version

Well-known member
Mortal Kombat brought "Finish him!", "Flawless Victory" and "Fatality!" into the popular lexicon. You often see them deployed in response to people winning arguments online.
 

william_kent

Well-known member
a couple of memes originating from video game dialogue:

"all your base are belong to us"

"I used to be an adventurer like you. Then I took an arrow in the knee."
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
To be as sick as a parrot is to be very disappointed or unhappy. ... It originated from the deadly viral parrot disease, which was passed on to humans and killed many people in Africa in 1973.
You learn something every day.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
"loot boxes"
@suspended may want to look into this, as a social phenomenon.

The formula of dungeons, and "dungeon-crawling", is a major factor in sci-fi and fantasy video games, which seem to be two distinctly different intensities while sharing some common dynamics.

Stemming from D&D ostensibly, but I have little experience there. Yet.

The generic format of there being a level to clear, with various fights at that level, in a sort of structured inciting/resolving ebb and flow unto the boss, the climax, and the ulfimate reward. (edit: not unlike the paradigms which we screenwriters are taught)

With loot boxes strewn about, some in predictable and contextually obvious places, and others tucked in crannies reserved for those who take the time to look.
 
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Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
Also, in terms of appreciating a sort of ontological evolution, video games are something that you can go back in and play a twenty-year-old version of, in a way that one cannot do in life.
 

william_kent

Well-known member
@suspended may want to look into this, as a social phenomenon.

The formula of dungeons, and "dungeon-crawling", is a major factor in sci-fi and fantasy video games, which seem to be two distinctly different intensities while sharing some common dynamics.

Stemming from D&D ostensibly, but I have little experience there. Yet.

The generic format of there being a level to clear, with various fights at that level, in a sort of structured inciting/resolving ebb and flow unto the boss, the climax, and the ulfimate reward. (edit: not unlike the paradigms which we screenwriters are taught)

With loot boxes strewn about, some in predictable and contextually obvious places, and others tucked in crannies reserved for those who take the time to look.

the whole "hit points", "level", "level up", "clearing the level", and "dungeon crawling" terminology is directly derived from Dungeons & Dragons which originated in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin ( and, credit where due, the wargaming clubs of the Twin Cities and Chicago, where some of the ideas were 'borrowed' from ) - students at universities in the 70s abused their access to mainframes to program some of the earliest computer games to create their own D&D games which combined dungeon exploration, killing monsters, collecting loot, and gaining "experience points" - originally text based they would feature phrases like "you are in a maze of twisty tunnels", but once video was a thing then it was possible to create 2D representations of the "dungeon level" - then in the 80s came "rogue" and the "rogue likes" - dungeon exploration games featuring "insta death" ( one life only ), procedural generation ( maps different every time you play ), RNG ( random number generation - vital for "spawning" "loot" in different places and the procedural generation), a "McGuffin" for the main "quest" ( the spurious item that must be retrieved - for example "the amulet of Yendor" in the game "Nethack", one of the best roguelikes), "side quests", "level bosses", "grindng" to gain "experience points" ( I once watched a friend spend hours pushing a rock around a level of Nethack to boost their "strength attribute" ) - I could go on, but a lot of the terminology we use for video games is directly derived from D&D and the early attempts to program D&D inspired games

in turn, D&D took a lot of its concepts from the German Kriegsspiel ( 19th Century Prussian officers trying to simulate war) :

Most forms of Kriegsspiel involve at least two teams of players and one umpire gathered around a map. The map represents a battlefield. Each team is given command of an imaginary army, which is represented on the map using little painted blocks. Each block represents some kind of troop formation, such as an artillery battery or a cavalry squadron. The players command their troops by writing their orders on paper and giving them to the umpire. The umpire will then read these orders and move the blocks across the map according to how he judges the imaginary troops would interpret and execute their orders. The outcomes of combat are determined by mathematical calculations.

Table top wargamers in the 60s US Midwest adapted the Kriegsspiel rules, but once people tried to model individuals ( "heroes" ) then the whole modelling of attributes came in - how strong, how wise, etc., - a lot of these mechanics are hidden nowadays in video games, but they can all be traced back to the Midwest war gaming scene of the 1960s and early 70s
 

william_kent

Well-known member
almost forgot - "character class" and "class" - found in games like Team Fortress, RAGE, tactical shooter genre titles ( "medic", etc., ) all come from D&D
 

william_kent

Well-known member
"armour class" and "hit points" derive from a table top naval war-game popular in 60s Chicago - the ships would have a value assigned for amour, and once their hit points were depleted the ship would sink - this was borrowed by the Lake Geneva guys for D&D and ends up in computer games as "armour rating" and "health"
 

william_kent

Well-known member
Sometimes it feels like all these top games draw from the same source code.

that's because they do! for example pedit5

pedit5, alternately called The Dungeon is a 1975 dungeon crawl video game developed for the PLATO system by Rusty Rutherford.[1] It is considered to be the first example of a dungeon crawl game, believed only to be preceded by a game named m199h listed among some PLATO lesson lists but which no copies exist to affirm.[2]

In the game, the player guides a character who wanders a single-level dungeon accumulating treasure and killing monsters. When a player encounters a monster, he can use one of several spells. Characters can be saved from one play session to the next.[3] The dungeon was rendered using on-screen character graphics. Though the dungeon presents a fixed layout, the monster encounters and treasure were randomly generated, making it an early predecessor of the roguelike genre.[2]
 
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