Browse Software groups
series
themes
entities
concepts
AliceSoft System | cross platform OS/VM hybrids by AliceSoft. Began as PC-98, x68k, FM-Towns, etc. Eventually focused on Windows, still has porting ability (Linux, Mac) | notifications | 2 games | |
Glacier | Uses any generation/version of the Glacier game engine by IO Interactive. | 0 game | ||
GNOME Games | These games make up the GNOME Games package that comes standard with the GNOME Desktop Environment. | notifications | 1994 / 2005 | 17 games |
HPL | Uses any version of the HPL game engine by Frictional Games. | notifications | 2007 / 2015 | 18 games |
The KDE Education Project | These games are part of the The KDE Education Project. | notifications | 2005 / 2011 | 11 games |
Unreal Engine | Uses any generation of the Unreal Engine. | notifications | 1998 / 2019 | 110 games |
Activation limit | A copy protection scheme where a purchased game has - usually very small - limit on the number of "activations" before you're supposed to re-purchase or renew your previous license for the game. | notifications | 2006 / 2009 | 6 games |
Ada programming language | A high-level programming language originally created by High Order Language Working Group (formed by US Department of Defense). | notifications | 1980 / 2016 | 27 games |
AESOP (Extensible State-Object Processor) | AESOP/16 and AESOP/32 are script based sound systems developed by Miles Design | notifications | 1993 / 2015 | 6 games |
AI middleware (Artificial Intellligence middleware;AI libraries) | list_alt | 0 game | ||
AIX operating system | A UNIX-like proprietary IBM OS. Closed source, but most games are Open Source. Originally Advanced IBM UNIX. Currently, Advanced Interactive eXecutive | notifications | 1989 / 1997 | 16 games |
ALT Linux Sisyphus | A set of Linux distros specializing in customization, correct localization, and advanced package management. | notifications | 2001 / 2015 | 5 games |
Amos programming language | notifications | 1993 / 1996 | 8 games | |
Anamorphic resolution | Anamorphic projection squeezes an image, usually horizontally, expecting it to be stretched out on the screen so that the final image appears normal. | notifications | 1991 / 2014 | 35 games |
Annchienta Engine | A versatile 2D game engine by Jasper Van der Jeugt. Written in C++. Game can be written in C++ or other languages such as Python. | notifications | 2006 / 2012 | 3 games |
Anti-cheat (Anti-hack) | Uses any kind of anti-cheat/hack solutions. | notifications | 2013 / 2014 | 3 games |
APL programming language | Programmed in APL or one of its variants. | 1 game | ||
AppleDOS 3.1 | Games that operated on Apple's AppleDOS version 3.1. Either internally (boot disk) or could be loaded on a system running 3.1 | notifications | 1 game | |
AppleDOS 3.2 | Games that operated on Apple's AppleDOS version 3.2. Either internally (boot disk) or could be loaded on a system running 3.2. | notifications | 1977 / 1983 | 24 games |
AppleDOS 3.3 | Games that operated on Apple's AppleDOS version 3.3. Either internally (boot disk) or could be loaded on a system running 3.3. | notifications | 1978 / 2022 | 171 games |
AppleTalk | AppleTalk is a set of proprietary networking protocols developed 1984 by Apple for use with the Mac, OSX, ][c, & accessories. Discontinued 2009. | notifications | 1984 / 2000 | 11 games |
Application Programming Interfaces | list_alt | 0 game | ||
Arch Linux | A minimalist distro designed elegant, code correct, lightweight, & simple from a developers point of view. Relies heavily on command-line utilities. | notifications | 1996 / 2019 | 71 games |
Archive Games | This game is available through the Archive Games distribution/shopping service. | notifications | 1989 / 2010 | 21 games |
Ardor3d | Games that utilized Ardor3D, an open source, Java based 3D engine for desktop and mobile environments. | 4 games | ||
AROS (AROS Research Operating System;Amiga Research Operating System) | AROS is a non-propriety implementation of the AmigaOS 3.1 APIs. Source-compatible not binary-compatible; designed so AmigaOS code will compile on it. | notifications | 2005 / 2014 | 2 games |
Assembly language (ASM) | Written in assembly language; human readable form of machine code. The least portable & lowest level that can still be considered a computer language. | notifications | 1975 / 2022 | 252 games |
Audio middleware (Sound engines;Audio libraries) | list_alt | 0 game | ||
Audio occlusion | Simulates audio occlusion. | notifications | 2 games | |
Automatic aspect ratio | Handles almost any aspect ratio from regular 4:3 to widescreen to vertical screen without effort, with possibly only very few limitations (such as square pixels). | notifications | 1995 / 2015 | 18 games |
Automatic wide aspect ratio | Can attempt to automatically adjust to wide aspect ratios besides those it supports directly. | notifications | 2005 / 2008 | 4 games |
Bagatur Chess Engine | notifications | 1 game | ||
BASIC programming language (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) | Coded in BASIC. | notifications | 1970 / 2021 | 2141 games |
BASICA Programming Language | Games that use BASICA source code. | notifications | 1982 / 1986 | 2 games |
batari (bB) | Batari is a BASIC-like language compiler for developing Atari VCS games. There is also a Visual batari Basic IDE application. | notifications | 1 game | |
Battle.net (bnet) | Utilizes Blizzard's Battle.net matchmaking and internet lobby services. | notifications | 1996 / 2015 | 30 games |
bBasic programming language | Written in bBasic. A BASIC-like language that creates compiled Atari 2600 binary files suitable for emulators or creating Atari 2600 cartridges. | notifications | 1 game | |
Bell Labs UNIX | Games that run on a specific UNIX OS distributed by Bell Labs | notifications | 1 game | |
BeOS (ZetaOS) | Runs on the BeOS Operating System. | notifications | 1990 / 2010 | 481 games |
Bink Video codec | .bik files developed by RAD Game Tools. Uses up to 16 different techniques per file to optimize decoding times rather than achieving best compression | notifications | 2000 / 2016 | 96 games |
Blender Game Engine | Shares the same code base as the Blender 3D modeling tool. But unlike blender, it renders in real time with sounds and interactivity. | notifications | 2008 / 2014 | 16 games |
Borland Graphics Interface | A device independent graphics library that can be statically or dynamically linked. | notifications | 1 game | |
Boss button (Boss key;Panic button) | Includes a hotkey to display a fake screen or quickly hide the game, creating an illusion of serious work. Used to try to fool a boss or just to keep onlookers from knowing a game is being played. | notifications | 1983 / 2011 | 27 games |
Browser-based(HTML)[HTML4;HTML5] | Played in a regular internet HTTP browser, via HTML, javascript and/or server-side processing. Usually requires account registration, but not always even that. | notifications | 1998 / 2015 | 83 games |
BSD operating system | Games that run on BSD by Berkeley Software Design, Inc. BSD is derived from UNIX & thanks to a very permissive license, has influenced subsequent UNIXs & many other OS including MacOSX, WinXP and Solaris. | notifications | 1971 / 2014 | 35 games |
BSDi v4 operating system | Games that run on version 4 of the official BSD operating system provided by Berkeley Software Design, Inc. | notifications | 1992 / 1996 | 3 games |
C programming language | Coded in C, a general-purpose programming language, originally designed by Dennis Ritchie. | notifications | 1972 / 2021 | 510 games |
Caldera Linux | notifications | 1 game | ||
Cel Shading | Cel shading, cell shading, or toon shading is a type of non-photorealistic rendering designed to make 3-D computer graphics appear to be flat by using less shading color instead of a shade gradient or tints and shades. | notifications | 2003 / 2014 | 12 games |
CentOS Linux Distribution | Games for the CentOS operating system. CentOS promises 100% compatibility with Red Hat Linux | notifications | 2004 / 2017 | 15 games |
Chipmunk Physics Engine | notifications | 2011 / 2012 | 4 games | |
clanlib | Cross platform C++ toolkit library. Its primary focus is on games. | notifications | 2001 / 2012 | 16 games |
Classic Mac OS | Games for Mac OS 9 or earlier. | notifications | 1984 / 2019 | 2249 games |
Closed Captioning (CC;Subtitles 888) | Closed captioning is visual information about the audio of a game that is generally intended for the hearing impaired. | notifications | 1997 / 2022 | 45 games |
Color Clash | Games are very colorful in the play area, but they are accompanied by strong color clash effects, or the background disapears to prevent it. | notifications | 1983 / 2020 | 181 games |
Color: 16 bit floating point (64 bit color;Half-precision floating point color)[Half16;Half-16;RGBA16f] | A 64 bit color mode where each color is represented by a 16 bit floating point number rather than an integer. The output is still presumed to be standard 24 bit RGB as is expected by most modern display devices. | notifications | 2007 / 2017 | 4 games |
Comes in a Debian package | Other distros beside [gametag=debian Debian]debian Debian[/gametag] can use theses packages also. | notifications | 1993 / 2017 | 124 games |
Compatibility | Any and all tags relating to software and hardware compatibility. | list_alt | 0 game | |
Compatible with Wine | Works [b]normally[/b] with at least 1 version of Wine translation and compatibility layer for Linux, simply by installing it, the same as if you were running it on Windows | notifications | 1989 / 2016 | 62 games |
Compiled Basic | Although source code was written in BASIC, this code was compiled into machine code to be distributed. | notifications | 1980 / 2018 | 8 games |
Control config (User configurable controls) | Allows changing controls, keyboard mappings, button layout, etc. It provides flexibility and customization to better suit the user. | notifications | 1981 / 2022 | 111 games |
Control layouts (Control presets;Multiple predefined control layouts) | Offers several predefined control layouts but no full customization, nor are these different control schemes. | notifications | 2002 / 2009 | 4 games |
Corel LinuxOS distribution | Games that run on Corel Linux, a Debian-based distro. Used custom GUI, looked like Win98. Migration was very easy. M$ stole its File & Settings Transfer Wizard. | notifications | 1 game | |
CP/M OS | An operating system that reached its peak just before the IBM-PC was released. It rapidly lost its market share to MS-DOS compatible OSes. Made 'open source' in 2001. | notifications | 1970 / 2019 | 179 games |
Crystal Space 3D engine | An Open Source 3D graphics engine. | notifications | 2006 / 2009 | 14 games |
Curses | A library for implementing GUI & graphic looking applications using only text display. | notifications | 1990 / 2013 | 22 games |
Custom Operating System | These games use a self-contained operating system (other than a single bootloading system). | notifications | 1 game | |
Customizable anamorphic aspect ratio | The resolution & aspect ratio are fully independent and customizable. | notifications | 2014 / 2015 | 3 games |
D programming language (DMD;Digital Mars D) | A programming language created by Walter Bright of Digital Mars. | notifications | 2001 / 2017 | 26 games |
Dark Basic programming language | Game is written in Dark BASIC computer language. | notifications | 2000 / 2014 | 3 games |
Dark Side Engine | Created by Activision for Heavy Gear II and used in other games. | notifications | 1999 / 2000 | 3 games |
DART (Direct Audio Real Time) | A sound API & corresponding DLL that allows OS/2 applications to have multiple levels of direct access to audio hardware. | notifications | 1997 / 2006 | 22 games |
DASM Assembler | A tool for programming in assembly | notifications | 1 game | |
Data only | Released as data only, requiring the player to find a game engine to run it on. Likely platform-independent. | notifications | 2001 / 2016 | 55 games |
Debian GNU/Linux | Games for Debian distro. The most tightly organized GNU OS available. | notifications | 1993 / 2021 | 341 games |
DemonWare middleware | Networking middleware by DemonWare Ltd. (owned by Activision since 2007/02) | notifications | 2005 / 2007 | 8 games |
Desktop Environments | list_alt | 0 game | ||
Development System used HLSL parser | These games had their source code translated from Direct3D to OpenGL using the HLSL parser originally developed by Unknown Worlds Entertainment. | notifications | 2 games | |
Development System used ran the NeXTSTEP/68000 OS | These games were developed in part or whole using at least 1 computer with a 68000 cpu running the NeXTSTEP OS. | notifications | 1993 / 1997 | 14 games |
Development System used ran the NeXTSTEP/Intel OS | These games were developed in part or whole using at least 1 computer with an Intel 80386 cpu running the NeXTSTEP OS. | notifications | 1993 / 1997 | 7 games |
Development System used ran the NeXTSTEP/PPC OS | These games were developed in part or whole using at least 1 computer with a PowerPC cpu running the NeXTSTEP OS. | notifications | 1993 / 1997 | 9 games |
Development system used was only a text editor and compiler. | Developed in whole or in part using only a text editor. These text files were then compiled directly. | notifications | 1 game | |
Development System used was running a Linux based OS | These games were developed in part or whole using at least 1 Linux based system. | notifications | 1996 / 2017 | 44 games |
Development system used was running Classic Mac OS | These games were developed in part or whole using at least 1 machine or Mac OS 9 or earlier. | notifications | 1991 / 2000 | 5 games |
Development System used was running CP/M | These games were developed in part or whole using at least 1 computer running the CP/M operating system. | notifications | 1 game | |
Development System used was running MacOS X | These games were developed in part or whole using Mac OS X. | notifications | 2004 / 2011 | 2 games |
Development System used was running Minix | These games were developed in part or whole using at least 1 Minix based system. | 0 game | ||
Development System used was running UNIX | These games were developed in part or whole using at least 1 UNIX based system. | notifications | 1991 / 1993 | 5 games |
Direct3D | Uses or can use Direct3D for graphics. | notifications | 1996 / 2015 | 47 games |
DirectMusic (Interactive Music Architecture) | A deprecated subset of the DirectSound API that allowed high level access to hardware through DirectSound. Not available to 64-bit systems. | notifications | 2000 / 2004 | 8 games |
DirectX 1.0 (DX1) | Supports or requires DX1 run-times to be present. | notifications | 1995 / 1998 | 2 games |
DirectX 2 (DX2) | Supports or requires DX2 run-times to be present. | notifications | 1992 / 1999 | 4 games |
DirectX 3 (DX3) | Supports or requires DX3 run-times to be present. | notifications | 1996 / 2006 | 24 games |
DirectX 5 | Supports or requires DX5 run-times to be present. | notifications | 1996 / 2007 | 56 games |
DirectX[DX] | list_alt | 0 game | ||
Display Control Interface | a predecessor to DirectDraw. | notifications | 1 game | |
Display: 30 FPS cap(30 frames per second;Frame rate cap: 30) | Designed to run at 30 frames per second or is locked to run only at such screen update speed. Usually to deal with limited hardware capabilities of console platforms. | notifications | 2005 / 2017 | 12 games |
Display: 60 FPS cap(60 frames per second;Frame rate cap: 60) | Designed to run at 60 frames per second or is locked to run only at such screen update speed. | notifications | 2016 / 2018 | 4 games |
DIVE (Direct Interface Video Extentions) | A dynamic recompilation graphics API & corresponding DLL allowing OS/2 applications direct access to video hardware. DIVE predates DirectX/DirectDraw. | notifications | 1994 / 2004 | 32 games |
DoJa | A custom Java for DoCoMo's i-mode mobile phone platform. | notifications | 2004 / 2011 | 2 games |
Dolby Atmos | notifications | 1 game | ||
DOS installer | A Windows or otherwise non-DOS game that uses a DOS installer. | notifications | 1983 / 1995 | 3 games |
DOS/V | Games that need DOS/V to run. DOS/V is a special Japanese DOS version from IBM that could handle Japanese text. Introduced in November 1990 | 1 game | ||
DragonFly BSD | Games that run on DragonFly BSD. A BSD to grow in an entirely different direction from other BSDs. Tokened & Virtual kernels, HAMMER FS, SSD optimised | notifications | 1979 / 2003 | 26 games |
DRM changed | The DRM mechanism used was changed to another with some update, and not simply updated to different version of the same thing. | notifications | 2009 / 2011 | 2 games |
DRM removed (Copy protection removed) | Games that originally were copy protected but had it removed in some officially released patch. | notifications | 1982 / 2020 | 45 games |
DRM: Pinhole Copy Protection | Primitive DRM method of puncturing a specific point of a master floppy disk. If the game can read & write the damaged sector, it knows its being played from a copy | notifications | 3 games | |
DSiWare | Distributed through Nintendo's DSiWare online service for the Nintendo DSi handheld console. | notifications | 2008 / 2013 | 71 games |
Dualtone | Games are self constrained to using only two colors for the play area to not experience color clash. | notifications | 1982 / 2019 | 282 games |
Dynamic control prompts[Dynamic controller prompts] | The game dynamically changes controller prompts depending which controller you're currently using. Swap to keyboard and mouse and the prompts turn to key presses, swap to gamepad and it shows gamepad controls, with no other interaction from the player. | notifications | 2016 / 2017 | 2 games |
Dynamic Universal Music Bibliotheque (DUMB) | DUMB is an IT, XM, S3M and MOD player library developed by Robert J Ohannessian, Julien Cugnière and Ben Davis. | notifications | 2001 / 2016 | 21 games |
ECMAScript (JavaScript;JScript;ECMA-262;ISO/IEC 16262) | Coded wholly or partially in ECMAScript or is extensible with it. Including any of its dialects such as JavaScript or JScript. | notifications | 1998 / 2016 | 23 games |
Eiffel Language | A computer language designed with commercial software in mind. Noted here at UVL for legitimate use. | notifications | 1 game | |
EKI One | A game development suite. | notifications | 2010 / 2012 | 2 games |
Emulation | list_alt | 0 game | ||
eON Technology (Virtual Programming) | A hybridization utilizing virtualization, emulation, & native libraries, allowing Windows games to run with specific circumstances on other platforms. | notifications | 2001 / 2019 | 20 games |
Europa Universalis Engine | Engine used for the 1st & 2ndgames in the series & possibly others & possibly games outside of the series. | notifications | 2001 / 2014 | 4 games |
Export data for use in another game. | Probably characters for a sequel, but any type data counts. | notifications | 1987 / 2015 | 44 games |
Extraneous data accidentally included | Unintended data included in production copies. For instance, the master copy disk had personal letter that was not overwritten by the game's data. | notifications | 1 game | |
Facebook application | notifications | 2008 / 2012 | 5 games | |
Famicom Disk Writer Exclusives | Famicom Disk Writer games that were only available from Disk writer kiosks. Usually no "box/package" exists for these games. | notifications | 1987 / 1991 | 29 games |
Familiar Project (Familiar Linux) | Complete OS with OPIE or GPE GUI intended for iPAQ, Agenda or other PDAs. Based on a kernel modified by Compaq who officially switched iPAQ to Familiar | notifications | 4 games | |
Famitracker NES music development software | Music was developed in full or part using the Famitracker software. | notifications | 1 game | |
Fargo II Shell | Fargo II is an OS shell for the TI-92 calculator | 0 game | ||
Fast Light Toolkit (FLTK) | Allows creation of complete games quickly without sacrificing graphics & GUI or taxing the end users' hardware. Includes 3D, OpenGL, & emulates GLUT. | notifications | 1 game | |
Fedora Core Linux | Games that run on the Fedora Core Distro. Fedora is the 'free' version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. | notifications | 1993 / 2019 | 127 games |
ffdshow incompatibility | Exhibits issues of varying severity with ffdshow installed. | notifications | 1999 / 2003 | 4 games |
Flight Sim Toolkit | Built on Domark's Flight Sim Toolkit. | notifications | 1993 / 1998 | 13 games |
FOCAL language | FOCAL was a high-level computer language used mostly on early DEC systems. | notifications | 2 games | |
Fortran programming language | General-purpose language most suited for numeric and scientific computing. High-level languages were only theory before Fortran because they were considered inherently slower than handwritten assembly. | notifications | 1970 / 2014 | 25 games |
Frame synced (Frame synced logic) | Game speed and background logic is synced with drawn frames, meaning the actual game slows down or speeds up depending how fast it gets rendered and not just getting choppier or more fluid graphics. Top speed may be limited (via VSync or FPS cap). | notifications | 1982 / 2015 | 27 games |
FreeBSD OS | Games that run on FreeBSD. A reliable variation of BSD with any code removed that might be legally questioned. Can achieve 99.95% or more up time. | notifications | 1979 / 2016 | 344 games |
Friend-Zone Engine | The Friend-Zone engine is a friendship/relationship engine by Quickfire Games | notifications | 1 game | |
Fullscreen only | Runs only in fullscreen. | notifications | 1995 / 2021 | 81 games |
Gambas programming language | [b]G[/b]ambas [b]A[/b]lmost [b]M[/b]eans [b]Bas[/b]ic An object-oriented dialect of the BASIC with it's own IDE that somewhat mimics Visual Basic. | notifications | 2005 / 2011 | 10 games |
Game engines | This is a parent group for game engines. | list_alt | 0 game | |
Game Gear - Master System Compatability Mode | Game Gear games running in Master System compatibility mode. | notifications | 1991 / 1993 | 12 games |
Game makers (Game development environments) | Any software that exists to make making games as simple, easy and efficient as possible. | list_alt | 0 game | |
Game Oriented Object LISP 2 Engine (GOOL 2 Engine) | notifications | 1 game | ||
Game saves | Any tag that describes when or where the game can be saved, but does not include on what the saves are stored if anything. | list_alt | 0 game | |
Games for Windows - LIVE (XLive;GfWL) | Uses the Windows LIVE online service. Similar to Xbox Live and actually bridges over to it. | notifications | 2007 / 2012 | 34 games |
GameSpy (GameSpy Arcade) | Uses GameSpy's multiplayer matchmaking service. This may require an unique account at GameSpy. | notifications | 1998 / 2015 | 85 games |
GC Engine | Developed for use at GameCoder Studios with planned licensing later. | notifications | 1990 / 2013 | 16 games |
GCOS (General Comprehensive Operating System;GECOS;General Electric Comprehensive Operating System) | Later renamed GECOS (the [b]G[/b]eneral [b]E[/b]lectric [b]C[/b]omprehensive [b]O[/b]perating [b]S[/b]upervisor) A multithreaded OS originally by General Electric that was designed for mainframes & batch processing. Remains in use through emulation for | notifications | 1 game | |
Geeny Engine | A game engine by Sinister Systems | notifications | 8 games | |
Gentoo Linux (Gentoo/FreeBSD) | Games for Gentoo. Gt and apps come in source code not binary form. This is so the user-compiled apps are optimized and fast. It was initially BSD based. | notifications | 1983 / 2019 | 114 games |
GFA Basic | notifications | 1 game | ||
Glulx VM | Like Z-machine but uses 32-bit and Glk I/O. Plays game written in inform language. Games with this tag will [b][i]only[/i][/b] run on Glulx VM implementations. | notifications | 1 game | |
Gnome Desktop Environment | Requires Gnome, a Linux/X11 desktop environment. | notifications | 1994 / 2014 | 50 games |
GNU Data Language (GDL) | GNU Data Language is a variant of Lisp and Free alternative to IDL. | 2 games | ||
