Browse Game genre groups
themes
entities
concepts
| Action | Informal group for finding action sub-genres. | list_alt | 0 game | |
| Action Runner | A genre similar to Endless Runners but rather is split into (presumably handmade instead of randomly generated) levels with specific challenges and with an actual end somewhere along the line. | notifications | 1986 / 2016 | 12 games |
| Action-RPG[ARPG] | RPG sub-genre characterized with heavy focus on fast-paced (real-time) combat and is overall very similar to Action-Adventure genre. | notifications | 1980 / 2020 | 432 games |
| Action-Strategy | A genre combination that focuses on economic supremacy and destroying the enemy's ability to fight back while maintaining high amount of fast-paced action. | notifications | 1989 / 2018 | 25 games |
| Adventure-RPG | A point and click, text, or other type of adventure game (besides Action-Adventure) with significant RPG elements. | notifications | 1982 / 2019 | 46 games |
| Anti-Advergame | A game featuring a product but deriding it rather than promote it. | notifications | 2 games | |
| Arcade Flight Simulator[Arcade Combat Flight Simulator] | A variety of flight sims that are less about flight simulation (such as physics involved) and more about arcade combat. Usually with very little to no actual flight physics simulated. | notifications | 2012 / 2015 | 5 games |
| Arena shooter | Sub-genre of multi-directional shooters, defined largely by multi-directional shooter sensibilities but constrained to a small-ish "arena" (usually small enough to fit on screen at all times). | notifications | 1976 / 2019 | 361 games |
| Artillery game | Strategy sub-genre. Involves lobbing shots long distances with aim based mainly on angle, but often force applied to the projectile is a factor as well as external elements such as wind. | notifications | 1977 / 2016 | 139 games |
| Augmented Reality Game (ARG;Alternate Reality Game) | ARGs remove barriers between the game world & the players so that they are shaped by each other. Actions in the real world are part of the game. | notifications | 1979 / 2019 | 91 games |
| Awkward Physics | A nameless genre where most of the gameplay involves fighting an awkward physics mechanics to accomplish your job. | notifications | 2008 / 2016 | 10 games |
| Beat 'em up(Brawler) | Informal group for finding beat 'em up sub-genres; fighting genre modified to so it's no longer one-on-one but against multitude of opponents. | list_alt | 0 game | |
| Biological simulation | Sub-genre of artificial life | notifications | 1984 / 2018 | 55 games |
| Blitz-like | Anything that replicates the basic gameplay of the game "Blitz", in which the player controls a bomber aircraft and throws bombs on buildings etc. Once leaving the screen the bomber reappears at a lower altitude. | notifications | 1979 / 1989 | 25 games |
| Boat combat | notifications | 1983 / 2005 | 22 games | |
| Boulder Dash-like | Any games that replicate the game type established by Boulder Dash. | notifications | 1984 / 2015 | 166 games |
| Breakout-like (Casse-briques;ブロック崩し;Block Kuzushi;Arkanoid-like)[Arkanoid clone;Breakout clone] | A type of action game where player controls a pad - usually moving it along the bottom edge of the screen - and using it to bounce a ball up to destroy blocks with it while trying to prevent the ball from falling off screen. | notifications | 1976 / 2017 | 526 games |
| Bubble Shooter(Marble Popper) | A puzzle shooter genre usually involving a gun (for which only the angle can be controlled) shooting bubbles/marbles into the playing field which likely already has a number of them, with player's aim being attempting to destroy the ones remaining. | notifications | 1994 / 2015 | 57 games |
| Bullet Hell(Manic shooter;Curtain fire;Danmaku;弾幕;Maniac Shooters) | A sub-genre of shmup where the whole screen is literally filled with projectiles, usually with the main challenge being avoiding those bullets (often by recognizing/memorizing firing patterns) rather than destroying enemies. | notifications | 1993 / 2019 | 139 games |
| Business simulation(Economic simulation;Tycoon game) | notifications | 1980 / 2015 | 140 games | |
| Car combat (Auto combat) | Sub-genre of vehicular combat. | notifications | 1976 / 2015 | 77 games |
| Card battle | A combat strategy sub-genre of collectible card games. | notifications | 1992 / 2017 | 160 games |
| Card game | Played with a deck (or pack) of hand-sized heavy paper or plastic sheets with faces & backs. | notifications | 1975 / 2019 | 377 games (13 characters) |
| Cave-flyer (Luolalentely) | A genre where the player controls a ship with 360 degree movement all around and usually physics playing a role in either the ship's control or otherwise. | notifications | 1983 / 2016 | 74 games |
| City-building | Involving city planning, building, and management. | notifications | 1980 / 2019 | 233 games |
