Game Genres, pt. 16: Facet Analysis of Video Game Genres

Taxonomy of Virtual Spaces

This is a continuation of my long-running series examining game spatiality systems that may be related to but are distinctly different from game genres.

Today's post returns to actual game genres with a look at "Facet Analysis of Video Game Genres," a thorough study of different systems found on game websites and in scholarly publications that are used to categorize digital games by genre. This may include gameplay genres (platformer, racing game, shooter) and thematic genres (fantasy, crime, food). This informed the researchers' work to recategorize the various systems into one overarching system of game genres defined by 12 different facets.

"Facet Analysis of Video Game Genres" by Jin Ha Lee, Natascha Karlova, Rachel Ivy Clarke, Katherine Thornton, and Andrew Perti (2014)

The study was performed mostly by researchers at the University of Washington's GAMER Game Research Group and presented as part of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign's iConference 2014. GAMER was formerly the GAme MEtadata Research Group, and supporting researchers and archivists with tools for cataloguing and organizing digital games as cultural artifacts is one of the group's primary goals.

Facets and Foci

The thorough system outlined in the paper is based around 12 different facets or aspects by which one can differentiate a game. Within each facet, a game may fall under one or more foci that accurately describe the game:

Table 1: Video Game Genre Facets with Examples of Genre Labels Representing Each Facet

The above table, adapted from the paper, shows only a handful of possible examples of foci defined in this system. The facet of Style alone has 100 different variations. This is a robust system for defining and categorizing all manner of digital games with a singular system. Additionally, game can easily be organized using only the facets that a researcher is most interested in.

For my research, how well does this system categorize the spatial aesthetic qualities of digital games?

Facet Analysis and Spatiality

The concept of spatiality was not a primary concern for the GAMER Group researchers. Their work is based on existing methods for categorizing game genres, which do not tend to focus on spatiality. However, the facet of Presentation encompasses some of the graphic techniques used to project a virtual space to the screen and provides the best comparison.

Presentation and its related foci are described in the paper exactly as follows:

Presentation is defined as “the manner or style of game display” containing the following ten foci:

• 2D: Representation of space in two dimensions. (e.g., A Boy and His Blob, Odin Sphere)
• 3D: Representation of space in three dimensions. (e.g., God of War, Uncharted)
• Isometric: Games that use isometric projection to render three-dimensional objects in two dimensions. (e.g., Final Fantasy Tactics, Age of Empires)
• Static background: Games with a background display that does not move or change. (e.g., Peggle, Princess Maker)
• Vertical scrolling: Games with a display that scrolls vertically where characters typically move from bottom to top. (e.g., 1942, Raiden)
• Side scrolling: Games with a display that scrolls horizontally where characters typically move from left to right. (e.g., Muramasa, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night)
• Grid-based: Games featuring a display that is made up of a series of intersecting vertical and horizontal axes. (e.g., Bejeweled, Tetris)
• Video backdrop: Games based on interacting with a motion-video backdrop, either as scenery or an enemy (modified from mobygames.com). (e.g., Area 51, EyeToy Groove)
• Text-based: Games that use text as the main display method.
• Perspective manipulation: Games where characters are able to switch between multiple display methods (e.g., 2D to 3D or vice versa). (e.g., Super Paper Mario, Perspective)

Defining this facet presented another challenge: what is the nature of the relationship between the Presentation and Artistic style (see below) facets? After lengthy discussion and examination of extant terms and screenshots of game displays, we determined that it would be useful to separate the technical aspects from the artistic or aesthetic aspects of game display. Thus two different facets in our scheme describe the visual aspects of video games.

This is a mix of terms that can describe the spatiality of the gameworld (2D, 3D), frame mobility (scrolling, static background), and even a non-project method of spatiality (text-based). I'll show how each focus aligns with terminology in my taxonomy.

