Game Genre
CSE 788.14
Based on slides by Rolf Lakaemper (Temple)
Genres
ADVENTURES
Genres
• Adventure Games cast the player as the protagonist of a story in which the player participates
• Solving of puzzles, finding various artifacts
• Sub-genres:• Textbased• Graphical• Action
Genres
Textbased Adventures:
• First adventures
• Typical use of verb-noun phraser
• Earliest titles: ‘Hunt the Wumpus’ (G. Yob, 1972, Basic Game) and ‘Adventure’ (W. Crowther, 1972)
Genres
‘Hunt the Wumpus’
Essentially, you're wandering through a network of numbered caves, looking for the Wumpus; when it's nearby, you'll smell it, and you can try to kill it by shooting into one of the caves that's near you. If you wander into the same cave as the Wumpus, you die. Other hazards include bats--which pick you up and dump you somewhere else--and pits, which kill you.
source code !
Genres
…or ZORK (1981)
Genres
Hybrid Text / Graphic
The Hobbit (1982)
spectrum emulator
Genres
Graphic Adventure
• Graphical (point and click) Interface
• Introduced by Sierra Online’s King’s Quest 1984
• Lucas Arts: Maniac Mansion 1987
Genres
King’s Quest I (by Roberta Williams)
Genres
Action Adventure
• The only commercially successfully remaining action genre
• Reflex Based as well as puzzle solving
• Most prominent: The Legend of Zelda, Nintendo, 1986 (US: 1987 on NES)
Genres
Legend of Zelda, NES 1987
Genres
Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Game Cube 2004
Genres
Educational Games
• Attempt to teach the user using the game as a vehicle
• Mostly target young users• Growing market !• …can also teach programming on a very
high though entertaining level, e.g. ‘Robot Wars’
• Best known: ‘Carmen Sandiego’
Genres
Example: ‘Alpha Beth’ 1985PLAY
Genres
Fighting (Beat’em Up)• Emphasize on one-on-one combat between
(two) players• Usually focus on martial arts• Usually as dramatic and physically
impossible as comical• Sophisticated interfaces !• Early title: ‘Way of the exploding fist’,
Melbourne House 1985 PLAY!
Genres
‘Way of the exploding fist’, Melbourne House 1985, Sinclair Spectrum
Version
Genres
‘Mortal Combat: Deadly Alliance’, Midway,2002, XBOX
Genres
First Person Shooter• Emphasize shooting and combat from a
specific perspective, most of them place player behind hand/weapon
• Tend to be scaringly violent
• 3D effect is usually enhanced by 3D-sound
• Most prominent: DOOM, Quake, HALO
• First title: …
Genres
Battlezone, ATARI, 1980
Genres
DOOMId software,1993
Genres
HALOXbox,Bungie Studios,2001
Genres
MMOGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Games)
• Subscription based virtual worlds for thousands of players to interact together
• Titles: Ultima Online, Everquest, World of Warcraft, etc.
Genres
Everquest
Genres
Platform Games
• Probably the best known genre, ‘the’ computer game
• Running, jumping etc. on 2D or 3D platform• ‘Side-scrollers’, usually (2d) from a side
perspective.• Most prominent: Mario Brothers, Donkey
Kong, Lode Runner, Sonic, …
Genres
Jumpman1983, ATARI 400
Genres
Donkey KongNintendo, 1981
Genres
Mario BrosNintendo, 1983
Genres
Super Mario BrosNintendo, 1985
Genres
PUZZLE Games
• Require the gamer to solve logic puzzles or navigate complex locations such as mazes.
• Genre crosses frequently with adventure and educational games
• Titles: Tetris, Sokoban, Boulderdash,…
Genres
Tetris1985 Alexey Pazhitnov, Vadim Gerasimov
Genres
Boulderdash1987 Databyte
Genres
RACING GAMES• Place player in the driver seat of vehicle
• Emerging in early 80s
• Extremely popular
• Various input devices
• Titles: OutRun, MarioKart,…
Genres
OutRunSEGA, 1986
Genres
MarioKart Double DashNintendo, 2004
Genres
Role Playing• Player acts as adventurer who specializes
in certain skills
• Emerged from board (pencil&paper) role playing games
• Usually science fiction or fantasy setting
• Titles: Ultima, Diablo, …
Genres
ULTIMA 1• 1980• Written in basic• 3000 lines of code• Memory takes less than one texture in
current version…
Genres
ULTIMA 1, 1980
Genres
ULTIMA 9, 1999
Genres
Fixed Shooters
• The classic 2D shooters
• Space Invaders, Galaga, R-Type, …
Genres
Space Invaders
Galaga
Genres
Simulation
• Aim to simulate a specific activity (e.g. flying an airplane / running a company) as realistically as possible
• Usually time consuming to play, huge manuals etc.
• Titles: Little Comp. People, MS Flight Sim., The Sims, Medieval,Warcraft,…
• The SIMS is the most popular game ever !
Genres
Little Computer PeopleActivision, 1985, C64
Genres
The SIMSBill Wright,Maxis, 2000
Genres
Sports
Sports simulation, of course.
Genres
Winter GamesEPYX, 1983,C64
Genres
Strategy
• Focus on careful planning and skillful resource management
• Thinking games• Often turn based• Usually war strategy• Titles: M.U.L.E., Civilization, War Craft,…
Genres
M.U.L.EEA, 1983
Genres
Civilization 1Sid Meier, Microprose,1991, DOS
Genres
Traditional
• Board Games
• Card Games
• ETC