Game Genres

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moroz1999
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Game Genres

Post by moroz1999 »

As far as I understand, ZXDB uses the same genre/software categories system as old WOS. However, they are really disputable.
For example, Game: Tactical combat contains realtime strategies, turn-base strategies, mutliplayer arcades, space simulators, battle city clones.
Game: Vehicle combat contains battle city4, driving arcades, scrollshooters.

I think that categories/genres system should be reviewed. By the way, I think it's logical for some games to have more than one category (Viaje al Centro de la Tierra contains puzzle, maze and arcades in different levels).
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Re: Game Genres

Post by moroz1999 »

By the way, I suggest using the categories tree instead of just list:
Games / Strategies / Realtime / ...

So, opening "Games" will show all games. Opening "Strategies" will show all strategies and so on.
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Re: Game Genres

Post by Einar Saukas »

moroz1999 wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 9:26 amBy the way, I suggest using the categories tree instead of just list:
Games / Strategies / Realtime / ...

So, opening "Games" will show all games. Opening "Strategies" will show all strategies and so on.
Although ZXDB uses basically the same genre/software categories system as old WOS, it was fine-tuned to work somewhat like you described. For instance, current categories names are directly equivalent to this:

Game / Adventure / Text-Only
Game / Adventure / Illustrated Text
Game / Adventure / RPG
Game / Arcade / Maze
Game / Arcade / Platform
Game / Arcade / Race'n'Chase
Game / Arcade / Vehicle Combat
Game / Casual / Dice
Game / Casual / Quiz
...

So it already matches your idea!
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Einar Saukas
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Re: Game Genres

Post by Einar Saukas »

moroz1999 wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 9:22 amFor example, Game: Tactical combat contains realtime strategies, turn-base strategies, mutliplayer arcades, space simulators, battle city clones.
Games in almost every category can be either multiplayer (versus, teamplay and/or cooperative) or singleplayer. Also control mode can be either turn-based or realtime (simultaneous). So these are independent characteristics, that should be marked separately from categories. In ZXDB, these characteristics are stored as groups (like tags). I think it makes more sense this way.

Even so, you have a point. It's probably a good idea to separate these games into 2 categories: "Strategy Games: RTS" for fast paced strategy games (like Captain Drexx), and "Strategy Games: Tactical Combat" for slow paced strategy games (like Chaos), since these are important main genres anyway. Does this approach make sense to you? Do you think this distinction would be enough to accomodate all 116 titles currently marked as Tactical Combat? Would you be willing to go over the list of games and suggest which ones to reclassify on either case?

moroz1999 wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 9:22 amGame: Vehicle combat contains battle city4, driving arcades, scrollshooters.
Frankly I don't see much problem here. There's an arcade category for vehicles racing against each other, another for vehicles shooting at each other. I think that's good enough.

moroz1999 wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 9:22 amI think that categories/genres system should be reviewed. By the way, I think it's logical for some games to have more than one category (Viaje al Centro de la Tierra contains puzzle, maze and arcades in different levels).
Suggestions are always welcome! Current categories were already improved since they were originally imported from WoS, based on suggestions I received from several people (like yours). And I'm wlling to keep improving it, such as the RTS idea above.

Just keep in mind that any major change implies reclassifying dozens of thousands of titles. We must be careful about adopting great ideas that won't be feasible in practice. That's the reason I prefer to work on incremental practical steps, such as improving Tactical Combat category first before considering something else.
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Re: Game Genres

Post by Ralf »

I remember discussion about strategy genres yet on old WOS.

I would agree that genres: "Strategy:War" and "Tactical Combat" are the weakest.

If I recall correctly, the distinction in that in strategy you play armies and in tactical combat you play single men or single units. But this may become blurred and doesn't catch many details like real time/turn based, pure strategy/strategy with arcade elements etc.

If you feel like adjusting it would be a good idea, I'll be glad to help.

EDIT: actually multiple categories would be really good.

The starting point could be Mobygames website. They actually have it done in quite detailed way, for example:

North & South
http://www.mobygames.com/game/north-south

Genre
Action, Strategy/Tactics
Perspective
Side view, Top-down
Gameplay
Wargame
Setting
Historical Events
Misc
Licensed
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Re: Game Genres

Post by Einar Saukas »

Ralf wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 9:50 pm I remember discussion about strategy genres yet on old WOS.

I would agree that genres: "Strategy:War" and "Tactical Combat" are the weakest.

If I recall correctly, the distinction in that in strategy you play armies and in tactical combat you play single men or single units. But this may become blurred and doesn't catch many details like real time/turn based, pure strategy/strategy with arcade elements etc.

If you feel like adjusting it would be a good idea, I'll be glad to help.
Thanks for the explanation!