GNU Standard C++ Library v3 (libstdc++5) | This has been removed from many modern Linux distros but many early games depend on it and will not work with newer versions. It can be installed from Old repos or manually. | notifications | 2002 / 2005 | 3 games |
GOAL Programming Lanuage (Game Oriented Assembly Lisp) | GOAL is a game oriented non-interpretor variant of Lisp that compiles directly to machine code and is similar to Scheme. | notifications | 1996 / 2005 | 7 games |
Graphics middleware (Graphics engines;Graphics libraries) | Any middleware that deals with rendering, texturing, visual effects, graphical user interface, image manipulation, animation, etc. | list_alt | 0 game | |
Graphics options | Actually offers options to sacrifice graphical fidelity for increased framerate. Mainly of interest on platforms where this is unusual, such as consoles. | notifications | 1 game | |
Graphics techniques | list_alt | 0 game | ||
GReasy Graphics System | A low memory footprint graphics engine by Sellam Abraham for handling animations, backgrounds, & sprites extremely quickly for the Apple II platform. | notifications | 1 game | |
GREE application | Japanese social networking service. | notifications | 1 game | |
Haaf's Game Engine (HGE) | By Relish Games. For quickly making hardware accelerated 2D games without having to know a lot about technology. | notifications | 2009 / 2011 | 3 games |
Haiku OS | Haiku is a modern replacement for x86 BeOS running on x86, x64, Arm, PowerPC, 68k, MIPS & possibly others. x86 BeOS compatibility requires an x86 CPU. | notifications | 1990 / 2016 | 387 games |
Haskell Computer Language | notifications | 2011 / 2013 | 7 games | |
HawkNL™ (Hawk Network Library) | A free LGPL low level network API for games. | notifications | 4 games | |
Heat.net | Uses SegaSoft's online service Heat.net, based on MPlayer. | notifications | 1997 / 2000 | 3 games |
Hosting(Servers) | Any tags relating to hosting multiplayer games or related concepts. | list_alt | 0 game | |
HP-UX OS (Hewlett Packard UniX) | Games run on HP-UX. HP's version of UNIX System V. HP-UX is why an HP tech can pull up your file in the time it takes a Dell tech to say "Please Hold" | notifications | 1991 / 2005 | 24 games |
HURD | Runs on the HURD microkernal, the intended core of the GNU operating system. | notifications | 1997 / 2006 | 7 games |
Import data created by another game | Probably characters from a prequel, but any type data counts. | notifications | 1986 / 2021 | 70 games |
iMUSE (Interactive Music Streaming Engine) | An interactive/adaptive music engine by LucasArts. | notifications | 1991 / 2015 | 19 games |
Inform programming language | A programming language and design system for interactive fiction, created by Graham Nelson in 1993. | notifications | 1993 / 2009 | 4 games |
Installjammer | A cross-platform windows style installation tool. | notifications | 2009 / 2010 | 2 games |
IntelliJ IDEA by JetBrains | Games developed in part or fully using the IntelliJ Integrated Developer Environment. | 1 game | ||
Inverse kinematics | Uses inverse kinematics or similar animation technique that tries to dynamically find the position of joints in respect to the desired end position, usually to connect a leg to solid surface. | notifications | 1998 / 2018 | 41 games |
iPod Linux operating system | Games for iPod Linux O/S. | notifications | 1 game | |
IRIX operating system | Games for SGI's IRIX OS. | notifications | 1979 / 2006 | 37 games |
irrKlang audio library | A cross-platform audio library/API by Ambiera. | notifications | 2008 / 2012 | 14 games |
Java language | Coded wholly or partially in Java or is extensible with it. | notifications | 1997 / 2019 | 14 games |
Java platfom | Runs on the Java platform. Ideally they work on any system with Java runtime environment available without any differences. | notifications | 1979 / 2018 | 409 games |
JGMOD | An add-on for Allegro programs to play MODs. By Jeffery Guan. | notifications | 2001 / 2003 | 4 games |
JOGL (Java OpenGL) | JOGL is a wrapper that allows Java to use OpenGL functions. | notifications | 4 games | |
jPCT | jPCT is a free 3D engine/API for Java. It has renderers for OpenGL, Swing/AWT, and well as ability to display in browsers. | notifications | 4 games | |
K Desktop Environment | Requires KDE components, a desktop environment for X11. | notifications | 1996 / 2013 | 40 games |
kFreeBSD - Debian for the FreeBSD kernel | These run on a GNU/Debian distribution variant that uses the FreeBSD kernel and not the Linux kernel. Editors should note CPU architecture with tags | notifications | 1999 / 2011 | 6 games |
Klik | Klik aims to reduce an application to only 1 file (the executable) that runs from any location on any distro without being installed. | notifications | 1993 / 2007 | 35 games |
Knoppix Linux OS | Game runs on Debian-based Knoppix. Famous for being entirely CD runnable or other removable media. | notifications | 2 games | |
LaserLock (LaserLok) | A copy protection that involves unreadable files in a hidden LASERLOCK folder on the game CD. | notifications | 1 game | |
Launcher | Uses a launcher type startup application, often with various configuration, help, and other features easily available before player has chance to start the actual game. Login too is commonly part of the launcher if such is needed. | notifications | 1999 / 2019 | 117 games |
Learning AI | Employs some type of AI that can actually learn. | notifications | 1996 / 2006 | 18 games |
Letterbox | Uses letterboxing to allow unsupported aspect ratios to display correctly. | notifications | 1991 / 2017 | 57 games |
libgdx Framework | Cross-platform framework for games. | notifications | 2012 / 2019 | 18 games |
License: Apache | A license that protects software freedom. Requires original copyright & liability disclaimer remain intact but allows any GPLv3 compatible license for derivatives. | notifications | 2010 / 2017 | 6 games |
License: Microsoft Reciprocal License | notifications | 1 game | ||
License: Non-Propretary | These are licenses designed to protect software freedoms instead of restrict them. | 0 game | ||
Lighting and shadowing | list_alt | 0 game | ||
Lindows Linux O/S (Linspire;LindowsOS;Lin---s;Lindash;Freespire) | Games for Lindows operating system | notifications | 2002 / 2009 | 5 games |
Linux distributions (Linux distros) | list_alt | 0 game | ||
Linux Game Publishing Copy Protection (LGP Copy Protection) | Supposedly a key/name/password system designed for full legal copying & installation rights for legitimate buyers while discouraging illegal copies. | notifications | 2001 / 2009 | 22 games |
Linux Lite | An "transitional" OS using the Xfce desktop. Based on Ubuntu & Debian. Not meant for permanent use. | notifications | 1 game | |
Local save storage | Stores saves locally on some system default location. | notifications | 1981 / 2016 | 7 games |
Logo Programming Language | A family of programming language related to Lisp & focused on numerical thought. But known for "turtle graphics". | notifications | 1981 / 1984 | 2 games |
Mac OS 1 (OS Classic 1;Mac System Software 1) | Runs natively on the Original Mac System 1 and is supported by the developers/publishers on it. | notifications | 1984 / 2004 | 117 games |
Mac OS 2 (OS Classic 2;Mac System Software 2) | Runs natively on Mac System 2 and is supported by the developers/publishers on it. | notifications | 1984 / 1988 | 13 games |
Mac OS 3 (OS Classic 3;Mac System Software 3) | Runs natively on Mac System 3 and is supported by the developers/publishers on it. | notifications | 1984 / 1991 | 51 games |
Mac OS 4 (OS Classic 4;Mac System Software 4) | Runs natively on Mac System 4 and is supported by the developers/publishers on it. | notifications | 1984 / 2003 | 28 games |
Mac OS 5 (OS Classic 5;Mac System Software 5) | Runs natively on Mac System 5 and is supported by the developers/publishers on it. | notifications | 1984 / 2004 | 10 games |
Mac OS 6 (OS Classic 6) | Runs natively on Mac OS 6 and is supported by the developers/publishers on it. | notifications | 1984 / 2019 | 297 games |
Mac OS 7 (OS Classic 7) | Runs natively on Mac OS 7 and is supported by the developers/publishers on it. | notifications | 1984 / 2019 | 738 games |
Mac OS 8 (OS Classic 8) | Runs natively on Mac OS 8 and is supported by the developers/publishers on it. | notifications | 1984 / 2005 | 191 games |
Mac OS 9 (OS Classic 9) | Runs natively on Mac OS 9 and is supported by the developers/publishers on it. | notifications | 1985 / 2007 | 127 games |
Mac OS X 10.1.x Puma(Darwin 5.x) | Requires at least version 10.1 of OS X. | notifications | 1999 / 2017 | 66 games |
Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite(Darwin 14.x) | Requires at least version 10.10 of OS X. | notifications | 2002 / 2017 | 44 games |
Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan | Requires at least version 10.11 of OS X | notifications | 2002 / 2019 | 28 games |
Mac OS X 10.12 Sierra | Requires at least version 10.12 of OS X. | notifications | 2016 / 2017 | 14 games |
Mac OS X 10.2.x Jaguar(Darwin 6.x) | Requires at least version 10.2 of OS X. | notifications | 1999 / 2017 | 105 games |
Mac OS X 10.5.x Leopard(Darwin 9.x) | Requires at least version 10.5 of OS X. | notifications | 1999 / 2017 | 172 games |
Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks(Darwin 13.x) | Requires at least version 10.9 of OS X. | notifications | 2002 / 2021 | 56 games |
Mac OS X operating system(Darwin) | Games for OS X. Not inherently compatible with Classic Mac OS (version 9 and earlier). | notifications | 1987 / 2020 | 949 games |
Machine Code | Not even assembly computer language was used for these games. The programmer wrote raw machine code. | notifications | 1976 / 2006 | 38 games |
Maemo OS | Maemo is a Linux distro based on Debian GNU/Linux and GNOME. It uses the Hildon application framework (GTK-based) and the Matchbox window manager. | notifications | 2002 / 2009 | 4 games |
Mandriva Linux (Mandrake Linux) | Originally Redhat based. Uses rpm. Know for Windows-to-Linux migration tools, urpmi package manager, & nspluginwrapper allowing 32bit plugins on 64bit | notifications | 1993 / 2017 | 91 games |
Map generator (Random map generator;Procedural map generator)[level generator] | Uses (random) map/level generator to create most or all areas where the player can go to instead of shipping with regular human designed static levels or maps. | notifications | 1975 / 2023 | 760 games |
MecaniQue Interactive Fiction Authoring System | Proprietary IF creation software by Gabor de Mooij | notifications | 1 game | |
Microkernel Systems | This is a collection of groups related to microkernels. | list_alt | 0 game | |
Microsoft GW-BASIC(IBM Advanced BASIC;BASICA) | GW-BASIC & IBM BASICA are functionally identical except IBM's requires a ROM (Cassette), the other is self-contained, & GW-BASIC has a compiler option | notifications | 1 game | |
Microsoft PowerPoint | These game are played from PowerPoint format files (which plays cross-platform). | notifications | 1 game | |
Microsoft Windows | list_alt | 0 game | ||
Middleware(Libraries;Engines) | list_alt | 0 game | ||
Mint Linux (Linux Mint) | Comes with/Installs very simply on Linux Mint. | notifications | 1991 / 2019 | 183 games |
MiNT OS (FreeMiNT OS) | Game runs on MiNT operating system. The opensource OS that Atari adopted for the Falcon. Later renamed FreeMiNT. | 1 game | ||
Minux operating system | Originally intended as a learning tool to understand how UNIX-like OSes work. Minux 3 & later, however, are also intended to be of practical use. | 0 game | ||
Modula-2 Programming Language | A cross-platform language that focuses on modular programs, designed for concurrent processes, and allows platform specific procedures and data types. | notifications | 1987 / 2003 | 2 games |
Monaural Audio | Uses mono sound for a system where stereo or better would be expected. | notifications | 1980 / 1988 | 4 games |
Monochromatic Foreground | Games that feature a single color for the play area's foreground graphics, eliminating strong color clash issues. The background can use multiple colors. | notifications | 1983 / 2021 | 106 games |
MorphOS/Quark | An operating system for PowerPC based hardware. Designed for maximum compatibility with all Amiga applications. | notifications | 2004 / 2014 | 6 games |
Multics OS (Multiplexed Information and Computing Service OS) | Games for Multics operating system. Ran from 1964 till October 31, 2000. Very influential on UNIX. | notifications | 1 game | |
Native Option (Native) | These games are published as non-native but a way to run them natively also exists. Or, in cases where native needs to be implicitly stated. | notifications | 1998 / 2021 | 30 games |
Nazghul Game Engine | Used to create Ultima V or earlier style RPGs. Relies [i]heavily[/i] on TinySCHEME scripting to construct content and define its interaction. | notifications | 2003 / 2006 | 3 games |
ncurses | Is a free software foundation version of curses, which is a library for implementing GUI & graphic looking applications using only text display. | notifications | 1979 / 2016 | 100 games |
NetBSD operating system | Games for NetBSD. A freely redistributable version of BSD. | notifications | 1982 / 2016 | 32 games |
Networking middleware(Networking libraries)[Network libraries] | list_alt | 0 game | ||
NeWS (Network extensible Window System) | Originally the "SunDew project. NeWS is windowing system by Sun Microsystems | notifications | 2 games | |
Nintendo eShop | Online service for the Nintendo 3DS, Wii-U and Switch. It features a cash-based system instead of the points based system used with the Wii and Nintendo DSi. | notifications | 2011 / 2023 | 469 games |
Nixstaller | Nixstaller is an Open Source project with the goal to create user friendly and flexible installers that work on various UNIX like systems. | notifications | 2007 / 2011 | 6 games |
No Digital Rights Managment (No copy protection) | At least one release of the game comes free of any form of DRM. Especially if this is unexpected, such as Wii, Android or Windows games. | notifications | 1977 / 2021 | 817 games |
No DOSBox support | This is temporary tag for any DOS games that are not fully supported in latest DOSBox (not counting regressions). | notifications | 1991 / 1997 | 6 games |
No install required (Runs off the media;Zero install) | Runs without installing any game files to permanent media besides possible configuration files and game saves. | notifications | 1995 / 2002 | 4 games |
Noclash Design | Colorful games that avoid color clash in the play area positioning the graphical elements in ways that prevent the issue. | notifications | 1983 / 2021 | 59 games |
Non-game | Entries in UVL that aren't games. | notifications | 1976 / 2009 | 63 games |
Non-Native (Not Native) | These games are not for the OS shown. But, official support is provided by some form or emulation, virtualization, and/or compatibility layer. | notifications | 1991 / 2022 | 192 games |
Novell NetWare | Began as a disk sharing system and became a type of network operation system. | notifications | 1 game | |
nProtect GameGuard | Anti-hack software. | notifications | 1996 / 2007 | 16 games |
Objective-C programming language | "Objective-C is a reflective, object-oriented programming language which adds Smalltalk-style messaging to the C programming language." - Wikipedia | notifications | 1994 / 2011 | 13 games |
Open Source | Licenses approved by the Open Source Initiative. | list_alt | 0 game | |
Open2x operating system | Fully open-source alternative operating system for the GP2X game console. | notifications | 1 game | |
OpenAL (OAL;Open Audio Library) | Cross-platform audio API for multichannel 3D positional audio originally by Loki Software. | notifications | 1997 / 2021 | 623 games |
OpenBSD operating system | Games for OpenBSD. Fully Open Source & documented fork of NetBSD. | notifications | 1982 / 2016 | 38 games |
OpenCV (Open Source Computer Vision) | A computer vision library originally by Intel. | notifications | 2009 / 2011 | 3 games |
OpenGL (Open Graphics Library;OGL) | Uses or can use OGL for graphics, a cross-platform and cross-languge (via bindings) API for 2D and 3D graphics originally created by Silicon Graphics, control passed to the non-profit Khronos Group in 2006. | notifications | 1983 / 2022 | 1980 games |
OpenGL Utility Toolkit | Game uses GLUT library or any alternative implementations of the GLUT API. | notifications | 1997 / 2015 | 34 games |
OpenVMS operating system | Games for OpenVMS. | notifications | 1993 / 1997 | 7 games |
Operating system limit | Games that have artificial limiter that prevents them from being played on operating systems they fail to recognize or think are unable to run the game properly. | notifications | 1994 / 2007 | 4 games |
Otto Chrons' Digital Sound and Music Interface (DSMI;AMF) | A sound file format similar to MOD. Known file extensions: AMF Notabley plays to slow on Gravis Ultrasound cards | notifications | 1994 / 1996 | 2 games |
Outdated technology | Any and all tags that refer to software technology that is no longer in use because something has replaced them, and thus may give troubles when trying to play games with them. Excluding operating systems/platforms. | list_alt | 0 game | |
Pardus Linux | notifications | 3 games | ||
Pascal programming language | Games written in Pascal, an imperative and procedural programming language, developed in 1970 by Niklaus Wirth. | notifications | 1981 / 2015 | 111 games |
PCLinuxOS | Linux from Texas. A Debian derived distro with influences from Mandriva. Also from Gentoo, OpenSuSE, Fedora, & Ubuntu. Backed by the PCLinuxOS company | notifications | 2004 / 2019 | 11 games |
Pedantic Installer | Installer checks & refuses to install if overly strict compatibility far beyond the actual requirements of the game are not met. | notifications | 1993 / 1999 | 4 games |
Performance issues (Speed issues) | The game is for a system that has no variation in hardware yet still runs into occasional performance issues. | notifications | 1990 / 2003 | 4 games |
PhenoProtect copy protection | notifications | 1 game | ||
PHP (PHP Hypertext Preprocessor) | An alternative to Perl that allows servers to execute C like code. A few games have been programmed using it. These nearly always require a server. | notifications | 2004 / 2013 | 7 games |
Physics middleware (Physics engines;Physics libraries) | list_alt | 0 game | ||
PILOT Computer Language | Programmed in PILOT. A simple but high-level language related to Lisp and LOGO, and similar to BASIC. | notifications | 1 game | |
Pixar's RenderMan Interface Specification | These games use RIS to generate graphics on the player's system. | notifications | 1992 / 1998 | 2 games |
Pixel doubling (Pixel multiplication) | Optionally multiplies the size of each individual pixel. An accessibility feature for those whose hardware can't deal with the original resolution or who wants to play windowed and the original resolution is too small to be actually playable. | notifications | 2011 / 2016 | 13 games |
PLASMA Language (Proto Language AsSeMbler for Apple) | A medium level programming language. Basically pseudo-English Assembly Language with higher-level tools. | notifications | 1 game | |
PLD Linux | A Linux distro for advanced users focused on system administration for a wide variety of architectures. | notifications | 1998 / 2008 | 8 games |
Predefined controls (Single predefined control layout) | Offers only single configuration of controls with no options to change the button layout or anything else. | notifications | 1994 / 2016 | 50 games |
Presentation Software | These are formats for storing presentations. Some creative individuals have designed actual games in these formats. | list_alt | 0 game | |
Procedural effects(Procedurally generated effects) | Any effects that are primarily algorithmic in their implementation. | list_alt | 0 game | |
Production tools | list_alt | 0 game | ||
Programming languages (Scripting languages;Computer languages) | list_alt | 0 game | ||
Programming libraries | Any programming libraries that are not better described by the various middleware groups. Usually general purpose programming aids or too behind-the-scenes elements to not be noticeable to end user. | list_alt | 0 game | |
Proton compatibility layer | These games are officially supported through the proton compatibility layer. | notifications | 2019 / 2022 | 2 games |
PunkBuster anti-cheat software | notifications | 1999 / 2014 | 28 games | |
PureBasic programming language | A programming language based on established BASIC rules. | notifications | 2004 / 2009 | 3 games |
pygame | A game development framework that wraps SDL for Python. | notifications | 2001 / 2017 | 163 games |
Python programming language | notifications | 1995 / 2019 | 753 games | |
QB64 Programming Language | Coded in QB64, a modern programming language that includes backwards compatibility with Microsoft QuickBASIC 4.5 | notifications | 2007 / 2020 | 42 games |
Qnx operating system | QNX/Q-nix is a POSIX compliant, unix-like operating system. | notifications | 1994 / 2013 | 7 games |
QSound (QSound3D) | Uses QSound Labs' cross-platform audio API. | notifications | 1992 / 2015 | 52 games |
Quarterdeck Desqview/X | A system for running UNIX/X11 applications in an MS-DOS or compatible environment. | notifications | 3 games | |
Quesa 3D | An open source alternative to Apple's QuickDraw™ 3D API that adds some features. | 1 game | ||
QuickBasic (QBASIC) | Unlike BASIC, QBASIC is a compilable structured programming language. Though supported, line numbers & GOTO are discouraged in favor of subroutines & functions | notifications | 1985 / 2013 | 30 games |
Rascal programming language | Games written in Rascal, (Real-Time Pascal), developed in 1985 by Richard Crandall, Scott Gillespie, and Greg Stein of The Reed Institute. | notifications | 1 game | |
RAVE (Rendering Acceleration Virtual Engine) | Apple's short-lived cross-platform rendering API. | notifications | 1997 / 2001 | 9 games |
RC Pro-am Engine | Developed by Rare for the NES game. It was ported to other consoles and used in at least one other game. | notifications | 1988 / 1992 | 4 games |
ReactOS | Games that run on ReactOS, an alternative OS that aims for 100% Windows compatibility and is opensource. | notifications | 1990 / 2005 | 19 games |
REALbasic computer programming lanuage and IDE | "REALbasic is a rapid application development environment that enables developers to create high-quality, native software for Windows, Mac and Linux" | notifications | 2 games | |
REDCODE | Abstract assembly language 1st used [i]within[/i] Core Wars (UNIX) on a virtual machine in the game known as a Memory Array Redcode Simulator(MARS) | notifications | 1983 / 1999 | 4 games |
Redhat Linux OS | Games that run on Red Hat. A commercial Linux distro. Red Hat, Inc.'s best known product. Includes [b]7 years of support[/b]. [gametag=fedora]Fedora[/gametag] is the free version. | notifications | 1988 / 2017 | 67 games |
Redhat Package Manager (RPM) | Comes in a RPM package. Other distros beside Redhat/Fedora can use theses packages also. | notifications | 1992 / 2017 | 120 games |
Redundant: Partially GNU GPL (Partially GNU General Public License) | If only part of the game is release under the GPL license. Then this tag. applies. | 1991 / 2013 | 0 game | |
RISC OS operating system | Famous for fewest & least harmful viruses of any OS & no spyware ever. | notifications | 1992 / 2005 | 11 games |
RSTS-11 or RSTS/E operating system | A multi-user time-sharing OS by DEC for the PDP-11. Maintained from 1970 until 1992-09. | notifications | 1 game | |
Ruby language | Coded and/or extensible in Ruby, a programming language designed by Yukihiro Matsumoto. | notifications | 2002 / 2016 | 15 games |
S3 Texture Compression (S3TC;DXTn;DXTC;GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc;GL_EXT_texture_compression_dxt1) | A group of lossy texture compression algorithms originally by S3 Graphics included in DirectX 6.0, OpenGL 1.3, and subsequent versions. | notifications | 1998 / 2018 | 16 games |