| Clicker | A type of simplistic game where the player usually contributes only by clicking madly at opponents to defeat them while using some resource gained from defeating them to upgrade per click effectiviness as well as passive progression effects. | notifications | 2015 / 2019 | 15 games |
| Collectible card game(CCG;Trading card game;TCG)[card trading game] | A card game where player acquires new cards either by purchasing them, finding them, or by trading them with other players. | notifications | 1997 / 2017 | 88 games |
| Colony simulation(Colony survival simulation) | A survival simulator where player controls a colony, settlement, shelter, or some other small community rather than single character. | notifications | 2006 / 2019 | 26 games |
| Combat Flight Simulator[combat flight simulation] | notifications | 1 game | ||
| Comical Action (コミカルアクション) | An action/platformer genre characterized by single-screen levels (no scrolling) and cooperative 2-player action. A level is usually cleared when all enemies on the screen have been defeated (who usually drop random score bonus items). | notifications | 1983 / 2014 | 76 games |
| Construction & management simulation | Sub-genre of business simulation with emphasis on construction which forms most or all of the aspects of managing the business. | notifications | 1991 / 2015 | 34 games |
| Construction puzzle | A construction puzzle is any game where you have to assemble a given set of pieces in a certain way. | notifications | 1984 / 2018 | 156 games |
| Corridor Shooter | A shooter sub-genre where player follows narrow paths with little to no choice where to go. | notifications | 2003 / 2015 | 21 games |
| Dandy-like (Gauntlet-like) | Replicates the gameplay established by Dandy - a top-down maze dungeon crawler. Popularized by the first clone, Gauntlet. | notifications | 1983 / 2017 | 119 games |
| Dating simulation | Dating sims are a sub-genre of simulation games, usually Japanese, with romantic elements. The most common objective is to achieve a romantic relationship. | notifications | 1984 / 2019 | 170 games |
| Dress-up Game | A significant portion of gameplay is devoted to dressing a character in clothing according to taste (the players' or a preference of the game) | notifications | 1993 / 2017 | 5 games |
| Dungeon Crawler (Dungeon Bash) | A scenario where the player navigates labyrinthine "dungeons" in search of treasure and evil to vanquish. Used frequently in older RPGs, especially early video game RPGs, and is often treated as a sub-genre of them as such. | notifications | 1974 / 2019 | 472 games |
| Endless Runner(Infinite Runner)[Endless Running] | An auto-scrolling platformer characterized by simple controls - usually just one or two buttons - and randomly generated levels. | notifications | 1983 / 2017 | 50 games |
| Escape the room(Escape room) | Adventure sub-genre where the goal is to "escape the room". Most commonly seen as online Flash games and made popular by MOTAS which is one of them. | notifications | 1983 / 2018 | 13 games |
| Exergame (Fitness game;Exertainment) | A sports sub-genre defined by actual exercise routines performed by the player as part of the gameplay. Requires controller(s) or other peripheral(s) that are capable of tracking said exercises. | notifications | 1982 / 2014 | 111 games |
| Falling blocks | Sub-genre of visual matching puzzles which involves rotating and placing falling blocks together usually to form complete lines and to make them disappear. | notifications | 1984 / 2018 | 969 games |
| Farm simulation | notifications | 1993 / 2016 | 31 games | |
| Fighting (Versus fighting;One-on-one fighting) | Informal group for finding fighting game sub-genres; Primarily one-on-one fighting genre, but includes tag team fighting, too. | list_alt | 0 game | |
| Fixed shooter (1DoF shooter;Gallery shooter;Space Invaders-like) | A shooter sub-genre where each level fits within a single screen and the main character movement is fixed to a single axis of motion (commonly left and right along the bottom). | notifications | 1977 / 2017 | 919 games |
| Frogger-like | Anything that replicates the basic gameplay introduced in Frogger. | notifications | 1981 / 2011 | 73 games |
| Galcon-like(Galactic Conquest-like;Swarm Defense)[swarm defence] | Replicates the gameplay of Galcon, a simple strategy game similar to Risk but more dependant on number of units than random chance. | notifications | 1995 / 2016 | 26 games |
| Gamebook[Choose your own adventure;CYOA] | "A gamebook is a book that allows the reader to participate in the story by making choices that affect the course of the narrative, which branches down various paths through the use of numbered paragraphs or pages." --Wikipedia | notifications | 1980 / 2019 | 42 games |
