Genre Name
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Genre Description
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Genre Example
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FPS
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FPS stands for first person shooter, a game that is played from the perspective of the characters eyes. In general the idea of the game is to kill enemies, usually soldiers of some kind, and this can be done either offline against AI controlled enemies, or online against other players. When playing FPS games the view is generally of you holding a type of weapon.
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Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 is an example of an FPS game. It uses the IW 4.0 engine designed specifically for the CoD series.
The plot involves ultra nationalist Russians taking control of the Russian federation, and performing acts of terrorism in Europe and the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_Duty:_Modern_Warfare_2
Although the general focus of the game is on the multiplayer aspect of the game, the campaign contains linear, fast paced missions that must be completed in order to advance the main storyline. The multiplayer has a large amount of game modes to choose from, ranging from the traditional Team Deathmatch, to games such as Search and Destroy, and Domination.
In general this is a game with a great multiplayer aspect, but is mediocre with its single player campaign, a trend for the majority of shooters.
Another example of a FPS would be Battlefield 4. The plot involves an elite team of soldiers foiling an admiral’s attempt to take over China through a coup d’état.
It is very similar to Call of Duty as many of the games in this genre share the same features and ideas. It contains a strong multiplayer aspect, but is let down by a poor story that is short and shallow, thus following a general trend for shooters.
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Survival Horror
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The Survival Horror genre’s main focus is that of trying to create fear and tension whilst trying to stay alive in conditions where the player is made to feel less powerful than the other enemies in the game. These games tend to make use of stereotypical horror tropes such as dark mazes or surprise attacks by enemies. The fact that the player is generally under equipped or has a lack of equipment, the genre focuses more on puzzle solving and evasion, although some games incorporate combat into their games through first or third person shooter aspects.
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An example of a Survival Horror game would be Resident Evil 4.
The story of Resident Evil 4 follows the U.S. government special agent Leon S. Kennedy, who is sent on a mission to rescue Ashley Graham, the U.S. President's daughter who has been kidnapped by a sinister cult. Traveling to a remote rural area of Europe, Leon fights hordes of violent villagers and mutated monsters, and reunites with the mysterious spy Ada Wong. The game pioneered and popularized the "over the shoulder "third-person view perspective in video games.
A further example of a survival horror game would be that of Outlast. The game follows a reporter who is investigating a remote psychiatric hospital. This is very different to Resident Evil 4 as it is in a first person view, and you have no weapons to defend yourself, thus relying on hiding and running away. This helps to emphasise the genre of survival horror as it makes you feel helpless and unable to defend yourself, which helps build up that feeling of fear within the game.
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RPG
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RPG stands for Role-Playing game, and involves the player taking control of a character, or characters, in a fictional land. They focus mostly on story and narrative elements and developing your character throughout the game through some kind of levelling system.
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Skyrim is an example of a Role Playing game where the player takes creates and takes control of their own character, and then developments them throughout the game to make them stronger by completing quests and defeating enemies.
Skyrim’s main story revolves around the player character and their effort to defeat Alduin the World-Eater, a dragon who is prophesied to destroy the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elder_Scrolls_V:_Skyrim
Skyrim’s gameplay gives the player access to an expansive open-world where they can do whatever they wish to do, allowing them to role-play fully in whatever role they want to play. Due to the fact that the main quest can be ignored after the first section, it allows players a lot of freedom within the game. The open world consists of dungeons, large cities and small villages and large wilderness expanses.
A different type of role playing game would be that of Pokémon X and Y. In Pokémon you don’t create a specific character that you level up, you instead catch and collect different types of Pokémon in order to either collect them all, or to become the very best trainer in the land, thus adding to the role playing aspect. Furthermore, these Pokémon you catch can level up, adding that the aspect of RPG’s that involve developing and becoming stronger.
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Puzzle
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Puzzle games are exactly as they sound, they involve the player to solve puzzles, which usually allows them to move onto the next level, which is a similar puzzle, just with a small increase in difficulty. Puzzle games can test many skills when solving them, such as logic or pattern recognition.
