10-18-2010, 02:26 AM
It's every feature that affects the course of your gameplay. For example, what's a platformer? It's got platforms, that you jump around on, okay... but Tomb Raider has platforms, and it's not a platformer, or at least not the same kind of platformer as Super Mario. You can say one is a subgenre of the other, but there are still distinguishing elements. Such as collecting coins. Every Super-Mario-style platformer out there has you collecting coins, or rings, or jewels. This isn't an arbitrary thing; the coins are tied into the gameplay in all sorts of ways. Rows of coins direct you around the level, they define subgoals (like "collect every coin"), some coins are rewards for subgoals, they give you a short-term reason to run around and explore, and so on. Tomb Raider and Prince of Persia have different sorts of mechanisms which fulfil those roles.
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Online Multiplayer Games|RPG Mafia Game
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Online Multiplayer Games|RPG Mafia Game