Action – Action games are fast paced games, usually with little storyline, these just throw the player into the action. In these games, the player typically takes the role of a protagonist that navigates game levels, usually collecting objects, battling enemies and battling bosses.
Adventure – These games are largely about exploring a new area or land, usually with a mission in mind. Okami, one of the games I studied for my trailer analyses is a good example of an adventure game, where the protagonist takes on the mission to restore the land from evil.
First Person Shooter – These games are set in the first person, directly putting the player into the shoes of whoever they are playing as. As the name would suggest, these games primarily involve the player having a projectile weapon and a target to shoot. This may be a person, monster or an object. Usually these games will have a mission or an invasion plot that the player has to follow. These games are often very realistic, graphics wise, with no non diegetic music overlayed.
Platformer – Platformer games are commonly 2D and are characterized by having players jump from platform to platform, over and under obstacles, usually collecting something or clearing enemies. There are two types of platform game, single screen and scrolling. Single screen being games such as Donkey Kong where you can see all platforms in the level whereas scrolling includes games such as Super Mario where you only see select parts of the screen and it scrolls with the character. The characters for platformer games are often friendly looking, unlikely heroes (Mario and Donkey Kong are good examples of this as not many would expect an ape or a plumber to become a hero). An 8bit one minute or so loop of music is usually played over the top of the game this helping add to the style, character and setting and sets the mood of the game. It is common for platformer games to have light hearted and friendly music to draw players in. Settings for platformer games are varied and can range from an underwater dungeon to a forest, where the game is set is majorly up to the imagination of the creator.
Puzzle – Games that involve a large amount of strategy and problem solving are considered Puzzlers, although many action or adventure games have puzzle solving aspects within them, a game is only truly considered a puzzler when this is the main aspect of the game play. The most popular puzzle game is Tetris, which involves the player moving and piling up falling blocks. Minesweeper, another popular game is also part of the puzzler genre.
RPG – This stands for Role Playing Game, these games traditionally put the player in the place of a character within the game, placing you in the role of someone else. Role playing games typically rely on a highly developed story and vivid, imaginary environments in which you play in. Most role playing games will contain levels, allowing the character to gain experience to advance through it.
Typically, role playing games have the player working on saving the world, a person, or generally just placing the player in a hero role. Games such as Pokemon and Final Fantasy are exceptions of this. Exploration is another big part of the typical role playing game; this is linked well to the storyline, allowing the player to explore the world they have been placed in, whilst still being linked to a plot and being required to do quests.
The majority of people that took my survey chose either Adventure or Platformer, these games are often paired together and I will be sure to follow these conventions when coming up with concepts and designs for my game. Next I will be looking at some of the most popular video game characters, in preparation for creating my own protagonist.
Excellent well presented research into genre.
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