• Sailor Sega Saturn@awful.systemsEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    The paper starts with a weirdly bad definition of “computer game” too. It almost makes me think that (gasp) the paper was written by non-gamers.

    Computer games are manually crafted software systems centered around the following game loop: (1) gather user inputs, (2) update the game state, and (3) render it to screen pixels. This game loop, running at high frame rates, creates the illusion of an interactive virtual world for the player.

    No rendering: Myst

    No frame rate: Zork

    No pixels: Asteroids

    No virtual world: Wordle

    No screen: Soundvoyager, Audio Defense (well these examples have a vestigial screen, but they supposedly don’t really need it)

      • self@awful.systemsEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        things that are games:

        • the control circuitry for a $1 solar-powered calculator
        • my car
        • X11

        things that aren’t games:

        • pinball, unless it has an electronic score display
        • Quake-style dedicated servers
        • rogue (nethack)
        • bitofhope@awful.systemsEnglish
          0·
          2 months ago

          More computer games:

          • web browsers
          • stock market trackers
          • election watch

          More computer non-games:

          • hangman on a paper teletype
          • ARGs
          • anything on the Vectrex