Activity - Game Invaders: The Theory and Understanding of Computer Games - page 80

Table 3.5 Matrix of Genres Against Genres

• Communicating = Medium

• Investigating = High/medium

• Puzzling = High

• Story = High/medium

The puzzle genre has high puzzling but lacks in the other activities. Platformer has
high/medium investigating but fails to match, with no communicating and low/
medium story.
Another case is rhythm action/music/party which, again, due to its high values
on a small number of activities makes the game diffi cult to match against, so it stands
alone as a genre.
One genre that clearly has a strong relationship with another is the action
adventure genre with the platformer genre. This is because they are pretty much the
same genre but one has particular level design conventions that the other tends not
to, that is, platforms.
Simulation is also an interesting genre as it matches with platformer , but largely
because the genre incorporates so many activity groups, meaning that a number
of genres can be classed as simulation , particularly driving and strategy. Flight
simulators lack the mission-based content that most drivers have and combat
fl ight simulators have too much attacking and confrontation, so are actually closer
to shooters .
Animal Crossing is a life simulation , or is it a communication simulation , or is
it a strategy game? Monster Rancher is also a life simulation but also includes con-
frontation as well as production and skill enhancement; characteristics of the strategy
genre.
The only way to determine subgenres without contention is to compare a large
number of games by their activity profi les and determine where there is correspon-
dence between the games.

(8) Genre Relationship Map

To visualize the relationship genres have with each other, a simple map, Figure 3.3,
can be created using lines to link genres. In this map the stronger the correspondence
between two genres in terms of activity, the closer they are positioned with respect
to each other.