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An AI companion is a computer-controlled ally who follows and aids you through your adventures or who requires your protection. The AI companion's survival is often essential to game and story progression.
A scripted random event that may or may not have been intended by the developers. A source of much unintentional comedy & frustration. An example would be the Imperial foresters fighting each other over deer. Another would be a tribe chieftain getting kidnapped by UFO's in Spore.
Action RPG (Action Role-Playing Game), also known as ARPG, refers to RPGs (role-playing games) that use direct, real-time, reflex-oriented, action combat systems, instead of the more abstract turn-based or menu-based battle systems.
Animals that follow you or help you on your journey.
Artificial Intelligence, or AI, commonly refers to the programmed behaviors of NPCs in a game, whether it's the fact that a soldier takes cover behind a wall in Gears of War, or that townspeople cheer upon your arrival to their village in Fable.
A map that is updated in real-time as you play a level. Usually seen in FPSs and RPGs.
Character Creation refers to characters created by players themselves, rather than developers.
Some games let players customize their character (or characters). Degree of customization may vary, with some games simply allowing to choose between different types of clothes, while others provide more detailed tinkering of features such as the distance between a character's eyes or hair color.
Customization in games that allow users to change various parts of their equipment or moves to fit their gaming style.
Environments cycle between day and night, often with effects on other aspects of the game.
Dialogue trees are a feature through which the player selects responses from a list of choices, eliciting reactions from NPCs and determining the path of the conversation and story.
An industry game design convention that's appeared in many games over the years. The fetch quest involves sending the player out to collect a certain number of items, and return them to complete the quest. A staple of the RPG and Adventure game genre.
Havok's middleware for character animations and behavior.
An numeral indication of how much damage a character can sustain. The loss of all hit points results in the death of the character or another penalty.
The ability of a player to interact with items or geometry in the game world, whether for story or gameplay reasons or simply for immersion.
The interactive loading screen has thankfully relieved some of the boredom that comes with long load times through entertaining us with small minigames. These generally involve simply moving objects around on screen usually with some relevance to the game itself.
A gameplay mechanic allowing players to store their items and freely carry them around.
Quest givers that task the player with killing an enemy or specific number of enemies.
Loading Screens are specific screens that are displayed while a game is loading resources so that the player has something to distract them while the game loads. Loading Screens can be images, text or even mini-games - and sometimes a combination of all three.
Some games will give the player hints and tips on how to play while the game loads.
Oftentimes developers will release the tools they used to create a title to the fans that play it. This Mod Support allows normal gamers to re-define their gaming experience and share their work with the public, promoting creativity and community.
Characters controlled by the game for players to interact with, as opposed to player characters which are controlled by whomever is playing the game.
Normal mapping is an integral part in making believable visuals. Using advanced surface information in conjunction with light information, an artist is able to define an incredible amount of detail on any low polygon model.
Who needs 2D when we've got 3D? 3D, or 3 dimensions, is what we're used to seeing in almost every game these days, letting us do all sorts of awesome stuff like run in circles!
Procedural Generation refers to the creation of content algorithmically as the game is running. This content generally coexists with standard, authored content; the two are not mutually exclusive.
Quest tracking is a common theme in RPGs and open-world adventure games, whereby the game monitors, records, and occasionally directs the player as to his next mission.
The act of taking on an in-game task; most often, these are provided to the player by an NPC. MMOs and RPGs are the primary users of this concept.
Bethesda's proprietary AI system that provides NPCs with procedurally generated scripts to complete their tasks in-game.
A physics system used to procedurally generate body movement similar to rag dolls.
A Role-Playing Shooter (RPS) is a game that rolls both Shooting and Role-Playing elements together.
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