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Strategy
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The strategy video game genre focuses on planning ahead and tactical thinking in order to win the game. There is an emphasis on challenges that may be strategic, tactical or sometimes even logistical. Strategy games are generally categorized into four sub types, whether that be real time or turn based, and whether the games focus is on that on strategy or tactics.
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Civilization V is an example of a strategy game, more specifically a turn-based strategy game. In Civilization V, the player leads a civilization from prehistoric times into the future on a procedurally generated map, achieving one of a number of different victory conditions through research, exploration, diplomacy, expansion, economic development, government and military conquest. The game is based on an entirely new game engine with hexagonal tiles instead of the square tiles of earlier games in the series. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization_V
Players must manage units such as soldiers and workers, and decide which buildings to build on their turns in order to create a powerful nation capable of defeating the other players, AI or human, through the different winning conditions.
The Settlers: Heritage of Kings is an example of the other type of strategy games as it is a real time strategy game. The story involves Dario, a young prince who must regain his dead father’s throne from the hands of the evil Mordred, whilst working to reunite the lands in order to be strong enough to face Mordred’s armies. The gameplay involves creating a strong settlement whilst amassing an army and defeating rival nations. However, due to the fact that this game is a real type strategy game you don’t have to luxury of sitting around and planning out your next idea as your rival nations will also be becoming stronger so you have to be planning ahead of time and keeping an eye on your enemies as they could attack at any time.
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Sport
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A sports game is game that allows the player to experience and simulate a real world sport without actually playing it. Some games emphasize playing the sport, whilst other games of the sport genre focus on the management side of the game.
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In the game FIFA 15 you simulate playing the game of football through different modes. The most popular mode on this game is that of Ultimate Team where players can build teams from players they have brought on a marketplace on gained in packs in order to create their team, which they can then take online to face off against other players teams. Other modes include the player career mode where you create your own player and control him when playing, taking him from youth prospect all the way through to the best player in the world.
NBA 2K15 is another example of a sports game. Similarly to FIFA 15 the game depicts a sport, except this game is about basketball instead of football. There are many modes in this game which include a “my career” mode, where you make yourself in the game, and play through as yourself, going through all the decisions that a real player might have to make. There is also a simple offline mode where you can take control of a team and play as them, making adjustments to the team and the way they play. You also have the option to play against other players in the various online modes to give a real sense of competition to the game.
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Fighting
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The fighting genre in video games involves the playing control an on-screen character and facing off in close combat against one other character, which could be AI based or controlled by another human. These matches usually are fought in an arena of some kind are usually several matches long. Players must use aspects of the game such as blocking, counter attacking and the use of chaining moves together in order to defeat your opponent. In the majority of fighting games the player is allowed to enter special button combinations in order to execute a powerful special attack.
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Mortal Kombat X is an example of a fighting game in which two players, or one player and an AI opponent, engage in combat using a variety of different characters and character specific moves in order to defeat their opponent. Fighters are able to interact with the environment, bouncing off areas to reposition themselves or using parts of the environment as weapons. In addition, each fighter has three different variations, each featuring a different set of moves they can use during the fight: for example, the character Scorpion features a Ninjutsu variation in which he wields dual swords, a Hellfire variation which relies more on fiery special moves, and an Inferno variation which allows him to summon hell spawn minions to aid him in the fight. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortal_Kombat_X
There are many types of fighting games that follow the same kind of format and features, one of which would be Tekken 6. Some things that Tekken 6 does differently is that it implements a rage meter, meaning that your character does more damage if his or her health drops below a certain threshold. In general though, it follows the same tropes as most other fighting games, using button sequences to make combos to defeat another player or an AI player.
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Adventure
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In the adventure genre of video games the player takes control of the main protagonist in a game which is driven by storytelling and puzzle solving. The majority of adventure games are heavily designed for single player use as encompassing heavy storytelling within a multiplayer setting can be difficult. They can come in different forms such as Graphic adventures and interactive fiction, among others.