| God game | Strategy sub-genre where the player controls the game on large scale, often acting as a god of some sort or with no specific character, where player attempts to interact with and influence a number of autonomous individuals. | notifications | 1981 / 2018 | 117 games |
| Government simulation (Political simulation) | Simulation sub-genre dealing with governmental and/or political simulation of a nation or part of one. | notifications | 1980 / 2019 | 114 games |
| Grand strategy (Grand strategy wargame) | A strategy sub-genre that focuses on [i]grand strategy[/i], using the entire resources of a nation to accomplish your goals. | notifications | 1985 / 2019 | 90 games |
| Grand Theft Auto-like(Grand Theft Auto clone) | An open world action-adventure with transitionless change between on foot and vehicular/mounted movement, vehicle/ride jacking, and combat. | notifications | 1997 / 2018 | 143 games |
| Hack and Slash (Hack and Slay;Hack & Slash) | A sub-genre of beat 'em ups that originated from P&P RPGs where it's seen as derogatory. Differentiated from most beat 'em up by the fact that you primarily use melee weapons instead of bare hands. | notifications | 1984 / 2020 | 422 games |
| Hero Defense | A PvE game genre where group of heroes defend something from waves of creeps and bosses. | notifications | 1 game | |
| Hero Shooter | A class-based (the heroes) PvP multiplayer shooter game where classes are distinct characters. Usually from first person perspective but is not necessarily so. | 0 game | ||
| Hidden object(Hidden picture) | A type of puzzle games where the aim is to find some hidden object(s) via perception, which may be used to solve additional puzzles. Possibly based on the Where's Wally/Waldo books which embody the game mechanic. | notifications | 1990 / 2019 | 143 games |
| Hogan's Alley | notifications | 1984 / 1987 | 6 games | |
| Horde game(Horde-base game;L4D-like) | A game genre focusing on dealing with massive hordes of usually individually easy to defeat opponents. | notifications | 2008 / 2016 | 14 games |
| Hybrid game[genre fusion] | Mixes two or more game genres more or less seamlessly, but does not fall into definition of some hybrid genre already in existence. | notifications | 1982 / 2018 | 114 games |
| Idler(Idle game) | Any game where most of the game is purposefully made so the player must idle, or simply greatly benefits from idling. This includes games that play themselves and games that have very little for player to actually do that isn't done for them already. | notifications | 3 games | |
| Interactive fiction (IF;Text adventure) | A type of adventure game where the game world and player input is described using text. Such as "You are in a hallway. There is a key on the floor", ">get key", ">use silver key on door", ">turn valve", ">say hello", etc.. | notifications | 1975 / 2019 | 2667 games |
| Interactive Movie | Players get to guide the outcome of a movie. The players actions can have minor or major effects, but often the movie either continues or ends. | notifications | 1983 / 2017 | 58 games |
| Kikstart-like | Replicates the gameplay established by Kikstart - a (side-scrolling) driving/biking game similar to motorcycle/mountain bike trials with heavy emphasis on physics. | notifications | 1985 / 2012 | 17 games |
| Knight Lore-like | Replicates the gameplay established by Knight Lore - an isometric maze-adventure-platformer. | notifications | 1984 / 2016 | 105 games |
| Lander simulation(Landing simulation) | A genre focusing on simulation of landing of air- or spacecraft. | notifications | 1979 / 2017 | 11 games |
| Lemmings-like | Replicates the gameplay of the original Lemmings puzzle game where player instructs or sacrifices individuals from a throng to guide the remainder into safety. | notifications | 1995 / 2014 | 11 games |
| Life simulation(Artificial life) | notifications | 1975 / 2019 | 215 games | |
| Lights Out | The game consists of a grid of lights. Pressing any of the lights will toggle it and the four adjacent lights. The goal of the puzzle is to switch all the lights off (or on), preferably in as few button presses as possible. | notifications | 1991 / 2004 | 5 games |
| Logic puzzle | Puzzles that derive from the mathematics field of deduction but don't necessarily require any actual math. | notifications | 1975 / 2019 | 336 games |
| Loot 'em up(Looter)[looter game;looter-shooter;looter shooter] | A placeholder genre for the rather poorly described genre of games that focus on large quantities of procedurally generated loot that the player is constantly evaluating and swapping out on. | notifications | 2000 / 2019 | 65 games |
| Management simulation | Business simulation that emphatizes micro-management with little or no construction involved. | notifications | 1989 / 2013 | 4 games |
| Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMO;MMOG;Persistent Online Game) | Multiplayer games that are capable of supporting hundreds or thousands players simultaneously. | notifications | 1987 / 2019 | 705 games |
