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Look Up: (916 Terms)
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Contributions by Stephen Owens
Artificial Life
AL is basically the antithesis of Artificial Intelligence (AI). While AI seeks to simulate real world by following a complex series of rules, AL starts with very simple rules for a system and enables complex behavior to emerge from them.
Bonus Level
A level or stage in a game where the character can obtain special items or additional points that otherwise can not be achieved in regular gameplay. Being aply to play the bonus level usually requires some trick or cheat that can not be easily found in normal gameplay.
Cheats
Codes or tricks that are programmed into a game, which give the player special abilities; like invulnerability or extra weapons. Cheats are often programmed into games to facilitate easy testing, and left in to add depth. Many magazines print game cheats that they have discovered. Today many cheat websites now store thousands of cheats for games across multiple game platforms.
Combo
In a fighting game, a "combo" is a combination of moves executed in rapid sequence, often following so closely together that the opponent has no time to respond. Combos can do more damage to the other character than the sum of the damage inflicted by the individual moves. Some moves are only available during or after combos.
Continue
In arcades, when a game is over, one is often presented with the opportunity to continue where one died (instead of starting over at the beginning of the game) by inserting another quarter or token. Most home games also have the continue option, but have a limit of some set number of continues to prevent one from finishing the game the first time it is played.
Fatality
A special move that can be executed in some fighting games, notably the Mortal Kombat series, after a match is over, which results in the graphic death of the losing character. Variations include; "animalities", where the character is turned into an animal before killing it’s opponent, "babalities", where the loser turns into a baby, and "friendship" moves where the character does something goofy, like signs an autograph for the loser.
First Person
A perspective in which a player's character is not represented on the screen, but rather the view is such that the player "sees" what he or she would if they were actually performing the actions found in the game (looking through the window of a cockpit, for example).
Gameplay
The key element in any game, the fact of the game itself, what the player actually does. Examples: Pong - the act of bouncing the dot, which represents the ball, off the line that represents the paddle. Super Mario Bros - moving the plumber around, jumping on heads of enemies, breaking blocks, when trying to rescue the princess.
Interlacing
Because the electron guns that draw pictures on TV screens were initially too slow to draw the screen in one pass, the first lines at the top of the screen would be fading by the time the last lines were drawn, pictures on TVs were drawn using what is known as interlacing. First the odd lines down are drawn (line 1, 3, 5, etc.). Then the even lines are drawn (line 2, 4, 6, etc.). The image shown by one pass is known as a field, and the complete image drawn by two passes is known as a frame. Standard TV broadcasts run at 30 frames per second (fps). In an effort to boost hype for a product, sometimes ads or press releases would state that their game was "60 fields per second", instead of 30 fps. Most computer monitors are non-interlaced as well as many arcade screens.
Licensed Games
A game based on a story or character from another medium, such as a movie, comic book or TV show. Examples include Batman, Beavis and Butt-Head, Bart Simpson, etc. The rights to make these types of games have to be licensed from their respective owners.
Life
Many videogames give you multiple chances at gameplay, which are commonly called lives. Failing in a videogame results in your character getting 'killed' or otherwise terminated. When all the lives are lost, the game is over. Almost always, there is a way to acquire more lives, by reaching a certain goal or objective in the game.


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