Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Glossary
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Game Play
I have tried to use terminology that will be easily
understood by diferent communities. However, some complex or site-speciic
terminology is unavoidable, especially given complex topics like media
scholarship and game play. In providing this glossary of terms from the topic,
I don't mean to suggest that alternate meanings of these terms don't exist, but
rather to focus on how I've used these terms in this topic.
Adaptation:
he process of recasting a text into a new format.
Afect:
How emotions are generated through a text.
Afective play:
Matt Hills's terms for interactions with a media text that allow fans to
experience and feel a reality within the text as it applies to their own lives.
Ainity space:
James Paul Gee's term for a space where individuals can interact and
learn using common activities. Ainity spaces engender community through mutual
interest.
Airmational fan:
Noted fan obsession_inc's term for a fan who interprets the source
text as canonized and embraces producer-centric ways of reading the text.
Afordance:
As deined by J. J. Gibson, the actionable properties between the world
and an actor; the interaction an object facilitates in its users (e.g., buttons are to be
pushed, knobs are to be turned).
Algorithm:
A step-by-step procedure for calculations in mathematics based on rules.
Ally:
A term for a character in a game that is either partnered with or helps the player's
character.
Alternate reality game:
A game that takes place in the “real world” by using everyday
media as elements to follow; a sort of large-scale puzzle-solving scavenger hunt.
Ameritrash games:
A term by Greg Costikyan that refers to modern American
complex board games, oten with complex themes and heroic game play.
Appropriationalist:
A term used by Suzanne Scott for media producers who use
fannish tactics to appeal to a particular fandom.
Autoethnography:
A research methodology that asks the researcher to examine
his or her own place within the media environment; as Matt Hills deines it, an
autoethnographic methodology examines not just the tastes, values, attachments,
and investments of the community under study, but also asks the person
undertaking it to question their own place within the values of their culture.
Automated:
A characteristic of a text that works without human intervention.
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