| Match 3 | A type of visual matching puzzles where you match 3 or more visually similar pieces to progress, often by lining them horizontally, vertically or diagonally. | notifications | 1990 / 2019 | 261 games |
| Maxit-like | Any games that replicate the game type established by "Maxit". | notifications | 1981 / 1998 | 21 games |
| Mech simulator | notifications | 1994 / 2013 | 22 games | |
| Medical simulation | notifications | 1982 / 2010 | 32 games | |
| Melee combat simulation (Fighting simulation;Close-combat simulation) | This is a placeholder for the nameless genre about melee combat simulation. | notifications | 1998 / 2017 | 33 games |
| Metroidvania | Action-adventure or action-platformer sub-genre with a lot of backtracking, a superficial sense of exploration to find locations to which you later gain access to via new abilities, tools, or such. | notifications | 1984 / 2019 | 319 games |
| Militainment (Military entertainment) | "... defined as either entertainment featuring and celebrating the military, or controlled by the military." --Wikipedia | notifications | 1998 / 2017 | 45 games |
| Minesweeper | A logic puzzle where player must deduce the locations of mines via hints in the environment. | notifications | 1984 / 2019 | 72 games |
| Missile Command-like | Missile Command and any game that reproduces the gameplay it had. | notifications | 1980 / 2016 | 58 games |
| MUD (Multi-User Dungeon;Multi-User Domain;MU*) | Text-based role-playing, simulation and/or action games that can usually be played with any telnet compatible client. | notifications | 1987 / 2016 | 31 games |
| Multi-directional shooter | A shooter sub-genre defined by open two dimensional environment with freedom of orientation and movement. | notifications | 1982 / 2018 | 94 games |
| Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game | Like a [gametag=MMORPG]MMORPG[/gametag] with a more reasonable number of players. | 0 game | ||
| Nameless genres | Any game genres that don't have widely agreed upon name yet nor have decent placeholder name. | list_alt | 0 game | |
| Open World Survival Crafting | A genre popularized by Minecraft. | notifications | 1992 / 2019 | 85 games |
| Other puzzle | Puzzle games that defy categorization. | notifications | 1985 / 2008 | 8 games |
| Outbreak simulation (Pandemic simulation) | A pandemic or other disease, viral or such outbreak simulation where player attempts to mutate/evolve/develop an extremely virulent and possibly lethal one or tries to fight such. | notifications | 1986 / 2017 | 14 games |
| Outline puzzle(Revealing images) | The objective is to uncover the silhouette portion of background with a marker until most of the silhouette is uncovered. | notifications | 1981 / 2015 | 75 games |
| Pac-Man-like | Any game that replicates the basic gameplay of the original Pac-Man. | notifications | 1980 / 2017 | 404 games |
| Pacifist horror | A sub-genre of horror games where player is forced to always flee with no option of fighting back. | notifications | 2005 / 2017 | 21 games |
| Party game | Intended to be played in parties or similar large gatherings of people. | notifications | 1988 / 2018 | 88 games |
| Pengo-like | Any games that replicate the game type established by Pengo. | notifications | 1982 / 2018 | 30 games |
| Pinball | Video games with the same gameplay as the original pinball tables in which score is made manipulating one or more steel balls on a play field. | notifications | 1977 / 2018 | 508 games |
| Platform Hell | A variety of platformers that are utterly unfair, requiring memorizing every little detail of the game to beat them as anything you see or don't see can't be trusted to be what they appear or don't appear to be. | notifications | 2008 / 2011 | 4 games |
| Platformer[jump and run] | Informal group for finding platformer sub-genres. | list_alt | 0 game | |
| Poker: Hi Chicago | [i][b]Hi[/b] Chicago[/i] is a stud poker variant where half the pot goes to the player with the highest spade in the hole. Not to be confused with [i]Chicago[/i] poker. | notifications | 1 game | |
| Pong | Pong and any game that reproduces the simplistic gameplay it had. | notifications | 1972 / 2016 | 92 games |
| Precision platformer | A platformer genre where the focus is extreme precision in movement, either player fails competely (needs to restart the level/game) from tiniest failings, get horrible score for it, or such. | notifications | 1984 / 2019 | 25 games |
| Puzzle (Problem solving) | Informal group for finding puzzle sub-genres. | list_alt | 0 game | |
| Qix-like | Gameplay based on Taito's arcade game Qix, where one fences off sections off the gameworld, trapping bonuses, enemies and whatever else inside. Usually levels are won by fencing off ~75% of them. | notifications | 1981 / 2017 | 92 games |
| Racing | Informal group for finding racing sub-genres. | list_alt | 0 game | |