So it seems WoS classified 3 kinds of strategy games:
  • "Strategy Game: Management": Strategy games without combat
  • "Strategy Game: War": Strategy games with combat, when controlling lots of units
  • "Game: Tactical Combat": Strategy games with combat, when controlling one (or very few) units
In this case, I suppose "Game: Tactical Combat" could be renamed to "Strategy Game: Tactical Combat". However, does "Game: Tactical Combat" also include titles that are not primarily strategic games? If so, are these games really "Tactical Combat", or should they be reclassified?

For instance, Awaken is currently classified as "Game: Tactical Combat", but Elite is classified as "Strategy Game: Management". Wouldn't be more correct to put both in the same category? AFAIK they have somewhat similar amounts of fight and trading... Right?

Also Battlecars is currently classified as "Game: Tactical Combat". Wouldn't be more correct to classify it as "Arcade Game: Vehicle Combat"? It looks to me more like an action game, not very strategical really... Am I wrong?
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Re: Game Genres

Post by moroz1999 »

Einar Saukas wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 9:39 pmGames in almost every category can be either multiplayer (versus, teamplay and/or cooperative) or singleplayer. Also control mode can be either turn-based or realtime (simultaneous). So these are independent characteristics, that should be marked separately from categories. In ZXDB, these characteristics are stored as groups (like tags). I think it makes more sense this way.
Thanks, independent characteristic for multiplayer-singleplayer makes sense really.
Einar Saukas wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 9:39 pmEven so, you have a point. It's probably a good idea to separate these games into 2 categories: "Strategy Games: RTS" for fast paced strategy games (like Captain Drexx), and "Strategy Games: Tactical Combat" for slow paced strategy games (like Chaos), since these are important main genres anyway. Does this approach make sense to you? Do you think this distinction would be enough to accomodate all 116 titles currently marked as Tactical Combat? Would you be willing to go over the list of games and suggest which ones to reclassify on either case?
The current problem is that categories describe not gaming mechanics, but the plot. That same Vehicle combat can mean space simulator like Elite (ships are battling), Battle City clone (arcade game with tanks on field), racing game like Chase HQ, strategy game like Nether Earth (still vehicles combat!) and so on. So, sticking to this logic is not intuitive for the end-user.
I suggest the steps:
1. We should agree upon the software categories tree. As a base we can use some more or less recognized genres. For example, instead of Strategy: Tactical Combat, we should use something like Turn-based strategy, which describes the game for end-user in a best way.
2. As soon as the main categories tree is ready, we can split the task between different people (I'm sure that I'm not only one willing to do a part of categorization). We need some simple private tool for this task maybe - I can think something out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_game_genres - we can take this as a base.
Einar Saukas wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 9:39 pm Frankly I don't see much problem here. There's an arcade category for vehicles racing against each other, another for vehicles shooting at each other. I think that's good enough.

Please see my logic above: sticking not to game plot or setting, but game mechanics.
Einar Saukas wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 9:39 pm Just keep in mind that any major change implies reclassifying dozens of thousands of titles. We must be careful about adopting great ideas that won't be feasible in practice. That's the reason I prefer to work on incremental practical steps, such as improving Tactical Combat category first before considering something else.
The problem is that the problem will get worse and worse with time. The sooner we make the main changes - the better. I understand that if we won't find enough volunteers (including myself) for recategorizing, then it could not really happen, but there are numerous other ways to resolve this problem.
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Re: Game Genres

Post by Ralf »

As I said I would be willing to help.

The best way would be multiple categories/tags as many games combine different genres. for example for Elite it would be:

-management
-trading
-combat
-spaceship
-3D
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Re: Game Genres

Post by RMartins »

Ralf wrote: Tue Apr 24, 2018 10:25 am As I said I would be willing to help.

The best way would be multiple categories/tags as many games combine different genres. for example for Elite it would be:

-management
-trading
-combat
-spaceship
-3D
That is another can of worms :)

Categories and tags, usually serve different purposes, although they can become blurred.
In a practical sense, a game shouldn't be in too categories, even if it has some parts of other kinds/mechanics of gameplay.

Example: "Survival Horror", is not really a category, but "Survival" could be.
NOTE: Wikipedia lists this belonging to "Action-Adventure".

But there are many shades of gray in this, we can look at games in a 1000 different ways.
We probably have to look of what is more useful to the user, when searching for games.

