CS398 - Design and Implementation of Computer Games

Colby College, Spring 1999, Randolph M. Jones

Genres of Computer Games

This is one way (but certainly not the only way) to break down categories of computer games. Some individual games might belong to more than one category, but many fall cleanly into a single category.

Shooters
- First person perspective
  - Doom, Quake, Unreal, Afterlife
- Third person perspective
  - Tomb Raider, Jazz Jackrabbit
Adventure/Interactive Fiction
- Text-based
  - Adventure, Zork
- Graphical
  - Myst, Riven, Curse of Monkey Island, Full Throttle
Vehicle Simulators
- Need for Speed, Longbow, Microsoft Flight Simulator, Falcon
Role Playing
- Baulders Gate, Diablo, Ultima
Strategy
- Turn based
  - Civilzation, Gettysburg
- Real time
  - StarCraft, Myth
Sports
- FIFA, NHL, Madden Football
Board Games/Puzzles
- Tetris, Chess, Othello
Arcade
- Centipede, Frogger, Pinball
Complex System Simulation
- Sim City, Petz, Creatures

There are also now some classes of games that have specialized target audiences, but can include any of the above categories. These are designed to break out of the mindset that computer games are for young, white males.

The most explicit and successful of these classes currently are:

Games for girls (Purple Moon)
Games for kids (Humongous Entertainment)

Randolph M. Jones (rjones@colby.edu)

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