Tag: Genre

Eric Swain Game Issues, Recent Posts

A Clarification of Genre: Conclusion

Please read A Clarification of Genre: Introduction because this post will be finishing the foundation concepts put forth there. That post also contains some clarifications for how I will be writing this series. You can read the previous entries of the series: Action, Adventure, RPG, Strategy and Immiscible Games. What was the point? Outside of very limited set of application that all mostly resides in broad based introductions to the material either in a storefront or in explaining what it is, genre is not a useful concept. | more

Eric Swain Game Issues, Recent Posts

A Clarification of Genre: Immiscible Games

Please read A Clarification of Genre: Introduction because this post will be building off of the foundation concepts put forth there. That post also contains some clarifications for how I will be writing this series. You can read the previous entries of the miscible genres: Action, Adventure, RPG and Strategy. Miscible and Immiscible The descriptions of the super-genres up to this point have all been under the assumption that a game has a single focus throughout its play. | more

Eric Swain Game Issues, Recent Posts

A Clarification of Genre: Strategy

Please read A Clarification of Genre: Introduction because this post will be building off of the foundation concepts put forth there. That post also contains some clarifications for how I will be writing this series. You can read the previous entries: Action, Adventure and RPG. Strategy I’m going to frank and upfront about this. I know very little about the Strategy Super-genre. My experience with this type of game is limited to a handful of titles and has nowhere near the depth and understanding the complexity others do. | more

Eric Swain Game Issues, Recent Posts

A Clarification of Genre: RPG

Please read A Clarification of Genre: Introduction because this post will be building off of the foundation concepts put forth there. That post also contains some clarifications for how I will be writing this series. You can read the previous entries: Action and Adventure. Now comes the big enchilada. The one I’m sure to get the most arguments/hate mail about. RPG I’m going to break up the formula of the posts for this one and instead of starting off with the definition of the Super-genre, I’m going to work up to it via the thought process by which it came about. | more

Eric Swain Game Issues, Recent Posts

A Clarification of Genre: Adventure

Please read the Introduction entry as this post will be building off of the foundation stones and concepts put forth there. That post also contains some clarifications for how I will be writing this series. You can read the previous entry on Action here. Adventure Adventure games are a little more difficult to talk about than Action games. There is a mentality that sticks with them because Adventure games were always understood as this very narrow brand of games. | more

Eric Swain Game Issues, Recent Posts

A Clarification of Genre: Action

Please read the previous entry – Introduction – as this post will be building off of the foundation stones and concepts put forth there. That post also contains some clarifications for how I will be writing this series. And now to the first Super-genre on the list. Action The key to understanding the Action Super-genre is understanding the commonalities between so many genres that we think of as Action games. Where does the platformer intersect with the shooter with the racer and so on? | more

Eric Swain Game Issues, Recent Posts

A Clarification of Genre: Introduction

Several months ago, I tried to explain some of the problems I saw with the discussions of video game genres. These conversations around what are Adventure game and RPGs keep popping up every couple of days in posts and all over twitter and I wanted to address some concerns with what I saw taking place in these conversations. I didn’t convey my ideas well at the time. Also, spawning off of this post I realized that while people debate genre there is a lot of annoyance at these debates at the perceived uselessness of the idea of genres. | more

Eric Swain Critical Responses, Recent Posts

The Supergenres of Action, RPGs and Adventure Games

I wrote a piece for Gameranx asking the question, ‘What is action/adventure?‘ This is part of the larger question about game genres, one that’s been discussed at length over twitter and several posts have come up as well with regards of what certain genres are. As much as the genre debate is generally one of semantics, or in the case of Action/Adventure pigeonholing, I feel there is a necessary undercurrent of philosophy and focus behind the question of what they are that is generally lacking in the current discussion. | more