Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
for FPS games, opportunities to innovate in interactive storytelling are
possibly higher here than in other genres.
Although similar to the FPS, the third person shooter has a very different
feel and style of play. The camera moves with the character throughout, but
instead of looking through their eyes, the camera is normally positioned
behind and slightly above. The third person shooter has a longer history of
story-related gameplay and some may overlap the action-adventure sub-genre.
Platform and scrolling shooters became popular in the 1980s and early
1990s and were 2D games that used combinations of sprites. Many of them
had gameplay that was continuous, fast and furious and demanded high levels
of skill on the part of the player.This type of game has seen something of a
revival in recent years with the increasing significance of the independent
developer and the online delivery method.
Another type of shooting game is the vehicle shooter.This can vary from
tanks shooting each other to dog-fights in space. Often the games' levels are
portrayed as missions the player must complete and sometimes a loose
background story exists to offer flavour and context.
A few years ago a writer would have found it difficult to find work in the
shooter genre and for many games this may still be the case. We are seeing,
though, an increase in the number of development studios that want to offer
a richer game experience to their players as they strive to be successful in an
increasingly competitive field. Stories and character conflict set in a world
with consistent internal logic can add layers that make the immersive
qualities ever more fulfilling.The opportunities for the writer to work with
the design team on such games is on the increase and if done well can be
incredibly rewarding.
Simulation
This genre contains games that are simulations (sims) of various aspects of the
real world with which the player does not normally have a chance to come
into contact. Flight sims and business sims are perfect examples of where
someone can have a taste of what it is like to fly a jumbo jet or build a large
business empire from scratch.
Some of the games go beyond our existing world's reality and offer the
chance to fly spacecraft or build whole new worlds.While they may seem a
little fantastical to be considered as simulations, the style of gameplay and the
consistency of the game's rule set mean that if such a reality existed the game
would be an excellent simulation of that.