| Rail shooter[railshooter;on-rails shooter] | A shooter sub-genre where the player is stuck on a relatively linear path with few or no branches, can't stray far from it and viewing angles are limited (usually none but what the virtual "rails" dictate). | notifications | 1982 / 2016 | 114 games |
| Raiser sim[raise-up sim;raising sim;princess maker clones] | A genre of life simulation where the player is responsible for raising or otherwise managing the life of an individual up to a point, usually as a personal manager rather than as the character themself. Often named "something maker". | notifications | 1991 / 2015 | 46 games |
| Real-Time Strategy | A strategy game where all elements are in real-time. | notifications | 1996 / 2019 | 68 games |
| Robotron Like | Replicates Robotron: 2084 gameplay - a top-down, twin-stick, independent-aim arena-shooter placing the protagonist in endless waves of multiple types of 100 or more enemies & requiring protection & rescue of civilians among them. | notifications | 1983 / 2009 | 28 games |
| Rogue-lite(Roguelike-like)[Roguelite] | A pseudo-genre derived from Roguelikes leaving only procedural map generation and permadeath while adding meta progression. | notifications | 2009 / 2019 | 148 games |
| Roguelike | Imitates the old Rogue's style, a subgenre characterized by a turn-based dungeon crawl through procedurally generated levels. | notifications | 1975 / 2019 | 423 games |
| Roguevania | Combination of castlevania-likes and rogue-lites that started gaining popularity in the early 2010s with the surge of rogue-lites. | notifications | 2013 / 2014 | 6 games |
| Role-playing game | Informal group for finding RPG sub-genres. | list_alt | 0 game | |
| Run and Gun | Shoot 'em up sub-genre, with both horizontal or vertical scrolling and may feature multidirectional movement. | notifications | 1980 / 2019 | 773 games |
| Sarcastic (Sarcasm) | A characterization to express contempt. Often combined irony & a change in voice tones. Usually a subset of Humorous. | notifications | 1 game | |
| Scrolling shooter | A shooter sub genre characterized by automatically advancing (autoscrolling) environments, giving the impression of constant motion towards the goal, preventing any significant backtracking and limiting chances on full destruction of enemy forces. | notifications | 1980 / 2019 | 1277 games |
| Shariki-like | Replicates the gameplay established by Shariki - a combination of 3-visual matching and 1x2-tile cycle puzzle. | notifications | 1994 / 2018 | 68 games |
| Shoot 'em up | Informal group for finding shmup sub-genres. | list_alt | 0 game | |
| Shooter | Informal group for finding shooter sub-genres. | list_alt | 0 game | |
| Simulation | Informal group for finding simulation sub-genres. | list_alt | 0 game | |
| Sliding puzzle (Sliding block puzzle;Sliding tile puzzle) | A type of puzzle where player usually slides square tiles across a grid where only one square is free. | notifications | 1979 / 2016 | 133 games |
| Social simulation | Sub-genre of artificial life | notifications | 1985 / 2015 | 53 games |
| Sōkoban (倉庫番;Soukoban) | Soukoban is a transport puzzle in which the player pushes objects around a maze and tries to put them in designated locations. | notifications | 1982 / 2019 | 101 games |
| Souls-like[Souls game;Soulsborne] | A variant of action-adventure/RPG games popularized by FromSoftware with their Dark Souls and Bloodborne games. Superficially similar to hack&slash games but with much slower, tactical pace. | notifications | 2001 / 2019 | 37 games |
| Space combat simulator | A variation of space flight simulators where the focus is on futuristic combat. | notifications | 1990 / 2015 | 73 games |
| Space Flight Simulator[space flight simulation] | list_alt | 1986 / 2009 | 0 game | |
| Space trading and combat simulator | A sub-genre of space flight simulators. | notifications | 1983 / 2019 | 139 games |
| Spectacle Brawler(Spectacle Fighter)[Character Action;Stylish Action] | A variety of beat 'em ups and hack'n'slash games that focus in "spectacular" visuals and super powered protagonist. | notifications | 2001 / 2018 | 49 games |
| Sport | list_altnotifications | 1 game | ||
| Sports management | A sub-genre of sports and management simulations where player trains and manages a person or group of people and then sends them to a competition, which they watch as (completely) non-interactive event. | notifications | 1981 / 2018 | 471 games |
| Stealth game | Not only is stealth possible, the gameplay focuses on it. | notifications | 1981 / 2018 | 131 games |
| Strategy | Informal group for finding strategy sub-genres. | list_alt | 1988 / 2009 | 9 games |
| Strategy-RPG | Hybrid genre unrelated to tactical-RPGs. | notifications | 1980 / 2018 | 20 games |
| Survival simulation | notifications | 1992 / 2018 | 38 games | |