Scheme Language | Scheme is a minimalist variant of Lisp. | notifications | 1 game | |
SciTech SNAP (SciTech System Neutral Access Protocol;OpenSNAP) | A dynamically loadable device driver architecture. | notifications | 2002 / 2006 | 11 games |
SCO UNIX (SCO OpenServer;SCO Open Desktop;Xenix) | A closed source UNIX maintained by the SCO Group since 1989. Originally a bare bones OS for OEMs to customize, the server and desktop were later added | notifications | 1983 / 2001 | 4 games |
Screen autosplit(Automatic split-screen)[auto split-screen] | Automatically splits and rejoins the screen when necessary, such as local same machine multiplayer it keeps everyone on same screen when close enough and splits it when they wander off too far. | notifications | 2 games | |
SecuROM PA | SecuROM's internet activation based copy protection. | notifications | 2006 / 2011 | 23 games |
SecuROM v4 copy protection (SecuROM New) | Copy protection scheme. Game only runs if a drive knows the difference between a read-only & writable disk. Many read-only drives do not. | notifications | 2001 / 2003 | 5 games |
SecuROM v4.7-4.83 copy protection | Copy protection scheme | notifications | 2001 / 2003 | 3 games |
SecuROM v4.84+ copy protection | Copy protection scheme. This version adds to v4.7 the ability for a game to check a disk to verify the copy protection is present on it. | notifications | 2002 / 2003 | 2 games |
SecuROM v5 | A copy protection scheme. | notifications | 2004 / 2005 | 7 games |
SecuROM v7.x copy protection | Copy protection scheme. | notifications | 2004 / 2010 | 85 games |
Self Modifying | Games that can alter their own programming. | 1 game | ||
Serial key (Product key;CD-key;Serial number;Unlock key;Registration key) | Requires some form of alphanumeric key or similar to be presented to prove you own an authentic copy. A weak copy-protection mechanism, but more useful as GUID which it is also used for. | notifications | 1998 / 2019 | 254 games |
SEUK (Shoot'em Up Construction Kit) | notifications | 1987 / 1996 | 4 games | |
Sierra's Creative Interpreter | Uses any version of SCI, a game engine that is basically only a scripting language and a runtime environment. Used primarily for adventure games. | notifications | 1970 / 2015 | 124 games |
Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL) | A cross-platform multimedia library designed to provide low level access to audio, keyboard, mouse, joystick, 3D hardware via OpenGL, and 2D video framebuffer. | notifications | 1989 / 2021 | 1646 games |
Single save | Offers only single save slot per player, character, storage device, etc. | notifications | 1981 / 2020 | 142 games |
SkyOS operating system | proprietary | notifications | 1 game | |
Slackware Linux Distro (Absolute Linux) | notifications | 1994 / 2017 | 39 games | |
Slax Linux Distro | Designed to be installed on thumbdrive, Media card, MP3 player, iPod, digital camera, etc & ran from any computer the device will interface with. | 1 game | ||
SmartE copy protection (SmarteSECURE) | A copy protection scheme. | notifications | 2005 / 2006 | 4 games |
Social network service(Community service) | Includes internal social network service(s), allowing at the very least easy communication with friends (even outside of games). | notifications | 2006 / 2016 | 48 games |
Softlanding Linux System | One of the very first GNU/Linux distributions | notifications | 1 game | |
Software handicap | Any tags describing a handicap of some sort that only affects the software itself, such as locking the framerate to something specific instead of allowing it to go over it. | list_alt | 0 game | |
Solaris Versions (Solaris Distros) | Parent group for the various variants of Solaris. | list_alt | 0 game | |
Sonic Robo Blast 2 Engine | A variant of the GPLed Doom engine, allows side & 3rd person cameras, cut-scenes, and many 3D platformer elements. | notifications | 1 game | |
Source code included | For games that provide their source code along with the playable version, usually through some very restrictive license. | notifications | 1970 / 2021 | 305 games |
Source Mage Linux Distribution | Descended from Sorcerer Linux. This distro's package manager downloads and compiles the source code of everything that gets installed. | notifications | 1 game | |
Specifically eComStation compatible | eComStation is a later version of IBM's OS/2, supported by Serenity Systems until 2007 then by Mensys. | notifications | 1992 / 2012 | 3 games |
Specifically OS/2 compatible. | As opposed to the later eComStation operation system that is OS/2 compatible. Creators support running the game in OS/s (via Windows or DOS session) | notifications | 1993 / 2012 | 3 games |
Speech synthesis (Text-to-speech;TTS)[text to speech] | Features speech synthesizer in one capacity or another. | notifications | 1977 / 2014 | 42 games |
SQLite | A tiny C library to embed a tiny SQL database engine into a program without any fuss. | notifications | 4 games | |
StarForce copy protection | A copy protection scheme that has garnered perhaps the most criticism when compared to other mechanisms (barring things like Steam). Installs low-level system drivers to perform their task. | notifications | 1998 / 2021 | 60 games |
Stos | BASIC dialect for the Atari ST mainly intended for game development. STOS was developed by Jawx and published by Mandarin Software. The first version was published in 1988. | 1 game | ||
SunOS operating system | notifications | 1989 / 2005 | 36 games | |
Super Simple Texture Compression (S2TC;SSTC;S2 Texture Compression) | Uses S2TC, an Open alternative to S3TC. Almost as good quality a lot faster and patent free. | notifications | 1 game | |
Supergrafx Enhanced | PC-Engine games that did not need a Supergrafx to play, but had enhancements if you would run them on a Supergrafx. | notifications | 2 games | |
SUSE Linux (SUSE) | notifications | 1991 / 2019 | 117 games | |
SVGALib | notifications | 1994 / 2005 | 21 games | |
Theora video encoding | Uses Theora video encoding format by Xiph.Org, often stored in Ogg container format. | notifications | 2004 / 2015 | 16 games |
TIC-80 Tiny Computer | Games for the TIC-80 fantasy computer that exists on several platforms. | notifications | 38 games | |
Tiny BASIC programming language | Tiny BASIC open standard dialect of BASIC designed to be liberated from proprietary concerns and fit into 4K or less. | notifications | 1972 / 1979 | 7 games |
Tops-10 operating system | [b]T[/b]imesharing/[b]T[/b]otal [b]OP[/b]erating [b]S[/b]ystem. Designed 1964 for the PDP-10. It is still commercially available or usable at no cost under Hobbyist License. | notifications | 1 game | |
TOPS-20 operating system | The 2nd proprietary OS for the DEC PDP-10. It was the most popular proprietary OS for that system. It replaced TOPS-10 (the 1st). | notifications | 1 game | |
Torque Network Library | These development libraries are optimized for gaming and designed to overcome high packet latency, limited bandwidth and packet loss. | notifications | 1 game | |
Tracker music (Sequencer music;Module music;MOD music) | Music is in some tracker/module format. | notifications | 1995 / 2018 | 12 games |
Tru64 UNIX (DEC OSF/1;DEC-UNIX) | A UNIX Built on the Mach kernel. Originally by DEC (OSF/1), it is currently owned by Hewlett Packard. | notifications | 4 games | |
TUTOR programming language | A [[tag:plato PLATO system]] language for creating computerized 'lessons'. Quickly rescued from obscurity when numerous games were created for it. | notifications | 2 games | |
TUTOR programming language (PLATO Author Language) | Developed for [gametag=plato]PLATO[/gametag]. Purely designed for teaching, it was unintentionally used for games. | notifications | 1975 / 1977 | 2 games |
Ubuntu Linux (Kubuntu;lubuntu;Xubuntu;Edubuntu;Gobuntu) | Comes with/Installs very simply on Ubuntu. | notifications | 1988 / 2022 | 7220 games |
Ubuntu Software Center - Paid for Application | These games can be purchased using the Ubuntu Software Center "paid" category. | notifications | 2001 / 2014 | 42 games |
Unbound speed (CPU bound speed) | Game speed is purely dependent on how fast your computer can run it, making them run unplayably fast on newer machines without artificial means of slowing it down. | notifications | 1989 / 1998 | 4 games |
Unity RPG Kit | An framework to extend Unity for easy RPG specific game creation. | notifications | 1 game | |
UNIX operating system | AT&T Bell Labs UNIX, from which various branches & versions can trace their lineage (Linux is not one of them). Trademark now owned by The Open Group. | notifications | 1972 / 2007 | 39 games |
Unknown engine(Unidentified engine) | The engine used by the game is entirely unknown, with no information whether it was custom built, licensed, or otherwise. | notifications | 1 game | |
Virtools Web Player | Allows interactive programs to be embedded in web pages or playable in a browser. Similar is some ways to Macromedia Flash. | notifications | 1 game | |
Visual Basic programming language | Version of BASIC that is object-oriented & event-driven. Events, functions & subroutines are associated with GUI elements by default. | notifications | 1993 / 2012 | 22 games |
VLOS Linux (VidaLinux Desktop OS) | A Gentoo based distro designed for ease of use (unlike Gentoo). | 1 game | ||
Vorbis audio encoding | Uses Vorbis audio encoding format by Xiph.Org, often stored in Ogg container format. | notifications | 1998 / 2021 | 486 games |
VR middleware(VR APIs) | list_alt | 0 game | ||
WebM | Uses the WebM multimedia container format, based on Matroska, that uses VP8/VP9 for video and Vorbis/Opus for audio encoding. | notifications | 1 game | |
Win3.x compatible | 0 game | |||
Win32s | Uses a subset of the Win32 API that allows it to be run in 16 bit O/S, such as Win3.1. | notifications | 1995 / 1996 | 3 games |
Windowed only | Runs only in a window. | notifications | 1986 / 2021 | 135 games |
Windows 2.11 Compatible (Windows/286;Windows/386) | Runs naively on Windows 2.11 and is supported by the developers/publishers on it. | notifications | 1 game | |
Windows 2000 (Win2K;Windows NT 5.0) | Runs natively on Win2k and is supported by the developers/publishers on it. | notifications | 1997 / 2011 | 373 games |
Windows 3.0 | Runs naively on Windows 3.0 and is supported by the developers/publishers on it. | notifications | 1991 / 1998 | 9 games |
Windows 95 (Win95;Windows 4.00) | Runs natively on Win95 and is supported by the developers/publishers on it. | notifications | 1990 / 2009 | 410 games |
Windows NT4 (WinNT;WinNT4;Windows NT 4.0) | Runs natively on WinNT4 and is supported by the developers/publishers on it. | notifications | 1993 / 2009 | 47 games |
Windows Phone 7 | A Windows CE-based OS for mobile phones. | notifications | 2006 / 2013 | 10 games |
Windows Phone 8 | A Windows NT-based OS for mobile phones. | notifications | 2 games | |
Windows Sound System SPU(Microsoft Sound System) | Supports or requires the Windows Sound System. Notable for DOS games running under Windows that can be configured to use Windows the Sound System. | notifications | 1992 / 2017 | 26 games |
Windows XP (WinXP;Windows NT 5.1;Windows NT 5.2) | Runs natively on WinXP and is supported by the developers/publishers on it. | notifications | 1995 / 2020 | 771 games |
Windows: 16 bit installer | Installer is a 16-bit Windows application though the game 32-bit (or DOS). Prevents installation on 64-bit Windows as it has no no 16-bit sub-system | notifications | 1995 / 1999 | 11 games |
WinG API | A predecessor to DirectX designed primarily to aid porting DOS games to 16-bit Windows. Early versions of 32-Bit Windows also supported it. | notifications | 1994 / 1998 | 12 games |
wxWidgets[wxWindows] | Cross-platform graphical user interface widget toolkit. | notifications | 2003 / 2016 | 32 games |
X Window System (X11) | Requires X11, such as XFree86, X.org or Xming. | notifications | 1989 / 2017 | 365 games |
XFree86 X11 sever for GP2X | These game require the GP2X11 server to run. | notifications | 1 game | |
xTrap anti-cheat software | Uses xTrap to protect against cheaters. | notifications | 2004 / 2009 | 4 games |
xwiimote driver | These games use xwiimote, The 'official' way to interface with the wiimote driver within the Linux kernel. | 0 game | ||
Zeeboids | Zeeboids is an application, the videogame Zeebo, to create custom avatars, which can be used in games that have supported the application. | notifications | 2 games | |
Zeta OS | ZetaOS was a continuation of BeOS based at least partially on sourcecode from the never officially released BeOS R5.1. Some game only run on Zeta OS. | notifications | 2001 / 2009 | 34 games |
.NET Framework (Mono Project)[dotNet] | Uses the .NET Framework or its open-source implementation, Mono. Usually seen in use with C# programming language, but this is not mandatory. | notifications | 2002 / 2018 | 136 games |
'MOON' game system;『MOON』のゲームシステムを使 | Created by OverRise, Inc. | notifications | 1 game | |
3DVIA Virtools | Was created with 3DVIA Virtools development platform and runs under its game engine. | notifications | 1 game | |
4A Engine | A game engine by 4A Games. | notifications | 2010 / 2019 | 14 games |
AAC audio codec (Advanced Audio Coding;MP4;M4A) | 0 game | |||
Acknex (Gamestudio) | Made with Gamestudio & using the Acknex engine. | notifications | 1 game | |
ActionScript | A programming language derived from HyperTalk, though now a dialect of ECMAScript, primarily used in Flash. | notifications | 2007 / 2012 | 4 games |
ActiveMARK copy protection | Trymedia's copy protection schema. | notifications | 1 game | |
ActiveX | Microsoft's software framework allowing library-level system access via Internet and networks (It lets websites operate your operating system). | notifications | 1 game | |
Adaptive Game Engine (AGE) | A game engine by AGEOD. | notifications | 2006 / 2007 | 2 games |
Adobe AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) | Uses Adobe AIR, a cross-platform runtime environment for internet applications without constraints of normal browsers. | notifications | 2005 / 2015 | 55 games |
Adobe Shockwave player (Adobe Director;Macromedia Director) | Requires Adobe's Shockwave player. | notifications | 1994 / 2005 | 10 games |
Advanced Linux Sound Architecture | A Linux sound architecture. | notifications | 2000 / 2021 | 19 games |
Adventure Builder System | A toolkit to create ZX Spectrum text or text and graphical adventure games by Tartan Software. Licensed for anyone to buy and use in 1986. | notifications | 1984 / 1991 | 15 games |
Adventure engine | Uses Warren Robinett's unintentional invention of GUI. Originally used for [game=#80504]Adventure[/game], it proved useful to TLC for additional titles | notifications | 1979 / 2009 | 21 games (12 characters) |
Adventure Game Interpreter | "AGI (Adventure Game Interpreter) was the development tool used by Sierra Online to create their early adventure games." [Source: Wikipedia] | notifications | 1984 / 2015 | 94 games |
Adventure Game Studio (AGS) | Made using AGS, a game engine and development tool for creating point and click adventure games. | notifications | 1986 / 2021 | 62 games |
Adventurescape | An IF Authoring System release on a cover disc on the magazine A&B Computing | notifications | 1983 / 1986 | 8 games |
Agen Engine | notifications | 1 game | ||
AGOS | notifications | 1989 / 2021 | 25 games | |
AirSim | An AI by Microsoft that specializes in maneuvering autonomous vehicles (initially drones) in urban environments. | 0 game | ||
Alamo | A game engine created by Petroglyph Games. | notifications | 2006 / 2008 | 5 games |
Aleph One (Marathon Open Source Project) | An open source engine for the Marathon trilogy. | notifications | 1996 / 2012 | 16 games |
Alice Soft System | Any of the System virtual machine game engines by Alice Soft. | list_alt | 0 game | |
Allegro | A cross-platform game oriented programming library. | notifications | 1996 / 2017 | 160 games |
Alterforce Engine | A game engine for gem-swap games by Smartpix Games | 3 games | ||
Amazon Lumberyard | A game engine by Amazon tied to Amazon Web Services and Twitch. Development fork from CryEngine 3. | 2 games | ||
Amiga OS 1.x | Games designed for the the original Amiga Operating System. | notifications | 1 game | |
Amiga OS 4 operating system | Games for the Amiga OS 4. | notifications | 2002 / 2017 | 8 games |
Amityville | A game engine by Planet Moon Studios. | notifications | 2000 / 2003 | 5 games |
AndEngine | A free, open-source 2D OpenGL game engine for Android. | notifications | 1 game | |
AngelScript(AngelCode Scripting Library) | A scripting library and its language for extending C/C++ program functionality. | notifications | 2006 / 2017 | 38 games |
ANGLE(Almost Native Graphics Layer Engine) | notifications | 3 games | ||
AngryAnt Behave | An AI middleware by AngryAnt. | notifications | 1 game | |
Anti-Grain Geometry (AGG) | notifications | 1 game | ||
Anvil (Scimitar) | A game engine created by Ubisoft Montreal. | notifications | 2007 / 2011 | 17 games |
AnvilNext | A game engine created by Ubisoft Montreal. | notifications | 2012 / 2015 | 17 games |
Apple GS/OS | A fully 16-bit GUI based operating system. Hybrid port-conversion of ProDOS 16 v1.6 code and MacOS 5 features/code for the Apple IIgs with 65816 CPU. | notifications | 1987 / 1997 | 11 games |
Apple iOS (iPhone OS) | list_alt | 0 game | ||
Apple Metal API | A low-level graphics API from Apple. | notifications | 1 game | |
Apple ProDOS | Requires ProDOS to run. | notifications | 1984 / 2014 | 29 games |
Arcade Game Designer | ZX Spectrum game designer by Jonathan Cauldwell since 2008 | notifications | 2017 / 2019 | 5 games |
Arcane 3D Engine | Uses the Arcane 3D Engine created by Wolfpack Studios. | notifications | 2 games | |
Argon | notifications | 2011 / 2013 | 3 games | |
Arianne | Arianne is a online multiplayer engine to allow the easy creation of online games. | notifications | 6 games | |
AstoundSound(GenAudio AstoundSound) | A 3D audio spatialization solution that besides providing 360 degree directional cues horizontally, also includes cues for ±90 degree vertical. | notifications | 1 game | |
Asura | Uses any version/generation of the Asura game engine, created by Rebellion. | notifications | 2005 / 2013 | 19 games |
AtmosFear | A game engine by Action Forms. | notifications | 1998 / 2005 | 4 games |
Atomic Game Engine | a 2D/3D game engine with nice features like streaming to texture. | 0 game | ||
Audiere | A high-level and extremely simplistic audio API. | notifications | 2005 / 2017 | 6 games |
Aurora | Uses the Aurora game engine, created by BioWare. | notifications | 2002 / 2019 | 24 games |
Autodesk Scaleform(Scaleform GFx) | A Flash-based user interface graphics API from Autodesk. | notifications | 2004 / 2016 | 36 games |
Avalanche Engine | notifications | 2006 / 2015 | 10 games | |
Awesomium | An HTML-based user interface engine. | notifications | 2006 / 2015 | 8 games |
BANG! Engine | A game engine created by Ensemble Studios. | notifications | 2002 / 2008 | 9 games |
BASS audio library | notifications | 2006 / 2010 | 9 games | |
BattlEye anti-cheat engine | notifications | 2000 / 2018 | 9 games | |
BattleZone | An unnamed game engine originally used for the 1998 BattleZone FPS/RTS. | notifications | 1998 / 2000 | 3 games |
BBS door | A piece of software that runs external to the BBS system on the client's computer, usually a specialized terminal emulator. | notifications | 1988 / 1995 | 7 games |
Better Than Zork adventure engine | Written by William Mataga and Steve Hales | notifications | 1984 / 1986 | 20 games |
biEngine | A proprietary game engine developed by Biart Studio. | notifications | 2010 / 2012 | 13 games |
Big Huge Engine | A game engine by Big Huge Games. | notifications | 2003 / 2012 | 7 games |
BigWorld | An MMO game engine by BigWorld. | notifications | 2010 / 2016 | 12 games |
Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless (BREW) | An application development platform by Qualcomm for mobile phones. | notifications | 2003 / 2008 | 6 games |
Bitsquid | A game engine created by Bitsquid AB, founded by Fatshark and former Grin developers. | notifications | 2011 / 2015 | 17 games |
BitTorrent[BT] | Uses the BitTorrent peer-to-peer file transfer protocol. | notifications | 2004 / 2018 | 14 games |
Blitz BASIC programming language | A programming language by Blitz Research. | notifications | 1992 / 2016 | 10 games |
BlitzMax[Blitz MAX] | A programming language by Blitz Research incompatible with its predecessor, Blitz BASIC. | notifications | 2004 / 2015 | 27 games |
BlitzTech | notifications | 2009 / 2013 | 3 games | |
Bluepoint Engine(BPE) | A game engine by Bluepoint Games. | notifications | 2006 / 2014 | 8 games |
BMP images(Bitmap;DIB;Device Independent Bitmap) | Uses BMP/DIB images, a lossless and usually uncompressed (though can use RLE (run-length encoding)) up to 24-bit raster image format created by Microsoft. | notifications | 2009 / 2012 | 2 games |
Box2D physics engine | notifications | 1997 / 2020 | 20 games | |
Buddha Engine | A game engine by Double Fine. | 2009 / 2015 | 24 games | |
BugSplat | A proprietary crash reporting solution. | notifications | 2004 / 2011 | 5 games |
Build[Build engine;Build3D;BUILD] | A game engine by Ken Silverman, perhaps best known for its use in Duke Nukem 3D. | notifications | 1995 / 2019 | 41 games |
Bullet physics engine (Bullet physics library) | An open source physics engine. | notifications | 2009 / 2018 | 9 games |
Bulletin board system | Uses BBS in the back-end, which can (likely) be connected via most terminal emulators, such as Telnet clients, SSH, and others. Originally only connectable via modem by calling the BBS system's phone number. | notifications | 1984 / 1992 | 3 games |
BYOND(Build Your Own Net Dream) | Made with Byond, a free 2D multiplayer game maker. | notifications | 1 game | |
C# programming language[C Sharp] | Coded in C# programming language. | notifications | 2008 / 2021 | 85 games |
C++ programming language | Coded in C++, a superset of C programming language, slowly diverging from its roots. | notifications | 1983 / 2018 | 1075 games |
Carbon API | These games use Apple's API for developing OS X applications that also run on OS 9 and OS 8. | notifications | 2000 / 2003 | 6 games |
CauseWay DOS Extender | CauseWay is a formally proprietary DOS extender by Bethesda. | notifications | 1 game | |
Ceebot Engine | by Epsitec for many of their games. Ported to Linux for Colobot by PPC. | notifications | 1 game | |
Chroma Engine | Level 7's engine for, Chroma, that also functions with some other puzzle apps despite those apps having completely different types of puzzles | notifications | 2003 / 2013 | 5 games |
Chrome Engine | A 3D game engine by Techland which supports scripting by Java. | notifications | 2003 / 2015 | 28 games |
Cinématique Evolution 2 Engine (CruisE) | Delphine Software's update to the Cinématique Engine (CINE) used for a single adventure game (on three platforms) | notifications | 3 games | |
Cinepak video codec | Lossy video codec released in 1991. It was one of the first video compression tools to achieve FMV on CD-ROM. | notifications | 1 game | |
Clausewitz | notifications | 2007 / 2016 | 35 games | |
Clickteam Fusion | Successor to Clickteam's earlier Multimedia Fusion. | 1992 / 2008 | 0 game | |
Clickteam Klik & Play | A game maker for creating simple games for 16-bit Windows, 32-bit Windows, and Classic Mac OS. | notifications | 3 games | |
CloakNT (Cloak) | A game engine by Cauldron. | notifications | 2003 / 2009 | 11 games |
Clojurelang | notifications | 1 game | ||
Clojurescript | notifications | 1 game | ||
Cocos2d(Cocos2d-X;Cocos2d-JS;Cocos2d-XNA;Cocos2d-Swift) | A cross platform game framework originally for iOS. | notifications | 2015 / 2016 | 3 games |
Construct 2 | A WYSIWYG closed source game maker by Scirra for creating HTML5 games. | notifications | 2013 / 2021 | 34 games |
Coretech | Uses any generation of the Coretech game engine, created by NeocoreGames. | notifications | 2009 / 2015 | 7 games |
