About Genres

Like many other game sites, we organize games into genres. Most game sites, however, use genre names that make little sense (action? most games involve action...). We use actual genre names that actual gamers use. But not everyone will be familiar with all of them. Here's what they mean:

4X: The four "X"es are: explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate. 4X games are (usually) set in space, and involve an interesting combination of resource extraction, technological development, and warfare. Masters of Orion is the canonical 4X title. It is a genre that no longer receives much in the way of commercial distribution, but has its devoted fans, making it an ideal style for Manifesto to support.

Action/Adventure: By this, we mean games that share characteristics with conventional graphic adventures (see Adventure; see Graphic Adventure), but in which gameplay is less built around puzzle solving, and more around tests of player skill, whether in combat or in other regards. We would consider Thief, Psychonauts, and Deus X to be action/adventure games.

Adventure: Adventure games derive ultimately from Will Crowther's Colossal Cave and the Zork games. Typically, you play a single character working your way through a story; gameplay centers on solving puzzles. Although adventure games were once a popular and best-selling genre (Myst remains one of the industry's all-time best-sellers), in recent years they have fallen out of favor, and are increasingly hard to find at retail--making them an ideal genre for us to support. See also Graphic Adventure and Text Adventure.

Arcadia: "Arcadia" is our term for games that remind us of classic arcade games. Although they are lighter than our usual fare, and although many casual game portals also support games of this type, they do not do all that well on casual game sites, where "pick-three" and puzzle games predominate. We believe that there are many interesting ways to use some of the ideas of early digital games in new and creative products, and since neither the conventional market nor the casual game sites really serve these games well, are happy to feature them. See also Platformer and Sidescroller.

Cool Indie Games: This is Manifesto's "catchall" for games that are hard to categorize as belonging to any well-known genre--which is often the case of the most creative and innovative games produced. We don't wish to suggest that other games are not cool, or not indie--but we think these deserve particular attention.

Educational: Except for some kiddie fare, educational games are almost impossible to find at conventional retail, and we are happy to support them. We include two different types of games in this category: commercial games that we think have real educational value, and games specifically designed for an educational market whose makers we have persuaded to allow us to offer a consumer version.

Flight Sims: Flight sims are games that attempt to simulate aircraft characteristics; typically, your main task is learning to control and fly a variety of different planes. They are a subcategory of vehicle sims (which see). Today, few original flight sims are produced, through many vendors provide products that allow users to control new aircraft while using Microsoft Flight Simulator.

FPS: First-person shooters are games in which you play from a first-person perspective (that is, the screen shows what your character sees, rather than providing a view of your character in the scene), and in which gameplay centers on combat--typically though not invariably with guns. Doom is the canonical FPS.

God Game: A god game is a game in which you control a civilization or other large entity and represent not a real mortal person but in some sense a god or other overarching controller. Civilization is the canonical god game. Note that some people tend to lump sim/tycoon games (which see) into this category, but we draw a distinction between the two.

Graphic Adventure: A graphic adventure is an adventure game (which see), but by contrast to text adventures (ditto), provide images for players to view while solving the puzzles. In graphic adventures, the burden of story-telling is often carried by cut-scenes between gameplay elements. Roberta William's King's Quest was the first graphic adventure; Myst is the best know game of the genre; and the LucasArts adventures are still much-loved by fans of the field. Graphic adventures retain a mere toe-hold in the conventional market, but many developers (particularly in Europe) continue to create them, and we consider them an important genre for Manifesto to support.

IGF: The Independent Games Festival is the single most important event for independent game developers, and show-cases the best independent games each year. We offer as many IGF-nominated and -winning games as we can. This isn't a genre, per se, as IGF games vary a great deal, but we use this as a convenient place to find such titles.

MMO: Massively multiplayer online games are games in which hundreds or thousands of people play simultaneously in a persistent online world. Some MMOs, such as World of Warcraft, are enormous popular hits, and have no need for support from us. However, there are many interesting smaller games which often provide gameplay very different from WoW or EQ, which we are happy to support. In general, almost all of the conventional successes can be viewed as versions of dikuMUD--level grinds centered on combat in a fantasy universe--and we're more interested in games that take the basic MMO paradigm in different directions.

Platformer: A platformer is a game in which you must climb up a series of connected platforms to win, generally facing enemies and obstacles along the way; Donkey Kong is the canonical platformer. It is a game style more often associated with the arcade and early console titles than with the PC, but like sidescrollers, it's a genre that has fallen out of favor and is almost impossible to find, in new games, in the conventional market. Some fans of the form continue to produce interesting platformers for the PC, however.

Rail Shooter: A "rail shooter" is a game in which you typically have little freedom of motion. Instead, you are often in a vehicle that moves under the game's control, manning a gun and blazing away at everything in sight. Considered somewhat retro now, but this still can be good mindless fun.

RTS: Real-time strategy games typically involve resource extraction, building construction, technological advance, and real-time combat with AI (or oppponent) controlled competitors. Warcraft is the canonical RTS game. While RTS games remain popular and successful in the conventional market, a number of interesting and more obscure RTS titles are available through Manifesto.

RPG: In a roleplaying game, you control one (or a handful) of characters working through a story in an imaginary world. Unlike adventure games, gameplay is centered more on combat and less on puzzle-solving. There are actually two parallel RPG traditions in digital games. The Western, PC-based tradition derives ultimately from Dungeons & Dragons, and typically involves complicated stats and combat strategies; the Japanese, console-based tradition generally does not allow you to create your own characters (instead, you play the characters the game provides you) and generally has simpler controls and rules. In both, there is also a distinction between "player-skill" and "character-skill" games. In a player-skill game (Diablo, Zelda), combat is fast-action, and mastery of the controls is key to winning; in a character-skill game (Neverwinter Nights, Final Fantasy) combat is less intensively paced, and winning a fight depends on the level and skills of your character, rather than your own quick manipulation of the interface. Both traditions, and both game styles, have their fans.