| Tactical(Tactics) | Requires the use of tactics. Although not much different from strategy on brief glance, tactics is more involved with operation of individual units rather than squads/platoons, resource management or construction. | notifications | 1982 / 2019 | 726 games |
| Tank simulator | notifications | 1989 / 2016 | 13 games | |
| Tile cycle puzzle[tile cycling puzzle] | A visual matching puzzle where player cycles tiles in predefined area (usually 1x2, 2x2, or similar area of adjacent tiles) until they match what is desired. | notifications | 1994 / 2016 | 6 games |
| Tile swap puzzle[tile swapping puzzle] | A visual matching puzzle where player swaps any tile with any other to achieve what is wanted. May also occur with swapping groups of adjacent tiles together for added challenge. | notifications | 1988 / 2012 | 4 games |
| Tiling puzzle | Sub-genre of transport puzzles. | notifications | 1983 / 2016 | 25 games |
| Tower Defense | Strategy sub-genre where player is limited to building defensive towers and has no movable defenses (or moving them is hard/detrimental) to protect something, and never goes on the offense. | notifications | 1990 / 2019 | 365 games |
| Tower Offense (Reverse Tower Defense;Tower Attack) | Inversion of the Tower Defense strategy genre where the player controls the horde trying to reach whatever is being protected by the towers. | notifications | 1984 / 2017 | 35 games |
| Trading simulation | A business simulation that focuses on trading of goods. | notifications | 1974 / 2013 | 44 games |
| Train simulator | Sub-genre of simulation. Covers both simulating actual driving of a train as well as business management (strategy) simulation of railroad industry. | notifications | 1984 / 2011 | 136 games |
| Tube racing | A racing genre characterized by near-omnidirectional gravity allowing you to drive along the walls and ceiling of a tube-like structure. | notifications | 1994 / 2017 | 9 games |
| Tube shooter | Shmup sub-genre where player moves alongside the inside surface of an abstract tube. | notifications | 1979 / 2016 | 54 games |
| Turn-based platformer | A platformer sub-genre where the platforming activity runs in turns rather than real-time. | notifications | 2013 / 2015 | 3 games |
| Turret defense | A nameless genre where player mainly controls a turret gun (usually a ballista) and protects something (usually a castle) from waves of enemies while often also using support powers (such as magic) and sending automated troops to aid in the defense. | notifications | 3 games | |
| Twitch shooter | Shooters characterized by overall fast-paced action (auto-run and no stamina system), no cover system, and favors strafing, jumping and constant movement to dodge bullets and enemy attacks. | notifications | 1993 / 2017 | 78 games |
| Unknown genre | Takes a severe departure from its base genre, becoming something largely unidentifiable. | notifications | 2011 / 2013 | 2 games |
| VAGUE: Jump and Run | This can either mean basic platformer or hop and bop sub-genre of it. | list_altnotifications | 2008 / 2013 | 6 games |
| Vertical platformer | A platforming sub-genre where player traverses mainly vertically up or down, often scaling a tower or similar. | notifications | 1984 / 2014 | 67 games |
| Virtual pets (Digital pets;Artificial pets;Pet-raising simulation) | Sub-genre of artificial life | notifications | 1986 / 2014 | 147 games |
| Visual novel[NVL;ADV;AVG] | Sug-genre of adventure games. Easily confusable with dating sims with which visual novels share their outward appearance, but the emphasis is on non-gamelike elements and the lack of use of statistics or other numerical data. | notifications | 1986 / 2019 | 1700 games |
| Wargame | A sub-genre of strategy games involving warfare on tactical or strategic level. Categorized somewhat differently from their tabletop cousins, but generally refers to any strategic game focusing on waging war. | notifications | 1980 / 2019 | 640 games |
| Whac-A-Mole | Anything that imitates the Whac-A-Mole gameplay where user wields a mallet which they use to whack moles that appear from holes randomly. | notifications | 1981 / 2015 | 17 games |
| Word game (Word puzzle) | Video games games often designed to test ability with language or to explore its properties. | notifications | 1975 / 2017 | 564 games |
| xPS/RTS | This is a placeholder for the FPS/RTS and TPS/RTS hybrid genres. | notifications | 1988 / 2016 | 30 games |
| Audio game | notifications | 1974 / 2013 | 7 games | |
| Collectathon | notifications | 1996 / 2008 | 14 games | |
| Maze | A genre characterized by labyrinthine levels and evasion of enemies, often with little to no way to fight back. | 0 game |
| 4X (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate;eXploration, eXpansion, eXploitation and eXtermination) | Strategy sub-genre focusing on managing a whole empire, with full access to the whole game world at all times, management of cities of equivalent, troop movement on strategic level, multiple ways to win, and others. | notifications | 1971 / 2019 | 222 games |
