Random tagging ideas, part 3 (2010-04)

Continuation of /forum/thread/28708. Creating new thread as the old one already handles quite a few and is becoming confusing.

1, 5, 7, 9, 12, and others still need something.

1) Multi-directional shooting, usually achieved by using directional buttons and shooting key. May be limited to 4 directions (up, down, left and right) but may also have 8 or even full 360 degree control depending on the controller and the game. Related to independent aim but shares movement control with the shooting direction control. This is in contrast to games where player can only shoot left and right or whatever the directions are they're capable of moving in.
... examples: Dark Void Zero, many many older shooters.
... not limited to shooting, fairly certain Strider had you swinging a sword in at least 4 directions.
... overlaps slightly with multi-directional shooter genre, though they're exclusively top-down?
= ?

2) Cruelty; not specifically the kind where it has any effect other than visual and auditive feedback, but games that allow players to express cruelty and get some form of results. Such as mauling someone's legs so they can't walk, causing the characters to scream in pain and go futilely clambering for safety. Note that this is "milder" variation of the already existing cruelty tag.
... for examples, go here: tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VideoGameCrueltyPotential
= cruelty-potential (the answer was right there)

3) Player is limited to the weapons/tools they start the game with. They can't take new weapons/tools from enemies nor are they gifted with them by allies.
= equipment-preset

4) Player is given new weapons/tools by allies (or the plot itself) at certain points of the game. Player has no or little choice which they get.
= equipment-plot

5) Player has access to the most powerful weapons/tools right from the start, may not be able to obtain (all of) them at that moment. May be reduced to choosing weaker variants to save money for example.
= ?

6) Linear game progression. Player has no chance to get lost. As in, all possible routes will lead to where you need to go. May not imply linear level design.
= linear

7) Linear increase in usefulness of found weapons/tools. May not be worth recording if this happens only with games with linear difficulty.
= ?

8) Linear increase in power/difficulty of enemies/challenges. Mostly of interest when this happens regardless of where you're going. For one, no-one would expect the weakest enemies to be on the frontlines with increasingly tougher enemies towards their stronghold. The toughest should be at front and the back with weakest mobs everywhere. The middle ground has every chance of anything.
... overlaps with linear difficulty in case player has no options but to engage these.
= lineardifficulty

9) Strategy games has gameplay content reminiscent of first person games, such as controlling one person or a small group, entering and exiting vehicles (or mounting animals) and using them freely, etc. May need multiple tags.
... examples: War Wound has the vehicle bit at least.
= ?

10) In games based on something (tie-in), you find a copy of that something. Player may not be able to interact with them. Effectively breaking of the 4th wall in potentially subtle way. Common-ish in games based on a book, may find a poster or DVD case for a movie, and so forth.
... examples: Metro 2033 at least, I think I've seen it in others as well.
= recursive reference

11) Player turns into a ghost on death and needs to seek means of resurrection to continue functioning. Interaction severely limited, with the most tangible thing being resurrection.
... examples: ZombieMud (and likely other MUDs), Sacrifice, etc.
= interactive purgatory

12) Same as above, but gameplay continues as "normal" as dead.
... examples: Soul Reaver games could be considered to have this (gameplay wise), Urban Dead definitely has it.
= ?

13) Robots and similar high tech things in otherwise low tech setting. Mixing fantasy and scifi flags is inadequate (Star Wars is from the opposite end of that scale).
... examples: Knights of the Round,
= Medieval Scifi

14) Your boss turns against you for some reason, and you join the people you had been previously fighting. Has some similarities with the creator-creation conflict.
... examples: Crusader series and plenty of others
= ?

15) Player can jump out of moving vehicles they're driving, leaving the vehicle move onward for a while.
... this is in contrast to requiring to stop the vehicles or the vehicles stopping automatically when player exits them.
... related to roadkilling tag as that's one of its purposes. Also, if player can plant explosives, then the vehicle might've been rigged for this purpose.
= ejecting

16) Easter egg days or whatever. If you play the game on a certain date the game's changed somehow, commonly on Christmas day (25th) or Halloween.
= eastereggs-dates

17) Gravity gun. See the temporary tag for details. Current name is inadequate.
= powerthrow

18) Multiple weapons of a same type, each with different purpose.
... examples: Ninja Blade has 3 swords (one "normal", one pair of fast ones, and one heavy sword (and maybe others, I dunno))
= duplicateweapons

19) A story element where something that initially seems good, and is, later turns out to be somehow bad (or its cost is somehow worse than what it was used to solve). Pandora's box could be considered a twisted subset of this (though it often lacks the initial good).
... examples: PoP: The Forgotten Sands and likely a lot of others.
= ?