Comparing Presentation to Taxonomy of Virtual Spaces

• 2D: Aligns with Gameworld Spatiality: Continuous, 2-D. There is not delineation in the Facet Analysis system between continuous and discrete (individual nodes in a network, like a chessboard) spatiality.
• 3D: Aligns with Gameworld Spatiality: Continuous, 3-D. 
• Isometric: The researchers' definition of this term, according to what is in the paper, is unclear. The examples given above (Final Fantasy Tactics, Age of Empires) are generally described as "isometric" (what my Taxonomy defines as an Axonometric Projection (further defined as dimetric in these cases)). However, the paper also refers to Mortal Kombat 3 as "isometric." Do the researchers define any 3-D objects rendered in a 2-D gameworld as "isometric?" In the case of MK3, the characters are based on photographs, the environment is rendered in 1-point perspective, and the background is multiple flat layers rendered in parallax to give an impression of depth. 
• Static Background: Aligns with Frame Mobility: Fixed.
• Vertical Scrolling: Aligns with Frame Mobility: Non-Fixed, Smooth-Scroll, Vertical Axis. There is no delineation between normal scrolling (like Ikari Warriors) and Auto-Scrolling (like Raiden).
• Horizontal Scrolling: Aligns with Frame Mobility: Non-Fixed, Smooth-Scroll, Horizontal Axis.
• Grid-Based: No real equivalency. 
• Video Backdrop: No real equivalency. Defined with the Taxonomy by the projection method used in the video backdrop.
• Text-Based: Aligns with the Non-Projection Method: Text Description.
• Perspective Manipulation: Such games are defined by the different possible perspectives as options in my Taxonomy.

Comparing Artistic Style to Taxonomy of Virtual Spaces

The Artistic Style facet compare the graphics used in a game to other forms of visual media (like manga or watercolors) and most don't really align with the concept of spatiality. The Artistic Style focus of Abstract would seem to align with my Taxonomy Non-Projection Method: Ambiguous, but the two concepts are different.

The Abstract examples include Lumines and Dyad. While both games may commonly be referred to as "abstract," everything in the game is strictly representational. A square of light in Lumines is still recognizable as a square of light that aligns to the game's 2-D plane. A spinning cylinder of fog in Dyad is still recognizable as a cylinder rendered in a 3-D perspective. These may not represent anything found in the real world, but they are unambiguous and project specific objects that exist in the space of the gameworld.

Ambiguous means that part of the game image is strictly non-representational: the player is not supposed to have a clear sense of space in this case. An example that I've referred to before is in the battle screens of Earthbound.

EarthBound (Ape Inc., 1995 (originally Mother 2 in Japan, 1994))

The background is completely ambigous: an ever-morphing, undulating fog of squiggly shapes with no sense of space. The Starman Jr. enemy is clearly rendered and represented, but the player has no sense of where they are in the gameworld. We don't know how far that "fog" goes behind the enemy, or if this is all just an effect meant to convey the mind-altering aspects of psychic combat. It is left as a mystery, which makes it ambiguous.

Game Genres, pt. 5: Mark J. P. Wolf's Interactive Genres for Classifying Video Games

Previously, I reviewed early game genres as developed through the lenses of marketplace leaders, an expert player, and a professional game developer. This set of game genres was developed by an academic, Mark J. P. Wolf. Wolf was one of the earliest scholars in the field of game studies and has written and published 23 books, mostly on the subject of digital games.

The Medium of the Video Game, Wolf (2001)

Wolf's The Medium of the Video Game (2001) includes the chapter "Genre and the Video Game" where he outlines what he sees as the core categorizations for digital games.

Wolf takes guidance from Ed Buscombe's essay "The Idea of Genre in the American Cinema" in that genre elements may appear in a film's iconography, structure, and theme. Iconographic genres like "Western" and "science fiction" (what I previously referred to as milieu) may work for narrative games, especially those inspired by cinematic tropes, it doesn't really work for nonnarrative and abstract games. Additionally, two different games in the same iconographic genre or theme may be very different experiences for the player. Wolf moves away from these cinematic concepts of film genre by focusing on the classifications of interactivity seen in digital games.

Wolf notes that games may best fit into multiple genres (Pac-Man is primarily a "Collecting" game, as the player's primary objective is to eat all of the dots on the screen. Secondarily, it also falls under the "Escape" and "Maze" genres).

