Game Lesson
When you hear someone discuss or play a video game, they will say certain words that will make a non-gamer feel lost, as if they are speaking in a secret code language.
Other fields such as sports, art, and music have words that only specific people in that world will understand. The video game media have three kinds of terms, being game developer, in-game, and gamers terms.
This is part two of the three part post on video game terms. This will be focused on eight common terms/features that many video games share. The next time you play a game, you will be able to notice them in your playthrough.
Post Discussion Categories
- Eight Common Terms In A Game
- Score
- Health
- Life
- Checkpoint
- Save
- Power Ups
- Inventory
- Experience Points
Leran about the terms below
Eight Common Terms In A Game
1. Score
A number system that is summed up based on actions performed.
Example
Some scores start out as points, and then get transferred to a rank grade, by meeting requirements. Rank grades are letters based on the total score.
Sonic Colors Ultimate first level playthrough with final score.
Any game that involves points have a score. This is in sports and video games too, especially the classic arcade games. Point values are based on certain actions and is added or subtracted to the total score. The value of points received can be earned from skill or by chance. Higher point values are harder to perform and maintain.
Video games use scores for many reasons, such as rewarding the player with something, or have that high score in the top ten list.
2. Health
A set number value that can decrease from another number by any amount. When the set number reaches zero, an action occurs.
Example
Shooter games display health with a screen effect that shows red blood on the corners when taking damage. Sometimes the screen turns grey to tell the player they are close to death.
Visual display of taking damage in Call Of Duty
Health in a video game is major to the player. It can be displayed by two numbers, a colored bar, or the famous one, hearts. It has a max number and goes down from whatever the rules of the game are, like taking damage. Just as losing health, it can also be recovered from health pickups out in an area. When health runs out, (reaches zero) the player loses and dies in the game.
Dieng in a game involves failure and punishment. Examples are losing a life, starting back to a location, lowering a score, and downgrade your character. It should always have lose involved and the player should feel something.
3. Life/Lives
A number that represents how many of tries a game offers to the player from failure.
Example
The number of lives depends on the game. Genres such as Adventure, RPG, Fighting and Shooters only gives players one life. A Game Over will happen instantly when someone lose.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Game Over Scene
A life is what allows the player to interact inside a game. It starts with a number and can go down from losing. Every life a player has are tries in completing the game. Lives can be obtained and especially lost, because losing all of them, (reach to zero) will lead to a GAME OVER.
Game Over is a term that literally means the game is over and you have to start over again. It’s one of the worst moments and you can’t do anything about it, except having continues.
A Continue is another term that allows someone to resume playing from where they were. This also gives the player another chance to overcome the lose they experienced. How a continue works depends on the game. Some have a number of continues, while others just have one.
Example
Fighting game continues are more in the player’s control by becoming unlimited and there are no lives involved.
A continue screen from Tekken
Lives and continues can be earned (or not) and are sometimes limited. What lives and score have in common is they both are secondary ideas, unlike in the past, were super popular.
Note: Continues are only activated when all lives of a player are gone.
4. Checkpoint
A set point location in a game that saves and resumes from failing by the player.
Example
This game use checkpoints to affect your score, with the kudos system. Your points are cashed in if you touch a checkpoint, so the player can choose to increase their point count or not. Losing will cause the player to start over and also lose their points.
Azure Striker Gunvolt Checkpoint and score system.
Checkpoints are location markers set in a game by the level designer. They’re used as a starting point in a location for the player to continue, when losing a life. When a checkpoint is reached, they will restart at that location instead of starting from the beginning of a level.
Other checkpoint examples are entering a room, a cutscene, and before a boss battle. Most of them are invisible and sometimes does not work with Game Overs. Checkpoints are really necessary because it saves a player’s time and repeating the same thing can lead to frustration or worse, Rage Quit.
5. Save
A moment in a game’s time that keeps all of the data that occurred, for resuming from when the moment took place.
Example
Video game saves are stored in a place called save slots or files. The amount of slots is determined by the game. The common amount is one to three files.
Kingdom Hearts 2 Save/File screen
What’s better than a checkpoint is saving a game. This keeps all of the actions that the player does and store it in a memory slot. The main reason for a save is to maintain everything done in the entire game instead of being temporary, like a checkpoint. Its best used for when the player quits and comes back another day.
If saves did not exist, every time the game turns on, you will have to start from the beginning, as if nothing happened. No saves will make some games impossible to finish, because of really long play time.
Games have manual saves (the player saves the game themselves) and auto saves. Auto saves is when a game saves on its own by reaching an area, completing something, or every set minutes.
6. Power-Ups
A feature that improves or enhances gameplay to aid the player in the experience.
Power-Up Examples
Power-Ups are used to help, by giving the player a little advantage over game mechanics. They benefit by making a character a little stronger and the player feels powerful and safe when one is used. There are many ways power-ups can function such as boosting, upgrading, and equipping something.
Thier good, however power-ups are temporary with different rules. Some are used based on a timer, damage taken, and how many times used. Most of the time, retrieving a power-up is an item, but performing well, and purchasing one are other ideas. I like them because its fun, helpful, and it feels good being strong in a video game.
7. Inventory
Is a storage location where assets are placed from obtaining objects.
Example
A quick selection menu is another way of inventory. This menu is for items the player uses a lot often and changing between them is fast.
Ratchet and Clank quick selection Weapon Wheel
Video games use inventory as a storage system, that allows objects to be collected and go to a set location. These locations are boxes and each object is labeled as a specific collectable. For example one group of inventory items can be equipment, and another group is key items.
Key Items are specific items that are mostly mandatory to have, in order to progress in a video game. Inventory in games are displayed in an art form using GUI.
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword Inventory screen
Graphic User Interface is the graphic design of how the menus appear, and that includes inventory. I like starting a new game with an empty inventory and seeing it fill up over time, to see your progress.
8. Experience Points
A number system that is set and decreases from another number until it reaches zero. When the set number goes to zero, a level number is increased by one.
Example
When you level up in Transistor, you can choose a new attack for Red. Then you get to choose to equip any move in the limited space available. The space increases as you level up over time too.
Transistor Level Up Process
When something has experience points involved, it deals with a set max number. The goal is to decrease the number, because it leads to something rewarding, called a level up. Leveling up is increasing a number by one and that can lead to improving, or unlocking something new.
The higher the level number, the more experience points are needed. Reaching to the next level gives the player a goal, but adds more time to the game experience. This is when someone says “I am going to grind“. If you want to know more about that and leveling up, you can read part one of this post.
This feature can work with any game genre, and anything can have experience points.
I talked about examples of what games have. Here is a game to watch it play in action.
StarFox 64 Gameplay in action
These are the eight terms I feel are commonly used in video games. I chose ones that are easy to identify and has existed for years. Video games do not need to have any of these terms at all, to be labeled as one. Not requiring features gives creators more freedom in game development. For the last part of this discussion, I will talk about terms that game developers use.
Make sure to check part one that goes over terms that gamers say.
Common Terms that Game Players Say
And also, here is part three
Common Terms Used in Game Development
Lets talk and learn about games