Genres
Game genres, subgenres, and design movements.
4X Strategy
Explore, expand, exploit, exterminate
The strategy genre defined by four key activities: explore the map, expand your territory, exploit resources, and exterminate opponents—epitomised by Civilization.
Arcade Culture
Social gaming spaces
Arcades created social gaming spaces where players gathered to compete, socialise, and experience cutting-edge technology that home systems couldn't match.
Art Games
Games as artistic expression
Art games prioritise aesthetic experience, emotional expression, and meaning over traditional gameplay mechanics, challenging definitions of what games can be.
Beat 'em Up
Walk right, punch everyone
Beat 'em ups send players through scrolling stages punching waves of enemies, from Double Dragon to Streets of Rage to modern revivals.
Console FPS
Shooters on the sofa
Console first-person shooters adapted PC precision gaming for controllers, creating distinct design philosophies around aim assist, level design, and multiplayer.
Console RPG
Living room adventures
Console RPGs adapted computer role-playing for living room play, prioritising accessibility and storytelling over simulation complexity, becoming Japan's dominant RPG form.
Fighting Game Community
The FGC
The Fighting Game Community developed from arcade competition into a global grassroots movement with its own culture, terminology, and major tournament circuit.
First-Person Shooter
Through the gun barrel
First-person shooters place players behind the barrel of a gun, creating intimate combat experiences that evolved from Wolfenstein 3D's corridors to modern competitive esports.
Golden Age of Arcade
1978-1983
The golden age of arcade games saw rapid innovation and massive popularity, establishing video games as a cultural phenomenon through classics like Space Invaders, Pac-Man, and Donkey Kong.
Horror Games
Interactive dread
Horror games evolved from text adventures through survival horror to streaming phenomena, using interactivity's unique properties to create fear that passive media cannot match.
Immersive Sim
Player-driven possibility
The immersive sim genre prioritises player agency and emergent gameplay, letting systemic interactions create unique solutions rather than prescribing singular paths through designed challenges.
JRPG
Japanese role-playing games
JRPGs developed distinct conventions from Western RPGs: linear narratives, turn-based combat, predetermined protagonists, and emotional storytelling that defined a genre loved worldwide.
Music Games
Play the music
Music games evolved from rhythm matching to full-band simulation, creating a genre that made everyone feel like musicians before market saturation caused its dramatic collapse.
Platformer
The art of jumping
Platform games challenge players to navigate levels through jumping, climbing, and precise movement, defining gaming from Donkey Kong through modern indie revivals.
Portable Gaming
Gaming on the go
Portable gaming evolved from simple LCD games through Game Boy dominance to sophisticated handhelds, creating a distinct market with different design priorities.
Puzzle Game Design
Elegant rules, emergent depth
Puzzle game design distilled gaming to pure rules and spatial reasoning, creating experiences that transcended language and culture through universal logic.
Roguelike
Death and rebirth
The roguelike genre emerged from Rogue's procedural dungeons and permadeath, spawning purist tradition and modern roguelite evolution that influenced countless games.
RTS Genre
Real-time warfare
Real-time strategy emerged from Dune II's template, dominated the 1990s PC landscape, spawned esports, then declined as MOBAs captured competitive audiences.
Simulation Games
Systems to master
Simulation games modelled complex systems—cities, theme parks, civilisations—giving players godlike control and emergent storytelling through interacting mechanics.
Single-Screen Platformer
One screen, infinite challenge
Single-screen platformers contain entire levels within one fixed view, from Donkey Kong to Bubble Bobble to modern puzzle-platformers.
Sports Games
Virtual athletics
Sports games evolved from abstract representations to licensed simulations, becoming gaming's most commercially reliable genre through annual releases and real-world authenticity.
Survival Horror
Terror through scarcity
Survival horror combined limited resources, vulnerable protagonists, and atmospheric dread to create gaming's most effective horror genre, codified by Resident Evil and evolved through Silent Hill.
Text Adventure
Worlds built from words
Text adventures created entire worlds through prose and parser, challenging players to solve puzzles by typing commands in the days before graphics.
Walking Simulator
Games without gameplay?
Walking simulators prioritise exploration and narrative over traditional gameplay mechanics, sparking debates about what constitutes a game while creating profound interactive experiences.
Western RPG
Player-defined heroes
Western RPGs prioritise player agency and character customisation, letting players define who they are rather than following predetermined protagonists through authored stories.