• Abstract - Arkanoid, Breakout, Q*bert, Tempest (with Shoot 'Em Up), Tetris (with Puzzle)
• Adaptation - Games that are adapted from card games (Casino), cartoons (The Simpsons), comic books (X-Men), film (Star Wars), sports (Atari Football), etc.
• Adventure - Games set in a freely explorable "world" usually made up of multiple, connected rooms or screens, involving an objective more complex that catching, shooting, capturing, or escaping. Adventure, Tomb Raider, Venture.
• Artificial Life - Games involving the growth or maintenance of digital creatures. The Little Computer People, The Sims (with Management Simulation).
• Board Games - Board game adaptations and digital games that play like board games. Culdcept, Monopoly, Quest for the Rings.
• Capturing - Capture objects or characters that move away from and evade the player character. Keystone Kapers, Surround (with Escape).
• Card Games - Card game adaptations and digital games that play like card games. Solitaire, Uno, Casino (with Gambling).
• Catching - Catch objects or characters that do not move away from or evade the player character. Stampede, Circus Atari, Kaboom!
• Chase - "See Catching, Capturing, Driving, Escape, Flying, and Racing."
• Collecting - Collect objects that do not move. Pac-Man (with Maze and Escape), Amidar (with Abstract).
• Combat - One vs. one shooting challenge. Combat, Outlaw.
• Demo - Demonstrate games or system.
• Diagnostic - Test the functioning of a system.
• Dodging - Avoid projectiles. Frogger (with Obstacle Course), Journey Escape.
• Driving - Night Driver, Pole Position.
• Educational - Games designed to teach. Basic Math, Mario Teaches Typing.
• Escape - Escape pursuers or get of of an enclosure. Pac-Man (with Collecting and Maze), Surround (with Capturing).
• Fighting - One on one fighting without the use of firearms. Boxing (with Sports), Mortal Kombat, Tekken.
• Flying - Flying games where shooting an opponent is not the main objective. Flight Unlimited (with Training Simulation), Solaris. 
• Gambling - Slot Machine, You Don't Know Jack (with Quiz).
• Interactive Movie - Dragon's Lair, Space Ace.
• Management Simulation - Aerobiz, M.U.L.E.
• Maze - Dig Dug, Lode Runner, Tunnel Runner.
• Obstacle Course - Frogger (with Dodging), Pitfall!, Jungle Hunt.
• Pencil-and-Paper Games - 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe, Noughts and Crosses, Hangman.
• Pinball - Pachinko!, Sonic Spinball, Video Pinball.
• Platform - Crazy Climber, Donkey Kong, Lode Runner (with Maze).
• Programming Games - Player writes short programs to control an agent in the game. Omega, CRobots.
• Puzzle - Tetris (with Abstract), 7th Guest, Myst (with Adventure).
• Quiz - Fax, You Don't Know Jack (with Gambling), Trivial Pursuit (with Adaptation).
• Racing - Win a race or cover more ground than an opponent. Mario Kart 64 (with Driving), Slot Racers (with Dodging).
• Rhythm and Dance - Keep time with a musical rhythm. Beatmania, PaRappa the Rapper, Samba de Amigo, Space Channel 5.
  
• Role-Playing - Diablo, Phantasy Star, Ultima, Interstate '76.
• Shoot ’Em Up - Shoot at and destroy a series of opponents or objects. Asteroids, Berzerk, Galaga, Zaxxon, Missile Command.
• Simulation - "See Management Simulation and Training Simulation"
• Sports - Atari Baseball, Bowling, Fishing Derby (with Catching), Pong (with Table-Top Games), Sky Diver.
• Strategy - Ataxx (with Abstract), Chess (with Board Games), M.U.L.E. (with Management Simulation).
• Table-Top Games - Table-top games that require physical skill or action. Battle Ping Pong, Electronic Table Soccer!, Pocket Billiards!, Pong (with Sports), Virtual Pool.
• Target - Primarily aim and shoot at targets that are not in motion. Air-Sea Battle, Carnival, Shooting Gallery.
• Text Adventure - Planetfall, Zork.
• Training Simulation - Games that simulate a realistic situation for the purpose of training and usually the development of a physical skill (such as driving or piloting). Comanche 3 (with Flying), Flight Unlimited (with Flying), Police Trainer.
• Utility - Have a purpose beyond that of entertainment, although they may be structured similarly to games. Basic Programming, Diagnostic Cartridge (with Diagnostic), Infogenius French Language Translator, Sped Reading.