| Action-Adventure | A very vague genre often involving lots of action in form of bloody combat, somewhat spacious environments, and an occasional environmental puzzle. Also includes adventure games that are very action oriented. | notifications | 1980 / 2019 | 1025 games |
| Adventure game elements | Any tags that describe game elements originally found in adventure games only, or generally seen as a defining traits of the genre. | list_alt | 0 game | |
| Adventure[ADV;AVG] | Informal group for finding adventure game sub-genres. | list_alt | 0 game | |
| Altered genre | Takes a known genre and changes it in a way that it is no longer correctly described as it despite having identifiable elements from it. | notifications | 1975 / 2017 | 43 games |
| Arcade | Mimics the style of arcade games by having short levels, simple controls, fairly non-stop hectic action, rapidly increasing difficulty combined with minimal or non-existent character or vehicle customization possibilities. | notifications | 1987 / 2015 | 29 games |
| Arena FPS/TPS(Arena-style shooter) | Arena-style first/third-person shooters that have fast-paced, twitch/skill-based gameplay in fairly small locations with powerups strewn across them. Equipment is only gained as pickups within the levels themselves. Commonly PvP oriented. | notifications | 1999 / 2017 | 60 games |
| Bejeweled Twist | Replicates gameplay of Bejeweled Twist where you rotate a number of pieces to create lines of 3 or more matching pieces. | notifications | 2008 / 2009 | 4 games |
| Belt scroller | A slightly slanted perspective (almost side view, isometric or similar) games where game is played on a mostly left or right progressing field with limited depth towards and away from the camera. Commonly used by beat 'em ups. | notifications | 1986 / 2018 | 175 games |
| Casual game | Simple, family-friendly games that are easy to pick up and play for a short while but do not take hours of dedication to accomplish something. | notifications | 2006 / 2018 | 50 games |
| Cinematic platformer | Distinct from typical platform games in that they focus on fluid, life-like movements, without the exaggerated physics found in other platform games. | notifications | 1989 / 2018 | 106 games |
| Combat racing | Racing where you can attack your opponents in one manner or another, possibly removing them from the race permanently. | notifications | 1988 / 2017 | 80 games |
| Design puzzle | Puzzle games where the challenge lies in designing something. | notifications | 2009 / 2011 | 6 games |
| Diablo-like | Top-down hack&slash action-RPGs where roleplaying is usually nonexistent and the focus is solely on combat and combat related character advancement. | notifications | 1996 / 2018 | 52 games |
| Dungeon Keeper-like | A variation of god games. | 1997 / 2012 | 0 game | |
| Eastern RPG (Console RPG;Japanese RPG;JRPG) | Any tags commonly perceived as defining or common traits of eastern-style RPGs. | list_alt | 0 game | |
| Environmental puzzle | A type of puzzle that involves altering the environment, such as pushing large objects around or toggling levers that move a series of platforms to reach places otherwise inaccessible. | notifications | 1988 / 2018 | 118 games |
| Exploration game | An adventure sub-genre where exploring the environments is the primary activity, usually with extremely non-linear levels or even metroidvania-ish progression. Likely to have little to no combat and some even lack a way to finish them (no ending). | notifications | 1979 / 2016 | 27 games |
| First-person shooter(FPS)[1st person shooter] | A shooter from first-person perspective with fairly free movement (not locked to a grid, rails, or autoscrolling) and view direction. As such, despite the name, simply being from 1st person perspective and being a shooter is not enough to qualify. | 1973 / 2019 | 1949 games | |
| Flight Simulator | list_alt | 2010 / 2011 | 0 game | |
| Fortress simulation(Castle simulation) | A simulation sub-genre similar to city building, but focuses in building fortifications in addition to troop maneuvering and sieging. | notifications | 1991 / 2014 | 21 games |
| Gallery shooter(Shooting gallery)[light gun shooter] | A type of shooter where player control is limited to a reticle across a screen or a light gun where any movement is out of player's control. Generally mimics shooting gallery games found in carnivals. | 0 game | ||
| Hop and bop [Head jumping;Jumping on heads;jump and run] | A platformer genre characterized by jumping on the heads of your enemies being the primary (and possibly the only) method of disposing of them. | notifications | 1984 / 2018 | 152 games |