Cossacks | An unnamed game engine originally used for Cossacks series. | notifications | 2001 / 2016 | 6 games |
Crap Adventure Construction Kit | 1 game | |||
Creation Engine | The Creation Engine is a 3D video game engine created by Bethesda Game Studios based on the Gamebryo engine. | notifications | 2011 / 2018 | 10 games |
Crimson Engine | A game engine by Michal Marcinkowski. | notifications | 2011 / 2012 | 4 games |
CriWare | An audio, video and lip sync middleware by CRI Middlware. | notifications | 2001 / 2021 | 524 games |
CryENGINE | Utilizes first generation of Crytek's CryENGINE. | notifications | 2004 / 2017 | 26 games |
CryENGINE 2 | notifications | 2003 / 2009 | 7 games | |
CryENGINE 3 | notifications | 2011 / 2016 | 18 games | |
CryENGINE V | notifications | 1 game | ||
Cryptic Engine | Uses any generation of the game engine by Cryptic Studios. | notifications | 2004 / 2013 | 5 games |
Crystal Caves | A nameless game engine created for Crystal Caves, later re-used for Secret Agent. | notifications | 1991 / 2015 | 4 games |
Crystal Engine | An engine developed by Crystal Dynamics. | notifications | 2006 / 2019 | 26 games |
Crystal Tools | A game engine by Square Enix. | notifications | 2009 / 2016 | 7 games |
Cube2engine | A zlib licensed engine with graphics based on an octree-to-triangle rendering engine. Cubes, sub-cubes, sub-sub-cubes, ad infinitum. | notifications | 2004 / 2014 | 16 games |
Custom[custom game engine] | Uses any engine that was made specifically for a single game. | notifications | 1986 / 2020 | 326 games |
Dagon Engine | An adventure game engine by Senscape. The sourcecode for engine and SDK are available under CDDL license. | notifications | 2012 / 2014 | 2 games |
Dagor | A game engine by Gaijin Entertainment. | notifications | 2007 / 2016 | 13 games |
Dark Engine | A game engine by Looking Glass Studios originally for Thief: The Dark Project. | notifications | 1998 / 2014 | 7 games |
DarkPlaces | A heavily modified Quake [1] game engine. | notifications | 2003 / 2013 | 17 games |
Darkstar | notifications | 1998 / 1999 | 2 games | |
Dead Engine | notifications | 2008 / 2010 | 6 games | |
DeHackEd | A tool for modifying the Doom 1/2 executable that can generate patches for it. Used by several mods and total conversions. | notifications | 1997 / 2005 | 2 games |
Delta Engine | An open source cross-platform game engine by Delta Engine GmbH. | notifications | 1 game | |
Denuvo | A DRM scheme by Denuvo Software Solutions, created with bought out code from Sony DADC, the former creators of SecuROM. | notifications | 2014 / 2020 | 28 games |
Descent | A nameless game engine by Parallax Software originally built for the game Descent. | notifications | 1995 / 2010 | 8 games |
Development System ran the Code::Blocks IDE | These games were developed in part or whole using at least 1 computer running the Code::Blocks IDE. | notifications | 2009 / 2011 | 2 games |
Development System used was running Sun OS 1.x | These games were developed in part or whole using at least 1 Sun OS 1 based system. | notifications | 1 game | |
Devolved Engine (Life RPG Engine) | An RPG engine where games are written completely in strict XML. | 1 game | ||
Diesel | A game engine developed by GRIN. | notifications | 2001 / 2016 | 17 games |
Digital Research Graphics Environment Manager(GEM) | Designed for GEM. A Graphic User Interface available for several OSes. Also numerous numerous printers, plotters, monitors, terminals, & cameras. | notifications | 1 game | |
DirectDraw | A 2D raster graphics API part of the DirectX. | notifications | 1 game | |
DirectInput[DInput] | A deprecated controller input API from Microsoft. | notifications | 2002 / 2020 | 17 games |
DirectPlay | Uses the now deprecated network communication portion of the DirectX API. | notifications | 3 games | |
DirectX Audio (XAudio;DirectSound;DirectSound 3D;DS3D) | notifications | 1999 / 2019 | 21 games | |
Discord Rich Presence | Supports Discord's Rich Presence feature. | notifications | 2016 / 2018 | 3 games |
Disrupt | A game engine by Ubisoft Montreal. | notifications | 5 games | |
Divinity Engine | A game engine by Larian, originally created for a game that preceded Divinity series. | notifications | 1999 / 2004 | 3 games |
Divinity Engine 2 | A game engine by Larian Studios originally for Divinity: Dragon Commander and later iterations used for the Original Sin series. | notifications | 2013 / 2017 | 10 games |
DivX video codec | notifications | 2004 / 2009 | 6 games | |
Doom WAD | A file packaging format introduced for Doom but also used in Quake engine games as well as few unrelated to either engine. | notifications | 1993 / 2013 | 51 games |
DoomRPG | Uses DoomRPG's game engine. | notifications | 2005 / 2010 | 6 games |
DOS 1.x | Requires DOS 1.0 or newer. | notifications | 1973 / 2014 | 25 games |
DOS 2.x | Requires DOS 2.0 or newer. | notifications | 1981 / 2014 | 113 games |
DOS 3.x | Requires DOS 3.0 or newer. | notifications | 1984 / 2015 | 98 games |
DOS 4.x (Multitasking DOS;European MS-DOS 4.0) | Requires the maligned MS-DOS 4.0 or MS-DOS 4.01 (these are entirely different from IBM PC-DOS 4.00 & IBM PC-DOS 4.01). | notifications | 1984 / 2017 | 29 games |
DOS 5.x | Requires DOS 5.0 or newer. | notifications | 1989 / 2017 | 83 games |
DOS 6.x | Requires DOS 6.0 or newer. | notifications | 1990 / 2017 | 25 games |
DOS extender (DOS/4G;DOS32A) | Uses any DOS extender (such as DOS/4G) that breaks the memory limit of 640kB, allowing at least up to 64MB to be addressed. | notifications | 1991 / 2015 | 32 games |
DOS Protected Memory Interace (DPMI) | Requires the DPMI TSR service software to run. | notifications | 1985 / 2003 | 3 games |
Double Fusion Engine | An in-game advertising engine. | notifications | 2011 / 2013 | 6 games |
DreamWorld | notifications | 2001 / 2012 | 5 games | |
DS2 | A modified Quake 3 game engine by Digital Spray Studios. | notifications | 2006 / 2007 | 2 games |
Dumb Game Engine (Dumb 3D) | Capable of running Doom & Quake games & originals with dynamic levels, higher resolutions, and new features on 486/33z. Also for original games of other types. | notifications | 1 game | |
Dunia | A game engine created by Ubisoft Montreal. | notifications | 2008 / 2012 | 10 games |
Dynamix Game Development System (dgds) | A game engine and system of development tools by Dynamix used for several of their games. | notifications | 1990 / 1992 | 10 games |
EA Access | A DRM solution from Electronic Arts. | notifications | 1 game | |
Eamon Engine (The Wonderful World of Eamon) | A text based (graphics allowed) construction system by Donald Brown that was used to create hundreds of games. | notifications | 1980 / 2010 | 298 games |
EasyAntiCheat | notifications | 2012 / 2017 | 6 games | |
EDGE (Enhanced Doom Game Engine) | A modernized DOOM engine that still remains compatible with the originals. | notifications | 1 game | |
Eduke32 Engine | A game engine that plays Duke Nukem and other games. | notifications | 2006 / 2013 | 11 games |
Ego Game Technology Engine | notifications | 2005 / 2009 | 15 games | |
Electron Engine | Uses the Electron game engine, created by Obsidian Entertainment and based on BioWare's Aurora engine. | notifications | 2006 / 2008 | 4 games |
Emulated on MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) | An Arcade games emulator available for almost any platform. (clones and bootlegs are merged to the parent) | notifications | 1971 / 2016 | 3103 games |
Enforce | A game engine originally by Black Element Software. | notifications | 2004 / 2012 | 4 games |
Enigma (Blitzkrieg) | A game engine developed by Nival. | notifications | 2003 / 2008 | 9 games |
EoB Engine(Eye of the Beholder) | A nameless game engine created for Eye of the Beholder series & updated for each game. Later updated for use with the Kyrandia series. | notifications | 1991 / 2015 | 26 games |
Epiboly Software's Adventure Maker | A system by Patricia B. Smith to makes simple GUI interactive fiction games for classic Macintoshes. | notifications | 1 game | |
ES Online (Ensemble Studios Online) | Proprietary network by Ensemble Studios. | notifications | 2005 / 2008 | 4 games |
Escavatrix Engine | Uses the Escavatrix engine | notifications | 1 game | |
Essence Engine | Game engine by Relic Entertainment created for the Company of Heroes game. | notifications | 2006 / 2016 | 13 games |
Eternal Lands Engine | A proprietary game engine developed for the Eternal Lands MMORPG. As the sourcecode is GPL, other MMORPGs are free to use it. | notifications | 2003 / 2013 | 8 games |
Euphoria | Uses the Euphoria dynamic motion synthesis engine. | notifications | 2008 / 2009 | 9 games |
Evolution(Evolution Engine;Sector Engine) | A game engine by Digital Extremes, originally named Sector Engine as per the first game to use it: darkSector. | notifications | 2008 / 2013 | 6 games |
ExEn (Execution Engine) | By In-Fusio. Aims to be less limited than J2ME. Built-in scaling, parallaxing, raycasting, & rotation. Available under "premium" or "free" licenses. | notifications | 2003 / 2004 | 2 games |
Explore Computer Language | Written in the form of data meant to be interpreted by the Explore game engine by Joseph Peterson & De Crandell. | notifications | 5 games | |
Explore Engine | Joseph Peterson & De Crandell's BASIC engine for the TRS-80 computer. A generic way to create adventure games inspired by Colossal Cave Adventure. | notifications | 5 games | |
Extensible Markup Language (XML) | Uses XML data serialization format for storage, configuration or anything else. | notifications | 2002 / 2020 | 119 games |
F# programming language | Coded in F# programming language. | notifications | 1 game | |
Fabric Audio (Tazman Audio) | Fabric is middleware that extends the audio capability of the Unity engine. | notifications | 1 game | |
FaceFX | A facial animation toolkit. | notifications | 2007 / 2016 | 6 games |
Fallout | Uses Fallout 1's game engine. | notifications | 1997 / 2016 | 12 games |
Fenix computer language | notifications | 2004 / 2007 | 7 games | |
Fighter Maker | Created with Enterbrain's 2D Fighter Maker. | notifications | 2001 / 2014 | 4 games |
Filmation Game Engine | Isometric graphics engine employed in a series of games developed by Ultimate Play the Game during the 1980s | notifications | 1984 / 1986 | 18 games |
Fixel | An open source Flash game-making library that is completely free for personal or commercial use. | notifications | 2009 / 2012 | 2 games |
Flash | Uses Macromedia/Adobe Flash. | notifications | 2001 / 2016 | 91 games |
FlashPunk | A free generic ActionScript library for 2D game development. | notifications | 3 games | |
flatzebra | A GPL generic game engine for 2D double-buffering animation using SDL by Pierre Sarrazin | notifications | 2000 / 2008 | 12 games |
FLEDGE | A game engine by Deck13. | notifications | 2014 / 2017 | 4 games |
Flexible Isometric Free Engine (FIFE) | notifications | 4 games | ||
Flixel | A free, open-source game-making library for Actionscript 3 and designed for use with free development tools. | notifications | 2009 / 2014 | 19 games |
FMOD audio engine (FMOD Ex) | A cross-platform audio engine by Firelight Technologies. | notifications | 2000 / 2021 | 257 games |
FNA | Open source reimplementation of Microsoft XNA Framework for many platforms. | notifications | 2009 / 2023 | 159 games |
ForgeLight[Forge Light] | A proprietary game engine by Sony Online Entertainment for MMOs. | notifications | 2012 / 2015 | 4 games |
Forth programming language | notifications | 1979 / 1985 | 7 games | |
Fortnite platform | Games running on the Fortnite platform. | notifications | 9 games | |
Fox Engine | A cross-platform game engine by Kojima Productions. | notifications | 2013 / 2014 | 11 games |
FPS Creator (FPS Creator Reloaded) | FPS Creator & later versions are developed by The Game Creators Ltd. They allow making FPSes with little or no coding/programming experience required | notifications | 1 game | |
Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) | Open format, royalty-free, lossless digital audio compression. 50-60% rate. | notifications | 2003 / 2017 | 2 games |
Freescape | Developed in-house by Incentive Software in 1986, Freescape is considered to be the first proprietary 3D engine ever to be used in computer games. | notifications | 1987 / 1992 | 37 games |
Freespace Engine | A game engine with loosely interpreted outer space physics used for the Freespace series of games. | notifications | 1998 / 2015 | 16 games |
FreeTrack | Natively supports FreeTrack, an open source motion (head) tracking software with help of a regular webcam. | notifications | 2007 / 2009 | 1 game |
Frostbite(Frostbite Engine) | notifications | 2008 / 2018 | 34 games | |
FuzixOS | A subset of GNU/Linux for minimal systems (6809, Z80, Z180, 8086, 6502, 68HC11, 68k, 65c816, MSP430, pdp11). | notifications | 34 games | |
Game Center | A social platform for iOS 4.1 and OS X 10.8 or later. | notifications | 2010 / 2014 | 3 games |
GameAgent | A digital disrobution site by Aspyer that notably offers games for Mac. Also sells Linux and Windows games. | notifications | 2013 / 2016 | 19 games |
Gamebryo(NetImmerse) | Uses any generation of Gamebryo engine. | notifications | 1999 / 2014 | 81 games |
GameCODA | Audio middleware by Sensaura. | notifications | 2002 / 2006 | 7 games |
GameMaker(GameMaker: Studio;Animo)[GM Studio;Game Maker;Game Maker Studio] | Made with and powered by any version of GameMaker from YoYo Games. | notifications | 1998 / 2022 | 142 games |
GameOS(GOS) | A game engine developed by Andrew Glaister at FASA Studio until it was bought out by Microsoft in 1999. | notifications | 2000 / 2002 | 6 games |
GameShield | A copy protection solution by Yummy Interactive. | notifications | 2009 / 2012 | 3 games |
Garry Kitchen's Gamemaker (Activision Gamemaker) | Games made with Garry Kitchen's Gamemaker IDE. | notifications | 1985 / 1986 | 2 games |
Generic Adventure Game System/Adventure Game Toolkit | Generic Adventure Game System is an interactive fiction engine by Mark J. Welch's. Later extended and renamed Adventure Game Toolkit by David R. Malmberg's | notifications | 1989 / 1991 | 3 games |
Genesis3D | An opensource engine by Eclipse Entertainment. Used for an eclectic set of infamous games. | notifications | 1998 / 2003 | 7 games |
Genie Engine | A game engine developed by Ensemble Studios | notifications | 1997 / 2015 | 11 games |
Geo-Mod game engine | Uses any version of the Geo-Mod game engine. | notifications | 2001 / 2011 | 14 games |
GGPO (Good Game Peace Out) | A networking middleware originally created for providing network play for emulated arcade games. | notifications | 2011 / 2013 | 7 games |
Ginkgo Engine | A 2D Engine by Broken Rules | notifications | 2009 / 2014 | 6 games |
Glacier 2 | A game engine by IO Interactive. | notifications | 3 games | |
Glacier(Glacier 1) | A game engine by IO Interactive. | notifications | 2000 / 2006 | 12 games |
Glest | A game engine designed for strategy games. Originally created for Glest, used in various forms for other games. | notifications | 2004 / 2010 | 7 games |
Glide 3D | Subset of OpenGL API created by 3dfx for their Voodoo line of GPUs. | notifications | 1995 / 2016 | 86 games |
Glulx[glulxe;quixe] | Portable virtual machine intended for interactive fiction games. | notifications | 2010 / 2011 | 2 games |
GLYPH(GLYPHX) | A game engine by Petroglyph. | notifications | 2010 / 2013 | 3 games |
GNU/Linux kernel | Compiled for the GNU/Linux kernel regardless of the platform. To differentiate when the same entry is also for UNIX or other *nix kernels. | notifications | 1991 / 2020 | 59 games |
Gobengine | Coktel Vision's own game engine. | notifications | 1991 / 1995 | 20 games |
Godfather | notifications | 2006 / 2008 | 11 games | |
Godot Engine | A free, cross-platform and open source game engine distributed under MIT license. | notifications | 2014 / 2023 | 15 games |
GOG Galaxy | Requires GOG Galaxy for some functionality, such as multiplayer matchmaking, when other services do not provide it. Generally applies only to games acquired from GOG and likely offers cross-platform multiplayer with Steam. | notifications | 2 games | |
Gold Box Engine | 1987-1994. Know as GBE since a shiny gold cardboard box was used for many of the games. It was eventually released to the public as [game=Unlimited Adventures]Unlimited Adventures[/game] | notifications | 1988 / 2015 | 59 games |
GoldSrc(Goldsource) | A heavily modified Quake 1 game engine by Valve. | notifications | 1998 / 2013 | 20 games |
Google Breakpad (Mozilla Talkback) | A cross-platform FOSS crash reporting solution by Google, Inc. and Mozilla Foundation. | notifications | 2004 / 2017 | 37 games |
Google Native Client (NaCl) | Uses Google Native Client sandbox to run a game on a web browser via C-like compiled code instead of being limited by things like Javascript and HTML5. | notifications | 2011 / 2014 | 17 games |
Google Play Games(Google Play game services) | A social platform for Android, iOS and web by Google that provides leaderboards and achievements globally and for player's Google+ circles. | notifications | 2 games | |
Google Plus | For games available under the Google social network. | notifications | 3 games | |
Granny 3D | An animation middleware by RAD Game Tools. | notifications | 2002 / 2015 | 8 games |
Graphine | Texture streaming and compression middleware. | notifications | 1 game | |
Grim 2D | A 2D graphics engine by 10tons entertainment. | notifications | 1 game | |
Grim Engine (GrimE) | A game engine developed by LucasArts, incorporating the older Sith engine. | notifications | 1998 / 2014 | 7 games |
Groovie | notifications | 1993 / 2014 | 9 games | |
GTK(GIMP Toolkit;GTKmm;GTK+) | A GUI widget toolkit originally developed as replacement for Motif. | notifications | 1990 / 2016 | 17 games |
Guadalcanal engine | An unnamed engine used in multiple games | notifications | 1982 / 1983 | 3 games |
GZDoom | Extremely heavily modified id Tech 1 engine based on ZDoom. | notifications | 2018 / 2019 | 3 games |
HackShield | An anti-hack/cheat solution by AhnLab. | notifications | 2003 / 2013 | 7 games |
Halo engine | notifications | 2001 / 2011 | 8 games | |
Havok Physics | Uses the Havok Physics engine. | notifications | 2000 / 2020 | 317 games |
HaxeFlixel | Haxe language port of the Flixel game library. | notifications | 2012 / 2021 | 10 games |
Heavy Duty | A game engine by Primal Software. | notifications | 2006 / 2010 | 2 games |
HeroEngine | A game engine by Simutronics. | notifications | 2009 / 2015 | 7 games |
Horizon-Based Ambient Occlusion(HBAO) | An improved technique for ambient occlusion compared to the original SSAO. | notifications | 2004 / 2018 | 11 games |
HPL1 | Game engine created by Frictional Games | notifications | 2007 / 2010 | 10 games |
HPL2 | Second generation of the HPL game engine created by Frictional Games. | notifications | 2010 / 2015 | 7 games |
HPL3 | Third generation of the HPL game engine created by Frictional Games. | notifications | 4 games | |
HTML5 | HTML specification started back in 2004, aiming to be fully finished by 2014. Notably adds support for hardware accelerated graphics via WebGL (subset of OpenGL) though includes many other things as well. | notifications | 2000 / 2016 | 30 games |
Hugo Engine | Game engine initially used for "Hugo's House of Horrors" trilogy. | notifications | 1991 / 2010 | 20 games |
HX DOS Extender | DOS extender allowing multitasking, DLL use, compatible with Windows PE and DOS executables. Also allows some 16-bit Windows games to run in pure DOS. | notifications | 1 game | |
HyperCard | A hypermedia, database, and rapid application development tool by Apple Inc. (and intermittently Claris) for the Apple Macintosh, supported from 1987 to 1992. | notifications | 1987 / 1995 | 29 games |
I Wanna Be The Engine | Uses any version of IWBTE. | notifications | 1 game | |
IBM PC-compatible DOS | Any tags related directly to the x86 CPU architecture DOS variants. | list_alt | 0 game | |
id Software game engines | list_alt | 0 game | ||
id Tech 1 (Doom engine) | Uses the original Doom's engine or some modification of it. | notifications | 1993 / 2013 | 28 games |
id Tech 2 (Quake 2 engine;CRX engine) | Uses the id Tech 2 game engine developed by id Software. | notifications | 1997 / 2014 | 47 games |
id Tech 3 (Quake 3 engine;ioquake3) | Uses the id Tech 3 game engine developed by id Software. | notifications | 1999 / 2016 | 86 games |
id Tech 4 (Doom 3 engine) | Uses id Tech 4 game engine, developed by id Software. | notifications | 2004 / 2015 | 31 games |
id Tech 5 (Rage engine) | Uses the fifth generation of id Software's game engine. | notifications | 2011 / 2017 | 14 games |
id Tech 6(Doom 4 engine) | Uses the sixth generation of id Software's game engine. | notifications | 2016 / 2019 | 4 games |
Id Tech 7 | Uses the seventh generation of id Software's game engine. | notifications | 2020 / 2020 | 4 games |
IllumOS | Known to run on IllumOS. The 100% Open Source variant of Sun Solaris. | 0 game | ||
Impact | HTML5-based game engine for browser games. | notifications | 2010 / 2015 | 3 games |
Impulse::GOO (Game Object Obfuscation) | A copy protection schema from Stardock. | notifications | 2005 / 2011 | 38 games |
Impulse::Reactor | notifications | 2009 / 2011 | 5 games | |
Indeo video codec | A video codec from Intel. | notifications | 1998 / 2000 | 2 games |
Infernal Engine | A game engine developed by Terminal Reality. | notifications | 2008 / 2013 | 6 games |
Infinity Engine | IE is a game engine used to allow multiple characters to interact with pre-rendered isometric 2D environments in pausable real-time. | notifications | 1998 / 2017 | 24 games |
Infinity Ward engine (IW Engine) | A heavily modified version of id tech 4 engine by Infinity Ward. | notifications | 2005 / 2013 | 20 games |
INSANE(Interactive Streaming Animation Engine) | The [b]IN[/b]teractive [b]S[/b]treaming [b]AN[/b]imation [b]E[/b]ngine allowed full motion video & graphics to be displayed in high-res PC graphic modes, created by LucasArts. Not used interactively in most games. | notifications | 1993 / 2017 | 24 games |
Insomniac Engine | notifications | 1 game | ||
INSTEAD Engine | Games running on the INSTEAD engine. The engine was designed to interpret games that are the mix of visual novels, text quests and classical 90's quests. | notifications | 2013 / 2014 | 28 games |
Interactive Fiction Engine | A proprietary game engine of interactive fictions, created by Simutronics. | notifications | 1987 / 2003 | 2 games |
Interactive Spatial Audio Composition Technology(ISACT) | An audio middleware by Creative. | notifications | 1 game | |
iOS 3.x | Requires at least version 3.0 of iOS. | notifications | 2009 / 2011 | 10 games |
iOS 4.x | Requires at least version 4.0 of iOS. | notifications | 2009 / 2011 | 5 games |
iOS 5.x | Requires at least version 5.0 of iOS. | notifications | 1 game | |
iOS 6.x | Requires at least version 6.0 of iOS. | notifications | 2014 / 2015 | 2 games |
iOS 7.x | Requires at least version 7.0 of iOS. | notifications | 1 game | |
iOS 8.x | Requires at least version 8.0 of iOS. | notifications | 2015 / 2018 | 3 games |
iOS 9.x | Requires at least version 9.0 of iOS. | notifications | 1 game | |
IRC (Internet Relay Chat) | Has integrated IRC client for chat and possibly other functionality. Likely does not behave entirely like normal IRC, having various limiting factors and little to no normal IRC commands available for players. | notifications | 2004 / 2013 | 12 games |
IRE[IRE game engine] | A game engine similar to the one used for Ultima 6. Uses Allegro. | notifications | 2003 / 2004 | 4 games |
IRISZOOM | A game engine by Eugen Systems. | notifications | 2010 / 2015 | 16 games |
Iron Engine | notifications | 2008 / 2015 | 4 games | |
Irrlicht Engine | A free open-source 3D graphics engine. | notifications | 2000 / 2016 | 32 games |
iZ3D | Natively supports iZ3D's stereoscopic rendering. | notifications | 2009 / 2011 | 3 games |
JACK Audio Connection Kit | notifications | 1997 / 2003 | 2 games | |