This is a highly detailed system of genre classification. I see the usefulness of classifying games by a core game mechanic (like Capturing, Escaping, or Target), but some categories are non-games (Utility and Diagnostic), confusing (I would expect Table-Top Games to be board, card, and role-playing games), or questionably applied (in what way is Q*bert abstract?).

Looking closer at Wolf's definition of "Abstract" games, he describes them as having "nonrepresentational graphics" and often a non-narrative objective, which may involve "visiting, filling" or "destroying the screen," though they may have characters that are "anthropomorphic in design" (2001, pg. 117). Wolf's non-narrative objective aspect puts his definition in line with "abstract strategy" board games and puzzles, such as chess, checkers, Othello, and peg solitaire. However, he specifically does not include digital versions of such board games in this genre.

My problem is that almost all of Wolf's "Abstract" examples (Arkanoid, Amidar, Ataxx, Block Out, Breakout, Marble Madness, Pac-Man, Pipe Dream, Q*bert, and Tetris) use representational graphics. Ataxx and Pipe Dream play like abstract strategy board games, which he would exclude from the genre if they were adaptations. Arkanoid, Block Out, Breakout, and Tetris all feature shapes that are more than abstract geometric forms (the shapes are meant to represent bricks and blocks). Amidar, Marble Madness, Pac-Man, and Q*bert all feature cartoonish characters existing in representational, if sometimes impossible, spatial structures (Q*bert is no more abstract than the famous works by M. C. Escher).

Some of his examples arguably have abstract elements. Tempest's high-speed, neon world of geometric shapes in conflict is akin an electronic edition of Lissitsky's Suprematist Bolshevik propaganda works like Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge (1919). [Side note: for a true digital game version of Suprematist works, you must play Chris Totten's Lissitsky's Revenge (2015).] In both cases, the shapes are more symbolic than abstract.

Qix (Atari, 1982, arcade game)

Qix is one case of a game with a truly abstract element: the titular Qix, a shapeless series of rainbow-colored lines that undulate around the environment and threaten the tiny, diamond-shaped player avatar. Where Tempest's lines create identifiable and distinct shapes (bow tie-shaped "flippers," the staple-shaped "blaster" player avatar), the Qix has no specific form. It is an unpredictable, chaotic force that the player must work to contain and control as they claim the game's territory by drawing walls on the screen.

EarthBound (Ape Inc., 1995 (originally Mother 2 in Japan, 1994))

A good example of what I'd consider abstraction in digital games is seen in battle sequences in the Super NES game EarthBound (see image above). Most of the game world is presented with typical CRPG spatial structures (with some brilliantly unexpected breaks in reality, as I've written about before). When a battle starts, the environment is replaced with a truly abstract background comprised of multiple colored, morphic shapes layered on top of each other. This puts the scene in ambiguous space, a term I adapted after attending Bruce Block's lectures on cinematic production, which he later collected in The Visual Story (2013). The subject of the scene (the Starman Jr. enemy) is clearly represented but its location in the world is unspecific, non-representational, and non-symbolic (in other words, abstracted). Wolf did not use EarthBound as an example of an abstract game in this essay.

Next, I'll review Mark J. P. Wolf's classification of game spaces, something much more applicable to my own research.

Terminology Analysis of Digital Games, part 11

Continued from part 10.

We always have an incomplete view on the virtual environments of digital games as they are projected onto the flat, two-dimensional surfaces are our display screens. In the case of two-dimensional games, we might only see these virtual agents and objects from the front view or from one side. These objects may not even have a "back" side, yet we do not tend to see them as incomplete objects. We still have an impression that they are whole and have extents into the virtual space.

