fantasies of romantic poetry despite their incredibility. Subsequently adopted by the game industry and other fictional media and significantly redefined. See immersion, which is now used synonymously, for the game industry’s definition.
|
|
symmetric game | A game in which all the players begin with the same initial conditions (resources, starting positions, and so on), are trying to achieve the same goals, and play by the same rules. Such a game is usually considered to be fair and is generally easier to balance than an asymmetric game.
|
| Click here to go to the top of the page |
|
tech tree | Short for technology tree.
|
|
technology tree | A diagram that represents the available sequences in which a player may upgrade his units in a strategy game by means of research. The diagram is tree-shaped because at intervals it branches, allowing the player to choose one particular sequence or another.
|
|
technology-driven game | A game designed to show off a particular technological achievement.
|
|
teleporter | A mechanic, often implemented in the game world as a visible object, that instantaneously transports a character from one place in the world to another.
|
|
temporary upgrade | An upgrade in the capabilities of a player’s avatar or units that lasts for less time than the remainder of the game—either until the end of the current level, until a fixed number of realtime seconds have elapsed, or until some resource has been consumed.
|
|
termination condition | An unambiguous true-or-false condition that determines when a game has ended. Not always identical to a victory or loss condition; a race ends not after one runner wins but after the final runner crosses the finish line.
|
|
third-person perspective | A perspective intended for use with avatar-based interaction models in which the virtual camera follows the avatar as he moves around the game world.
|
|
tilt | To cause the game’s virtual camera to look up or down.
|
|
top-down perspective | A perspective in which the virtual camera displays the 2D game world from directly overhead. Its 3D equivalent is the free-roaming camera perspective.
|
|
top-scrolling perspective | A perspective in which the virtual camera displays the 2D game world from directly overhead and the world scrolls by from the top to the bottom of the screen at a constant rate; most often used in avatar-based gameplay modes involving vehicles.
|
|
toy | A physical object that a person can play with, typically in an unstructured fashion and without any formal rules (though the player may invent rules of his own if he wishes).
|
|
trader | An on-demand mechanic, often implemented as an NPC, that exchanges resources with the players and NPCs for other resources.
|
|
treatment | A document, typically about 20 pages long, intended to describe a game in enough detail to allow a funding agency to decide whether or not to fund development of the game.
|
|
truck | To move the game’s virtual camera laterally, perpendicular to the direction that it is facing.
|
|
tuning stage | The final stage of game design in which designers refine the core mechanics and other aspects of the design without adding any new features.
|
|
tutorial level | A level whose purpose is to teach the player about the user interface and the game’s atomic challenges and its actions.
|
|
twitch game | A game whose primary challenges are physical, concentrating chiefly on reaction-time tests.
|
| Click here to go to the top of the page |
|
unique entity | An entity describing an object, character, or datum of which there is only one example in the game world.
|
|
unique selling points | Unique characteristics of a game that will make it stand out in the marketplace.
|
|
unit | In a strategy game, a combatant or support entity (such as a transport vehicle) under the control of one of the players.
|
|
upgrade | A change to gameplay that gives the player an advantage or capability he did not formerly possess. It usually occurs in one of two forms: as an improvement in the performance of his avatar or units or as a new action that was not previously available. The term is typically used in RPGs and strategy games; in action games it is more commonly called a powerup. See permanent upgrade and temporary upgrade.
|
|
user interface | The collection of presentation elements and control elements that mediate between the player in the real world and the game world, translating player actions performed on the machine’s input devices into game-world actions, and game-world events and other data into images and sounds produced by the machine’s output devices.
|
| Click here to go to the top of the page |
|
variable scrolling | A characteristic of 2D scrolling perspectives in which the landscape scrolls under, or behind, the avatar in response to his movements. Contrast with continuous scrolling.
|
|
vector variable | A set of related numbers that collectively describe something. In physics, a vector normally describes how to get from one point in space to another (on a 2D plane, this requires two numbers, an angle and a distance). In games, any collection of related data can be considered a vector. Data describing the amount of water available at each point on a map would be considered a vector.
|
|
victory condition | An unambiguous true-or-false condition that determines when a player has won the game or the current level. The highest challenge in the hierarchy of challenges. Not all games have a victory condition. Many construction and management simulations can be lost (through running out of resources) but not won.
|
|
video game | A game mediated by a computer.
|
|
virtual camera | An imaginary camera that displays the game world in the main view. Decisions about how the virtual camera behaves set the perspective of the current gameplay mode.
|
| Click here to go to the top of the page |