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Telltale’s the walking dead is an episodic interactive adventure game in which the player controls the protagonist, Lee, throughout the story, making decisions that affect the whole story. The story focuses on Lee, a university professor and convicted murderer, who rescues and the cares for a young girl named Clementine.
The Walking Dead does not emphasize puzzle solving, but instead focuses on story and character development. The story is affected by both the dialogue choices of the player and their actions during quick time events, which can often lead to, for example, certain characters being killed, and an adverse change in the disposition of a certain character or characters towards Lee. The choices made by the player carry over from episode to episode. Choices were tracked by Telltale, and used to influence their writing in later episodes.
The original Tomb raider game is an example of an action-adventure game. In the game the protagonist, Lara Croft, is controlled by the player as she is looking for 3 powerful artefacts. The game is presented as a third person game, with the camera always directly behind her, or over her shoulder. The objective of the game is to take Lara through a series of tombs and other locations, with the emphasis on solving puzzles and making difficult jumps rather than gunplay, with it being rare that she will have an encounter with another human, with most of the gunplay in the game being used to defeat animals and other creatures.
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Text-Based
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A text game or text-based game is a video game that uses text characters instead of bitmap or vector graphics. Text-based games were a popular form of interactive fiction in the 1980s.
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Zork is set in "the ruins of an ancient empire lying far underground". The player is a nameless adventurer "who is venturing into this dangerous land in search of wealth and adventure". The goal is to return from the "Great Underground Empire" alive with the treasures, ultimately inheriting the title of Dungeon Master. The dungeons are stocked with many novel creatures, objects and locations, among them grues, zorkmids, and Flood Control Dam #3—all of which are referenced by subsequent Infocom text adventures.
Another example of a text based game would be the video game representation of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, where it mirrors a portion of the series, mainly the events that occur within the first book. In the game the player has to defeat puzzles by typing in commands such as “north” in order to move north etc. Most of the commands within the game will advance the games counter, with some puzzles needing to be completed before the counter reaches a fixed number, else it may result in a failure and needing to restart from a saved state.
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Platform
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A platform game is a genre of video game that involves the player guiding a character over jumps between suspended platforms or over obstacles, or sometimes both, in order to progress through the game. The player is generally able to control the character whilst they’re jumping, which allows them to complete these jumping puzzles. The element of these games which unifies them is the ability to jump, therefore games that have an automated jump feature such as the Legend of Zelda series, fall out of this category.
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Super Mario 3D Land is a platform game which utilizes jumping onto platforms in order to complete the level. However, unlike previous Mario games in uses both 2D side scrolling and 3D roaming in order to create more diverse puzzles, thanks to the 3DS’ 3D mechanics. Similar to previous Mario games, the plot involves Mario trying to save Princess Peach after she has been kidnapped by Bowser again.
1001 spikes is another example of a platform game in which the player must reach the end of each level by avoiding the traps and dangers within the game, which include spike traps and falling rocks. The plot of the game involves two siblings trying to retrieve their father’s legacy by following a map he left them to some forgotten ruins in South America.
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Positive and Negative Aspects of Video Games
Positive Aspects of
Video Games
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Negative Aspects of
Video Games
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Benefits- Despite the
amount of articles in the news that say that video games and video gamers
have negative impacts on the rest of society, the truth is that there are a
lot of benefits to playing video games. Playing video games can help improve
people’s hand-eye coordination and reactions, and drivers have even cited
that the reasons that they have managed to avoid head on collisions with
other drivers due to their improved reactions from playing video games. Other
benefits include perception, memory, attention and decision-making.
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Impact on
‘Mainstream’ application development- Games and gaming technology is
constantly developing, therefore there is always a demand for more advanced
hardware and gadgets in order to gain access to these new developments. An
example of this is the recently announced HoloLens by Microsoft and Valve in
order to allow people to play games in a virtual reality, which allows the
games to come to life all around them, instead of just being on a screen. Add
this to the increasing number of 3D televisions on display nowadays and it is
proof that there is a mainstream impact by gaming.