Philosopher Alva Noë explored aspects of human perception of actual objects and concluded that we perceive three-dimensional objects in this same way.

"For example, you look at a tomato. You have a sense of its presence as a whole, even though the back of the tomato (for example) is hidden from view. You do not merely think that the tomato has a back, or judge or infer that it is there. You have a sense, a visual sense, of its presence... How can the tomato's back show up in experience when we manifestly do not see it?" (Noë "Curious Reference" The Philosophical Quarterly vol. 59 no. 236 2009 pp. 470-71 emphasis original).

We do not see the back of the tomato, yet we perceive the fruit as a whole object, voluminous and extended in three dimensions.

"You can only see part of the tomato's surface... [but] when you look at a tomato, what you see is not part of it (the facing surface), but it" (Noë Action in Perception 2004 pg. 76 emphasis original).

We have a "sensorimotor knowledge" about experiencing objects like tomatoes, which enables us to perceive an object that we only see a portion of it.

"These features of the world... fall within the scope of your perceptual awareness despite the fact that they are, in a straightforward way, out of view... They are present in experience -- they are there -- despite the fact that they are absent in the sense of being out of view. They are present precisely as absent" (Noë "Curious Reference" The Philosophical Quarterly vol. 59 no. 236 2009 pg. 472 emphasis original).

Our perception fills in the unseen aspects to experience a whole; we don't need to see the back because our sensorimotor systems understand that changing our subjective view of the object will bring the hidden portions of the tomato into view.

"My sense of the visual presence of the tomato's back -- in contrast, say, with the tomato's insides -- consists in practical understanding that simple movements of my head and body in relation to the tomato would bring the reverse side into view. It is visually present to me now" (Noë "Curious Reference" The Philosophical Quarterly vol. 59 no. 236 2009 pg. 474).

Vacant House in Onett
Ape and HAL Laboratory Earthbound 1995

Brendan Keogh reminds us of a moment where a digital game directly confronts our perception by sensorimotor knowledge (Keogh 2018 pp. 35-39). In the Super Nintendo role-playing game Earthbound (1995, released as Mother 2 in Japan), the buildings in the player's hometown of Onett are all displayed on the town map in an oblique projection (the roof and the front and right side walls are all visible from outside, but the player can never see the other exterior sides). There is a "vacant house" for sale on the outskirts of town for an expensive price, well beyond the player's budget at the start of the game. There is no way to go inside the house without buying it, and if the player waits too long into the game's story, the real estate agent will disappear and the house will no longer be for sale.

It is possible for the player to stay near the start of the game, saving up enough money to buy the house. Once paid, the real estate agent runs away and the player may walk their character into the house through the front door.

Vacant House Interior

Once inside, the player sees that the house is a dilapidated, run down mess. There are holes in the flooring and, most importantly, there is no wall on the rear of the house. It is easy to say that the game creators were breaking the fourth wall because there is no fourth wall. Logically, the characters in the game would have surely noticed that the house is incomplete before buying it. The joke is on the human player and their incomplete view into the game's world.

Note: Earthbound/Mother 2 is constantly changing the player's perception of the game world by using different projections for different aspects of the game. Onett and most other exterior locations are displayed in a typical "cavalier" elevation oblique projection. The unusual village of Saturn Valley uses a vertical oblique projection. Fourside uses a "military" oblique projection that accentuates the sense of height in its tall skyscrapers. Building interiors often use opposing oblique projections of the right and left walls to convey a naïve image of converging lines of perspective, as if the walls are converging in the distance. Finally, battle scenes are set in a hazy, fog-like environment: an ambiguous space.

Noë agrees with philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty that we have more than a "pictorial" perception: seeing a retinal image of the object and recognizing it as a tomato (Noë "Pictures in Mind" Action in Perception 2004 pp. 35-74). Merleau-Ponty's examples use a cube, not a tomato, 

"I express the carnal presence of the cube that is there before my eyes... in its perpetual evidentness. The sides of the cube are not projections of it, they are nothing other than "sides." When I see them... according to perspectival appearance, I do not construct the idea of a geometrical plan [alternately translated as "flat projection"] that would account for these perspectives; rather, the cube is already there in front of me and unveils itself through them" (Merleau-Ponty Phenomenology of Perception 1945 trans. 2012 pg. 211).

