{"id":5909,"date":"2014-02-09T00:04:13","date_gmt":"2014-02-09T00:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danielprimed.com\/?p=5909"},"modified":"2014-02-09T00:09:09","modified_gmt":"2014-02-09T00:09:09","slug":"a-few-new-terms-for-the-critical-gaming-glossary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/2014\/02\/a-few-new-terms-for-the-critical-gaming-glossary\/","title":{"rendered":"A Few New Terms for the Critical Gaming Glossary"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In order to talk about games as I do, I need a specialised vocabulary of words to help me along. For several years now, I’ve been using Richard Terrell’s Critical Gaming Blog<\/a> and the Critical Glossary<\/a> to anchor my writing. Sometimes, though, I need to come up with my own words. Such as when I talked about player roles in Heavy Rain<\/em> a few years ago<\/a>. Below I’ve documented the twenty or so words I came up with to get me through my Wario Land 4 book, Game Design Companion<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Arrangement<\/strong> \u2013 A group of game elements arranged together, ie. a unit of level design.<\/p>\n

Pre-fold<\/strong> \u2013 The first half of folded level design, where the player makes their way to the fold.<\/p>\n

Post-fold<\/strong> \u2013 The second half of folded level design, where the player makes their way from the fold to the starting point.<\/p>\n

Interaction set in context<\/strong> \u2013 A way of saying \u201can interaction and all the context that defines it\u201d. Context being the feel of inputting the mechanic, the meanings and associations with the function, the background for the interaction, the visual and aural representation of the game elements and execution of the interaction, etc. An interaction set in context is the smallest unit of meaning in a video game.<\/p>\n

Premise<\/strong> – The premise establishes the game world, its characters, and the personality and role of the avatar. By defining the avatar, the premise gives the player the information they need to inhabit the playable character and make interactions under their persona. Since the player\/avatar interacts with the game world, the premise gives all individual interactions a collective purpose.<\/p>\n

Restricted-to-Freer Practice<\/strong> \u2013 A model of variation whereby a level initially restricts the player’s freedom in order to ensure that they understand what is being taught, before opening up to slowly allow the player to take ownership of the content.<\/p>\n

Bounding Box<\/strong> \u2013 The outer edges of level for a game set in the side-scrolling perspective. Bounding boxes often dictate the behaviour of the camera.<\/p>\n

Form Accentuates Function<\/strong> \u2013 A type of form fits function where the form exaggerates the function so as to make the function more apparent to the player. (I’m thinking that this term is probably moot, but it served its purpose in the book).<\/p>\n

Form is Familiar<\/strong> \u2013 Where a game element looks like something from real life so as to immediately give the player an idea about its function.<\/p>\n

Test Teach Test<\/strong> \u2013 A form of education where the teacher proposes a problem to the students and has them try to solve it, observing as they fail miserably. Afterwards, the teacher introduces the lesson’s content before allowing the students to return to the original problem, now with the know-how to successfully solve it.<\/p>\n

Fixed Linear Progression Model<\/strong> \u2013 A form of game progression where the player must complete the game in a linear order and has no control over progression.<\/p>\n

Freer Linear Progression Model<\/strong> \u2013 A form of game progression where the player has some minor control over the way they progress through the game. For example, choosing which level to play first, where both levels must be completed.<\/p>\n

Pure Fold<\/strong> \u2013 A form of folded level design where the pre-fold is the same area as the post-fold.<\/p>\n

Reroute<\/strong> \u2013 A form of folded level design where the post-fold redirects the player to a different route from the pre-fold.<\/p>\n

Skirting Along the Fold<\/strong> \u2013 A form of folded level design where the post-fold reroutes the player through a separated channel that is part of the pre-fold.<\/p>\n

Environmental Upheaval<\/strong> \u2013 A form of folded level design where the post-fold is radically different from the pre-fold, but still uses the same base level design.<\/p>\n

Dog Ear<\/strong> \u2013 A form of folded level design where the post-fold is very short.<\/p>\n

Phases<\/strong> \u2013 Solid and permanent sections of a boss fight or key challenge. Once a phased is reached, the challenge cannot go backwards to an earlier phase.<\/p>\n

Forms<\/strong> \u2013 Fluid and temporary sections of a boss fight or key challenge. Similar to phases, but the challenge can go backwards to an earlier form.<\/p>\n

Linear Phase Structure<\/strong> \u2013 A structure used for bosses and key challenges where the boss\/challenge has several phases and the player progresses through these phases linearly.<\/p>\n

Looping Form Structure<\/strong> – A structure used for bosses and key challenges where the boss\/challenge has multiple forms and can revert to an earlier form.<\/p>\n

Without these words, I wouldn’t have been able to talk about Wario Land 4<\/em> much at all.<\/p>\n

<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In order to talk about games as I do, I need a specialised vocabulary of words to help me along. For several years now, I’ve been using Richard Terrell’s Critical Gaming Blog and the Critical Glossary to anchor my writing. Sometimes, though, I need to come up with my own words. Such as when I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[408],"tags":[699],"class_list":["post-5909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial","tag-wario-land-4"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5909"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5909"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5909\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5916,"href":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5909\/revisions\/5916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}