Games are an age-old way of passing time with friends and fleecing strangers for money.
See also Competition Index.
Types of Games
- Arcade Games: Games played on a special booth in a public arcade.
- Audio Games: Games specifically designed to be played without the use of graphics.
- Parlor Games: The oldest genre of social games, requiring no special equipment.
- Play-by-Post Games: Games played in the style of text adventures, requiring a computer.
- Tabletop Games
- Board Games: From Monopoly to chess, the classic test of skill and wits between friends and foes alike.
- Euro Game: A recent style in board gaming, first becoming widely popular with the mid-1990s success of The Settlers of Catan.
- War Games: Board games that attempt to simulate realistic military conflict. Many are infamous for having Loads and Loads of Rules (and cardboard counters). Advanced Squad Leader is probably the most famous example.
- Card Games: From poker to Magic: The Gathering, a way to win money and while away the empty hours.
- Collectible Card Games are a recently popular variant.
- Poker is a particularly famous card game.
- Dexterity Game: A game revolving around physical actions, but not to the extent of becoming a Sport.
- Tabletop Miniatures: The intersection of Board Games and Collectible Card Games, featuring Hero Clix, MechWarrior, Mage Knight and others. They often employ Turn Based Strategy.
- Tabletop RPGs
- Board Games: From Monopoly to chess, the classic test of skill and wits between friends and foes alike.
- Pinball Games: Formerly a type of Arcade Game, but the rise of home collectors and Digital Pinball Tables means pinball is more often played outside of arcade-type venues nowadays.
- Sports: Perhaps the oldest type of game, sports are often athletic contests with organized rules and objectives.
- Video Games: The most recent variety. Video games throw you into enthralling or addictive worlds where you forget yourself for a brief period. Any of the above categories can be translated to this format. Originating with Arcade Games, subgenres include Text, Adventure, MUDs, MMORPGs, RTS, FPS, and more.
Games by Origin
Tropes common to games in general:
Categories:
- Area of Effect
- Calling Your Shots
- Choose a Handicap
- Combinatorial Explosion
- Diminishing Returns for Balance
- Emergent Gameplay
- Fake Difficulty
- Fake Longevity
- First-Player Advantage Mitigation
- Gamebooks
- Instant-Win Condition
- Joke Character
- Junior Variant
- Kingmaker Scenario
- Late Export for You
- Loads and Loads of Rules
- Massive Race Selection
- Master Console
- Misère Game
- No Export for You
- No Plot? No Problem!
- No Port For You
- Not the Intended Use
- No Unified Ruleset
- Obvious Rule Patch
- Power Equals Rarity
- Prestigious Player Title
- Promotional Powerless Piece of Garbage
- Replay Value
- Sanity Meter
- Scavenger Hunt
- Scrabble Babble
- Sliding Scale of Cooperation vs. Competition
- Sliding Scale of Objective vs. Subjective Games
- Social Deduction Game
- Splash Damage
- Splash Damage Abuse
- Square Race, Round Class
- Strategic Asset Capture Mechanic
- That One Rule
- Unending End Card
- Variable Player Goals
- Variant Chess
In-universe games; games and game-playing as characterization
- Absurdly High-Stakes Game
- Artistic License – Statistics
- Boggles the Mind
- Calvinball
- Character-Driven Strategy
- Chess Motifs
- Chess with Death
- Cloneopoly
- Cosmic Chess Game
- Crazy People Play Chess
- Cunning People Play Poker
- Deadly Game
- Deep-Immersion Gaming
- Defeating the Cheating Opponent
- Fictional Board Game
- Five-Aces Cheater
- Game Between Heirs
- Game Night Fight
- Game of Chicken
- Graceful Loser
- Hollywood Board Games: Board Game-based characterization.
- House Rules
- Human Chess
- The Magic Poker Equation
- Make Games, Not War
- Most Common Card Game
- Munchkin
- New Rules as the Plot Demands
- Noob
- No Poker Face
- Player Archetypes
- Playing Card Motifs
- Rules Lawyer
- Russian Roulette
- Scrabble Babble
- Smart People Play Chess
- Sore Loser
- "Stop Having Fun" Guys
- Surprise Checkmate
- There Are No Rules
- Unsportsmanlike Gloating
