(Not) Game Genres, pt. 15: Graphical/Spatial Game Characteristics from Understanding Video Games

Taxonomy of Virtual Spaces

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

This post covers the system of graphical/spatial game characteristics defining the geography and representation in a gamespace presented in the book Understanding Video Games.

Understanding Video Games, 4th edition (Egenfeldt-Nielsen, Smith, and Tosca, 2020)

The authors of this text are Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen (CEO of Serious Games Interactive and dibl), Jonas Heide Smith (head of digital communication at the Statens Museum for Kunst), and Susana Pajares Tosca (Associate Professor and co-founder of Game Studies journal). The book is intended as a textbook to introduce students to game studies and the concepts of of analyzing game history, game aesthetics, games as culture, games as narrative, and serious games.

Video Game Aesthetics

The chapter on video game aesthetics opens by exploring the concept of a gamespace, defined as "the entire space (or world, or universe) presented by a game." This is similar to my definition of a gameworld, although a game may contain numerous gameworlds which may have different visuo-spatial configurations (see my link for an example of different gameworlds in Contra).

A gamespace is defined in part by its physical laws (pg. 126) (what I've described as the underlying dynamics that determine the rules of action of a virtual environment), perspective (how the player perceives the gamespace), dimensions (2-D or 3-D), space type (what I call gameworld topology), off-screen space (can off-screen elements affect the on-screen player?), scroll (what I call frame mobility), and exploration (can player explore gamespace at their own pace?).

Graphical/Spatial Game Characteristics 

Basic Graphical/Spatial Game Characteristics (adapted from pg. 131)

According to the authors, aspects of gameworlds, except for physical laws, may be defined using the graphical/spatial game characteristics in the chart above. The following compares this system to my own Taxonomy of Virtual Spaces.

• Perspective (1st person/3rd person) - My work does not focus on a game's ocularization. This section does refer to "isometric perspective" and describes "top-down perspective" and "bird's-eye perspective" as the same thing (pg. 131). My own work uses Projection Angles and defines a top-down camera angle as about 60° and bird's-eye camera angle as 90° (keeping in line with the Game FAVR system). I find estimated camera angles are less ambiguous than terms like "top-down."
• Dimensions (two/three) - The authors account for 3-D gamespaces that are "faked" with 2-D methods. Examples include Wolfenstein 3D with its 3-D world populated by 2-D sprite enemies, Sim City 2000 creating a sense of depth with isometric projection, and Moon Patrol using parallax scrolling to create a sense of a deep and distant background behind the gameplay. My system differentiates continuous spatial systems (of two or three dimensions) and discrete spaces of nodal networks (like a game of chess).
• Space Type (torus/abstract/free) - This aligns with what I call gameworld topology. The authors use Torus to describe both topologies that I define as toroidal and cylindrical (games with wraparound screens). It is unclear what is meant by Abstract and Free in the chart above, as these terms do not seem to be extrapolated on in the book's text. In fact, it describes torus space as "abstract" (pg. 136). The text does describe different types of multiscreen games (going beyond early single-screen games like Pong), mirroring my characteristics of Frame Mobility that define the Framing Device. Unconnected Levels include games where new game screens are not necessarily connected to the previous screen, like Bomb Jack and Pac-Man. I define these as Fixed Frame or single-screen games. I argue that games like Donkey Kong imply that the game levels are connected as a single building that Mario must climb (Donkey Kong is seen climbing out of the screen to the next level). Zone-Based Multiscreen Spaces fall under what I call Discrete (or Page Flip) Frame Mobility. This includes games like Atari's Adventure. Seamless Multiscreen Spaces fall under what I call Smooth Scroll Frame Mobility.
• Off-Screen Space (Dynamic/Static/None) - None would include single-screen games with no off-screen space. Static means that off-screen space is "passive" and cannot affect the player. Dynamic means that off-screen space is "active" and can affect the player, such as in a strategy game with fog of war.
• Scroll (Vertical/Horizontal/Free/None) - The text claims that "horizontal scroll was common in many arcade games of the 1970s and 1980s" (pg. 139). I'd argue that horizontal scrolling was extremely rare in the 1970s, with few examples like Sega's Bomber (1977). The text does not offer any examples games that date from the 1970s. The characteristics for this category are similar to my terms defining Frame Mobility Direction of the Framing Device. Vertical and Horizontal match my characteristics of the same names. Free is what I call Any Direction. None matches what I call Fixed Frame.
• Exploration (Forced/Free/None) - This is a concept I don't specifically explore in my taxonomy. My concept of auto-scroll frame mobility is an example of Forced Exploration, but so is any game level with a time limit.

Conclusion

I should add this system to my post about Comparing Visuospatial Configurations and Terminologies. The system expressed here covers much of the same ground as the Evolution of Spatial Configurations in Video Games by Clara Fernández-Vara, José Pablo Zagal, and Michael Mateas (the same system that I analyzed earlier in this series). The authors of this book chose terminology that is generally more common than the terms used in the earlier Evolution of Spatial Configurations system (gamespace instead of gameworld, dimensions instead of spatial representation, scroll instead of spatial configuration). The book cites other works by Fernández-Vara in the bibliography, but not this paper.

I am surprised by the aforementioned errors found in the book (horizontal scrolling common in the 1970s, no explanation of abstract and free space types), especially since I have the 4th edition of this book. However, my biggest issue with this system is that it cannot easily account for the inherently hybrid nature of digital games. There is mention of "faked" 3-D gamespaces inhabited by 2-D characters, but no accounting for a gamespace that features multiple different types of visuo-spatial configurations in one game (like my example from Contra). I don't know what they'd do with a game like Wario Ware.