Video Game Genres

"Video games are my favorite video games."

- Super Mega Comics #123

Genre, as applied to Video Games, customarily describes the style of gameplay rather than that of the story or setting as in other media. Many games mix and match among them.

It is also possible to move from one gameplay style to another within the same game, e.g. Mini Games, vehicle sequences within action games, etc. These gameplay changes can sometimes be unnecessary or unwanted.

Notable games in each genre can be found on the individual pages. Note that many games can and should be in multiple genres, as the lines can often get blurred, or games can incorporate elements of more than one genre. If you have a new game to add, put it in every genre you think it belongs! There are other, more thorough, game databases.


 * Action Adventure
 * Metroidvania
 * Action Game
 * First Person Shooter (FPS)
 * Hack and Slash
 * Rail Shooter
 * Third Person Shooter (3PS/TPS)
 * Adventure Game
 * Interactive Fiction
 * Point and Click Game
 * Arcade Game
 * Card Battle Game
 * Casual Video Game
 * Exergaming
 * Hidden Object Game
 * Mad Marble Maze
 * Minigame Game
 * Party Game
 * Rhythm Game
 * Puzzle Game
 * Bizarre Puzzle Game
 * Breaking Out
 * Falling Blocks
 * Match Three Game
 * Teamwork Puzzle Game
 * Time Management Game
 * Tower Defense
 * Edutainment Game
 * Pop Up Video Games
 * Fighting Game
 * Beat Em Up
 * Mascot Fighter
 * Wrestling Game
 * Maze Game
 * Multi-User (MU*) Text-Oriented Games
 * Multi User Dungeon (MUD) and MOO
 * MUCK
 * MUSH (Multi User Shared Hallucination)
 * Platform Game (Platformer)
 * Cinematic Platform Game
 * Puzzle Platformer
 * Programming Game
 * Role Playing Game (RPG) see also Tabletop Games (Tabletop RPG)
 * Western RPG
 * Eastern RPG
 * Strategy RPG (SRPG)
 * Action RPG
 * Roguelike
 * Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG)
 * Shoot Em Up (Shmups)
 * Bullet Hell
 * Cute Em Up
 * Horizontal Scrolling Shooter
 * Vertical Scrolling Shooter
 * Light Gun Game
 * Simulation Game (Sim)
 * Dating Sim
 * Driving Game
 * Vehicular Combat
 * Flight Sim
 * Mecha Game
 * Racing Game
 * Raising Sim
 * Space Management Game
 * Sports Game
 * Stealth Based Game
 * Strategy Game
 * Real Time Strategy (RTS)
 * Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA)
 * Turn Based Strategy (TBS)
 * Four X (4X)
 * Turn Based Tactics
 * Survival Horror
 * Miscellaneous Games

There are several modifiers that can be applied to the genre of a game, as a twist on the standard formula. These include:
 * Competitive Multiplayer
 * Co Op Multiplayer
 * Full Motion Video
 * Gameplay Roulette
 * Massive Multiplayer Crossover
 * Massively Multiplayer Online
 * Meta Multiplayer
 * Museum Game
 * Music Player Game
 * Physics Based
 * Real Time
 * RPG Elements
 * Stealth Based Game
 * Tactical
 * Turn Based
 * Unexpected Gameplay Change
 * 3D
 * Visual Novel
 * Wide Open Sandbox

And also a number of particularly distinctive ways a game can be marketed or categorized:
 * Thirty Day Free Trial
 * Episodic Game
 * Freeware Games
 * Allegedly Free Game
 * Freemium
 * Microtransactions
 * Game Mod Index
 * Licensed Game
 * Shareware Game
 * Romance Game
 * H-game
 * Video Game Long Runners
 * Web Games