20) A seemingly regular game turns into "reality", or plays out in reality. Not ARG or such, but things like Jumanji, Zathura, and whatever else is out there. Pretty sure there are more of such out there. Should not exclude cases where this is not unexpected.
... examples: Zathura
= alteredreality (not very exact, but works)

21) Enemies harvest resources, possibly the same as you do (or you don't at all), for whatever purpose. Mostly we see this in strategy games, but we can ignore them and focus on games where this is unusual. Gameplay wise related to thieving NPCs if these are the same resources player uses.
... examples: Sinistar, Sinistar Unleashed, Starscape
= npcharvesting

22) Player can call in (or "shop") and have things delivered right where they are, commonly by an air drop (could be teleported, someone inexplicably drives there and drops the stuff, etc.).
... examples: Mercenaries 2 (has air drops of vehicles [cars, tanks, boats, helicopters, etc.], munitions, and artillery/air strikes), Section 8 (has air drops of automated turrets, vehicles, health/munition rechargers, etc.), Dawn of War 2 (has air drops of turrets, drop pods [reinforcement points], artillery strikes)
= ?

23) Building anything requires player to instantly pay the full price of the finished product. And in contrast: the price is gradually deducted as the thing is built. Most games have the pre-paid method. Gradual payment allows starting projects long before you have the required wealth to finish it.
... examples (gradual): Supreme Commander, probably Total Annihilation as well.
= expenses-instant

24) Player can intimidate/bully NPCs to drop or surrender their cargo/wreight.
... examples: X3, some other spaceflight sims where player can turn into piracy
= intimidation

25) Player can have underlings who perform their duties unsupervised. Standard in strategy games, but these exist in other games as well.
... examples: X3
= ?

26) Player can have supervisors, managers, governors, and such that automate tasks.
... examples: certain 4X games tend to have this per-city where they manage their development
= taskdelegation

27) Player can tell the opponents to stand down (lower weapons and so forth).
... examples: SWAT 4 and likely others in the series.
= enemycommanding

28) Wire cam, stick cam, or other device that extends player's vision in places they do not want to go directly or want to observe undetected. Related to remote camera, but this is attached to the player character. Wire cam is seen in several games for observing the other side of a closed door, stick cam (e.g. periscope) is rarer and likely to not appear anymore, but accomplishes the same.
... examples: SWAT 4 (stick cam), Splinter Cell series (wire cam), Rainbow Six (wire cam)
= ?

29) Player can have access to only a small sub-set of their total skills, spells, etc. while out adventuring.
... examples: Guild Wars, Evil Islands
= activeabilityset

30) Player can change their equipment, and those mentioned in idea #29, only in certain locations, usually safe zones or between missions.
... examples: many tactical shooters, Evil Islands, Guild Wars (at least skills can't be changed outside), many vehicle based games such as the X-series, etc.
= ?

31) Ability to maintain current movement vector but freely turn around without affecting that. Mostly a feature in spaceflight sims that simulate proper Newtonian physics, but not guaranteed to exist in them. Reasons for this not existing include limitations in control scheme, automatic deceleration (reverse thrusters activating automatically). Essentially this allows cutting your engine output off, but not shutting them down. Not sure if such manoeuvres are possible in atmospheric conditions without very non-aerodynamic vehicle shape (e.g. sphere). Usually possible in all cases where player can jump (and otherwise moves on foot), but this is not guaranteed either. Sinistar Unleashed called this "clutch" but that apparently doesn't describe it at all. Not very meaningful in cases of independent aim and otherwise being land-locked, only for aerial and in space movement. Jump steering may overlap with this somewhat (as in, it may allow simulating this with some effort).
... examples: several spaceflight sims without space friction, Sinistar Unleashed.
= drifting