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Social Isolation- An
immediate consequence of playing video games is that it can lead to less
social interaction with other people due to the fact that they’re playing
video games instead. This can occur especially in children as they want to
spend less time out with their friends, and would rather rush back home in
order to continue playing a game that they had started. In the long term this
can affect their abilities to socialize, and have a lack of social skills
later in life.
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 Competitive Games-
Competitive gaming is positive experience for many. Due to the advances of
technology it allows people to compete all the time on video games. Being
able to communicate cooperate with them allows people to make friends with
people they might never have met before. Furthermore, friendly competition
helps to bring out the best in each other as each person is trying to outdo
the other and perform better. It helps to boost social skills and help to
create a group of liked minded friends and associates. However, it is worth
noting that within a small number of people competitive gaming can have a
negative effect on some people, leading to increased aggression due to not
being able to complete certain puzzles or being outperformed by another
player can lose people to lose their tempers and act aggressively or even
violently. Gamers playing competitive games also showed increased heart rate
during and after gameplay. This shows that they are effected by the game and
it effects them both psychologically and physically. |
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Separation from
reality- Due to the affects that playing video games can have on peoples
social skills, especially in children, it can lead to blurring of the lines
between the real world and video game worlds. The time spent on video games
can really affect the scope in which these people can interact with other
people, leading them to believe that the real world is more like a video game
world, and therefore act and behave the way that they would normally inside a
video game. An example of this is shown by the fact that younger children who
have access to playing or watching games act more aggressively in the class
room and act out more graphic scenes from the games that they have either
seen or played.
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Educational Value-
Research into video games has shown that by playing them those people have
experienced an increase in basic language skills, English skills, maths
skills and social skills. They have also been used to help disabled or severely
handicapped people be able to communicate successfully. However, education within
gaming is all about how it is used and whether it is used correctly. Video
games have also been used to train children with attention deficit disorder
to improve their thinking skills. The impact of games within education can
only improve, yet only if they are used in the correct way.
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Thinking and strategy
skills- Scientists from Queen Mary University of London and University
College London recruited 72 female volunteers. Two groups were required to
play StarCraft, which is a faced paced strategy game, and another third were
asked to play The Sims, a life simulation game. All the volunteers were given
psychological tests before and after playing the games, and the scientists
discovered that the volunteers that played StarCraft were “quicker and more
accurate in performing cognitive flexibility tasks. This shows then playing
video games can help boost a person’s thinking and strategy skills.
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Expectations- As
technology has advanced within games, as have the expectations within the
games. 3D technology allows for better and more realistic looking games, which
is what people expect within games nowadays. In games like the FIFA series in
which a game is released every year, players expect an increase in graphics,
audio and gameplay every year. This shows that players expect more in terms
of gameplay as well as advances in technology before the release of new
consoles and games. The impact that this has is a positive one as this drives
the industry and creates jobs on a global scale.
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Levelling- Within
games, levelling is a smart concept by games designers as it allows them to
award people based on their achievements. Players become more immersed in the
game play when they have both long and short challenges to complete in the
game, whether that be collect all of a certain item with a game, or to
complete a quest. These challenges allow the player to feel more immersed
within the game, like they are taking to role of the main character.
