Macrogame

Some part of a game that carries over between multiple playthroughs or multiple players.

See also New Game+, which is the most common application. If it crosses from one game to another in the same franchise, it's an Old Save Bonus. Succession Game is a subcategory. Despite the similar names, it's not quite the opposite of a Mini Game.

Examples of Macrogame include:

Video game examples

Action Adventure

You can transfer your character between chapters in Penny Arcade: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness.
- Arguably the point of any episodic RPG-ish game

Action Game

Skills you unlock in the Devil May Cry series carry over between playthroughs, and it's expected that you'll max out your stats before tackling the harder difficulties.
- Clover Studios/Platinum Games seemed to like doing this, as this was also the case with the Viewtiful Joe games and Bayonetta.
The goal (if it can be called such) of Noby Noby Boy is to stretch your BOY to as long as possible. You can then upload your length to GIRL. GIRL's length is the total length of all BOYs submitted, and as GIRL reaches new milestones, new playgrounds are unlocked for all BOYs.

Edutainment Game

Gravestones in The Oregon Trail are potentially shown to future parties going along the trail, these stones were allowed to be inscribed by the player allowing for some very interesting messages.
- A particular version of the game widely circulated online has one well known tombstone: "Here lies andy. peperony and chease." For those of you who are scratching your heads, this is presumably a (misspelled) reference to a series of commercials for Tombstone brand frozen pizza (though the commercial given here requests for "pepperoni and sausage", and there's this one featuring a request for "crust that rises").

Fighting Game

Most modern Wrestling Games include championship belts, whose holders are persistent between playthroughs. You can generally even put them on the line in multiplayer matches.

General

Arguably the entire concept of Achievements (Xbox360) or Trophies (Play Station 3) fits this bill, or at least it does as far as an individual game's list goes.

MMORPGs

Distinct from its New Game+ mode, Kingdom of Loathing has had a few items carry over, such as demon summonning names. There were also some other items that depended on how many other players had, such as a particular familiar.

Platform Game

The entire point of Jesse Venbrux's Deaths is this. Normally its just a platformer with very tricky death traps, however, whenever you play, the server loads up the corpses (blood and all) of all the last 100 players to die on that level. Normally this will just hint at where the hidden death traps are, however, in the last two levels, you have to create a pile of your own bodies in one instance to block one of the traps, and in the other, to create a hill to jump on so that you can get to the goal.
- Another of his games, Execution, gives you the option either to shoot a man tied to a post or not. If you shoot him, you lose, and if you load the game up again it says "It's already too late." You get to the guy you're supposed to execute, only he's already dead.
  - Even worse, deleting everything and reinstalling the game won't bring him back.

Roguelike

When a character dies in Nethack they have a chance of leaving a 'bones' level which can be found by other players. This may provide valuable loot. But the bones are guarded by the old player's hostile ghost and any surviving pets, and most of the loot is invariably cursed.
- Also, finding a bones pile is a sure sign that whatever killed your previous character is out there to get you.
Dungeon Crawl features player ghosts as well. Most characters can leave ghosts upon dying - undead, however, cannot. When a ghost is created, it inherits the traits of the character it is based on - for example, a dead summoner will use summoning magic to fight new characters.
Dwarf Fortress generates a "world" with its own history and established locations at the beginning of the game. However, multiple games can be played in the same world, allowing an adventurer to visit fortresses created by the player in earlier games or for settlements to grow, be established, or be wiped out over time. Failed or abandoned fortresses can be reclaimed and recolonized, dead adventurers' possessions can be located and retired adventurers can be encountered and recruited.
In The Binding of Isaac, a lot of items and bosses are unlocked after subsequent playthroughs.
Tales of Maj'Eyal has an item vault that is only accessible to donators. The item vault allows transferring items between characters that successfully reach the location. Given the highly random nature of the game and the near-impossibility of farming anything, the benefit to the player is massive. And with the default Adventure Mode having multiple lives, the player can just store his best and rarest stuff once he has only one life left, so that no top tier equipment is ever lost.

Role-Playing Game

Over multiple games of Shiren the Wanderer it's possible to improve the towns you visit, which in turn gains you allies and new types of items to find.
The tactical RPG Shining Force III had three "scenarios", each with the player controlling a different side of the war. However, the game still read your previous game's save files, allowing for customizable character names to carry over, special events in later scenarios that are unlocked in earlier ones, and even a climactic final battle where the player controls all three armies at once.
Super Robot Wars games will variably let you carry over pilot levels, mech upgrades, money, items, and Favorite Series (allowing you to slowly Favorite every series in the game).
- W, at least, will automatically favorite all series on the third playthrough. W also features enemy upgrades to keep some semblance of challenge.
Dawn of Mana lets you keep badges and money earned, bonus stages unlocked, and pets found, as well as allowing access to higher difficulty levels.
Once a class specialization is unlocked in Dragon Age Origins, it remains unlocked for all subsequent playthroughs.

Shoot'Em Up

In Battle Garegga, every time the game is played, the rank (Shmup lingo for Dynamic Difficulty) at the start of a new game increases. If you're playing it in the arcade in the evening, long after the machine's been on and after (presumably) many plays by other players, this can pose a problem. The only ways to initialize the rank are to reset the machine (or console, if you're in the Saturn version, or emulator, if you're playing on MAME), allow the Attract Demo to run all the way through, or use the Options menu (again, if you're in the Saturn version).

Simulation Game

Happens to some degree in SimCity 4: the residential, commercial and industrial demand in your cities is affected by your neighboring cities.
- It goes a bit further than that, and leads to many exploits. You can have one city sell its power, water and landfill space to other cities on the map, but once the city is selling its "goods" you can simply avoid playing that city ever again, and so never have to maintain those service providers. This allows building adjacent cities with no power/water/trash services of their own, which costs a bit more but makes up for it with 0 pollution, 0 space taken up, and no maintenance required.
- The Sims is similar in this regard (though not so much in The Sims 3, where switching households within a neighborhood carries a rather arbitrary penalty.)

Survival Horror

Your character level and skills carry over when you restart in Dead Rising. And since the entire game's on a strict time limit, it's difficult to win unless you play for a while just leveling up, then restart and play through with those skills.
- Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter by the same company had a similar system, and its difficulty tuned such that it was absolutely mandatory. On the plus side, new playthroughs unlocked extra scenes.

Wide Open Sandbox

Your galaxy in Spore is populated by creatures taken from other player's games. And your game. In fact, a number of in-game achievements require meeting your own creations when they are not under your control.

Non-video game examples

Real Life

Many pinball machines have jackpots that build up over multiple games. When one player wins it it resets to a given default value.