Games

Bartle taxonomy characterizes games as social community, world exploration, gamification reward, and competitive power.
Design elements: objectives, level layout. Combat, tension, enemies. Equipment and upgrades, health, consumables, credits, upgrades. Unreal Engine.

Toys

• Montessori sensorial materials
  • Froebel gifts
  • Pattern Blocks for tilings
  • Geoboard
• Lego
• Dolls or action figures. Stuffed animals or plushies. Hello Kitty by Sanrio.
• Lincoln Logs.
• Dominos and stick bombs.
• Alphabet foam mat. Click N’ Play kids mat.
• Tamagotchi digital pet.
• Play-doh and slime.
• Hoberman sphere
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marble_(toy)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_cards
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_skimming
• Tiddlywinks: shoot winks (discs) into a pot using a squidger (disc).
• Tic tac toe
• duck duck goose, simon says, red light green light, pin the tail on the donkey, “Heads up, seven up”
• Memory game: concentration, Simon lights, I packed my bag, Here Comes an Old Soldier from Botany Bay.
• Operation, Mouse Trap (1963), Hungry Hungry Hippos, bead maze.
• Connect Four, Clue, Battleship, Mastermind, Guess Who? with yes or no questions.
• Jenga and pick-up sticks.
• Race game: Monopoly, Pachisi or Sorry!, Life, Candyland, Trouble or Frustration, Aggravation, Snakes and Ladders.
• Yahtzee
• Slinky
• Physics
  • Newton’s cradle: conservation of momentum. Also Galilean cannon.
  • Cartesian diver
  • Drinking bird
  • Rattleback: only spins in one direction.
  • Tippe top: tennis racket theorem.

Mechanical puzzles

• Rubik’s cube.
• Tangram
• Flexagon, infinity cube, snake cube.
• Disentanglement, dissection, puzzle lock, puzzle box.
  • Baguenaudier: remove a loop of string from rings on interlinked poles. Similar to Towers of Hanoi.
  • 3×3×3 Soma cube. 2×4×5 Herzberger Quader
  • Bedlam cube
  • Yoshimoto Cube (1971).
  • Hedgehog in the Cage
  • Plate trick or Tangloids about orientation entanglement.
  • impossible bottle or ship in a bottle.
  • Interlocking: wood Burr puzzle
• Sliding block puzzle: 15-puzzle, Klotski, Rush Hour.

Word games

• Categories: list words in a category with a specific letter.
• The Minister’s Cat: describe a cat using each letter.
• Ghost
• Contact
• 20 questions
  • Botticelli: famous person
  • Psychiatrist: figure out a rule by asking questions.
• I spy

Hand games

• Rock paper scissors
• Thumb war
• Chopsticks
• Odds and evens
• Clapping game. Pat-a-cake.

Paper-and-pencil games

• Hangman
• dots and boxes
• Sprouts

Puzzles

• Crosswords
• Jigsaw puzzles
• Induction or lateral thinking
• Origami
• Maze
• Logic
  • Brain teaser
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Riddles
  • Light Up
  • Notpron (2004), The Impossible Quiz (2007), The Moron Test.
  • Matchstick puzzle
  • 24 puzzle
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Mathematical_games
• Sudoku and Nikoli
• Hex
• Practical jokes or pranks
  • Pythagorean cup or qīqì empties itself when overfilled. Puzzle jug has a perforated neck and a hidden drinking tube.
  • Shocking gum
  • Chinese finger trap
  • 1961 Great Rose Bowl Hoax
  • MIT Hacks
• Puzzle hunt and scavenger hunt.
  • MIT Mystery Hunt
  • Puzzled Pint
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Puzzles
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Word_puzzles

Classic party games.

• truth or dare
• wedding shoe game (who is more).
• Charades and Pictionary.
• Telephone
• Taboo: have partners guess the word without using the word or five additional words.
• Apples to Apples: submit the “red apple” noun card closest to the “green apple” target adjective.
• Fictionary or Balderdash: submit plausible definitions to obscure dictionary words.
• Twister
• Ouija: planchette board and a movable indicator
• Icebreaker: human knot, two truths and a lie, little-known fact, ball exercise, diversity questionnaire

Classic card games: Baccarat, Canasta, Contract bridge, Crazy Eights, Cribbage, Go Fish, Solitaire, gin rummy, Spades, Speed, Spite and Malice, War, Bingo.

