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Concept »
Sure, these days have almost every game sporting the newfangled 3D, but way back when, everyone had to live with plain old 2D. 2D, or two dimensions, limit the game to scrolling backgrounds, but some games even now make use of this basic concept.
Games where the characters are 2D bitmap images (sprites), but the environment and scenarios are made in a 3-Dimensional space. This technique was commonly used on consoles like the PlayStation, Sega Saturn and Nintendo DS. Many 90's First-Person Shooters also used this technique. Some used it as a stylistic choice like Paper Mario and Rakugaki Showtime.
8-bit can be a reference to actual computing power, or it can be a retro look for videogames that want to recall a bygone era.
ASCII is often used as a way to replace images where they can't be used, i.e. maps in a text based guide. In the past, adventure-games have also used ASCII-art.
A genre of FPS games that are either designed to look and play like 90's shooters or built on game engines from that era.
Broken English is English with improper spelling, grammar, or syntax, and is most commonly found within older video games as a result of poor English localization.
Games that can be played with a CGA monitor and graphics card. CGA, Color Graphics Adapter was the first generation of color graphics for the IBM PC.
Chiptunes are musical compositions that are synthesized by a computer or console sound chip.
Games that give the player only a limited amount of time to choose whether to continue or not. This concept is most often seen in arcade titles and their home ports.
A graphic filter designed to give players the sensation of using a CRT monitor.
A remake/re-imagining of a game that uses lower fidelity assets, due to a deliberate design choice.
Electronic music is one of the broadest classifications of music, and has been a staple of video game soundtracks since the 90s. The genre's main trait is the use of electronic instruments.
Emulation is the means by which games intended for one platform are rendered playable on another. Emulation is used for various purposes, ranging from allowing older games to be playable on newer hardware to software development for various platforms.
Flip screen (or flick-screen) describes a way of dividing the game world into fixed screens, displayed one at a time. It's commonly found in 2D platformers, especially prior to the 16-bit era.
The floppy disk is a symbol for saving data that originated back when floppies were still the dominant format for computer games, but has persisted long after the technology became obsolete.
The concept of a game referencing another game through mockery, parody or even directly. A game reference to the same franchise does not count.
An open-source, "drag and drop" game development tool for sprite-based 2D games. Projects can be exported in HTML5 form, or as Game Boy ROM files that are compatible with the original hardware as well as emulators.
The concept of lives in video games evolved to let the player get a second chance after failing once. The most recognizable symbol is the heart.
A stylistic choice of employing small polygon counts for meshes.
Game within a game. Can either have no effect on other portions of the primary game or have drastic impacts. In order to qualify as a meta game it must be outside the normal experience and have seperate rules that govern it.
When the artwork on the game's box in no way correlates to the game's actual look and feel.
A simple texture mapping graphics mode on the SNES that allows a background layer to be rotated and scaled. Many game developers used this to create faux-3D worlds and environments.
A NosCon (short for Nostalgic Continuity) is a game made with the purpose of appealing to people's nostalgia for the retro gameplay and style of a specific series.
A minimalist 8-bit "fantasy console" engine designed by Lexaloffle Games in 2015.
Pixel art refers to digital images composed of visible pixels, drawn with individual pixel-level intent and precision.
These are games you don't need a console to play. You plug in a controller to the TV and you're ready to play.
Japanese PC online digital distribution service for emulated retro games, launched on 24 November 2001, years before similar services from Steam, Virtual Console, or XBLA.
A broad spectrum of games can be described as remakes, from straightforward graphical overhauls to extensive revision of gameplay and story elements. In the most basic sense, a remake keeps the original's core gameplay and plot but makes significant changes to peripheral aspects.
The Retro Engine is a multiplatform game engine developed by Australian programmer Christian Whitehead, best known for its use in Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog series.
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