32) Player plans out what should be done and then watches the results. May participate but the previously outlined plan is largely unaffected.
... examples: early Rainbow Six games, Gratuitous Space Battles, Pyrosaurus
= planning, planning-preset

33) POV control. Many vehicle sims, mainly space- and aircraft sims, allow player to turn the pilots head so they can view any controls, readouts, or just look around at the outside from the cockpit. This is commonly controlled by joystick hat/POV switch, but some offer it on other controllers. Essentially it's a method to look around without altering your orientation. It's effectively a mandatory feature of interactive camera, but can exist in addition to it. Also somewhat related to independent aim. This is also somewhat related to player having multiple camera angles to choose from.
= ?

As opposed to buying them, or otherwise having the option of getting them from sources that allow the player some choice as to choose when/where?
inventory-preset
but I suppose this can happen without an inventory?
upgrades-preset
Is upgrades-preset sufficient without inventory-preset?
Note that games can have both choice and preset items.


The individual tags, Action/Reflex type, or other game types would seem suffcient to me. Do you have an example game to change my mind?


recursivereference
You can find a GoldenEye movie cassette in GoldenEye


interactivepurgatory?
Legend of the Red Dragon/ Legend of the Green Dragon are like this.


This requires both a betraying authority and joining the the opposing faction? Because many games have a betraying authority. Ussually the betrayed character retaliates on their own with little concern for the opposing faction.

They might not be real "upgrades", just added options. Preset sounds more useful for the idea #3. Preset/predefined equipment. Though that sounds like it eliminates any chance of choice which may be present.


Besides War Wound, I'm not sure. Cannon Fodder might've had it with jeeps.

Action-strategy games don't have it by default. It's actually quite rare as far as I know. More commonly you have APCs or other troop transports, but not vehicles that can become unmanned and manned at player's or AI's will. Speaking of which: manned vehicles. Would imply the AI has equal capacity for it, but I don't right now recall if there are cases where player can do it but the opposition can't.


Possibly.


Could do until/if we get better name for it.


Only the betrayal should be a required part, the joining the opposition just a common extra.

I'm thinking of calling #17 power throw/toss, but not sure if that's good. Can't think of any critical flaws in it right now.

#17
That sounds like a VSM (Vacuum State Manipulator) aka: ZPEFM (Zero Point Energy Field Manipulator). A theoretical device we might have someday. It made an appearance in "The Incredibles" where the villain had such a device that he used by pointing his finger at people (Zero Point Energy, [harhar]). I seem to recall that these have appeared in a games and with the actually scientific names.
Gravity Gun seems fine too me as long as games only use the 'gun' shaped package for the device. Using a finger for example, stretches the metaphor. But what happens when a non-gun shaped device is used?

zpefm, synonyms: vsm;vacuumstatemanipulator;zeropointenergyfieldmanipulator;gravitygun

I think the proper name of the gravity gun in HL2 is this or very similar (they say it once or twice).


There lies the problem. To quote the temporary tag:

And there we have it. Although the device itself might be of some interest, it replicates a gameplay element that can and does exist without it.

Edit: Meaning, if we care only about the device, gravity gun is fine (easier to remember and all that and is outwardly more descriptive). But this is not to be limited to single method of accomplishing a common feat.

Throwing out some names here, some of these may need better ones while others don't. Updating the first post later.

3) equipment-preset
4) equipment-plot
6) linear — leaving tag addition for later, need to decide the boundary between linear and nonlinear
7) ? — obsoleted assets implies this but is not usable in all cases
8) lineardifficulty — not adding tag for now, focus on locating games for the opposite: /groups/info/nonlineardifficulty
16) eastereggs-dates
22) ? — pizza delivery, shop delivery, home delivery,... some delivery would probably work fine.
29) activeabilityset

Still missing even temporary names: 1, 5, 7, 9, 12-15, 18-28, 30-33

9) vehicle crew to a degree
13) mixed tech to a degree
14) maybe consider as part of betrayal
18) duplicate weapons
23) expenses-instant, expenses-gradual
30) equipment-preselect
33) look around


Still missing #15, #19, #20, #21, #22, #24, #25, #27, #28, #31, and #32.