Jade | A game engine developed by Ubisoft, originally in their Montpellier studio, for Beyond Good & Evil and named after the protagonist of that game. | notifications | 2003 / 2007 | 35 games |
Java Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME)[Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition] | A subset of Java for resource limited devices like cell phones, PDAs, & set-top boxes. | notifications | 2003 / 2011 | 16 games |
JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) | A human-readable data serialization format, commonly used with JavaScript but is easy to parse on any language and as such has no dependency on JavaScript. | notifications | 2010 / 2016 | 17 games |
Jedi engine | A game engine by LucasArts. | notifications | 1995 / 2015 | 3 games |
JGame Engine | A Java based, widely cross-platform (Linux, Windows, Mac, Java, Mobile, Android, Flash, Webstart), 2D game engine with optional OpenGL. | 17 games | ||
jMonkeyEngine | A free Java 3D game engine. | notifications | 2009 / 2016 | 14 games |
K2 Engine | A game engine by S2 Games, originally for Savage 2. | notifications | 2008 / 2015 | 9 games |
Kalydo | Playable via Kalydo, a Java-based web browser plugin. | notifications | 2004 / 2008 | 3 games |
Kalypso Launcher | A layer in front of games released by Kalypso, requires login at Kalypso Launcher website to actually play the game regardless if you play offline or online. | notifications | 2011 / 2017 | 16 games |
KDE Games | Part of the KDE game modules. | notifications | 1996 / 2008 | 14 games |
Kex Engine | notifications | 1997 / 2018 | 7 games | |
Kinetica | Game engine developed by SCEA. | notifications | 2001 / 2010 | 18 games |
KiriKiri(KiriKiri Adventure Game System;KAG;吉里吉里) | Uses any version of KiriKiri, a free game engine and framework for visual novels. | notifications | 2006 / 2012 | 6 games |
KRASS | A game engine by Massive Development. | notifications | 2001 / 2005 | 4 games |
Kung Fu Game State Machine Engine | A game engine created by Color Dreams Inc and used in several of their games. | notifications | 1990 / 1991 | 3 games |
Kynapse (Autodesk Kynapse) | Artificial intelligence middleware by Kynogon. | notifications | 2007 / 2011 | 19 games |
Lachhh engine | notifications | 1 game | ||
Lassie Adventure Studio | notifications | 1 game | ||
LC-Script Engine(LCSE) | Uses any version of the LCSE game engine by Nexton. | notifications | 2003 / 2011 | 4 games |
Level editor (Map editor;Construction Kit) | Level, map and/or scenario editor is available with the game or from official public sources for free, so players can design their own levels to the game. | notifications | 1980 / 2021 | 1030 games |
LibOVR(Oculus VR)[OculusVR] | Uses the Oculus VR API, used by devices such as Oculus Rift VR goggles, Constellation head tracking, and Oculus Touch. | notifications | 1 game | |
libsndfile | A cross-platform library for reading from and writing to numerous audio file formats. Has no playback functionality in itself. | notifications | 2011 / 2018 | 2 games |
LIFESTUDIO:HEAD | A facial animation solution by LifeMode Interactive. | notifications | 2003 / 2015 | 8 games |
Lightweight Java Game Library (LWJGL) | LWJGL provides a simple platform-neutral API to expose OpenGL, OpenAL, OpenCL, and game controllers to a Java application. | notifications | 2004 / 2014 | 30 games |
Linux Kernel 2.0.x | Requires at least Linux Kernel version 2.0.x, may work on newer but this is not guaranteed. | notifications | 1998 / 2001 | 4 games |
Linux Kernel 2.2.x | Requires at least Linux Kernel version 2.2.x, may work on newer but this is not guaranteed. | notifications | 1999 / 2007 | 14 games |
Linux Kernel 2.4.x | Requires at least Linux Kernel version 2.4.x, may work on newer but this is not guaranteed. | notifications | 2000 / 2008 | 4 games |
Linux Kernel 2.6.x | Requires at least Linux Kernel version 2.6.x, may work on newer but this is not guaranteed. | notifications | 2005 / 2017 | 5 games |
Linux Kernel 3.0.x | Requires at least Linux Kernel version 3.0.x, may work on newer but this is not guaranteed. | notifications | 2016 / 2018 | 7 games |
Linux Kernel 3.2.x | Requires at least Linux Kernel version 3.2.x, may work on newer but this is not guaranteed. | notifications | 2016 / 2019 | 3 games |
Linux Kernel 4.3.x | Requires at least Linux Kernel version 4.3.x, may work on newer but this is not guaranteed. | notifications | 1 game | |
Linux Kernel 5.8.x | Requires at least Linux Kernel version 5.8.x, may work on newer but this is not guaranteed. | notifications | 2 games | |
LionEngine | A platformer game engine by Byron 3D Games Studio available to the public. | notifications | 2 games | |
LISP programming language (List Processing Language;CL;Common Lisp) | LISP is the 2nd oldest high-level language, uses fully parenthesized syntax & was favored during the early days of AI. | notifications | 1985 / 2014 | 18 games |
Lithtech | A game engine originally created by Monolith Productions. | notifications | 1998 / 2015 | 55 games |
Lithtech Jupiter | notifications | 2002 / 2009 | 8 games | |
Lithtech JupiterEX | notifications | 2005 / 2009 | 14 games | |
Lithtech Talon | notifications | 2001 / 2004 | 5 games | |
LiveMaker(ライブメーカー) | A visual novel authoring tool by Human Balance (ヒューマンバランス). | notifications | 1 game | |
Living Battlefield | notifications | 1997 / 1998 | 2 games | |
Lords of Midnight 3 Engine | A nameless game engine created for Lords of Midnight: The Citadel. | notifications | 1995 / 1996 | 2 games |
LÖVE framework (LÖVE engine;Legendary Orthogonal Virtual Environment;LOVE 2D) | An open-source game framework and engine. | notifications | 2012 / 2020 | 60 games |
LPMud driver (LDMud driver) | MUDs running on LPMud driver or any of its derivatives. LPMud is a powerful engine with very little hard-coded functionality besides the LPC (a C-like scripting language) interpreter, unlike many other MUD drivers which rely on hardcoded info. | notifications | 1989 / 2001 | 5 games |
Lua programming language | Uses Lua in one manner or another. | notifications | 1993 / 2020 | 350 games |
Lucasarts Zombies Engine | The engine for Zombies Ate My Neighbors was reused for several other games | notifications | 1993 / 1995 | 5 games |
Lutris | Lutris is an open source gaming platform for GNU/Linux for gathering & manage all games from any source, in a single interface. LutrisOS is for TVs. | notifications | 1978 / 2019 | 888 games |
Luxe engine | A cross-platform game engine written in Haxe | notifications | 1 game | |
LyN Engine | notifications | 2009 / 2010 | 3 games | |
M.A.D.E.(Multimedia Applications Development Environment) | A multimedia adventure game engine for DOS, created by Activision. | notifications | 1989 / 1993 | 5 games |
M.A.D.S.(Microprose Adventure Development System) | notifications | 1992 / 2014 | 7 games | |
Mac OS X 10.3.x Panther(Darwin 7.x) | Requires at least version 10.3 of OS X. | notifications | 1999 / 2017 | 118 games |
Mac OS X 10.4.x Tiger(Darwin 8.x) | Requires at least version 10.4 of OS X. | notifications | 1999 / 2017 | 151 games |
Mac OS X 10.6.x Snow Leopard(Darwin 10.x) | Requires at least version 10.6 of OS X. | notifications | 2002 / 2017 | 133 games |
Mac OS X 10.7.x Lion(Darwin 11.x) | Requires at least version 10.7 of OS X. | notifications | 1996 / 2018 | 75 games |
Mac OS X 10.8.x Mountain Lion(Darwin 12.x) | Requires at least version 10.8 of OS X. | notifications | 2001 / 2019 | 71 games |
MacVenture(AtariVenture;PCAtariVenture) | A menu-based point-and-click interface and game engine originally developed for Mac by ICOM Simulations. | notifications | 1985 / 1990 | 24 games |
Magic Carpet | A nameless engine created for the Magic Carpet game series. | notifications | 1994 / 2012 | 8 games |
Magic Composer Engine | The Magic Composer engine was developed by the Russian studio Animation Magic for their Magic Tales series of interactive books, and was later used for various educational and adventure games targeted at children, as well as for the unreleased Warcraft Ad | notifications | 1994 / 1996 | 8 games |
Main Minix Distribution | notifications | 8 games | ||
Mantle | A low-level graphics API from AMD. AMD however recommends developers to use Vulkan or DX12 instead. | notifications | 2013 / 2015 | 12 games |
Marmalade(Airplay)[Marmalade SDK;Airplay SDK] | notifications | 2009 / 2016 | 14 games | |
MassTech engine | notifications | 2004 / 2008 | 3 games | |
MAX-FX(3DMark99 engine;3DMark2001 engine) | A game engine by Remedy Entertainment for Max Payne games that was also used for the 3DMark graphics benchmark application. | notifications | 2001 / 2003 | 5 games |
MechWarrior 2 engine | Uses MechWarrior 2's game engine. | notifications | 1995 / 1998 | 12 games |
MegaZuex (MZX) | A game maker originally released as shareware and now GPL. | notifications | 1998 / 2011 | 5 games |
Mercury Engine | Uses any version of the Mercury Engine game engine by MercurySteam. | notifications | 3 games | |
Microsoft Internet Gaming Zone | notifications | 1 game | ||
Mikmod | Mikmod is a sound module player and library supporting many formats, including mod, s3m, it, and xm | notifications | 2007 / 2012 | 6 games |
Miles Sound System (MSS) | Sound middleware originally by Miles Design to overcome the differences in soundcards in the old DOS days. Maintained by RAD Game Tools since 1995. | notifications | 1992 / 2016 | 213 games |
MinGW(Minimalist GNU for Windows) | A minimalist development environment for Windows that most notably brings GCC to that platform. | notifications | 1 game | |
Moai (Moai framework) | Created using the Moai development framework, a mostly Lua driven cross-platform game development kit created by Zipline Games. | notifications | 2011 / 2014 | 9 games |
Mohawk Engine (Mohawk System;Living Books Engine) | Created by Brøderbund to run Myst on Windows. It was also use for some their Living Books and Carmen Sandiego games as well as Riven and other games. | notifications | 1991 / 1999 | 44 games |
Moho | notifications | 2007 / 2011 | 7 games | |
MojoShader | Allows devs to use Direct3D shaders (HLSL) on alternate 3D APIs (such as OpenGL), and therefore on non-Windows platforms. | notifications | 2005 / 2017 | 5 games |
MonoGame | An open-source implementation of XNA 4 Framework with cross-platform support for iOS, Android, Windows, OS X, Linux, Windows Phone 8, PlayStation Mobile, and Ouya. | notifications | 2012 / 2021 | 8 games |
Mophun | A virtual game console for mobile platforms | notifications | 1 game | |
Mozilla Prism | Delivered to some platforms with aid of the Mozilla Prism. | notifications | 1 game | |
MP3 audio codec (MPEG-1 Audio Layer III;MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) | A controversial audio codec due to its many, [u]many[/u] licensing issues. Was, and likely still is, very popular with regular end-users despite it. | notifications | 2003 / 2017 | 15 games |
MPlayer.com (Mplay;MPlayer)[MPlayNow] | Multiplayer service that ran from 1996 till 2001. | notifications | 1996 / 2000 | 9 games |
MT Framework | A game engine by Capcom initially developed for Dead Rising and Lost Planet. | notifications | 2006 / 2018 | 39 games |
MUD eXtension Protocol | 0 game | |||
Multimedia Fusion (MMF) | Created with MMF, a software authoring tool by Clickteam mostly targeting game development. | notifications | 2002 / 2013 | 18 games |
Nebula Device 3D | An open-source game engine by Radon Labs. | notifications | 2005 / 2008 | 2 games |
Netty | A Java network library for non-blocking I/O. | notifications | 3 games | |
Newton Dynamics(Newton Game Dynamics) | A physics engine by Julio Jerez and Alain Suero. | notifications | 2005 / 2015 | 17 games |
Nitrous | A game engine by Oxide Games. | notifications | 2014 / 2016 | 3 games |
NLKEngine | A 2D/3D game engine developed by Nerlaska Studio. | notifications | 2012 / 2015 | 4 games |
No MAME | For arcade video games that are not yet emulated. | notifications | 1970 / 2020 | 386 games |
Nocturne | A game engine originally developed for Nocturne by Terminal Reality. | notifications | 1999 / 2000 | 4 games |
Not compatible with 686_p.exe | 686_p.exe accompanies Cyrix CPUs to fool Windows into believing a Pentium chip is present. Some games work if it's disabled but crash if it's running. | notifications | 1997 / 1998 | 2 games |
Nvidia APEX | A multi-platform, scalable dynamics framework for artists to work with PhysX, created by Nvidia. | notifications | 2008 / 2015 | 23 games |
Nvidia GameWorks | A toolkit and collection of APIs for game development from Nvidia. | notifications | 2012 / 2016 | 12 games |
O.H.R.RPG.C.E.(Official Hamster Republic Role Playing Game Construction Engine)[OHRRPGCE] | James Paige, Brian Fisher, and team's retro RPG engine for creating games in the style of SNES/NES/GBA Final Fantasy series. | notifications | 1998 / 2008 | 2 games |
Object Pascal programming language[Delphi] | Any object-oriented dialects derived from Pascal. Notably one such dialect is used in Delphi. | notifications | 2000 / 2016 | 15 games |
Obsolete: Android Operating System | An OS optimized for mobile devices & based on an independent fork of the Linux kernel. | 2008 / 2011 | 0 game | |
OCCAM 2 programming language | OCCAM with more data types, floating-point math, functions, & multi-dimensional arrays. Finally a full language instead of just an OS. | notifications | 1 game | |
OCCAM programming language | Written in and for OCCAM. Created by INMOS for their Transputer platform. | notifications | 1 game | |
Odyssey | Uses the Odyssey game engine. | notifications | 2003 / 2016 | 7 games |
OEngine | A game engine by OSome Studio. | notifications | 2014 / 2015 | 6 games |
Offset Engine | A game engine by Offset Software. | notifications | 3 games | |
OGRE(Object-Oriented Graphics Rendering Engine)[ogre 3d] | A free open source (LGPL) 3D graphics engine. | notifications | 2005 / 2018 | 71 games |
Onyx | A game engine developed by Ubisoft. | notifications | 4 games | |
Open Dynamics Engine (ODE physics engine) | Open source physics engine mainly for simulating rigid body dynamics. | notifications | 2001 / 2012 | 26 games |
Open Sound Library for Embedded Systems[OpenSL ES] | A royalty-free, cross-platform, hardware-accelerated audio C-language API tuned for embedded systems by Khronos Group. | notifications | 2009 / 2011 | 1 game |
Open Sound System | An Unix sound architecture. Largely superseded by ALSA which includes an OSS emulation layer. | notifications | 1998 / 2016 | 16 games |
Open Toolkit | A free, open-source, and cross-platform C# wrapper (OpenGL, OpenCL and OpenAL) and utility (math, input, etc.) library. | notifications | 2013 / 2015 | 5 games |
OpenBOR Open Beats of Rage Engine | An 2D engine to replicate gameplay of the Beat'em Ups like Streets of Rage, Double Dragon, and Final Fight. | notifications | 2 games | |
OpenCL (Open Computing Language) | A generic, cross-platform parallel computing framework that is independent of the actual hardware implementation of the processors, allowing regular CPUs as well as GPUs and any other processors to process the OpenCL instructions. | notifications | 2008 / 2016 | 3 games |
OpenFeint | A social platform for iOS and Android. Closed down in 2012-12-14. | notifications | 2010 / 2011 | 10 games |
OpenFL(NME framework) | notifications | 2013 / 2016 | 4 games | |
OpenGL Extension Wrangler Library (libGLEW) | notifications | 2015 / 2018 | 4 games | |
OpenIndiana | An IllumOS variant intended for servers. | 1 game | ||
OpenSolaris | Known to run on OpenSolaris. Sun's non-free mostly Open Source version of Solaris 10. Released under the CDDL license. | 4 games | ||
OpenVR(SteamVR;Steamworks VR)[HTC Vive] | Uses the OpenVR API for VR headset functionality. Used by things such as HTC Vive and SteamVR. | notifications | 2014 / 2019 | 3 games |
Oracle Solaris | Known to run on Oracle Solaris. Oracle's proprietary version of Solaris 10 and later. | 0 game | ||
Origin | Online (and possibly offline) games require login at Electronic Arts' Origin service. | notifications | 2008 / 2014 | 17 games |
Orion | notifications | 2005 / 2006 | 3 games | |
Orochi | Uses any generation of the Orochi game engine by Silicon Studio. | notifications | 2011 / 2012 | 1 game |
OS-9 Operating System | Games that run native in Microware/Radisys OS-9. Multitasking, multi-user OS originally for the 6809 CPU. [b](Not Apple's [url=/groups/info/macos9]classic OS 9[/url].)[/b] | notifications | 1985 / 1990 | 15 games |
OSVR(Open Source Virtual Reality) | Open source API for VR goggles by Sensics and Razer. | notifications | 2016 / 2017 | 6 games |
Outlaw Engine | 8 Bit Weapon's engine and editor to create Apple ][ RPG games. | notifications | 1 game | |
Overlap2D | a game engine | 0 game | ||
P.I.S.D. (Platform Independent Software Development) | A C++ software library provided by P.I.S.D. Ltd. It allows for easy cross-platform development of interfaces. | notifications | 2006 / 2016 | 14 games |
PAIN engine | Game engine by People Can Fly. | notifications | 2004 / 2010 | 8 games |
Panda3D | A free 3D game engine by Carnegie Mellon University and Disney. | notifications | 2007 / 2018 | 31 games |
Pando Media Booster | A proprietary file sharing software that uses BitTorrent protocol with the distributed files hosted at Pando's servers. May install SmartShopper grayware along with itself. | notifications | 2003 / 2013 | 6 games |
Panopticum | A panoramic adventure game engine by Phantomery Interactive. | notifications | 2008 / 2010 | 2 games |
Panta Rhei | 8th generation game engine from Capcom. | 1 game | ||
Panzer General | A nameless game engine originally created for Panzel General. | notifications | 1994 / 2015 | 13 games |
Paradox Connect | Requires account in Paradox Connect service. | notifications | 1 game | |
PathEngine | A pathing (path-finding) engine by PathEngine. | notifications | 2006 / 2015 | 40 games |
Pepys Adventure Gamer | Games made with and playable using Pepys Adventure Gamer for graphical adventure games. | notifications | 1 game | |
Photex | notifications | 1995 / 1996 | 4 games | |
PhyreEngine[Phyre Engine] | A free cross-platform game engine by Sony. | notifications | 2008 / 2019 | 38 games |
PhysicsFS(physfs) | A file system and archive abstraction library by icculus. | notifications | 2001 / 2016 | 44 games |
PhysX physics engine | Uses PhysX physics engine. | notifications | 2004 / 2022 | 285 games |
Pico-8 Fantasy Game Console | Intends to capture the fun and creativity of writing programs for the small personal computers of the 80's, without the hassles of an arcane platform. | notifications | 2016 / 2017 | 3 games |
Pie in he Sky Engine | notifications | 1 game | ||
Plankalkül (Plan Calculus) | Plankalkül was the worlds first complete high-level computer language invented by Konrad Zuse. Originally written in 2D! | notifications | 1 game | |
Playground SDK (Playground framework) | notifications | 2007 / 2014 | 8 games | |
PlayStation mini | A downloadable game primarily for PSP but sometimes compatible with PS Vita as well. | notifications | 1 game | |
PlayStation Mobile | Software framework used to provide downloadable PlayStation content for devices that meet PlayStation Certified requirements. Formerly known as PlayStation Suite. | notifications | 2012 / 2015 | 19 games |
PopCap Games Framework | Primarily 2D game engine from PopCap Games. | notifications | 1 game | |
PowerRegister[PowerRegScheduler] | A social engineering product that collects information about the user and sends it to centralized server via internet. Silently installed with certain games and applications and is not removed with them. | notifications | 2000 / 2001 | 3 games |
Prism3D | A game engine by SCS Software. | notifications | 2001 / 2005 | 6 games |
Protected Mode DOS Extender | Developed by Renaissance for the game, Zone 66. In some configurations, it required a reboot to begin and end a game. | notifications | 1993 / 1998 | 8 games |
PTypes (C++ Portable Types Library) | notifications | 1 game | ||
PulseAudio[Pulse Audio] | A cross-platform sound system for POSIX operating systems. | notifications | 2003 / 2017 | 7 games |
Qt framework | A cross-platform application framework originally by Trolltech. | notifications | 1997 / 2015 | 32 games |
Quake(Quake 1) | Uses Quake's game engine. | notifications | 1996 / 2009 | 25 games |
Quantum3 | A game engine by High Voltage Software. | notifications | 2008 / 2009 | 3 games |
Quazal (Net-Z;Rendez-Vous) | Uses any online networking and/or matchmaking service from Quazal. | notifications | 2005 / 2009 | 42 games |
QuickDRAW3D | notifications | 1996 / 2000 | 5 games | |
QuickTime media player | Requires Apple QuickTime to be present on the system. | notifications | 1992 / 2015 | 32 games |
RAD Engine(Ready at Dawn Engine) | A game engine by Ready At Dawn. | notifications | 2008 / 2015 | 2 games |
RAD Pixomatic | A software renderer developed by RAD Game Tools, released in 2003. | notifications | 2002 / 2007 | 5 games |
RAGE (Rockstar Advanced Game Engine) | Games using the Rockstar Advanced Game Engine. | notifications | 2006 / 2023 | 28 games |
RakNet | An open-source, cross-platform C++ and C# networking library by Jenkins Software. | notifications | 2005 / 2015 | 14 games |
Real Virtuality | Runs on any version of RV game engine. | notifications | 2001 / 2017 | 15 games |
Reality Lab | A 3D game engine by RenderMorphics. | notifications | 1995 / 1996 | 2 games |
RealSound | A software solution for PC speaker audio to output 6-bit audio. Created by Steve Witzel, and patented (US US5054086 A) by Access Software. | notifications | 1988 / 1993 | 11 games |
Realspace game engine | notifications | 2006 / 2014 | 2 games | |
Recast navigation | An open-source (MIT) 3D path finding toolset. | notifications | 2012 / 2018 | 5 games |
REDengine | A game engine by CD Projekt RED. | notifications | 2011 / 2021 | 12 games |
Refractor 2 | A game engine by Refraction Games and Digital Illusions. | notifications | 2002 / 2009 | 9 games |
Ren'Py(Ren'Py Visual Novel Engine) | A Python based game engine for visual novels. | notifications | 2004 / 2023 | 1062 games |
RenderWare | A 3D graphics engine by Criterion Software. | notifications | 1995 / 2012 | 68 games |
Renegade | notifications | 2007 / 2014 | 5 games | |
Retargetable Graphics API (RTG) | Programmed to use RTG features. | notifications | 1994 / 2000 | 7 games |
Return of the Hylian Engine | Vincent Jouillat's game engine created for the R.O.T.H. fan game. Was subsequently used for other fan games. | notifications | 7 games | |
Riot | A game engine by Surreal Software. | notifications | 1999 / 2005 | 10 games |
Road Hog | A game engine by Flying Wild Hog. | notifications | 2011 / 2016 | 9 games |
Robin Game Engine | Millennium Interactive's game engine for The Adventures of Robin Hood and other games. Amiga, Atari ST, and DOS. | notifications | 1991 / 1992 | 5 games |
Rockstar Games Social Club | Requires login at Rockstar Games Social Club. | notifications | 1 game | |
RPG Maker (RPGツクール;RPG Tsukūru)[RGSS] | Made with any version of RPG Maker. These either install RPG Maker run-time along them or require it to be pre-installed. | notifications | 1997 / 2023 | 44 games |
RPG Maker VX Ace[RGSS3] | notifications | 3 games | ||
RPG Maker XP[RGSS1] | notifications | 2011 / 2014 | 4 games | |
RRedline(Speedy3D) | Rendition's proprietary graphics API. | notifications | 2 games | |
RSX 3D Audio API | Uses the RSX 3D API for audio output. | notifications | 1 game | |
Ruby on Rails | Web application framework for the Ruby scripting language. | notifications | 1 game | |
S3 MeTaL API | Can use S3's proprietary MeTaL 3D rendering API for graphics. | notifications | 1999 / 2000 | 2 games |
SafeDisc copy protection | Uses SafeDisc copy protection scheme. | notifications | 1998 / 2008 | 72 games |
SAGA | notifications | 1994 / 2013 | 13 games | |
SAGE (Strategy Action Game Engine) | Uses the Strategy Action Game Engine. | notifications | 2003 / 2008 | 10 games |
SAGE 2.0 (RNA engine;RenderWare New Architecture) | notifications | 2008 / 2010 | 6 games | |
