Power Bombcast: The Skin Doesn't Quite Fit
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Game Mess Mornings 05/03/24
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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.
Backtracking is the act of navigating through previously explored areas, usually for the purpose of progressing in an objective-based adventure game. Players who are lost may also backtrack to reorient themselves.
A banker is the owner, operator, and/or teller at a bank.
Betrayal is when a person breaks the trust and faith that others have placed in them.
Games that let you choose the path you take through the story-line.
Chiptunes are musical compositions that are synthesized by a computer or console sound chip.
Due to crafty camera angles and conveniently placed objects in the environment, the nudity in the scene is obscured from view.
The phone rings. You answer it, only to be interrupted by a cryptic message or noise. Or someone just hung up.
A non-interactive sequence within a game most often used for plot advancement.
One or more events from someone's past that negatively affected them. Plenty of video game characters have such pasts.
In a franchise, it entails the second game that takes on a gritty and dark tone to distinguish it from the first.
"Dear Diary. Went to See Movie. Ate Some Ice Cream. Murdered in a horrific, mysterious way. At least I don't have to jog tomorrow!"
The main line of distinction between victory or failure in video games, death is the process of a biological being ceasing to be alive.
Someone who investigates unsolved crimes and other mysterious happenings, either for a living, as a hobby, or simply by chance.
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.
Life altering and potentially dangerous, drugs come in a large variety of forms. In most games, drugs can have significantly different physical and social effects on video game characters.
Carefully exploring a large, labyrinthine area full of enemies (i.e., a dungeon) in the hopes of finding treasure, leveling up, or completing a specific task. Having their roots in tabletop games, video game dungeon crawls are found almost exclusively in RPGs.
When a song is played over the end-credits, often by a famous artist.
Items that prove innocence or guilt.
Either through a concealing helmet, keeping the whole game in first person, or using clever camera work, the player character is kept faceless throughout an entire game.
See? The exploiting, soulless people who run the video game industry DO care about their fans!
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.
Literally meaning "black film," film noir is a term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas. This unique style of storytelling and cinematography is often incorporated into video games.
Using physical force to damage an opponent, with or without an equipped weapon from a first person perspective.
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.
An opponent type in the Pokemon series. They can be found near bodies of water with water-type Pokemon like Magikarp and Goldeen.
A frameup, or framing, is when someone tries to convince people someone else committed a crime. It could be in the form of leaving false clues or giving out false information.
A gang isn't just two crude dudes, it's a whole mess of them. There's all kinds of different gangs represented in games: street gangs, organized criminals, and even high school cliques.
This concept involves a character of the hero archetype that at some point in the storyline, turns against the forces of good and becomes evil or is revealed to have done this in secret at some point in the past.
Invisible or cleverly hidden doors just waiting to be discovered. Logically, Hidden Doors often lead to Hidden Rooms.
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