Following at least the main "genres" for that wikipedia link, could be a good start.
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Re: Game Genres

Post by moroz1999 »

Einar Saukas wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 8:47 pm Although ZXDB uses basically the same genre/software categories system as old WOS, it was fine-tuned to work somewhat like you described. For instance, current categories names are directly equivalent to this:

Game / Adventure / Text-Only
...
I just thought that this system could be technically expanded to something similar to what ZX-Art currently has:
http://zxart.ee/eng/software/game/ - all games
http://zxart.ee/eng/software/game/arcade/ - all arcade games
http://zxart.ee/eng/software/game/arcade/adventure/ all arcade adventure games
This is just a minor usability suggestion.
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Re: Game Genres

Post by moroz1999 »

Ralf wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 9:50 pm North & South
http://www.mobygames.com/game/north-south

Genre
Action, Strategy/Tactics
Perspective
Side view, Top-down
Gameplay
Wargame
Setting
Historical Events
Misc
Licensed
This sounds really fine, as it describes pretty much different aspects. Dividing the Genre and Perspective is a really good idea. Also multiple Genres can be used where really required (for example, in Technocop - there is some driving/racing and arcade shooter)
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Re: Game Genres

Post by moroz1999 »

Also, I'll get back to Strategy vs Tactics question. Should we use "units" vs "armies" as a base of distinction? Is Black Raven (and PC C&C series) a realtime tactics just because you command single units, not armies?
According to units vs armies logics:
Nether Earth, Black Raven - realtime tactics
Stonkers, Theatre Europe - turn-based strategy
Laser Squad, Chaos - turn-based tactics
Are there any realtime strategies on ZX at all according to this logic? :)

I'm personally used to think that warcraft-like games are RTS (realtime strategies), not some RTT, and I'm pretty much sure that most of users are expecting the same logics.

In that wiki article the difference between Strategy/Tactics is whether you can build new units on base or units amount is fixed, but I must say that it's purely artificial as well.
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Re: Game Genres

Post by Nomad »

Wouldn't it be clearer to distinguish war games based on the size of the total number of units controlled in the game?

Like a Turn based Squad game is going to have totally different feel than say a Turn based battalion command simulation.

Perhaps look at how boardgamegeek classifies war games/board games. Might be some good ideas there.
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Re: Game Genres

Post by Einar Saukas »

Ralf wrote: Tue Apr 24, 2018 10:25 am As I said I would be willing to help.

The best way would be multiple categories/tags as many games combine different genres. for example for Elite it would be:

-management
-trading
-combat
-spaceship
-3D
"Management" is clearly a game genre. But "2D" or "3D" is just a graphic style, thus a characteristic of a game, regardless of genre.

We must keep in mind this distinction, otherwise this discussion will get really confusing!
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Re: Game Genres

Post by Einar Saukas »

moroz1999 wrote: Tue Apr 24, 2018 1:28 pm Also, I'll get back to Strategy vs Tactics question. Should we use "units" vs "armies" as a base of distinction? Is Black Raven (and PC C&C series) a realtime tactics just because you command single units, not armies?
According to units vs armies logics:
Nether Earth, Black Raven - realtime tactics
Stonkers, Theatre Europe - turn-based strategy
Laser Squad, Chaos - turn-based tactics
Are there any realtime strategies on ZX at all according to this logic? :)

I'm personally used to think that warcraft-like games are RTS (realtime strategies), not some RTT, and I'm pretty much sure that most of users are expecting the same logics.

In that wiki article the difference between Strategy/Tactics is whether you can build new units on base or units amount is fixed, but I must say that it's purely artificial as well.
The point is, you can divide strategy games between "macro-management" (war games where you coordenate actions of armies that behave somewhat independently) versus "micro-management" (tactical games where you control very few units in every detail). Or you can divide strategy games between simultaneous (realtime) or turn-based.

These classifications are orthogonal. We cannot put realtime inside tactical, or vice-versa.

I think it works best to adopt war and tactical as genres. And leave simultaneous, turn-based, alternating as characteristics, because they also apply to lots of games besides strategy. For instance, Bruce Lee supports both simultaneous and turn-based.
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Re: Game Genres

Post by Einar Saukas »

moroz1999 wrote: Tue Apr 24, 2018 10:14 amI suggest the steps:
1. We should agree upon the software categories tree. As a base we can use some more or less recognized genres. For example, instead of Strategy: Tactical Combat, we should use something like Turn-based strategy, which describes the game for end-user in a best way.
2. As soon as the main categories tree is ready, we can split the task between different people (I'm sure that I'm not only one willing to do a part of categorization). We need some simple private tool for this task maybe - I can think something out.
OK, go ahead! I agree it's worth it trying.

ZXDB is flexible enough that it can support a second classification system, without sacrificing anything. Moreover, this new classification system could support assigning more than one genre to a certain game if needed. Users will basically get one more way to search for games, so it's a good thing.

Do you have an initial proposal for the new categories tree, that we can discuss here?
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