SCI0 - Sierra's Creative Interpreter Version 0 | Created with Sierra's Creative Interpreter Version 0, an adventure game engine. | notifications | 1988 / 1991 | 39 games |
SCI1 - Sierra's Creative Interpreter Version 1 | Created with Sierra's Creative Interpreter Version 1, an adventure game engine. | notifications | 1990 / 2015 | 16 games |
SCI11 - Sierra's Creative Interpreter Version 1.1 | Created with Sierra's Creative Interpreter Version 1.1, an adventure game engine. | notifications | 1992 / 2015 | 13 games |
SCI2 - Sierra's Creative Interpreter Version 2 | Created with Sierra's Creative Interpreter Version 2, an adventure game engine. | notifications | 1993 / 1995 | 10 games |
Scoreloop | A social and distribution platform for mobile devices. | notifications | 2 games | |
SCUMM (Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion) | A scripting engine used by many LucasArts games. | notifications | 1987 / 2017 | 140 games |
Scumm Virtual Machine | notifications | 1984 / 2016 | 395 games | |
SDL_mixer | Uses SDL's very basic audio API for sound. | notifications | 1998 / 2012 | 16 games |
SecuROM copy protection | Uses any version of the SecuROM copy protection scheme. | notifications | 1999 / 2013 | 83 games |
SecuROM v1-v3 copy protection | A copy protection scheme. | notifications | 2001 / 2005 | 14 games |
Serge Engine | Perpetual Pyramid's game engine built on pygame. | notifications | 2011 / 2014 | 13 games |
Serious engine | notifications | 2001 / 2010 | 10 games | |
SEUCK - Shoot'Em-Up Construction Kit | Games built with SEUCK, a "construction kit" for the Commodore 64, Amiga and Atari ST created by Sensible Software and published by Outlaw in 1987. | notifications | 1 game | |
Shadowcaster | An unnamed game engine created for Shadowcaster by Raven Software when they found out Doom engine did not have the features they needed. | notifications | 1993 / 1994 | 2 games |
ShiVa 3D (ShiVa 3D Game Engine;ShiVa 3D Engine) | ShiVa 3D is a cross-platform application development toolkit centered around the ShiVa3D Engine. | notifications | 5 games | |
SigEngine | notifications | 2010 / 2012 | 4 games | |
Silent Storm | A nameless game engine developed by Nival Interactive for their Silent Storm tactical strategy game, later re-used for other similar games. | notifications | 2003 / 2010 | 9 games |
Silk Engine | A cross-platform game engine by Spiders. | notifications | 2010 / 2016 | 10 games |
Simple and Fast Multimedia Library | A free (zlib license), both low and high level C++ API for accessing graphics, input, audio, etc. | notifications | 2010 / 2018 | 10 games |
Simple DirectMedia Layer 2(SDL2) | notifications | 1997 / 2020 | 39 games | |
Simplygon | A 3D mesh optimization solution that automates LOD creation. | notifications | 2013 / 2014 | 2 games |
Sith | A game engine developed by LucasArts. | notifications | 1997 / 2000 | 4 games |
SlaveDriver | notifications | 1996 / 1997 | 4 games | |
Slayer | A game engine developed by The Collective. | notifications | 2002 / 2006 | 12 games |
SlimDX | A wrapper API for use with .NET, covering Windows multimedia functions as broadly as possible. | notifications | 2009 / 2017 | 19 games |
SLUDGE | And adventure came oriented engine and associated development tools. | notifications | 2008 / 2015 | 9 games |
SmartFoxServer | notifications | 2009 / 2014 | 5 games | |
Snowblind(Dark Alliance) | A game engine originally created for Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance by Snowblind Studios. | notifications | 2001 / 2021 | 17 games |
Snowdrop | notifications | 2016 / 2019 | 14 games | |
Soft Denchi(ソフト電池;SdRt) | A DRM solution from Paltiosoft. | notifications | 1 game | |
Soft Solid 3-D | notifications | 1983 / 1984 | 3 games | |
SoftwareShield IronWrap (GameShield IronWrap) | An obfuscating DRM scheme that involves a mini virtual machine. | notifications | 2011 / 2012 | 2 games |
Solarus Engine | A GPL 3 licensed engine by Christopho designed for making a Link to the Past clone. Used along with the Solarus Quest Editor to make other games. | notifications | 2008 / 2015 | 13 games |
Solidshield | A copy protection scheme by TAGES SA. | notifications | 2007 / 2012 | 17 games |
Sony Station | Requires account at Sony's Station service. This is NOT the same as used in PSN. | notifications | 2004 / 2012 | 4 games |
Source | Uses Valve's Source engine that was developed with Half-Life 2. | notifications | 2004 / 2020 | 89 games |
Source 2 | The second generation of Source engine, first introduced with Dota 2 Reborn. | notifications | 3 games | |
Source Engine 2 | Uses Valve's Source engine that was developed with Half-Life 4. | 0 game | ||
Spark Casual Engine | Spark CE is a game engine used extensively by Artifex Mundi and available for free download. | notifications | 2012 / 2015 | 14 games |
Spark Engine | Created by Unknown Worlds for their game [i]Natrual Selection 2[/i]. | notifications | 2012 / 2014 | 4 games |
SpeechFX[VoiceGaming SDK;VoiceKaraoke SDK;VoiceSync SDK] | A variety of speech recognition (voice command/control) middleware. | notifications | 3 games | |
SpeedTree | A foliage generator by Interactive Data Visualization, Inc. | notifications | 2006 / 2015 | 19 games |
Spinnaker Adventure Language (SAL) | An adventure game engine by Spinnaker Software. It includes a framework for graphics and action sequences. | notifications | 1984 / 1986 | 25 games |
Spring(Spring Engine) | A free, open-source, cross-platform RTS game engine created by a community of enthusiasts. | notifications | 2005 / 2012 | 11 games |
Squirrel programming language | A lightweight, imperative, and object-oriented programming and scripting language. | notifications | 1 game | |
SSG's Battlefront Game System Engine | notifications | 1986 / 1991 | 27 games | |
Starbreeze | Any generation of the cross-platform game engine by Starbreeze Studios. | notifications | 2004 / 2012 | 10 games |
startrek game engine | A point-and-click adventure game engine by Interplay for Star Trek: 25th Anniversary (DOS). Used for 2 additional Trek games & ports to other OSes. | notifications | 1992 / 2015 | 11 games |
Steam Runtime | Uses the Steam Runtime, a runtime environment (binary-compatibility layer) for Steam applications so they execute on potentially any Linux distribution without issues. | 0 game | ||
SteamOS | Supports the SteamOS Linux distribution (a fork from Debian 7), either by coming with installer for it or is otherwise simple to setup on it. | notifications | 2007 / 2021 | 428 games |
Steamworks API | The software part that ties a game to the Steam community, matchmaking and other features. | notifications | 2003 / 2020 | 349 games |
StepMania engine | notifications | 2001 / 2005 | 6 games | |
Stick 2D Engine (Stick AE) | A game engine based on the Lightweight Java Game Library | notifications | 2012 / 2014 | 6 games |
Stingray(Autodesk Stingray) | A 3D game engine by Autodesk, based on Bitsquid engine they acquired prior. | notifications | 2014 / 2015 | 2 games |
StoryNexus | 2 games | |||
Stratagus(Freecraft) | Uses the real-time strategy gaming engine Stratagus. | notifications | 2002 / 2014 | 15 games |
Substance Air (ProFX) | A procedural texturing middleware by Allegorithmic. Originally named ProFX. | notifications | 2006 / 2014 | 3 games |
Sun Microsystems Solaris | Known to run on Sun Solaris versions 2-10. | notifications | 1979 / 2016 | 74 games |
SunBurn(SunBurn Game Engine)[SunBurn XNA Game Engine] | A C# and XNA game engine by Synapse Gaming. | notifications | 2011 / 2014 | 4 games |
Supaplex Engine (Megaplex Engine) | notifications | 1998 / 2004 | 2 games | |
Super Pitfall Engine | A game engine by Steve Bjork used famously for Super Pitfall & less so for Mine Rescue. | notifications | 1986 / 1988 | 3 games |
Syllable OS | A fork from the former AtheOS. | notifications | 1999 / 2006 | 2 games |
System3.5(Alice Soft System 3.5 – 3.9) | Uses the OS/VM hybrid game engine System3.5 (3.5 – 3.9) from Alice Soft. Platform support primarily for Windows 95 but backwards compatible with Windows 3.1 as well. | notifications | 1991 / 2002 | 3 games |
System3(Alice Soft System 3.0) | Uses the OS/VM hybrid game engine System3 from Alice Soft. Platform support for PC-88, PC-98, MSX, x68k, FM-Towns, and MS-DOS (and Win3.1 via DOS backward compatibility). | notifications | 1989 / 1996 | 19 games |
System4(Alice Soft System 4.0) | Uses the System 4 virtual machine game engine from Alice Soft. Created from scratch and supports only Windows 98 and later related platforms. | notifications | 2002 / 2011 | 4 games |
T/SAL (Thackray/Seal Adventure Language) | Phoenix OS was created for the IBM 370 at Cambridge. Acheton was created there & became a basis for other 370/POS games. This 'authoring system' would come to be known as T/SAL | notifications | 1 game | |
TAGES copy protection(T@GES) | notifications | 2006 / 2013 | 30 games | |
Tcl scripting language (Tool Command Language;Tcl/Tk) | notifications | 1994 / 2016 | 27 games | |
Text Adventure Development System | A shareware, later freeware, interactive fiction programming system by High Energy Software. Comes in TADS 1, 2, 3, & Multimedia TADS versions. | notifications | 1990 / 2010 | 35 games |
TGA images(TARGA)[Truevision TGA] | Uses TGA/TPIC images, an RLE compressed or raw 32-bit raster image format by Truevision, usually favored for its simplicity and lack of inhibiting patents. | notifications | 1984 / 2018 | 15 games |
The Bard's Tale engine | A game engine by Michael Cranford created for "The Bard's Tale" that Interplay updated & reused for 3 additional games, 1 besides a Bard's Tale sequel. | notifications | 1985 / 1998 | 30 games |
The Games Factory (TGF) | Created with TGF, a graphical game authoring tool by Clickteam. | notifications | 1 game | |
The Graphics Magician | A graphics focused set of routines by Mark Pelczarski. Originally used for both Applesoft BASIC and Assembly based games for the Apple II. | notifications | 1982 / 1989 | 52 games |
The Quill Adventure System | A program to write home computer adventure games. Written by Graeme Yeandle, it was published on the ZX Spectrum by Gilsoft in December 1983. It was used by several games companies to create over 450 commercially published titles. | notifications | 1983 / 1987 | 14 games |
The Wonderful World of Eamon | Uses the Eamon text plus graphics game engine to play the 240+ games created for it. | notifications | 1983 / 2010 | 5 games |
TheEngine | A 3D engine by SkyFallen. | notifications | 2005 / 2009 | 10 games |
Three.js | HTML5/Javascript 3D Engine by mrdoob. | notifications | 2010 / 2015 | 7 games |
Titan Engine | Uses the Titan game engine created by Stainless Steel Studios. | notifications | 2001 / 2006 | 6 games |
Titan Quest(Iron Lore) | A nameless game engine by Iron Lore Entertainment originally for the Titan Quest game. | notifications | 2006 / 2016 | 3 games |
Titanium | A proprietary game engine by Radical Entertainment. | notifications | 2009 / 2012 | 6 games |
Torque 2D (Torque Game Builder) | Made with Torque Game Builder. | notifications | 2007 / 2014 | 11 games |
Torque 3D(Torque Game Engine) | A game engine by GarageGames. Later open sourced. | notifications | 2000 / 2016 | 38 games |
Trash Engine | Uses the Trash game engine. | notifications | 2008 / 2011 | 2 games |
TressFX | A hair physics library by AMD. | notifications | 2013 / 2014 | 3 games |
Trisquel Linux | An Ubuntu Linux variant with no non-free (proprietary) elements. | notifications | 1 game | |
TuxCap Framework | A non-proprietary alternative to PopCap Framwork | notifications | 2007 / 2008 | 2 games |
Twine Engine | notifications | 2012 / 2014 | 7 games | |
TX Engine | A framework for turn-based strategy games for Unity, created by Full Control. | notifications | 2009 / 2014 | 11 games |
UBIart Framework[UBI art Framework] | An art oriented game engine by Ubisoft. | notifications | 2011 / 2015 | 20 games |
Ubisoft Online Services Platform | notifications | 2010 / 2014 | 11 games | |
Ultima VI engine[Ultima 6 engine] | Origin's attempt to extract bits of U6, make tools & make multiple games based on the U6 engine to quickly create better games in less time, & cheaper | notifications | 1990 / 2014 | 8 games |
Ultima VII(Ultima 7;Exult) | Uses the Ultima 7 game engine or the open source remake, Exult. | notifications | 1992 / 2021 | 38 games |
Ultima VIII engine (Ultima 8 engine) | notifications | 1994 / 1997 | 5 games | |
Umbra 3 | Scene graph (occlusion culling) middleware by Umbra Software. | notifications | 2012 / 2017 | 7 games |
Unigine | A 3D game engine by Unigine Corp. | notifications | 2008 / 2016 | 18 games |
Uniloc copy protection (SoftAnchor) | A copy protection scheme by Uniloc Corporation. | notifications | 1 game | |
Unity 5.x | Uses the fifth generation of the Unity game engine. | notifications | 2015 / 2017 | 5 games |
Unity(Unity 3D;Unity toolkit)[Unity3D] | Made with and powered by Unity toolkit and game engine, created by Unity Technologies. | notifications | 2005 / 2022 | 1515 games |
Universal Windows Platform | Platform-homogenous application framework created by Microsoft. Requires Windows 10, Windows 10 Mobile, or newer to run. | notifications | 1 game | |
Unreal Development Kit (UDK) | Developed using the free (binary-only) version of Unreal Engine 3. These also install UDK redistributable or require it to be installed beforehand. | notifications | 2009 / 2016 | 37 games |
Unreal Engine 1 | Uses first generation of the Unreal Engine, developed by Epic Games. | notifications | 1998 / 2003 | 48 games |
Unreal Engine 2 (Unreal Engine 2X;Unreal Engine 2.5) | Second generation Unreal Engine by Epic Games. | notifications | 2002 / 2016 | 103 games |
Unreal Engine 2X | 0 game | |||
Unreal Engine 3 (UE3) | Uses third generation Unreal Engine (by Epic Games). | notifications | 2006 / 2019 | 333 games |
Unreal Engine 4 (UE4) | Uses fourth generation Unreal Engine, created by Epic Games. | notifications | 2012 / 2023 | 143 games |
Unreal Engine 5 (UE5) | notifications | 2023 / 2024 | 12 games | |
Uplay | Integrates with Ubisoft's Uplay in some manner. | notifications | 2009 / 2019 | 40 games |
V-play Engine | A 2D rapid development game engine for iOS, Android, Blackberry, MeeGo, Symbian, and Linux | 3 games | ||
Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) | notifications | 2004 / 2016 | 27 games | |
Vampire engine | A game engine created by Raven Software for MageSlayer. | notifications | 2 games | |
Verge | Created using the Verge game creation system. | notifications | 2 games | |
Vicious Engine | A game engine (middleware) by [company=Vicious Cycle Software]Vicious Cycle Software[/company]. | notifications | 2005 / 2009 | 11 games |
Virtual Theatre | A cross-platform adventure game engine by Revolution Software designed to run on Windows, DOS, Atari ST, Amiga, Macintosh and Playstation. | notifications | 1992 / 2015 | 31 games |
Vision Engine(Havok Vision Engine) | A game engine by Trinigy, acquired by Havok in 2011. | notifications | 2006 / 2014 | 17 games |
Visionaire(Visionaire Studio) | Adventure game maker and associated game engine. | notifications | 2008 / 2017 | 24 games |
Vital Engine | A game engine developed by Deep Shadows. | notifications | 2005 / 2009 | 4 games |
Vocaloid (ボーカロイド) | A singing synthesizer developed by Kenmochi Hideki and colleagues. Originally not meant for commercial use, but with backing from Yamaha turned into such. | notifications | 2009 / 2016 | 10 games (1 characters) |
Void Engine | A modified version of id Tech 5 by Arkane Studios. | notifications | 3 games | |
Voxel Space | Uses any generation of the Voxel Space engine, created by NovaLogic. | notifications | 1992 / 2000 | 10 games |
Voxlap engine | A game engine by Ken Silverman | notifications | 1 game | |
VRAGE | A mixed polygon/voxel engine by Keen Software House. | notifications | 2012 / 2019 | 6 games |
Vulkan(glNext) | A cross-platform graphics API from Khronos Group for games and interactive media, partially based on AMD's Mantle. Successor to OpenGL. | notifications | 2013 / 2022 | 30 games |
WeiNGINE | A 3D to 2D pre-rendered RPG game engine by Planewalker Games. | 1 game | ||
Westwood 3D | Uses the Westwood 3D game engine. | notifications | 2001 / 2002 | 3 games |
Westwood Online (WOL;XWIS) | A proprietary network by Westwood Studios. | notifications | 1996 / 2002 | 9 games |
Windows 10(WX;Windows X;Threshold) | Runs natively on Windows 10 and is supported by the developers/publishers on it. | notifications | 2015 / 2020 | 31 games |
Windows 7(Windows NT 6.1) | Runs natively on Windows 7 and is supported by the developers/publishers on it. | notifications | 2009 / 2019 | 35 games |
Windows 8(Windows NT 6.2;Windows RT) | Runs natively on Win8 and is supported by the developers/publishers on it. | notifications | 2006 / 2020 | 69 games |
Windows 98 (Windows 98SE;Windows ME;Windows Millenium Edition;Windows 4.10;Windows 4.90) | Runs natively on Win98 and/or WinME and is supported by the developers/publishers on it. | notifications | 1995 / 2014 | 345 games |
Windows Media (Windows Media Video;Windows Media Audio)[wmf;wmv;wma] | Uses one or more of the proprietary Windows Media Audio/Video formats which may require installation of extra software packages or Windows Media Player itself. | notifications | 2005 / 2016 | 19 games |
Windows Mobile operating system (WindowsCE 5.0;WinCE 5.0) | notifications | 2005 / 2012 | 8 games | |
Windows Vista(Windows NT 6.0) | Runs natively on Windows Vista and is supported by the developers/publishers on it. | notifications | 1997 / 2020 | 493 games |
Winqual (Windows Quality Online Services;WER;Windows Error Reporting) | A proprietary crash reporting solution by Microsoft for Windows operating systems (XP and later). | notifications | 2001 / 2010 | 1 game |
Wintermute(WME)[wintermute engine] | A free open source (MIT license) game engine and development kit primarily for adventure games. | notifications | 2005 / 2014 | 11 games |
Wolfenstein 3D | Uses the age old Wolf3D engine created originally for Wolfenstein 3D. | notifications | 1991 / 2015 | 33 games |
World Builder Engine | A game engine by Synergistic Software used for creating hybrid strategy games with RPG, action, and/or click-adventure adventure elements. | notifications | 1989 / 1993 | 16 games |
World Builder game creation system | 1st used to create games in 1984, Silicon Beach Software published their system 1986. ©William C. Appleton, reportedly released as Freeware in 1995 | notifications | 1984 / 1994 | 48 games |
Wwise (WaveWorks Interactive Sound Engine) | An audio engine - and associated development tools - by Audiokinetic. | notifications | 2010 / 2020 | 59 games |
X-Ray Engine | notifications | 2007 / 2009 | 4 games | |
X-Wing Engine | Uses any version of the unnamed engine originally used for X-Wing, updated for subsequent games and backported for re-releases of the older games. | notifications | 1993 / 2015 | 10 games |
Xbox SmartGlass | notifications | 5 games | ||
XIGNCODE3 | An anti-cheat solution from Wellbia. | notifications | 2009 / 2015 | 2 games |
XInput | Controller input API from Microsoft, introduced with DirectX 9. | notifications | 2002 / 2017 | 28 games |
Xith3D | A free open source (BSD) scene graph engine. | notifications | 8 games | |
XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol;Jabber) | Uses XMPP for chat and possibly other functionality. | notifications | 1 game | |
XNA Framework (Mono.XNA;Microsoft XNA;XNA Game Studio) | Made with and uses the XNA framework by Microsoft, a set of tools and a runtime for game development. Or the Mono.XNA open-source and cross-platform re-implementations of the API. | notifications | 2004 / 2021 | 76 games |
XnGine | Uses the XnGine game engine by Bethesda. | notifications | 1995 / 1999 | 7 games |
Xox Game Engine | A game engine used for some NeXTstep games. | notifications | 1993 / 1994 | 9 games |
Xvid video codec | notifications | 2006 / 2009 | 2 games | |
YAML (YAML Ain't Markup Language) | Uses YAML data serialization format for storage, configuration or anything else. | notifications | 2 games | |
Yasmina's Quest engine | An engine for games mixing graphical point-n-click and text adventure gameplay, coded in PHP & DHTML (JavaScript, CSS and HTML). | notifications | 5 games | |
Yeti Engine | A modified Unreal Engine 2.5 by Ubisoft Tiwak and Paris. | notifications | 2006 / 2014 | 15 games |
YU-RIS(ユーリス) | A freeware visual novel game engine by Firstia. | notifications | 1 game | |
ZDoom | A heavily modified id Tech 1 engine that adds large number of new functionality that some games may depend on (thus be incompatible with other id Tech 1 based engines). | notifications | 2008 / 2017 | 4 games |
Zebra Othello Engine (WZebra Engine) | An othello engine by Gunnar Andersson released under GPL v2 | notifications | 2003 / 2015 | 3 games |
Zedek Engine | Krell Software published Sword of Zedek then reused the code for other games. | notifications | 1981 / 1983 | 8 games |
Zelda Classic / ZQuest Engine | Began as pixel perfect recreation of original Legend of Zelda for DOS. But advanced to cross-platform (DWOL) & for other 2D Zelda-likes or platformers | notifications | 1999 / 2015 | 54 games |
Zero | A game engine by Pandemic Studios. | notifications | 1999 / 2005 | 11 games |
ZIL engine (Zork Implementation Language;Z-Machine) | A text game engine. Z-machine games where written in ZIL and compiled with Zilch into Z-code files. Z-machines for any platform all ran the same Z-code. | notifications | 1983 / 2007 | 63 games |
Zip | A compressed data packaging format created by Phil Katz (PKWARE), used by games as a virtual file system and generic data packaging. Commonly the extension is changed to something else to prevent players from thinking they'd need to unpack them. | notifications | 1989 / 2015 | 56 games |
ZoneMatch | An online matchmaking service from Microsoft, retired on 2006-06-19. | notifications | 1997 / 2003 | 13 games |
3DS Virtual Console | Distributed through the 3DS Shop Chanel for play on official 3DS Emulators. | notifications | 1983 / 2004 | 151 games |
A* Pathfinding Algorithm | Uses the A* pathfinding algorithm. | notifications | 2014 / 2016 | 3 games |
Abandoned software (Deprecated software) | Any software (libraries, APIs, or such) or software components that are no longer developed, maintained, or supported by their (former) developers. | list_alt | 0 game | |
Ad Lib MDI | A music format developed by Ad Lib - as replacement for their MUS format - that didn't see wide use. | notifications | 1991 / 1993 | 8 games |
Administrator rights(Root access;Superuser rights) | Requires administrator/root level access to run properly or at all. | notifications | 2007 / 2013 | 2 games |
Ambient occlusion | Uses any ambient occlusion shading technique, commonly the very simple and fast SSAO. | notifications | 2007 / 2019 | 89 games |
Ambiguous: 2.5D | Uses mixed 2D and 3D rendering, usually with some of the objects or the game world seen as polygon meshes and others (like characters) as regular sprites or pre-rendered scenes. | notifications | 1989 / 2021 | 37 games |
Animation blending | An animation technique where two or more pre-canned animations are seamlessly blended together to create a combination or half-way form of them as opposed to using inverse kinematics or dynamic motion synthesis to simulate such. | notifications | 1 game | |
Artificial Intelligence Generated Content | Not an AI chracter, rather the game or parts of it are generated by a functioning Artificial Intelligence. | notifications | 1986 / 2014 | 10 games |
Artificial intelligence(AI) | Any tags relating to use of AI in games. | list_altnotifications | 1 game | |
Audio APIs | 0 game | |||
Audio format incompatibility | Games that exhibit issues of varying severity with OS audio output format (KHz and bits) set to something else than they want. | notifications | 1 game | |
Benchmark | Includes benchmark mode. | notifications | 2001 / 2015 | 6 games |
Blob shadows | The most basic shadow projection invented that exists as a simple, indistinguishable dark blob below whatever it belongs to. Including other static shadow sprites, especially if everyone shares the same looking shadow. | notifications | 2006 / 2018 | 7 games |
