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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.
Also known as the "Sega My Card", Sega Cards are an alternate cartridge format for Sega's earliest game consoles. While they were cheaper to produce, they could only hold smaller more-limited games.
Games whose titles consist of a single word.
In many games there is a ranking system, the players with the highest point value are listed in a "high score" table.
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.
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.
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.
The Virtual Console is a platform service that first appeared on Nintendo's Wii and later on the 3DS and Wii U. Games from past consoles are emulated to run on the new hardware with the added benefits of system-level save states and other features.
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.
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.
Sega System 1 is a Z80-based arcade architecture that Sega used from 1982-1987.
A game perspective that views the action from above, commonly at a fixed position and/or rotation.
Ever since Pac-Man, games have had us navigating mazes.
This concept is for games in which at least one of the main characters is male.
These games take the select button literally. Pushing up and down (or any other button) to select an option will do nothing.
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.
Arguably the most fearsome of all the reptiles - it has scales and no legs. Snakes use a variety of tactics to harm players such as poison, hypnosis, and constriction. The most deadly snakes have mastered the way of stealth.
Games whose main character is so egotistical that the whole game just HAS to be named after them.
Trophies are an incentive-based system for the completion of various objective in PS3, Vita, and PS4 titles.
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.
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.
A game that uses a mixture of 2D & 3D techniques. Commonly used to describe the use of either 3D graphics restricted to a 2D perceptive, or 2D graphics used to fake the appearance of a 3D perceptive.
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.
Games released coinciding with new hardware.
Games in which vehicles do not have infinite fuel and that may require the player to refill the gas tank in order to continue driving or piloting.
A parallel projection technique used in 2D sprite-based games to fake the appearance of 3D depth.
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.
Third-party developers and publishers occasionally engage in the practice of releasing a title or piece of DLC on only one platform for any number of reasons. Sometimes these are permanent while others are only platform exclusive for a certain window of time.
Pixel art refers to digital images composed of visible pixels, drawn with individual pixel-level intent and precision.
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