• Poker: comparing or showdown. Texas Hold’em.
  • Two pocket cards, pocket aces is the best.
  • Five community cards. Bet before the flop (three cards), turn, and river.
• Matching
  • Rummy: build melds which are sets (3-4 of the same rank) or runs (3+ of the same suit), avoiding deadwood. Gin rummy is first to 100 points.
• Match the last discard in suit or rank. Goal is to shed all cards.
  • Big two, Crazy Eights, President, Durak (“fool”).
  • Mao: unspoken rules. Breaking a rule results in getting an additional card.
  • Uno
• Ascending sequence, often with matching suit.
• Banking game: blackjack and twenty-one. Hit or stand.
• Trick-taking
  • hearts
  • Contract bridge: two teams of two. After dealing, players call or bid on how many tricks they need to receive points for the deal. The bids also convey strength and distribution of the hands.
  • Sheng ji 升级
  • Madiao 马吊
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Trick-taking_card_games

Card games

• Set: a set has all the same or all different for each of the four features. Four features with three kinds of each feature.
• Hanabi: cooperative.
• King’s cup drinking game
• Collectible card game or trading card game
  • Magic: The Gathering (1993) by Wizards of the Coast.
  • Pokemon (1998).
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! (2002).
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Historical_card_games

Gambling

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craps
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Gambling
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roulette
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_prison
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baccarat
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slot_machine
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Carlo_Casino
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coconut_shy

Tabletop games

• Chess, Xiangqi, shogi.
• Go
• Draughts or Checkers. Chinese checkers triangular with marbles.
  • Backgammon, Mancala, Peg solitaire, Tafl games.
• Scrabble and Bananagrams
• Risk
• Zendo (1999) inductive logic guessing game. Icehouse pieces.
• Dominion (2008) deck-building game.
• Mahjong 麻将: four players with 13 tiles each try to form four melds and a set. 144 tiles, or 4 copies of 36 tiles: suits (dots, bamboo, characters) tiles numbered 1-9, honors (4 wind directions, 3 dragons), bonus tiles (1 flower, 1 season). Players gain points when the direction or number on the bonus tiles matches their seat position.
• Quiz bowl. Trivial Pursuit (1981). TriBond. FunTrivia (1995). Bookchase. Brain Chain (2006), Blockbusters, MindTrap, Kahoot. quizolympiad.com, quizcentral.net, World Quizzing Championships, British Quizzing Championships.
• Reversi or Othello
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Tabletop_games_by_type
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrom

Social deduction: Mafia, Werewolf, One Night Ultimate Werewolf, Avalon, Resistance, Secret Hitler, Blood on the Clocktower.

Text games.

• Kriegsspiel (1812) is the first wargame used for army training, by Prussia.
• Dungeons and Dragons DND (1974). Dungeon Master (DM). Blackmoor, Forgotten Realms, Planescape, Ravenloft, Dragonlance.
  • Critical Role (2015) web series.
  • Everyone is John oneshot: people with different obsessions take turns controlling John.
• GURPS: Generic Universal RolePlaying System (1986). Strength, Dexterity, IQ and Health stats.
• The Oregon Trail (1971): educational.
• Colossal Cave Adventure (1976) for the PDP-10. xyzzy is a teleport command. “you are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike”.
• Zork (1977) by Infocom. The player can be eaten by a grue in dark areas.
• Rogue (1980), Hack (1984), and NetHack (1987)
• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1984) by Infocom is a funny text adventure.
• The Lurking Horror (1987) by Infocom.
• The Uncle Who Works for Nintendo (2014) in Twine.

Strategy games

• Diplomacy (1954) board game.
• Risk (1957) board game.
• Civilization (1991): turn-based strategy game introduces the technology tree.
• Age of Empires (1997) historical strategy game.

Arcade games

• pinball
• Hamurabi (1968): resource management.
• NetHack (1987) is a procedurally-generated roguelike.
• Tetris (1988) has 400 million paid mobile downloads.
• Procedurally generated games like Spelunky (2008).
• Dance Dance Revolution DDR (1998) by Konami pioneers the music game.
  • Karaoke Revolution (2003) by Konami.
  • Guitar Hero (2005) by Activision.
  • Just Dance (2009) by Ubisoft.
  • Beat Saber (2019).
• Wii Sports (2006) sold 200 million copies. Kinect Sports (2010).
• QWOP (2008) and Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy (2017).
• Untitled Goose Game (2019).
• Genshin Impact (2020): open-world anime gacha game with character-switching and elemental magic. $4B revenue on $600M budget.
• Monopoly Go! (2023): over $2B revenue with $500M marketing budget.