Bloom (Glow) | A lighting effect where brightness bleeds over an area around it in an image, simulating a type of glare. | notifications | 2003 / 2020 | 92 games |
Bokeh | Emulates bokeh blurring for out of focus visual elements. A type of depth of field emulation effect. | notifications | 1 game | |
Bootloader | Typical of 1980s computers. A bootloader includes a minimal OS on the same media as the game. To play, one must (re)boot the system while the game's boot disk is in drive. | notifications | 1978 / 2016 | 169 games |
Bug: Integer overflow | A bug that causes some integer to overflow (go over what the hardware can do) producing variety of effects, commonly a kill screen, crash or something less game stopping. | notifications | 1 game | |
Case insensitive | The game is case insensitive and may fail to function properly if installed on a file system that is case sensitive. | notifications | 1 game | |
Chatbot(Chatterbot)[chatter bot;chat bot] | Uses a chatbot to mimic/simulate intelligent conversation. | notifications | 1978 / 2011 | 4 games |
Client-host(Client-server) | The game client also can function as server for multiplayer games as opposed to having (or in addition of) dedicated server. | notifications | 2010 / 2016 | 14 games |
Cloth physics | notifications | 4 games | ||
CMD executable(CP/M executable) | Comes in the .CMD binary executable format, associated with the CP/M operating system. | 0 game | ||
Codecs | Audio and video encoding algorithms and related libraries. | list_alt | 0 game | |
Color depth | list_alt | 0 game | ||
COM executable | Comes in the .COM binary executable format, associated with the CP/M and DOS operating systems. Applications in this format are all 8-bit and have maximum on-disk size of 65,280 bytes. | notifications | 1987 / 1996 | 7 games |
Common bugs | Any bugs (defects) that appear in multiple games in more or less uniform manner. | list_alt | 0 game | |
Common exploits | Any bugs (exploits) that appear in multiple games in more or less uniform manner. | list_alt | 0 game | |
Companion application | Includes a companion app (usually for some mobile platform like iOS/Android) that can be used to access information or small parts of the game remotely and asynchronously from the actual game but does not function like a proper game by itself. | notifications | 2004 / 2016 | 11 games |
Computer-assisted game[computer-assisted gaming;CAG] | Any games that use computer, console, etc. only partially with the rest done on paper, board, cards, or whatever else. | notifications | 1 game | |
Conflicting Licenses | These simultaneously use multiple licenses that conflict; countervailing benefits of either license for users and/or developers. | notifications | 2007 / 2011 | 2 games |
Conservative Morphological Anti-Aliasing(CMAA) | An anti-aliasing technique similar to SMAA and FXAA, trying to accomplish some midway point between the two, fixing blurring of FXAA and performance cost of SMAA. Described by Leigh Davies of Intel. | notifications | 2004 / 2013 | 2 games |
Construction Kit | notifications | 1984 / 1993 | 2 games | |
Controller autodetect | Automatically detects controllers when they're connected and disconnected while the game is running with no need to restart the game or manually refreshing controllers in the game. | notifications | 1 game | |
Cooperative level editor (Cooperative construction kit) | Includes a construction kit or similar that allows multiple people to simultaneously construct and edit levels and such. | notifications | 2011 / 2015 | 3 games |
Coverage Sampling Anti-Aliasing | An optimized version of multi-sample anti-aliasing described by Peter Young at Nvidia. | notifications | 2010 / 2014 | 9 games |
Crippled windowed mode | Does not run in a proper windowed mode despite offering the option, commonly lacking the window deco for moving the window about and is "stuck" at some point in the display. | notifications | 1 game | |
CSV database(Comma-separated values) | Uses CSV-style human-readable database files. | notifications | 2013 / 2020 | 6 games |
Custom resolution | The display pixel resolution is fully customizable instead or in addition of prelisted supported resolutions. | notifications | 2003 / 2007 | 5 games |
Data caching | Temporarily caches certain data so it doesn't need to be fetched/transferred again via slow medium (e.g. from CD/DVD or streamed from internet) during play too often. Causes extra permanent storage (e.g. HDD) space needs. | notifications | 1997 / 2003 | 9 games |
Data import: Characters | Data import includes characters, so the player can continue with the same character(s) they played with in the previous game. | notifications | 1990 / 2016 | 5 games |
Data import: Story | Import includes the story, or major points of it, in which the player influenced an outcome of several possible. These choices affect how the story plays out in the game the data was imported to. | notifications | 1 game | |
Data import: Unlocks (Unlock codes) | The imported data transfers unlock codes or similar that allow access to content that otherwise would be unavailable, such as items, maps, scenarios, characters, etc. | notifications | 1998 / 2012 | 5 games |
Data streaming | Streams new game data during play for use and storage. | notifications | 2010 / 2013 | 4 games |
Decoupled resolution(Resolution scaling)[Resolution upscaling;Resolution downscaling] | The render resolution is decoupled from display resolution, upscaling or downscaling it to fit the screen after the fact which leaves display resolution untouched from native or currently selected desktop resolution. | notifications | 2004 / 2017 | 10 games |
Dedicated client(Client-server model) | The game uses a dedicated client for gameplay which forces client-server setup even for local offline singleplayer. The server is likely automatically started by the client in the background with no separate action from the player. | notifications | 1996 / 2016 | 137 games |
Dedicated local host(Dedicated local server) | Has dedicated local host/server application available, either bundled with the game or available for free as a download. Usually available for more platforms than the game itself is available for. | notifications | 2001 / 2016 | 20 games |
Demo available(Trial version available) | Has a playable demo/trial version publicly available. | notifications | 1980 / 2023 | 1424 games |
Depth of field (Depth of focus;Depth blur;Lens blur;Focus blur)[DoF] | Simulates the depth of field optic effect, blurring things that are out-of-focus. | notifications | 1999 / 2020 | 177 games |
Desktop resize | Alters desktop resolution when launched (possibly limited to use of fullscreen mode). | notifications | 2009 / 2013 | 2 games |
Developer console | Allows trivial access to developer console where player can use developer commands to alter the game. Often used for cheating by players. | notifications | 1996 / 2015 | 8 games |
Development System used ran MS-DOS | These games were developed in part or whole using at least 1 computer running a version of MS-DOS or a compatible OS | notifications | 1 game | |
Development System used ran Windows | These games were developed in part or whole using at least 1 computer running a version of Windows | notifications | 2009 / 2016 | 3 games |
Dialog wheel | Dialogs are implemented as a pie/radial menu. Invented to provide interactive dialogs to consoles where gamepads with analog sticks are the primary controller. | notifications | 2007 / 2015 | 12 games |
Diegetic UI(Diegetic user interface;Virtual cockpit)[Diegetic HUD;Integrated HUD] | The user interface is depicted as part of the gameworld rather than some overlay of statistics on the player's screen. | notifications | 1983 / 2016 | 41 games |
Digital rights management (Copy protection) | At least one release of the game uses any form of DRM, technology used to limit the use of digital content after sale. Commonly in some form that prevents or hampers making of (or the usability of) extra copies. | notifications | 1980 / 2020 | 878 games |
Direct connect | Allows connecting directly to game server - for which the player provides the IP or DNS address of - instead of solely relying on master servers or other mechanisms for finding servers. | notifications | 2005 / 2016 | 27 games |
Direct3D Retained Mode | Uses the Direct3D Retained Mode API, deprecated after DirectX 3.0 and no longer supported on Windows Vista or later. | notifications | 1996 / 2000 | 4 games |
Directionally Localized Anti-Aliasing(DLAA) | An anti-aliasing technique described by Dmitry Adreev at Lucas Arts that accomplishes its goal via edge detection and blur filters. | notifications | 2010 / 2015 | 4 games |
Displaced touch screen controls | Uses touch screen control but the actual action is displaced somewhat from the precise touch spot, preventing the player's finger or stylus from obscuring whatever they're trying to do. | 2 games | ||
Display device choice[Screen choice;Monitor choice] | Allows choosing which display device to use instead of the default. | notifications | 2004 / 2016 | 14 games |
Display: 280x192 | Apple's default Hi-Res mode. 6 colors normally, 15 using artifacting. 16 with a hack. | notifications | 1977 / 2022 | 219 games |
Display: 40x40 | Lo-Res graphics and text mode for the Apple II series. 15 colors. 4 lines of text were visible at the bottom of the screen. | notifications | 1977 / 2020 | 60 games |
Display: 560x192 | Apple's Double Hi-Res mode. 15 colors but must be used skillfully due to artifacting. | notifications | 1979 / 2021 | 65 games |
Distributed networking (Peer-to-peer networking)[p2p;peer 2 peer] | list_alt | 0 game | ||
DNS lookup | Supports connecting to servers or other players by DNS address rather than IP address or some other method. | notifications | 1 game | |
DOS MZ executable | Comes in the DOS MZ .EXE binary executable format, associated with the DOS operating system and different from the later WinPE .EXE format. | notifications | 1989 / 1996 | 8 games |
Drag and drop[drag & drop;drag-and-drop] | An user interface technique where items are moved to their wanted destinations by dragging them there. | notifications | 1994 / 2018 | 33 games |
DRM Cruel | The developers (usually) implement a form of DRM intended to inflict some sort of anguish on those who play an illegal copy of the game. | notifications | 1984 / 2013 | 12 games |
DRM: Always Online(Always-On)[Always On;Constant internet connection] | Any DRM that requires player to be constantly connected to authentication servers to play, even for singleplayer and LAN games. | notifications | 1999 / 2013 | 35 games |
DRM: Encryption | Uses DRM that involves encrypting all or parts of the game data, executables, etc. Which is decrypted with proper serial key and/or online activation. | notifications | 1 game | |
DRM: Login | Any DRM that requires an account at an online service. | notifications | 2002 / 2016 | 53 games |
DRM: Media check | DRM that employs some form of media check for validating the player has legal copy of the game. | notifications | 2002 / 2009 | 3 games |
DRM: Online activation (Internet activation) | Requires online activation before you can play. | notifications | 2000 / 2018 | 97 games |
Dynamic motion synthesis | A method of procedural animation that builds upon earlier ragdoll physics and inverse kinematics by adding virtual muscles into the equation. | notifications | 2008 / 2013 | 10 games |
Dynamic prompts | Controller prompts change dynamically to match used controller, for example gamepad prompts swapped to keyboard/mouse prompts when either is used. | notifications | 1 game | |
Dynamic split-screen | Split-screen where the little split sections of the screen adjust dynamically in some fashion, such as sizing up and down or changing positions as the game sees fit. | notifications | 1993 / 2018 | 5 games |
Engine remake | UVL entries existing because the game engine was remade (likely by 3rd parties). By definition, the original game assets are needed to run the original but may be optional for running replacement clones on the new engine. | notifications | 1981 / 2017 | 56 games |
Enhanced Quality Anti-Aliasing | An anti-aliasing method by AMD similar to CSAA. | notifications | 1 game | |
Enhanced Subpixel Morphological Antialiasing(SMAA) | An anti-aliasing method that combines MLAA and MSAA/SSAA techniques. | notifications | 2010 / 2018 | 15 games |
Environmental audio | Audio changes with the environment. | notifications | 2011 / 2015 | 13 games |
Error reporting (Bug reporting;Crash reporting) | Either automatically reports any critical errors to developer/publisher or gives a simple way for player to do so semi-manually when one is detected. | notifications | 2009 / 2013 | 17 games |
Event director[AI director] | Uses a director style event controller that considers how the player has been doing and what has happened or hasn't happened to decide what will happen next instead of events having an independent of anything chance to occur. | notifications | 2008 / 2020 | 15 games |
Executable and Linkable Format (Extensible Linking Format) | Comes in the ELF executable format associated with UNIX System V and unix-like operating systems. | list_altnotifications | 2 games | |
Executable formats | list_alt | 0 game | ||
Exotic resolution | Uses a very unusual resolution for the platform. | notifications | 1978 / 2014 | 21 games |
Expanding map (Expanding level) | The map, level, or such expands as necessary - such as the player or other important entity reaching (near) its edge - or on its own. | notifications | 2011 / 2023 | 6 games |
Extensible(Expandable) | Existing content can be extended, adding new characters, enemies, and complementary game logic without replacing the old. | notifications | 1978 / 2017 | 119 games |
Facial expressions[facial animation] | Facial animation taken beyond plain lip synchronization, to produce expressions such as frowns, smiles, grimaces, and so forth. | notifications | 2004 / 2013 | 17 games |
FADE(DEGRADE) | A DRM scheme created by Codemasters that reduces game functionality gradually as it detects the copy being illegal until the game becomes unplayable. | notifications | 2001 / 2017 | 5 games |
False Hardware Specifications(False System Requirements) | The game materials, perhaps even the configuration options, claim support for hardware, but it doesn't actually work or is simply false. | notifications | 1990 / 2019 | 4 games |
Fan port(Fan conversion) | Only available as a fan port/conversion on the platform, such reverse engineered game engine, usually unsupported by the original dev/publisher. Legality of these is somewhat unclear. | 2 games | ||
Fast Approximate Anti-Aliasing(FXAA) | A shader-based anti-aliasing technique described by Timothy Lotters at Nvidia that accomplishes its goal via edge detection and sub-pixel resampling and filtering. | notifications | 2004 / 2019 | 90 games |
Fat Binary (Multiarchitecture Binary) | Uses executable code for more than 1 CPU architecture. | notifications | 1984 / 2016 | 118 games |
Field of view option | Player has some control over the game's field of view, useful for those few that get simulator sickness or other issues from games with too low (~60) or too high (~110) FoV. Not when this is hidden somehow. | notifications | 2007 / 2017 | 71 games |
Flip-screens (flick-screen;page-flipping) | Exiting a screen or area expediently places the character on the opposite side of the screen in an adjacent area in the game world. Common for games predating scrolling movement. | notifications | 1979 / 2021 | 147 games |
For Any Linux Distro | The game's publisher and/or developer claims it will run on any version of Linux. | notifications | 2 games | |
Forced mouse acceleration | Forces mouse acceleration to happen with no (easy) way to disable it. | notifications | 1 game | |
Fractal Generating | Makes notable use of fractal generation to create graphics, sound, or the game world (or aspects of it). | notifications | 1985 / 2013 | 9 games |
Frame animation | Animations occur by playing out pre-rendered/defined frames. | notifications | 1997 / 2000 | 3 games |
Framerate smoothing | Prevents spikes in framerate, usually by preventing the game from suddenly rendering excessively high number of frames despite being able to. Such as skipping frames when it has already rendered certain number within a small period of time. | notifications | 2012 / 2017 | 8 games |
Fur physics(Fur simulation) | Simulates movement of fur coating on beings. Similar in idea to cloth physics. | notifications | 1 game | |
Game install | Any tags pertaining to game installation. | list_alt | 0 game | |
Game libraries(Game frameworks) | Libraries that contain large number of functionality one would need to make a game, and are there specifically for that purpose (including functionality that presumably only games need), but is not and does not have an engine on itself. | list_alt | 0 game | |
Generic[generic game engine] | Uses any game engine that was made to be easily adaptable to other games. | notifications | 2012 / 2014 | 10 games |
Gouraud shading | A shading method that linearly interpolates the color between each point of a triangle (polygon) producing a gradient fill instead of single flat color. | notifications | 1992 / 2019 | 21 games |
H.264(MPEG-4 AVC;x264;MPEG-4 Part 10;Advanced Video Coding) | Uses the video compression format developed by ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG). | notifications | 2012 / 2014 | 3 games |
Has no playable Demo | In contrast to what is expected, these game have no playable demo. For instance, DOS version has a demo but Windows, Mac, and Linux versions do not. | notifications | 2012 / 2018 | 18 games |
Haxe programming language | notifications | 2012 / 2017 | 8 games | |
Head swapping | Characters who use the bodies of other characters with only the head swapped. | notifications | 1994 / 2014 | 13 games |
Heightmap | notifications | 1 game | ||
High Definition Ambient Occlusion | An ambient occlusion technique by AMD. | notifications | 1 game | |
High Dynamic Range Lighting(HDRI;High Dynamic Range Imaging) | Employs some technique for HDRL. | notifications | 2003 / 2016 | 37 games |
Hit-boxes | Uses hit-boxes to determine if something hits something or not rather than actual model surfaces. These are used to reduce the amount of calculations needed to determine if something hits something and where. | notifications | 1 game | |
Horizontal field of view[Horizontal FoV] | Field of view is locked horizontally, cutting off or expanding top and bottom parts of the view with different aspect ratios. | notifications | 2004 / 2010 | 6 games |
Host migrating(Server migrating) | Allows migrating host from one player to another mid-game, likely with a momentary pause as players connect to the new host and sync. Usually automatic if current host leaves/disconnects. | notifications | 2010 / 2013 | 15 games |
Image formats | list_alt | 0 game | ||
In-game level editor (In-engine editor;In-game construction kit) | The construction kit or similar works in-game rather than as separate tool, often adding a layer of control on top of the game rather than a separate editor, making level testing simpler and faster while maintaining familiar controls. | notifications | 1981 / 2015 | 10 games |
In-game web browser | Has in-game HTTP browser that is not locked to certain pages/addresses. | notifications | 2003 / 2013 | 7 games |
Install OS limit | The game setup program purposefully prevents installing the game on unsupported (versions of) operating systems. | notifications | 1993 / 2008 | 15 games |
Installer | Includes an installer or uses the platforms included function that does the same, allowing the game to be fully or partially stored on HDD or similar to improve loading times and reduce disc wear, or for other reasons. Should only be used when unusual. | notifications | 1999 / 2017 | 4 games |
IPX network protocol (Internetwork Packet Exchange;IPX/SPX;Sequenced Packet Exchange) | Uses the old and largely obsolete IPX network protocol. Unfortunately no longer supported by modern operating systems natively, making playing games that require it difficult. | notifications | 1990 / 2014 | 62 games |
Language filter(Profanity filter;Chat filter) | Filters used language, likely to censor out player use of profanities. Usually optional for those who do not get offended as easily. | notifications | 2001 / 2017 | 54 games |
Legacy design | list_alt | 0 game | ||
Legacy design: Coin function (Insert Coin;Play Credits) | The text "Insert Coin" is used. Or the lives and or continues work on a system of "Credits" that would make more sense on a coin-op. | notifications | 1 game | |
Legacy design: Controls | Controls are not properly tailored for the end system. | notifications | 2012 / 2015 | 10 games |
Legacy design: Interface | Interface behaves poorly, oddly or unexpectedly with the platform's standard controllers or has design principles that don't make that much sense on it. | notifications | 2003 / 2014 | 4 games |
License-wtfpl | notifications | 2004 / 2016 | 10 games | |
License: Artistic | OSI license detailing [b]code & binaries[/b] rights. Confirms separate content copyright, "fair use", some 'grey areas' thereof, & undercuts patent trolling. | notifications | 1997 / 2009 | 24 games |
License: Commercial Restriction | Copyright holder has stated specific restriction on commercial redistribution or use. This tag is likely to be used with other licenses. | notifications | 1977 / 1993 | 67 games |
License: The New World Order Common Sense Software Unlicense | No warranty & public domain plus total unrestricted rights redundantly stated for current and future jurisdictions that don't recognize public domain. | notifications | 1 game | |
License: Vague | A custom license with language that has legally imprecise terms, overly broad terms, not complete, and/or unclear. | notifications | 1977 / 2021 | 97 games |
Licenses | list_alt | 0 game | ||
Lightmaps | Uses pre-computed (static) lighting conditions. | notifications | 1996 / 2002 | 10 games |
Limited Controller Choice | Game supports multiple controller types but certain modes, such as multiplayer, are software limited to disallow some types or will restrict choice to a single type | notifications | 1 game | |
Lip synchronization[facial animation] | Uses some form of lip synchronization. | notifications | 2001 / 2018 | 44 games |
Live editor[in-game editor] | Includes live game editing tools usable while the game is being actively played. In some cases this is to accommodate multiplayer game narration by allowing the narrator to alter the game world on the fly to fit their needs. | notifications | 1981 / 2019 | 27 games |
Live map generator | Generates more of the map/level when needed rather than everything in one go in the initial map creation. | notifications | 2010 / 2016 | 18 games |
Loading | Any tags related to how the game loads data. | list_alt | 0 game | |
Loadless (Background loading) | After the game reaches the point where the player can actually play, there are no notable pauses for loading thenceforth, anywhere. | notifications | 2010 / 2018 | 14 games |
Locale limit | Works properly only with specific locale settings. | notifications | 2006 / 2013 | 2 games |
Login queue | Uses a queue mechanism to ensure those who want to play can log in to the server even under high load, though after a largely unpredictable wait period. | notifications | 2009 / 2013 | 4 games |
MAME not playable | For arcade video games emulated by MAME but not yet playable. | notifications | 1970 / 2009 | 275 games |
Manual Lookup (Manual Copy protection) | At least one release of the game required the use of the game's original manual or a similar document provided with the game, to identify a specified letter, word, or symbol requested by the game to allow it to be played. This would either involve looking | notifications | 1988 / 1993 | 4 games |
