Genre - Game Invaders: The Theory and Understanding of Computer Games - page 22

Table 2.2 A Basic Set of Genres

Genre Activities

FPS Shooting, killing, moving, collecting, ambushing, camping

Stealth Shooting, moving, attacking, collecting, waiting, hiding, puzzle solving,

sneaking

3D adventure Moving, puzzle solving, collecting, speaking

Point and click Moving, puzzle solving, collecting, speaking

Platform Moving (scrolling), jumping over, jumping on (killing), avoiding,

puzzle solving

RPG Fighting, developing/training, exploring, traveling, investigating, story

building, empathizing (with character)

Beat -' em - up Fighting, tactics, countering, making moves

RTS Building, commanding, fi ghting, planning, scouting, collecting (money,

wood, etc.)

Driving Steering, accelerating/decelerating, overtaking, avoiding, skidding,

cornering, maneuvering, making pit stops, crashing

God games Building, planning, strategizing, predicting

Retro (No common activity words)

words. Thinking and feeling are just as much central to game activities as more
obvious actions. They are all at the heart of the pleasure of game playing and will
lead us into the subject of aesthetics (in Chapter 4).
However, for the moment we are interested in the way different gameplay activ-
ity profi les, that is, patterns of activity, not only characterize genres but also allow
us to compare and contrast games in new ways. We can begin to make some inter-
esting observations about certain game genres and the relationships individual games
have with them. We already saw how this theory of game genres allows us to elimi-
nate some of the instances in Figure 2.2 because they didn't have distinct sets of
activities. You should be able to go through the diagrams and eliminate or, rather,
amalgamate more genres.
It is very interesting to consider the links between genres. Take a look at the
links around the puzzle genre in Figure 2.2. Are we happy about these, for they
would seem to imply a very strong link between puzzle and platform , action adven-
ture , point and click , and text adventure ? The problem here is the puzzle genre at
the center of the relationship. All of these games have puzzling as a major activity
but puzzle games are a lot simpler than the other four; there is a confusion between
activity and genre.
The other four do cohere in terms of activity, particularly action adventure and
platform , then text adventure and point and click , but all are realized in differing
gameplay modes.
Notice there is no link between action adventure and RPG although there is a
strong link between these two genres, particularly with games like Fable: The Lost