Browser games on Newgrounds, Kongregate, Armor Games, Crazy Games, Miniclip.

• Slime Volleyball (1999).
• PopCap games makes Bejeweled (2001) and Plants vs. Zombies (2009) tower defense. Bought by Electronic Arts.
• Bloons tower defense (2007). Akinator (2007). Cursor*10 (2008). You Have to Burn the Rope (2008) against the Grinning Colossus. Kingdom Rush (2011). Frog Fractions (2012).
• Katamari Damacy (2004) by Namco.
• N game (2004).
• Line Rider (2006).
• Flow (2006), aquatic worm.
• Zynga pioneers social network games include Farmville (2009), Poker, Words with Friends, CSR Racing.
• GeoGuessr (2013).
• Dinosaur Game (2014) in Chrome.
• Agar.io (2015) pioneers .io games, simple free-for-all multiplayer arenas. diep.io (2016) is a tank shooter. slither.io (2016) adapts snake.
• Wordle (2021), Connections (2023).

Mobile games

• Tap Tap Revenge (2008) music game.
• Angry Birds (2009).
• Doodle Jump (2009).
• Fruit Ninja (2010).
• Candy Crush (2012) tile matching game by King, acquired by Activision. Most popular mobile game at 500 million users. Playrix tile matching games Gardenscapes (2016), Homescapes (2017), and Fishdom (2008) have 200-300 million users each.
• Flappy Bird (2013).
• Mario Kart Tour (2019) mobile game has over 100 million users.

Simulation games

• Microsoft Flight Simulator (1982)
• SimCity 2000 (1993)
• Dinopark Tycoon (1993)
• RollerCoaster Tycoon (1999).
• The Sims (2000) satirizes U.S. consumer culture. Acquired by Electronic Arts.
• Dwarf Fortress (2006) involves detailed emergent gameplay.
• Roblox (2006)
• Terraria (2011) 2D sandbox game in pixel art style. Procedurally generated.
• Stardew Valley (2016) is a farm simulator.
• Minecraft (2011) is a sandbox game with 300 million sold.
• RimWorld (2018).
• Factorio (2020)
• EA Sports include FIFA (325 million sales), NBA, Madden, etc.

First-person shooter (FPS)

• Wolfenstein (1981): a US army captain fights in World War II.
• Doom (1993) and Quake (1996) by John Carmack and id Software. Doomguy space marine saves Earth from hordes of demons and undead.
• BioShock (2007) by 2K (part of Take-Two Interactive 25B).
• The Witcher (2007): Medieval RPG. Monster hunter Geralt of Rivia with magical abilities.
• Metal Gear Solid (1987) by Hideo Kojima and Konami: stealth game. Solid Snake searches for the Metal Gear mecha equipped with nuclear weapons.
• Death Stranding (2019) by Hideo Kojima.
• Half-Life (1998) by Valve.