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Task Three-Game Sketch
This is a game sketch that I created in paint in order to illustrate a game concept for a game i thought of called 'The son of the Sea God'. For starters I thought that this game would look good in a photo realistic style, but I soon changed my mind to have it be in a cel shaded style, due to the fact that the game would be a lot more expensive to create as a photo realistic game. Within the sketch you can see the first level of the game and the last level. The first level is set in a village, where you, as the protagonist, live. In the image the village is full of life and trees in order to represent the peaceful area that it is set in, however the village is under attack, with the houses on fire giving a stark contrast to the peacefulness of the trees. I did this to emphasize the change within the protagonists life and how it was before the attack and then after the attack. To the right of the village sketch you can see the drawing of the main character. In the image the character is wearing blue to emphasize the connection between the player and the sea, although in the game the character will be customisable in order for the player to create their own player and feel a deeper connection and feel more immersed in the game. On the right half of the level you can see the final level of the game, which contrasts to the first level and shows how the game has changed you as a character. The final level is set in a volcanic area, which is where you see the main boss of the game. I used fire as the main theme for the enemies in the game as it gives the player a slight advantage in the game, and makes it feel like you are the only one who can stop the enemies and save people, thus immersing the player within the game, This game would be a 3D RPG where you can choose how you play the game in terms of combat styles, such as becoming a mage, warrior, archer or whatever. The game would be in a third person view, and the player would be able to level up as they gain experience from defeating enemies or completing quests. I would like the player to have a feeling of freedom when playing the game and not feel stuck in the just following the main quest so there would also be side quests to be done.
Task 4-Backstory and Concept
In the time of Emperor Alexius Kole, the lands of Norcrest (Chaotic
evil) and Silverspell (Lawful good) are at war with each other, and in the
middle of these two warring nations in the land of Roseiron, the centre of the
neutral territory. Up until now the land of Roseiron had been left out of the
war, as per the agreement struck by the leaders of the lands and the Emperor
years ago, as the land of the Roseiron holds the world’s most important
landmark, the Tree of Kaedrith. The Tree of Kaedrith regulates all life in the
world, and is the reason for all life in the lands. In order to keep this
agreement fair, the Land of Norcrest was given the Salve of Earth, a sacred
medicine that could be used to revive the tree if it was ever damaged or
destroyed, a mysterious blessing from the God of the Earth. The Land of
Silverspell was given the Spirits Sceptre, the only object in the world that
could destroy the Tree of Kaedrith. With this, there was balance and harmony
between the Lands for centuries, until one day the Land of Norcrest declared
war on Silverspell out of the blue, and began laying waste to their lands,
however due to the Tree of Kaedrith’s power the forces of Chaos could not do
much damage. One day though, that all changed as the Spirits Sceptre was stolen
from Silverspell, and was brought to the land of Roseiron to destroy the Tree
of Kaedrith. With the tree destroyed and the only way to save it in the hands
of the Chaos forces, they became unstoppable, and it was all the land of
Silverspell could do to not be decimated. This is where your story begins. You
awaken on your eighteenth birthday to your village of Aellyn, the centre of the
Roseiron and the protectors of the Tree of Kaedrith, being burnt to the ground
by a dark wizard, a soldier of the Chaos forces wielding the Spirits Sceptre
and burning his way through the village towards the Tree of Kaedrith. Without
thinking you grab a weapon from the ground and charge the man. He turns towards
you and laughs, then sends a bolt of fire straight towards you. Suddenly, a
blue glow envelopes you and absorbs the brunt of the impact, but still sends
you flying backwards into a pile of rubble, knocking you unconscious. The last
thing you hear is the demonic laughing of the wizard, who screams “I am Fevero,
Destroyer of the Tree of Kaedrith”.
As you control your character, let's call him John, you will have to control him through an open world environment, becoming stronger and completing quests so you can move on to more difficult areas within the world and complete dungeons in order to be able to reach the final level of the game. Throughout the game John will be able to find and equip himself with stronger weapons and armour, or learn new spells depending on how you are playing the game. This will allow him to defeat the strongest enemies in the game and be able to make his way further through the harder lands in the game. There would be an assortment of enemies for John to fight, including werewolves and vampires, general dangerous animals such as bears and wolves, but also fantastical creatures such as griffons and centaurs, among other things. Defeating this creatures will allow John to level up his abilities, giving him access to different skills and generally becoming stronger as a result. Some skills you could learn include doing more damage with a certain type of weapon, having abilities that will do double damage or even skills that let you become invisible. Once you are strong enough you will be able to take on the final level and the boss and complete the game. Once you have beat the game you would still be able to explore the world to complete side quests and become the strongest your character can be,
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