Merleau-Ponty similarly writes about actively perceiving a drawing of a cube on a piece of paper as if it is an object with dimensional extents.

"Depth is born before my gaze because my gaze attempts to see something"  (1945 pg. 274 emphasis original).

The drawing, a projection of a cube on a flat surface, gives the impression of a whole object, even when the method of projection (oblique, orthographic, or isometric, for example) does not match the subjective perspectival experience we have when observing an actual, material cube.

"The six faces and twelve edges can only simultaneously coexist and remain equal for me if they are arranged in depth. The act that corrects appearances, giving acute or obtuse angles the value of right angles, or to deformed sides the value of a square, is no the thought of geometrical relations of equality and of the geometrical being to which they belong -- it is the investment of the object by my gaze that penetrates it, animates it, and immediately makes the lateral faces count as "squares seen from an angle," to the extent that we do not see them according to the extent that we do not even see them according to their diamond-shaped perspectival appearance" (1945 pg. 276).

Similarly, we accept digital game objects projected on our display screens, be they an animated sprite character or vacated house with a missing wall, as complete objects with some sense of depth and dimensionality in their virtual environments. Their spatiality should make sense within the logic of their particular virtual spaces.

Note that digital game graphics tend to be varied and hybridized, even within a single game. A single frame of a game is often constructed of numerous images, arranged in order to construct a cohesive scene. Especially in the era when games were shifting from 2-D to 3-D, various objects may use different methods of projection, yet still read as part of a single organized space.

For example, in Doom (Id Software 1993), the player explores the game world from a first-person perspective viewpoint. The environment is drawn the the screen via a raycast 3-D method, essentially creating a two-point perspective view by rendering the view in vertical strips. This works well maneuvering laterally and looking left or right, but the player cannot tilt their view up or down. Objects in the game (keys, pieces of armor, exploding barrels, etc.) overlap each other and recede into the distance, but they are simple orthographic sprites that are always seen as if from the same direction. Creatures are similar to objects, but use different sets of sprite animations that mimic displaying them from eight possible directions. The sky and mountains in the distance are simply a flat background image displayed behind all other objects and environmental elements.

Researcher Dominic Arsenault and his team at the Université de Montréal created a framework for analyzing this many and varied projection methods that create hybrid visual modes in game graphics ("The Game FAVR: A Framework for the Analysis of Visual Representation in Video Games" Loading... The Journal of the Canadian Game Studies Association 2015 vol. 9 no. 14 pp. 88-123). It is an effective toolkit for defining the varied graphical presentations of elements in a digital game image, but it is not intended for analyzing a game's spatiality. For that, I've incorporated some of the Game FAVR concepts into my own system of defining virtual spaces (Rowe "A Taxonomy of Virtual Spaces" unpublished).

 

CYBORG:

Additional quotes about the concept of digital games as cyborgian play.

"Computer games, like most computer applications, work through feedback between user and software. It has been argued that these games, or, more precisely, the circuit of game and player in the act of playing, are literally (for the duration of the game at least) cybernetic. Computer games... produce the game player as cyborg" (Kennedy "Illegitimate, Monstrous and Out There" Feminism in Popular Culture 2006 pp. 188-89).

"There is no player separate to the interface and game world, there is a fusion of the two into a cyborgian subjectivity -- composed of wires, machines, code and flesh" (Kennedy "Female Quake Players and the Politics of Identity" Videogame, Player, Text 2007 pg. 126).

"From my experience with... virtual reality simulations... I can attest to the disorienting, exhilirating effect of the feeling that subjectivity is dispersed throughout the cybernetic circuit. In these systems, the user learns, kinesthetically and proprioceptively, that the relevant boundaries for interaction are defined less by the skin than by the feedback loops connecting body and simulation in a technobio-integrated circuit" (Hayles "Virtual Bodies and Flickering Signifiers" How We Became Posthuman 1999 pg. 27).