Serious: The serious games movement seeks to develop games whose main purpose is not entertainment. Some are used for military training, training of emergency first responders, and so on; others exist to help people learn to control medical conditions; and so on. Developers of serious games rarely distribute their product through commercial channels, but in some cases, these games are potentially of interest to gamers in addition to their intended audience, and when we can, we like to persuade serious game providers to allow us to distribute consumer versions.

Shmup: "Shmup" is a contraction of "shoot-'em-up", and generally refers to a game in which you control a single spaceship engaged in desperate battle in a 2D environment. Today, the best known shmup is Geometry Wars, but it is a genre that extends back to the earliest arcade games, and still has many fans.

Side-Scroller: A side-scroller is a game in which you progress by moving to the right, with the background scrolling with your motion. Sonic the Hedgehog is the canonical side-scroller. It's a genre more often associated with the arcade and early consoles than with PCs, but one that's almost disappeared from modern digital games--except for PC titles created by those who still love the form.

Sim/Tycoon: A sim/tycoon game is one in which the player controls a business, city, or other large-scale entity. SimCity was the first such game, and in recent years the Roller Coaster Tycoon series has been among the best-sellers in the genre. Sim/tycoon games avoid the drudgery of business simulations that are essentially spreadsheets by animating aspects of the business and allowing players to build things, so that your main interaction with the game is in an interesting visual environment, rather than via number-crunching.

Space Shooter: An intense combat game in which you control a spaceship fighting with other space ships--typically in a 3D environment. By contrast a "shmup" is 2D (or nearly so, sometimes your ship can change elevation a little). "Space shooters" overlap heavily with "space sims," but space sims typically have more in the way of story and character development.

Space Sim: A subcategory of "vehicle sim," a space sim is similar to a flight sim, except that you control a space ship, rather than an aircraft. Since space combat isn't real (yet), the empasis is more often on fast, often arcade-y combat, rather than on realistic simulation of flight characteristics. The Wing Commander series are the canonical space sims.

Sports: Sports games are simply ones based on a real (or in some cases imaginary) sport. In the conventional market, sports games are among the best-sellers; our offerings tend to be a little different. Many are "sports management" games, in which the appeal is not controlling players on the field, but in managing a team over the course of a season. Others are based on obscure sports, or sports that are popular in some global regions but not others, and therefore would be difficult for many of our customers to find elsewhere.

Sports Management: A subcategory of sports game (which see).

TCG: TCG stands for "trading card game" (sometimes also called "collectible card games" or CCGs). TCGs ultimately derive from Magic: The Gathering, which is a paper and not a digital game (although there is an online version). However, a number of interesting digital TCGs have been developed over the years, and there does not seem to be another place to find out about them.

Text Adventure: Text adventures are adventure games (which see), but unlike graphic adventures (ditto), they do not involve pictures but simply text. Text descriptions of environments are provided to players, and players typically interact by entering text describing what they wish to do, which a parser interprets, changing the gamestate in response (at least when the parser understands you). The Zork games are the best known text adventures. Text adventures basically do not exist as a commercial genre any more, but they are kept alive by the interactive fiction community as non-commercial entities.

Text MMO: Modern (graphical) MMOs derive ultimately from Bartle & Trubshaws MUD 1 and the long tradition of both commercial and non-commercial MUDs (multi-user dungeons). Some companies continue to operate text-based MMOs--and because the cost of development of these games is far lower than for graphical MMOs, quite often they innovate in interesting ways. In particular, many focus more on genuine role playing and less on advancement through combat.

Third-Person Shooter: FPS games became feasible only with the advent of 3D technology (actually Doom predates that, but it used a 3D-like technology). Intense combat games in which you control a single character whom you view on the screen predate FPS games by many years. They are "third person" because you see yourself on the screen, rather than seeing what your character would see ("first person").

Turn-Based Fantasy: A turn-based strategy game (which see) in which the player controls a fantasy realm and one or more heroes, working to defeat a number of AI-controlled opponents. Heroes of Might & Magic is the canonical turn-based fantasy game.

Turn-Based Strategy: Turn-based strategy games were once a mainstay of PC gaming, but today are rarely found at conventional retail, partly because of the greater popularity of RTS games. Many of us prefer turn-based strategy to RTS, because in a turn-based game, you can actually think about your strategy and plan more effectively than you can in a real-time game. We have a particular fondness for turn-based fantasy games along the lines of Heroes of Might & Magic and the Disciples series.

Vehicle Sim: Vehicle sims are games that attempt to simulate the control of a vehicle--most often aircraft, but sometimes trains, ships, or other vehicles. Vehicle sims tend to vary in whether their main thrust is providing an accurate simulation of the vehicle's characteristics, or in providing a fun and enjoyable game by minimizing the difficulties involved in controlling a vehicle.

Wargame: Computer wargames derive ultimately from the long tradition of board wargaming. Some, though not all, use hex grid maps and have units that represent real-world military units. Characteristically, they are quite complicated and make an effort to simulate actual military conflict; they are also typically turn-based rather than realtime. Note that many games with military themes (e.g., Battlefield 1942) we do not consider to be "wargames," either because they are real-time, or because the are not simulations in any real sense.