| Immersive sim[immersive simulation] | Game genre focusing on generally systems-driven and open-ended gameplay, that is, immersive and reactive game systems that allow multiple solutions. Usually first-person and sometimes with role-playing game influences. | notifications | 1992 / 2018 | 58 games |
| Kinetic novel | A non-interactive visual novel. | notifications | 1987 / 2017 | 162 games |
| Meditative (Experiential/Contemplative) | A large portion, if not all, of the game is about experiencing, contemplating, and or meditating about it. | notifications | 1984 / 2017 | 12 games |
| Military simulation | notifications | 2002 / 2011 | 14 games | |
| Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (Aeon of Strife-type game;Defense of the Ancients-type game)[DotA-like;AoS-like] | An action-RPG sub-genre, very similar to two-way assault mode in FPS games. | notifications | 2003 / 2018 | 66 games |
| Music game | A game genre where gameplay is focused on music and player's interaction with it in various ways, including rhythm, management, generation, and so forth. | notifications | 1979 / 2018 | 100 games |
| Otome game (Maiden game) | A dating sim sub-genre targeted at heterosexual females. That is, involves female protagonist who attempts to form a lasting relationship with one or more potential male partners. | notifications | 1994 / 2017 | 165 games |
| Platformer elements | Any tags that describe game elements originally found in platformers only, or generally seen as a defining traits of the genre. | list_alt | 0 game | |
| Point-and-click adventure | Adventure games mainly played via pointer device driven user interface. The player clicks to move their character around, interact and examine. | notifications | 1984 / 2019 | 1114 games |
| Puzzle platformer | notifications | 1985 / 2019 | 168 games | |
| Puzzle-Adventure | A sub-genre of adventure games that often plays more like series of puzzles than an adventure with puzzles. | notifications | 1991 / 2017 | 12 games |
| Sandbox | A genre characterized with players ability to do pretty much whatever they want, often with construction/crafting options with little to no challenges (by default). Likely also employs open world design. | notifications | 1997 / 2019 | 212 games |
| Shooter elements | Any tags that describe game elements originally found in shooter games only, or generally seen as a defining traits of the genre. | list_alt | 2007 / 2009 | 0 game |
| Simulation elements | list_alt | 0 game | ||
| Snake (Nibbler;Nibbles;Rattler;Tron-like) | Replicates the core gameplay of controlling a snake or worm that lengthens as it devours food and dies from crashing to walls or other snakes, possibly even itself. | notifications | 1976 / 2017 | 351 games |
| Strategy elements | Any tags that describe game elements originally found in strategy games only, or generally seen as a defining traits of the genre. | list_alt | 0 game | |
| Survival horror | notifications | 1975 / 2019 | 320 games | |
| Tactical RPG[Strategy RPG;T-RPG;S-RPG;Tactics RPG;Tactical role-playing game;Simulation RPG;シミュレーションロールプレイングゲーム] | A sub-genre of RPGs focusing on tactical or stategic combat while having practically no personal achievements, adventuring, or such as you would in more traditional RPGs. | notifications | 1988 / 2019 | 448 games |
| Third-person shooter(3rd person shooter) | A derivative genre of first-person shooters with same restrictive qualifiers, but from third-person perspective instead. | notifications | 3 games | |
| Time management game | A "puzzle" genre where the aim is to maximize efficiency over time. Often involves maintaining a schedule and/or building efficient task queues. | notifications | 2007 / 2011 | 7 games |
| Transport puzzle (Logistics puzzle) | A variety of puzzles where the goal is to transport something somewhere else, such as by sliding/pushing game pieces around. | notifications | 1982 / 2016 | 143 games |
| Tug o' War strategy | A nameless genre that resembles a very simple single-plane strategy where one factions harvests/generates resources in one end and sends endless stream of uncontrollable troops towards the other end and hope they beat the opposition generated there. | notifications | 2009 / 2013 | 11 games |
| Twin-stick shooter (Twin-analogue shooter) | A shooter sub-genre characterized by two (joy)stick control with no buttons needed to shoot, one stick controls movement while the other stick controls shooting (both direction and the action). | notifications | 1980 / 2019 | 100 games |
| Vehicle simulation | Simulation sub-genre focusing on vehicle operation and physics. | list_alt | 0 game | |
| Vehicular combat | notifications | 1978 / 2019 | 229 games | |
| Visual matching | A type of puzzle games where you match colors, shapes, patterns or other visual cues together to progress. | notifications | 1978 / 2018 | 697 games |
| Western RPG (Computer RPG) | Any tags commonly perceived as defining or common traits of western-style RPGs. | list_alt | 0 game |