RPG

• First generation of video game consoles were hardwired. Magnavox Odyssey (1972) played pong.
• Second generation: Atari 2600 (1977) and the Golden age of arcade video games. Ends in the video game crash of 1983.
  • Fire Emblem (1980): tactical grid-based RPG. Features many weapon triangles.
  • Ultima (1981) establishes the RPG genre on the Apple II. Now owned by Electronic Arts. Play as the Avatar in Britannia.
  • Wizardry (1981).
  • Space Invaders (1978).
  • Donkey Kong (1981).
  • Pong (1972) and Asteroids (1979) by Atari.
  • Pac-Man (1980) by Namco.
  • Frogger (1981) by Sega and Konami.
• Third generation of video game consoles with 8-bit processors: Nintendo Entertainment System NES (1983).
  • The Bard’s Tale (1985) for Apple II.
  • Might and Magic (1986) for Apple II, now owned by Ubisoft.
  • Prince of Persia (1989) for Apple II.
  • Super Mario Bros. (1985) for NES. Best-selling video game franchise, with 800 million sales.
  • Legend of Zelda (1986): Link, a Hylian (elf), and Princess Zelda save Hyrule from Ganon. Ganon wants to use the Triforce. Composer Koji Kondo.
  • Ocarina of Time (1988), A Link to the Past (1991), Majora’s Mask (2000), Wind Waker (2002), Twilight Princess (2006), Skyward Sword (2011), Breath of the Wild (2017), Tears of the Kingdom (2023).
  • Metroid (1986): bounty hunter Samus Aran protects the galaxy from Space Pirates which weaponize the jellyfish Metroid monsters.
  • Dragon Quest (1986) by Square Enix for NES: turn-based.
  • Street Fighter (1987) arcade game by Capcom.
• Fourth generation with 16-bit processors: Super Nintendo NES (1990) and Sega Genesis (1988).
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (1991) by Sega and Konami. Sequal Sonic Dash (2020).
  • Mario Kart series (1992): 200M copies.
  • Duke Nukem (1991): platform game.
  • Square: Chrono Trigger (1995) has deep characterization with side quests and multiple endings. Chrono Cross (1999): a teenage boy explores a parallel world.
  • Fire Emblem (1990) by Nintendo: medieval turn-based.
  • Another World (1991)
  • Myst (1993) and Riven (1997): point-and-click adventure game with puzzles.
    • The Witness (2016) has Myst-like puzzles.
  • Xcom 2
  • Mass Effect
  • The Incredible Machine (1993) and Fantastic Contraption (2008): build Rube Goldberg machines.
• Fifth generation: 3D graphics, 32-bit processors, optical discs: Sony PlayStation (1994) and Nintendo 64 (1996). Also Game Boy Color (1998).
  • Suikoden (1995): battles with characters from Water Margin.
  • Pokemon (1996) represents “the story of a boy’s summer day”, collecting and training creatures. Ash and Pikachu fight Team Rocket.
  • Star Fox (1997): Do a barrel roll.
  • Super Smash Bros. (1999): platform fighting game.
  • Paper Mario (2000).
  • Command & Conquer (1995).
  • Tomb Raider (1996) follows Lara Croft.
  • Persona (1996): teens use manifestations to battle Shadow monsters.
  • Resident Evil (1996) by Capcom is the best-selling horror game. Umbrella Corporation creates the T-virus which turns people into zombies. Jill Valentine and Chris Redfield are members of the Raccoon City police Special Tactics And Rescue Service (STARS) unit. Ada Wong is a spy sent to infiltrate Umbrella. In the films, the AI Red Queen seals Alice in the Hive, an underground genetic research facility, after T-virus is released.
  • Silent Hill (1999): horror
  • Dead Space (2008): engineer Isaac Clarke fights Necromorphs on a spaceship.
  • Baldur’s Gate (1998) set in DND Forgotten Realms.
  • Grand Theft Auto series (1997) by Rockstar. 400M copies sold.
  • Fallout (1997): cyberpunk game set in 2161 after a nuclear war. The Vault Dweller is sent to the Wasteland beyond Vault 13 to acquire a replacement part for the water recycling machinery. The Master wants to transform all humans into Super Mutants through the Forced Evolutionary Virus, and runs the Children of the Cathedral front organization. Acquired by Bethesda.
  • Ico (2001) and Shadow of the Colossus (2005) minimalist and beautiful.
• Sixth generation: Sony PlayStation 2 PS2 (2000), Nintendo GameCube (2001), and Microsoft Xbox (2001).
  • Kingdom Hearts (2002) by Square Enix.
• Seventh generation: Xbox 360 (2005), PlayStation 3 (2006), Wii (2006). Nintendo DS (2004) and PlayStation Portable PSP (2005).
  • Portal (2007) by Valve: Chell escapes the Aperture Science Enrichment Center run by GLaDOS.
  • Assassin’s Creed (2007) by Ubisoft
  • Nier (2010) and Nier: Automata (2017)
  • The Elder Scrolls by Bethesda: Arena (1994), Daggerfall (1996), Morrowind (2002), Oblivion (2006). Best-selling Western RPG, sandbox gameplay.
    • Can play as human, Mer (elf), or Beast races.
    • Set in the continent of Tamriel on the planet Nirn.
    • The Elder Scrolls record past and future. Reading them can cause insanity.
    • Dawn Era. Lorkan tricks Auri-El into giving up part of itself to form Mundus, the mortal plane. Towers anchor reality in oblivion.
    • Akatosh is the Dragon God of Time. A Dragon Break is split portion of timeline where multiple conflicting realities coexist, before merging with contradictory and incomprehensible results.
    • Skyrim (2011): “arrow in the knee”.
  • Fallen London (2009) and Sunless Sea (2015).
  • Zero Escape (2009) for the Nintendo DS.
  • Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018) by Rockstar: 63M copies, $2B revenue on a $500M budget.
  • The Stanley Parable (2011)
• eighth generation of video game consoles: Xbox One (2013), PlayStation 4 (2013), Nintendo Switch (2017). Nintendo 3DS (2010).
  • FromSoft: Dark Souls (2011), Bloodborne (2015), Elden Ring (2022) are very difficult.
  • Undertale (2015): top-down with bullet hell combat. Metafictional.
  • Outer Wilds (2019): explore alien ruins of Nomai in a 22-minute time looping ending in a supernova.
  • Baba Is You (2019)
  • Cyberpunk 2077 (2020) by CD Projekt Red. 25M copies. $600M sales on a $200M dev budget and $200M ad budget.
• ninth generation (2020): PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and Series S

Multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA)

• 1997 Korean PC bangs (internet cafes) are cheap entertainment for underemployed youth.
• 1999 Hwang Hyung Jun organizes the first Starcraft tournament. 100,000 in 2004.
• Activision Blizzard
  • Warcraft (1994): 2D sprite-based RTS.
  • Diablo (1997) dungeon crawler.
  • Starcraft (1998): Terrans (space marines), Zerg (slimy hive insects), and Protoss (giants with psionic powers). Balanced, complex, comprehensible, and fast-paced. Zerg Rush, You must construct additional pylons, In Ur Base.
  • Call of Duty (2003), CoD: Mobile (2019), and Modern Warfare (2007) subseries is the best-selling first-person shooter series.
    • Press F to pay respects
  • World of Warcraft (2004) and Hearthstone turn-based card game (2014).
    • Leeroy Jenkins
  • Overwatch (2016)
• Counter-Strike is a multiplayer battle between terrorists and counter-terrorists created as a Half-Life mod.
• Halo (2001) by Bungie: space war between humanity and the Covenant, a theocratic alien alliance. Drives Xbox sales.
• Dota (2003) features five heros to destroy the enemy central base, the Ancient.
• Team Fortress 2 (2007) by Valve.
• League of Legends (2009) by Riot.
• Destiny (2014) by Bungie.
• Rocket League (2015).
• Fortnite (2017) by Epic Games: battle royale.
• PUBG: Battlegrounds (2017) and PUBG Mobile. 75M copies.
• Among Us (2018): “sus”.
• Fall Guys (2020) by Epic Games inspired by game shows like Takeshi’s Castle and Wipeout.
• Mobile Honor of Kings 王者荣耀 (2015, 50 million DAU, $5B) originally released as League of Kings. Tencent bought Riot in 2015. The international version is Arena of Valor. Children are limited to 1 hour a day.
• Dream Three Kingdoms 2 by Hangzhou.

MMORPG

• These grow from multi-user dungeons (MUD).
• Ultima Online (1997). Players manage to assassinate Lord British.
• Neopets (1999) features virtual pets and battle minigames.
• EverQuest (2000) released by Sony Online Entertainment.
• RuneScape (2001): largest MMORPG. Set in the medieval world of Gielinor. Old School.
  • Chambers of Xeric raid: Twisted bow (Tbow, 1.7B gp) is the strongest ranged weapon against monsters with high Magic. Challenge Mode increases enemy stats by 50%.
  • Theatre of Blood raid: Scythe of vitur (1.3B gp) slash weapon. Charging costs 600k gp/hr.
  • Tombs of Amascut raid: Tumeken’s shadow (1.4B gp) powered staff. Charging costs 900k gp/hr.
• Fantasy Westward Journey 梦幻西游 (2001) by NetEase has around 400M users.
• Eve Online (2003) by CCP games: Excel in space. Battle of B-R5RB was one of the most expensive in gaming history, with $300k USD in losses. First game to hire an economist, in 2007, and the first to have an elected player oversight committee.
• Kingdom of Loathing (2003): snarky humor
• MapleStory (2003)
• Club Penguin (2005).
• Final Fantasy XIV (2010) by Square Enix. Composer Nobuo Uematsu.
• Pokemon Go (2016) by Niantic.

Cheating

• Look-ahead cheating in peer-to-peer networks: see other player actions before acting by pretending to have higher latency. Lockstep protocol requires players to announce commitments first.
• Scripting and macros for farming, aimbots, and rapid fire.
• Artificial lag/lag switch pauses opponents so cheater can outmaneuver. Opponents see teleporting or invincible players.
• World-hacking: disable fog of war and opaque objects.
• Multiple accounts
  • Ghosting to get information from an observational account.
  • Twinking: transfer items from higher level characters.
  • Boosting: increase rating via sacrificial accounts to deliberately throw games
• Disconnecting before a loss if there is no disconnect delay period or auto loss.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strong_National_Museum_of_Play
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_types_of_games
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parlour_game