Game design

Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 76. Chapters: Game designers, Video game design, Video game music, Sprite, Gameplay, Game mechanics, User-generated content, Open world, Level design, Emergent gameplay, Replay value, 3D modeling, Game balance, Nicklas Nygren, HUD, Cutscene, List of books about video games, Dynamic game difficulty balancing, Password, Context-sensitive user interface, Evolver, Scrolling, Gold sink, Kingmaker scenario, List of game designers, Pre-rendering, Super Nintendo Emulator SE, Skybox, .MDX, Josh Holmes, Flip-screen, House rule, Streaming audio in video games, Loading screen, Lightmap, Simultaneous action selection, Simon Phipps, Head swap, Warp zone, Wilfrid Short, Apex Computer Productions, Chris Rhinehart, Chris Crawford on Game Design, Palette swap, David Parlett, First playable demo, Lusory attitude, Jon MacLellan, Dynamic music, MDA framework, 21st Century Game Design, Ludonarrative, The Art of Computer Game Design, Mateusz Skutnik, TecMagik, Game Design Workshop, Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams on Game Design, Scripted sequence, Roppyaku Tsurumi, Eikichi Kawasaki, Impulse-based turn system, Jason Merchant, Environment artist, Virtual finance, Lame duck, Game Development Series. Excerpt: Video game music is any of the musical pieces or soundtracks and background musics found in video games. It can range from a primitive synthesizer tune to an orchestral piece, usually such that the older the game, the simpler the music. In recent times, many games have had complex soundtracks similar to those of movies, and sometimes even interactive soundtracks which change in order to create an appropriate atmosphere, based on what the player does. It is also much more common for video game soundtracks to be commercially sold or even be performed in concerts that focus on video game music. Music can also be an important gameplay element in certain types of video games (like rhythm games). At the time video games emerged as a form of entertainment in the 1970s (the first generation), music was stored on physical medium in analog waveforms such as compact cassettes and phonograph records. Such components were expensive and prone to breakage under heavy use making them less than ideal for use in an arcade cabinet, though in rare cases, they were used (Journey). A more affordable method of having music in a video game was to use digital means, where a specific computer chip would change electrical impulses from computer code into analog sound waves on the fly for output on a speaker. Sound effects for the games were also generated in this fashion. While this allowed for inclusion of music of early arcade video games, it was usually monophonic, looped or used sparingly between stages or at the start of a new game, such as Pac Man or Pole Position. The first such game to use a continuous background soundtrack was Taito's Space Invaders, which had four simple chromatic descending bass notes repeating in a loop, though it was dynamic and interacted with the player, increasing pace as the enemies descended on the player. The first video game to feature background music was Rally-X, released by Namco in 1980, featuring a simple tune that repeats continuously during gameplay