Map shadows | Geometry shadows are part of the map design rather than projected or dispelled by lighting conditions. | 0 game | ||
Markup languages (Data serialization formats) | list_alt | 0 game | ||
Media check removed | Game's requirement for the game media to be in drive during play has been removed in a post-release patch. | notifications | 2000 / 2001 | 4 games |
Media: Download(Digital distribution)[Downloadable] | Full game legally distributed as digital download. | notifications | 1982 / 2024 | 14553 games |
MegaTextures(Virtual Textures)[megatexturing;virtual texturing] | A texture allocation technique that involves mapping an extremely large single texture into memory and clipmapping it for display purposes, originally developed by John Carmack. Virtual Texturing is a later more advanced version of MegaTextures. | notifications | 2011 / 2017 | 4 games |
Mesh network | Multiplayer games are formed as mesh networks, each player is connected to everyone else. Increases total upstream needs of all players but does not fall over if the "host" disconnects. | notifications | 2006 / 2015 | 10 games |
Metaballs | A technique for rendering organic looking n-dimensional objects. | notifications | 2003 / 2006 | 4 games |
Mixed display resolution (Half resolution) | Uses or allows using mixed display resolution, commonly with UI at much higher resolution than the game world itself. | notifications | 1983 / 2014 | 12 games |
Mod support | Has inbuilt official support for modifications, possibly with tools included to create some or all of mod content. | notifications | 2002 / 2020 | 57 games |
Modding | Any tags relating to game modding. All of these require that they can be shared with other players somehow. | list_alt | 0 game | |
Mode 7 (SNES mode 7;GBA mode 1 and 2) | Uses the SNES mode 7, any similar hardware capability on other platforms or simulates the effect on software. | notifications | 1990 / 2016 | 74 games |
Modifiable | Existing game logic can be modified or replaced. | notifications | 1979 / 2016 | 66 games |
Monte Carlo Methods | A broad category of algorithms that use repeated random sampling to obtain numerical results for problems that are probably deterministic. | notifications | 1970 / 2015 | 6 games |
Morphological Anti-Aliasing(MLAA) | An anti-aliasing technique invented around late 80s or early 90s that accomplishes its goal via edge detection and filtering based on detected shapes. | notifications | 2007 / 2013 | 15 games |
Motion blur | notifications | 1992 / 2018 | 142 games | |
Multi Instance | Game supports running multiple copies on the same system for some purpose (usually multiplayer). | notifications | 1 game | |
Multi-executable | Uses multiple executables besides additional launcher or external tools like level editors. | notifications | 1992 / 2009 | 2 games |
Multi-Frame Sampled Anti-Aliasing(MFAA) | An anti-aliasing method exclusive to Nvidia Maxwell GPUs and newer. | notifications | 2006 / 2007 | 6 games |
Multi-process | The game is split into multiple processes that work simultaneously. | notifications | 1 game | |
Multi-resolution Horizon Based Ambient Occlusion(MHBAO) | notifications | 1 game | ||
Multi-window[multiple windows] | The game info is displayed spread out in multiple windows or window-like containers rather than single one. Primarily if the windows share the OS window decor rather than the game's own. | notifications | 1990 / 1997 | 7 games |
Multiplayer: Custom communication port | Allows setting custom port for accepting incoming connections. Usually only needed by the person hosting a game, but can occasionally be needed by others as well. | notifications | 2008 / 2015 | 5 games |
Multiple buffering[double buffering;triple buffering] | list_alt | 0 game | ||
Multiple Game Engines | These games use more than one game engine. Often for different gameplay sequences they may be of different genres. | notifications | 1994 / 2017 | 5 games |
Multisample Anti-Aliasing | An enhanced version of SSAA (supersampling AA) that only supersamples parts of the scene rather than the whole thing (though supersampling of the whole scene may happen depending on scene complexity). | notifications | 1999 / 2018 | 35 games |
Mutators(Micromods) | Supports and likely includes few basic mutators. These mainly introduce minimalistic (in terms of code/content) changes to the game that drastically change how the game plays that usually only need to be applied server-side. | notifications | 1999 / 2017 | 2 games |
Name generator | notifications | 1998 / 2017 | 43 games | |
NE executable (NewEXE;New Executable;Segmented Executable) | Comes in the NE .EXE binary executable format, associated with DOS 4.0, 16-bit Windows, & OS/2. Designed to replace DOS MZ, it was quickly replaced by PE. | notifications | 1 game | |
No anti-aliasing | Uses no anti-aliasing for some reason. Mostly notable in games available on multiple platforms where it is omitted on some. | notifications | 1 game | |
No camera pan[no camera panning] | Despite not using 90 degree top-down view (and being 3D), there's no way to pan the camera. | notifications | 2009 / 2013 | 8 games |
No diffuse maps[No texture maps] | Does not use diffuse maps that wrap a color texture around a 3D model, instead each face of the model uses lone texture/sprite that can sometimes overflow the model creating detail that is not possible with diffuse maps. | notifications | 1998 / 2000 | 2 games |
No pointer capture(No pointer grab;No pointer confinement)[No mouse capture;No mouse grab;No mouse confinement] | An unusual omission in action games playable in a window, where the pointer is allowed to go outside the window without any restriction, possibly causing misclicks outside the game window that cause it to lose focus. | notifications | 2004 / 2016 | 44 games |
No sprite scaling | Despite obviously benefiting from sprite scaling, these games do not use it for whatever reason. Instead rendering pre-drawn variations of the same sprites at different distances. | 0 game | ||
No volume control | Player has no control over the game volume. Possibly even lagging mute option as well. | notifications | 1 game | |
Non-scaling graphics | Graphics do not scale with increased resolution. Instead, these likely allow larger view of the playing field. | notifications | 2011 / 2015 | 3 games |
Nonauthoritative host[Inauthoritative server] | The host/server does not function authoritatively, making anything that player sees to be the real thing. Usually not used in servers that run competitive games to not give unfair advantage to those who lag (via lag teleporting and similar). | notifications | 1 game | |
Normal Filter Anti-Aliasing | A shader-based post processing anti-aliasing method that applies normal filter for edge detection. | notifications | 2010 / 2015 | 3 games |
Not a Linux game entry | Listed in the Linux platform until a better place is found for them. Can be used to [url=/search?ftag=-notlinux&fplat=106&ipp=c]list only actual Linux games at UVL[/url]. | notifications | 2 games | |
Nvidia FleX | A particle based visual effect library by Nvidia, part of GameWorks. | notifications | 1 game | |
Optional framerate cap[Optional FPS cap;Optional frames per second cap] | Offers optional framerate capping besides turning VSYNC on or off. Useful in limiting system resource usage, and in case of laptops and such, limiting battery drain and overheating. | notifications | 1 game | |
OS Wrapped | Any step before actually running the game requires use of an operating system or platform other than the target platform or target OS the game runs on | notifications | 1995 / 2003 | 3 games |
Palette swapping | notifications | 1994 / 2021 | 5 games | |
Parallax scrolling | A 2D graphics technique that gives an otherwise flat background a sense of depth by moving the background layer(s) at different speed (usually slower) than the foreground (game area). | notifications | 1982 / 2020 | 74 games |
Parallel loading | Loads data from multiple sources in parallel to reduce loading time, such as from hard drive and removable media. | notifications | 2013 / 2015 | 5 games |
Partial loading[texture popping] | The game loads only bare necessities before shoving player into game, finalizing the load during play. | notifications | 2008 / 2015 | 16 games |
Pillarbox | Uses pillarboxing - placing usually black "pillars" to both sides of the screen - to allow unsupported screen aspect ratios to display correctly. | notifications | 1998 / 2014 | 15 games |
Pixel art scaler | Uses any pixel art image scaling algorithms, like EPX, Scale2x, Eagle, SaI, or such. | notifications | 2011 / 2018 | 4 games |
Playable loads(Playable load screens) | Loading screens are playable in some fashion or another, regardless if this has any useful purpose. | notifications | 2013 / 2014 | 2 games |
PNG images(Portable Network Graphics;PNG's Not GIF) | Uses PNG images. A lossless, DEFLATE compressed raster image format in 8-bit indexed or 24/32-bit true color with or without (binary or alpha) transparency, created as a replacement for patent restricted GIF images. | notifications | 2012 / 2020 | 5 games |
Pointer toggle(Pointer mode cycle) | Player can freely toggle, cycle, or otherwise change what their pointing device or similar controls, such as toggling between UI pointer to manipulate items and mouse look. | notifications | 1984 / 2017 | 34 games |
Portal-based game engines(Portal engine) | Game engines that are primarily portal oriented. Usually optimal for indoor scenes. | list_alt | 0 game | |
Preloading | Loads certain assets before they are actually needed. | notifications | 3 games | |
Procedural content generation | Any tags describing various types of algorithmically created content. | list_alt | 0 game | |
Procedural texturing | Uses programmatically generated textures, possibly even generating them on-the-fly. | notifications | 2006 / 2014 | 5 games |
Proprietary network[Private network] | Online games require access to (and possibly login at) some proprietary network. | notifications | 1996 / 2015 | 81 games |
Proximity voice chat(Proximity VoIP) | Voice chat is only heard by players in close proximity to the speaker in the game world. | notifications | 2004 / 2018 | 12 games |
PS4 Pro Enhanced | notifications | 1 game | ||
Python | Python is a computer programming language often used to build websites and software, automate tasks, and conduct data analysis. Python is a general-purpose language, meaning it can be used to create a variety of different programs and isn't specialized fo | list_alt | 0 game | |
Quincunx Anti-Aliasing | An anti-aliasing technique that involves 5 samples arranged into a cross, usually somewhat tilted. | notifications | 2009 / 2011 | 2 games |
Radial blur | An effect that blurs vision the farther away from the center of your screen (the focal point) you look. | notifications | 2010 / 2017 | 10 games |
Radial menu (Pie menu;Ring menu) | Includes menu(s) where the cursor or selector originates in the center & items are displayed around it. | notifications | 1986 / 2019 | 100 games |
Ragdoll physics | notifications | 1998 / 2020 | 46 games | |
Random seed[random seeding] | Player is asked to provide a seed for the random number generator in some manner. Possibly with the game generating one or more by default as well. | notifications | 2011 / 2023 | 12 games |
Raw input(Raw controller input) | Supports using raw input for controllers (usually limited to mice, though). | notifications | 2004 / 2015 | 8 games |
Real-time Ray Traced | Graphics are rendered on-the-fly using ray tracing. | notifications | 1 game | |
Requirement: Swap file (Paging file;Virtual memory) | Requires that the system has swap file in use. | notifications | 2006 / 2011 | 6 games |
Run-time environments (Virtual machines;Interpreted languages) | list_alt | 0 game | ||
Save copy lock | Prevents copying of the game saves to back them up or to spread them to other players/systems by any means, be it DRM, OS specific functionality, saves being hardware signature locked, or by any other means. | notifications | 2009 / 2017 | 5 games |
Save incompatibility | Game saves are incompatible with different versions of the game, but not counting platform differences. | notifications | 2007 / 2015 | 5 games |
Save Passwords (Level codes) | Continuing game progress works via a password system. Often used in systems with no permanent data storage available & carried over to other platforms via crude ports | notifications | 1976 / 2017 | 1078 games |
Save to external media (Save to removable media) | Saves are stored on removable media, such as floppies or memory cards. | notifications | 1986 / 2004 | 14 games |
Save to online storage (Save cloud) | Game saves and possibly other information are placed in online storage. | notifications | 2004 / 2019 | 47 games |
Saved RNG seed(Saved RNG state)[Saved random number generator seed] | Random number generator seed is stored with the game saves, causing game load and identical actions following it to have identical results despite supposed use of random chance elements. | notifications | 2014 / 2018 | 7 games |
Saves: Cross-platform | Allows cross-platform saves, generally by giving the player an easy way to import / export saves of the game from one platform to another. | notifications | 2012 / 2018 | 12 games |
Screen Space Ambient Occlusion | The first real-time technique for ambient occlusion developed by Vladimir Kajalin at Crytek for Crysis (CryEngine 2). | notifications | 2004 / 2020 | 142 games |
Screen space reflections(SSR) | An imperfect but extremely fast reflection drawing technique that was introduced by Crytek as part of their DX11 updates for Crysis 2. | notifications | 2011 / 2016 | 6 games |
Screen-Space Bias Compensation(SSBC) | notifications | 1 game | ||
Scummvm Work-In-Progress Games (Scummvm Unsupported Games) | notifications | 1985 / 1997 | 57 games | |
Secondary control bindings(Alternate control bindings) | Same actions have multiple buttons, keys, or other controls bound to them on same controller (though binding them to multiple controllers may be an option on top). Especially notable if player can fully customize both primary and secondary controls. | notifications | 1 game | |
Self-update (Auto-update) | Either automatically updates itself to latest version or informs the player of availability of newer version and where to get it or requires manually running separate update tool/check that comes with the game, without having to use third-party updater. | notifications | 1998 / 2018 | 111 games |
Server browser (Master server) | Uses a master server mechanism to register and list all available game servers/hosts, thus providing a server browser for the end users. | notifications | 1999 / 2016 | 25 games |
Shadow maps(Shadow mapping) | Uses the now outdated shadow mapping technique of producing shadows. | notifications | 1999 / 2003 | 4 games |
Shadow volume | A shadowing technique proposed by Frank Crow in 1977 and expanded on by Tim Heidmann in 1991. | notifications | 2004 / 2015 | 15 games |
Shaped sprites (Detailed sprite props) | A way to create props from sprites by having same sprite duplicated 2-3 times in 90-60 degree angles intersecting each other. | notifications | 2011 / 2015 | 11 games |
Single file(Application bundle) | The game is just a single file (likely its executable) that bundles all its required data inside of itself rather than outside as separate files. | notifications | 2012 / 2016 | 6 games |
Skeletal animation | notifications | 2007 / 2017 | 20 games | |
Social platforms | list_alt | 0 game | ||
Soft body dynamics(Soft body physics) | notifications | 2018 / 2021 | 2 games | |
Soft particles (Volumetric particles) | notifications | 2007 / 2016 | 17 games | |
Software renderer | In addition to hardware accelerated rendering, the game also supports rendering through software. | notifications | 1992 / 2016 | 226 games |
Source Code Available | The source code for these games have been published but likely or definitely remains proprietary. | notifications | 1971 / 2021 | 954 games |
Source Code Concepts | Groups pertaining to source code. | list_alt | 0 game | |
Source Code Escrow | The source code copyright holder has contracted to keep archival copies until re-licensing or specified circumstances allow it to be published or transferred | notifications | 1980 / 2000 | 14 games |
Source Code License | These games specifically provide notice that their [i]source code[/i] is covered by a license. | notifications | 1987 / 2009 | 2 games |
Spatial anti-aliasing(Full-scene anti-aliasing)[FSAA] | Uses some form of spatial anti-aliasing (not texture anti-aliaising). | notifications | 1991 / 2011 | 1 game |
Spatial audio | notifications | 1 game | ||
Spawn copy (Spawn installation) | Supports spawn installations: reduced functionality copies that often limit the game to its multiplayer mode (no singleplayer campaign/storymode available). | notifications | 1996 / 2000 | 7 games |
Sprite flip(Sprite mirror) | A simple method to producing sprites facing multiple directions by flipping sprite facing one direction to cover the other. Creates a visual artefact where asymmetric designs swap sides for things (e.g. left-handed character becomes right-handed). | notifications | 1 game | |
Sprite morphing(Texture morphing) | Sprites/textures are morphed within themselves, or the containing polygon is morphed, giving the illusion of movement without having to actually animate the sprite/texture itself for it. | notifications | 2007 / 2017 | 12 games |
Static pixel scale | Changing display resolution does not alter pixel scale of displayed elements, so a 10 pixels tall character will be 10 pixels tall on 320×240 resolution as much as in 1920×1080 resolution. | notifications | 1999 / 2015 | 11 games |
Static resolution | Uses only single resolution and allows no configuration for it. | notifications | 1995 / 2017 | 28 games |
Stipple transparency(Stipple binary transparency)[stipple alpha;texture stippling] | An early and fast method of producing transparent surfaces by stippling the surface.Such as by creating a checkerboard type pattern of opaque and fully transparent pixels (checkerboard binary transparency). | notifications | 1989 / 2017 | 28 games |
StormRaid Engine | A 3D grand strategy game engine by Aartformgame | notifications | 1 game | |
Subsurface scattering | notifications | 1 game | ||
Supersample Anti-Aliasing(Super-sampled Anti-aliasing;Super-sampling Anti-aliasing;FSAA;Full-Scene Anti-Aliasing;High-Resolution Antialiasing;HRAA) | The simplest form of anti-aliasing in existence that simply renders everything multiple times larger than the output resolution before resampling it down to match the output. Replaced by MSAA and other techniques for the most part. | notifications | 1991 / 2018 | 20 games |
Supersampling | Includes separate setting for supersampling from normal anti-aliasing options, allowing it to be used in addition to other anti-aliasing instead of solely. | notifications | 1 game | |
System notifications(Pop-up notifications;Toastings;Desktop notifications) | Provides alerts about in-game events even when the game is not the top-most application, such as in form of system tray notification pop-ups. | notifications | 1 game | |
TCP/IP (Internet Protocol Suite) | Uses TCP/IP protocol stack for networked multiplayer games in addition to any other outdated technology. | notifications | 1981 / 2007 | 27 games |
Tech demo | Developed to function as a technology demonstration. | notifications | 2006 / 2014 | 2 games |
Technical innovation (Technological innovation) | Innovately uses technology to produce something that hasn't been done before (at least on the platform). | notifications | 1983 / 2015 | 16 games |
Telnet / SSH | Uses Telnet/SSH text-based network protocol, likely meaning any basic Telnet/SSH client, including more advanced clients such as MUD clients, can be used to play the game. | notifications | 1984 / 2001 | 9 games |
Temporal Anti-Aliasing(TXAA;TAA) | An anti-aliasing technique that uses undisclosed hardware-based anti-aliasing with selective filtering via shaders and cross-referencing earlier drawn frames. | notifications | 2012 / 2017 | 14 games |
Temporary saves (Expiring saves) | Some or all game saves are [i]designed[/i] to expire/erase. Such as by normal system reset, power off, or game is unloaded | notifications | 1 game | |
Text chat | Provides a chat interface for interaction with other players. | notifications | 1973 / 2013 | 11 games |
Texture atlas(Sprite sheet;Tile map) | Uses texture atlas, a single large graphics file with multiple objects and/or states of an object instead of each their own, for storing and accessing textures and sprites. | notifications | 3 games | |
Third-party login | Not built on top of a system provided by the third-party, but offers login via them (but does not require a specific one). | notifications | 2011 / 2014 | 3 games |
Tile-based | Uses tile sets to construct levels. | notifications | 1979 / 2020 | 441 games |
Tooltips | Info dialogs that pop up when pointer is held over certain UI or gameworld elements, usually providing more in-depth info that does not pop up an actual window (disappears usually as soon as the pointer is moved away) or enter a modal screen for it. | notifications | 1996 / 2023 | 109 games |
Turn-based | Video games, in which the player must play within a certain space, and then it is the other player's turn to play | notifications | 1970 / 2016 | 130 games |
UI pointer(HUD pointer) | Uses a (mouse, trackball, touchdisplay, etc.) pointer to manipulate the UI/HUD without entering separate screen to do so. | notifications | 1992 / 2017 | 23 games |
Universal binary | Distributed in universal binary format, making the game playable on both PPC and x86 hardware. | notifications | 2004 / 2012 | 3 games |
Usage reporting[usage statistics;usage tracking;anonymous data sending] | Reports, either as is or has an option to for it, usage statistics or similar metrics to developer and/or publisher for the purpose of usage analysis and any action based on the results of that. Usually stored anonymously. | notifications | 1981 / 2017 | 14 games |
Uses it's own System Files | Rather than using files provided by the operating system, these games use copies or replacements usually contained within the games own directory | notifications | 2003 / 2019 | 3 games |
UVL: License Pending | With intent to define a license later, an author has notably granted public access to some or all aspects of his game beforehand. | notifications | 2014 / 2015 | 2 games |
Viewport (Projection) | Any tags relating to the viewport (not graphical [i]style[/i]). | list_alt | 0 game | |
Virtualization incompatibility(Sandboxing incompatibility) | Exhibits issues of varying severity with any virtualization (sandboxing) in use. | notifications | 2013 / 2015 | 3 games |
Voice board | Uses voice board-like method of producing spoken sentences by combining several short pre-recorded voice overs. | notifications | 1981 / 2013 | 21 games |
Voice chat: Lip synchronization | Lip synchronization is done to voice chat. | notifications | 2017 / 2018 | 4 games |
Voice chat(Voice over IP)[VoIP] | Has integrated voice chat functionality. | notifications | 2004 / 2020 | 168 games |
Volumetric lighting[volumetric light] | notifications | 2008 / 2014 | 4 games | |
Wii U Virtual Console | A specialized section of the Nintendo eShop online service that allow players to purchase and download games and other software for Nintendo's Wii U. | notifications | 1983 / 2016 | 141 games |
Wii Virtual Console (Wii VC;WiiVC) | Distributed through the Wii Shop Chanel for play on official Wii Emulators. | notifications | 1980 / 2011 | 437 games |
Window restore(Game refocus) | Refocuses and restores itself to foreground under certain circumstances, such as when player attention is immediately required (for example, when multiplayer match is about to start). | notifications | 2010 / 2015 | 8 games |
Yaga Engine | By Humongous Inc (not Humongous Entertainment). It was used in several games beginning in 2002. | notifications | 2002 / 2014 | 6 games |