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’ 1985

PLAY
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

DOOM
Id software,1993
Genres

HALO
Xbox,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

Jumpman
1983, ATARI 400
Genres

Donkey Kong
Nintendo, 1981
Genres

Mario Bros
Nintendo, 1983
Genres

Super Mario Bros

Nintendo, 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

Tetris
1985 Alexey Pazhitnov, Vadim Gerasimov
Genres

Boulderdash
1987 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

OutRun
SEGA, 1986
Genres

MarioKart Double Dash

Nintendo, 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 People

Activision, 1985, C64
Genres

The SIMS
Bill Wright,Maxis, 2000
Genres

Sports

Sports simulation, of course.

Genres

Winter Games
EPYX, 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.E
EA, 1983
Genres

Civilization 1
Sid Meier, Microprose,1991, DOS
Genres

WarCraft III
Blizzard, 2003, PC
Genres

Traditional
• Board Games
• Card Games
• ETC