Game Concepts - Fundamentals of Game Design - page 72

Strategy games include strategic (naturally), tactical, and sometimes logistical
challenges. They may also offer economic and exploration challenges to lengthen
the game and give it more variety. Once in a while, they also have a physical chal-
lenge thrown in for spice, but this often annoys strategically minded players.
Most role-playing games involve tactical, logistical, and exploration challenges.
They also include economic challenges because the games usually involve collect-
ing loot and trading it in for better weapons. They sometimes include puzzles and
conceptual challenges, but rarely physical ones.
Real-world simulations include s ports games and vehicle simulations , including
military vehicles. They involve mostly physical and tactical challenges but not
exploration, economic, or conceptual ones.
Construction and management games such as RollerCoaster Tycoon primarily
offer economic and conceptual challenges. Only rarely do they involve conflict or
exploration, and they almost never include physical challenges.
Adventure games chiefly provide exploration and puzzle-solving. They some-
times contain conceptual challenges as well. Adventure games may include a
physical challenge also, but only rarely.
Puzzle games offer logic challenges and conceptual challenges almost exclu-
sively, although occasionally there's time pressure or an action element.
You will probably find that it's much easier to design a game that fits within one
well-known genre than it is to design one outside of any existing genre. If you
choose to design in an existing genre, you can study the many games that already
belong to it for inspiration. You will also know which challenges to concentrate on
and which to leave out.
Hybrid Games
Some games cross genres, combining features not typically found together. This
occasionally happens when two people on the design team want the game to
belong to different genres, and they compromise by including challenges from
both. Crossing genres is also sometimes an effort to appeal to a larger audience by
including elements that audiences for both genres like. By far the most successful
hybrid is the action-adventure , as seen in the more recent Legend of Zelda games.
(The earlier 2D Zelda games were almost entirely action games.) Action-adventures
are still mostly action, but they include a story and puzzles that give them some of
the qualities of adventure games. Although it can add flavor and interest to a game,
crossing genres is a risky move. Rather than appealing to two groups, you might
end up appealing to neither. Many players (and game reviewers) prefer particular
genres and don't want to be confronted by challenges of a kind that they normally
avoid. Retailers who plan to purchase a certain number of games from each genre
for their stores might not know on which shelf to put the game, and so will shy
away from it entirely.