It's not easy to choose a video game. There is no official nomenclature that covers all video game genres. It’s difficult to navigate if you don't have the vocabulary, especially since many games belong to multiple categories at once. Here’s a little nudge to help you not rush to the latest AAA title. There are so many other games to discover!
A video game's belonging to a particular type is essentially based on its gameplay, that is, on its rules, on its controls, on the experience the player has while playing...
In the first part of this article, we had laid some groundwork by talking about Escherian Games, Arcade Games, Adventure Games, Platformer Games, Puzzle Games, Role-Playing Games, Simulation Games and Indie Games.
Let's dive a little deeper with :
Action games, grouped into subgenres: beat 'em up, combat, platformers, shoot 'em up, objective shooter, subjective shooter, tactical shooter. This type of game is extremely broad and covers a multitude of subgenres. Their gameplay mainly relies on the player's skill, dexterity, and speed. These games usually take place in a real-time context, where the player advances at the pace of the action unfolding before their eyes.
We have a multitude of games of this type in the Blacknut catalog; among our beat 'em ups we have a soft spot for cult and retro Double Dragon, platform game fans won't miss Asterix XXL3, shooting fans will enjoy with Sniper Ghost Warrior!
Adventure games, grouped into sub-genres: graphic adventure, interactive fiction, narrative games, visual novels. This type of game is characterized by gameplay strongly oriented by puzzle-solving, the use of dialogues and careful exploration of a game world in order to complete the game. Adventure games are scripted and their progression follows a narrative arc close to that of a cinema film. You can find point & click games like Blacksad Under The Skin or Syberia and more narrative-driven games like The Descendant.
Action-adventure games, grouped into sub-genres: GTA-like, stealth, survival horror. This type of game tightly blends the characteristics of action games with those of adventure games. The balance between exploration, combat, investigation and finally problem-solving is sought after by publishers of this type of game. Achieving the ideal balance of these different quests would define a high-quality game.
Among stealth games we have a strong fondness for Aragami, a GTA-like fan, go play Gangstar Vegas, and if you want a good scare or you want recommendations here.
Role-playing games, grouped into sub-genres: action-RPG, Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (online RPGs), Multi-user dungeon, Rogue-like, Tactical RPG, turn-based strategy games... The RPG is the digital transposition of the traditional tabletop role-playing game. The player embodies a character who evolves in a specific environment and must complete a main quest. The defining feature of RPGs is to offer the player the evolution of their character as the story progresses. Thus, each new challenge won during the game allows the character to evolve through an experience-point system. These evolutions affect the character's powers and abilities or equipment.