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Games whose titles consist of a single word.
Sure, these days have almost every game sporting the newfangled 3D, but way back when, everyone had to live with plain old 2D. 2D, or two dimensions, limit the game to scrolling backgrounds, but some games even now make use of this basic concept.
Games that can be played with a CGA monitor and graphics card. CGA, Color Graphics Adapter was the first generation of color graphics for the IBM PC.
A level in which everything is displayed on-screen at once, with no scrolling, flip screen, or 3D movement. Many '80s games consist entirely of single-screen levels.
In many games there is a ranking system, the players with the highest point value are listed in a "high score" table.
It's arguably the one move that symbolizes the medium to those outside it. The ability to jump, be it onto a building, a platform, or a skull, is one of the all time most important abilities ever put in a video game.
In text based games, most, if not all the game play, or graphics is created with words.
Interactive fiction is a format that uses text to describe characters and objects within a setting, and the use of a parser to interpret text typed by the player, allowing the player to interact with the characters and objects within the setting.
The concept of lives in video games evolved to let the player get a second chance after failing once. The most recognizable symbol is the heart.
These games are based off of established licenses, such as movies, comics, or TV shows. Examples are the James Bond 007 and Spider-Man franchises.
A two-dimensional image or animation overlaid into a scene. The foundation of early 2D games, making up everything from props to the player-controlled character.
An online retro gaming streaming platform.
Game Over originally appeared in pinball machines, and later, arcade machines. When players lose at a game, it is game over.
A situation where the player-controlled character loses their life immediately. The quickness of that demise is often a stark departure from the balance of power, and sometimes the rules, established by the developers during the rest of the game.
Pixel art refers to digital images composed of visible pixels, drawn with individual pixel-level intent and precision.
The main line of distinction between victory or failure in video games, death is the process of a biological being ceasing to be alive.
Never Ending Games is a self-explanatory concept in which a game is unbeatable and never ends, due either to the game having no true ending or because the game is not saved (or truly continued) after the last section of the game.
The concept of purchasing media and having it delivered over the internet. No physical representation of this content is given, and although the content resides on the user's hard drive they are typically granted a license to the product, rather than ownership of it.
The Z-Machine is a virtual machine, created by Infocom, for running text adventures. Variants are used today to run classic and modern interactive fiction.
Gravity is a physical phenomenon, specifically the mutual attraction between all objects in the universe. In a gaming setting, gravity determines the relationship between the player and the "ground," preventing the player or game objects from flying off into space, and hopefully acting in a predictable/realistic manner.
In second person point of view, the action is shot from the perspective of a character that is not the protagonist. It can also refer to second-person in the narrative sense, where the protagonist is the person playing the game.
8-bit can be a reference to actual computing power, or it can be a retro look for videogames that want to recall a bygone era.
Side-scrolling games present the world as viewed perpendicular to the direction the characters are facing on screen. With a heavy focus on lateral movement, objectives are often met by moving from one end of a stage to the other.
Vertical scrolling is when the screen scrolls along the y-axis. In a vertical scrolling game the player usually starts from the bottom of the screen and moves up. They are also almost always presented in a top-down perspective.
A game perspective that views the action from above, commonly at a fixed position and/or rotation.
Games that earned the "ASM-Hit"-Award. ASM (Aktueller Software Markt) was a popular German multi-platform computer games magazine that was published from 1986 until 1995.
This concept is for games in which at least one of the main characters is male.
Porting is a term used when a game designed to run on one platform is converted to run on a different platform. Quality varies, though some titles are packaged with extras.
First-Person is a vantage point that attempts to simulate looking through a game character's eyes. It is most commonly found in first-person shooters, racing games, and visual novels, and to a lesser extent in other genres, such as RPGs, 3D platformers, and adventure games.
A sequel (also called a follow-up) is a game that carries forward the gameplay concepts, and often the story, of a previous game to which it is officially linked.
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