Curated category
Video game terminology
- Game mechanicsGame mechanics are the rules and ludemes that define how every game works. A rule tells a player what to do; a ludeme is a unit of play itself, like the…
- Experience pointExperience points, abbreviated as XP or exp, are a unit of measurement used in tabletop role-playing games and role-playing video games to track how much a…
- Saved gameA saved game is, at its simplest, a piece of digitally stored information about the progress of a player in a video game.
- Cooperative video gameA cooperative video game lets players work together as teammates, almost always against non-player character opponents rather than each other.
- Non-player characterNon-player characters, better known as NPCs, began their life around a tabletop, not a screen. In the world of Dungeons and Dragons and games like it, the…
- CutsceneIn 1966, Mabel Addis designed The Sumerian Game on a mainframe computer. This early title synchronized a slideshow with an audio recording to introduce its…
- Random encounterRandom encounters have interrupted countless players mid-step, pulling them from exploration into an unwanted fight with no warning and no way to predict…
- Player characterPlayer characters occupy a strange middle ground in fiction. They are the heroes of the story and the instrument of the person holding the controller at the…
- Video game remakeVideo game remakes sit at a strange crossroads between preservation and reinvention. When Capcom released Resident Evil 2 in 2019, they took a game that…
- Arcade video gameIn 1966, Sega released Periscope, an electro-mechanical game that used lights and moving parts to simulate a submarine attack.
- Video game consoleThe video game console is an electronic device built around a single promise: connect it to a television and play. That simple premise, first realized by…
- Downloadable contentDownloadable content, almost universally known by the three letters DLC, has become one of the defining economic forces in modern video gaming.
- Mobile gameMobile games now account for 49% of total global gaming revenue, making them the single largest sector of the video game industry.