Embracing the Rules of the Genre
By Roy Shapira
-
There is a growing movement today to combine Genre and Game Types, the lines between Genres blur to be more interesting, and to appeal to a larger audience groups.
Game Types have evolved sub-categories for a more specified unique experience.
Satisfying a larger audience is not a simple task, adhering to multiple rule sets and giving every fan base what they are looking for is a delicate and sometime risky endeavor.
-
In this article we will venture off to where Genre and Types cross, what makes them different, and look into techniques to make a richer experience to all gamers.
-
Media Genre
Genre is a generalized category that encompass all media formats, Action, Adventure, Drama, Comedy, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, are genre examples that each has its own rules no matter what media format is used. At times Genres mix and become hybrids, Action-Adventure, or Romantic-Comedy, and so on.
Each genre has acquired a unique fan base that expects to see the rules and standards they came to appreciate, they go to the movie, or buy the books, or play the games, to enjoy more of their favorite genre in a new artful way.
-
Fantasy for example has started to flourish after J.R.R. Tolkien has published his famous novel “The Hobbit” featuring Dwarfs, Elves, Gnomes and Hobbits, each race has its own unique characteristics that where adopted by everyone.
Dwarfs are short and stubby they are very physical, and have an affinity to technology and underground digging – as a Side note – the Scottish accent is a different story probably related to the first voice actor trying to distinguish Dwarfs from other character races.
Elves are tall and fair, they are intellectual, and have an affinity to magic, forests, and nature.
-
Creating a fantasy world must adhere to the standards. Any major deviation will cause the audience to see it as a parody or even joke.
Think of a – tall intellectual Dwarf wearing round eye glasses, asking in a thick British accent – “Phillip, would you like a cup of tea” – (ok, you can stop giggling) – it just doesn’t work.
-
Another example is creating a knight with shinning armor – in a fantasy world that can’t stop saying “Dude”.
-
Game Types
Game Types are different from genres as they adhere to a parallel set of rules and are usually paired with a Genre to create the game world settings.
-
Games have evolved different types much the same way as genres,
First Person Shooters, Role Playing Games, Real Time Strategies, Adventures, are some of the types we accustomed to over the years.
-
Each Type has its own rules and a unique fan base that expects each game type to behave and follow the standards and rules, there is a movement toward hybrids, but this is something risky and not recommended to beginners.
Since the Developers must satisfy each fan base without angering or annoying the other.
-
Game Type Fans
First Person Shooter fans, expect to get a full action experience, with tactical elements, and fast finger twitching fun.
-
Role Playing Game fans, expect to get a full story with character development, experience levels and the ability to modify their avatar just the way they like it, with plenty of missions, side missions, monsters and NPCs.
-
Real Time Strategy fans, expect to get a limited resource management mini-game, with a smart enemy that builds up in real time, and must balance attacks, defenses and resources to win.
-
Adventure Game fans, expect to get a slue of puzzles, and interesting mind boggling problems that need to be solved in innovative ways with a more cerebral experience.
-
Each type has developed sub-type to refine the rules and standards for an even more specified niche audience. These sub-categories have to adhere to the rules of the game type, and add more specific rules of the sub-type.
Example: First Person Shooters have evolved Tactical Shooters, Team Based Shooters, and Action Shooters.
Each sub-type of First Person shooters adhere to fast paced action filled experience – Tactical Shooters – are focused on micro tactical decisions that require thinking and planning before acting, out in the field – how to enter an enemy filled room, how to neutralize the enemy without injuring the hostages, manage the rest of the squad and utilize them against bad odds, and other tactical situations.
-
Hybrid Example – First Person / Role Playing Games “Elder Scroll 4: Oblivion” managed to pull it off. A beautiful vast world with a non-linear story, the player could engage in literally 1000s of side missions, and when ready advance the story via the Story Missions, on a side note the vast number of NPCs made the voice acting repetitious and ultimately annoying.
-
Game Type and Genre Matches
Matching a Genre and a Game type is half science half art,
The elements need to complement each other, and work in synergy. Creating a mismatched Genre and Type can create confusion and disappointment on the audience’s side.
A First Person Shooter – can take the Action, Adventure, Horror, Fantasy, and
Science-Fiction Genres with ease, But a First Person – Drama – might work no doubt, but might easily fail to hit the its target audiences, where First Person Shooter fanatics expect fast action, and get might just some, while Drama fanatics require an intricate plot and deep characters, and might get just some.
Making two fanatic fan bases very annoyed, and ultimately lose the entire Audience group.
-
Conclusion
The Matching of Game Genre and Game Types needs to adhere to both set of rules, and create a synergy of complimenting elements.
Multiple mixing of more genres will create confusion, and result in a mess, rather then a working world, Focus is Key.
-
I would like to thank Bob Bates,
and his book “Game Design 2nd Edition”