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Games and Culture
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Rounds, Levels, and Waves

The Early Evolution of Gameplay Segmentation

José P. Zagal

Georgia Institute of Technology

Clara Fernández-Vara

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Michael Mateas

University of California, Santa Cruz

This article explores the early evolution of the structure and management of gameplay in videogames. The authors introduce the notion of gameplay segmentation to capture the role that design elements such as level, boss, and wave play in videogames and identify three modes of segmentation. Temporal segmentation limits, synchronizes, and/or coordinates player activity over time. Spatial segmentation breaks the game's virtual space into sublocations. Challenge segmentation presents the player with a sequence of self-contained challenges. The authors describe each mode, and additional submodes, by analyzing vintage arcade games. The analyses illustrate how these games represent a "primordial soup" in which many current game design conventions were first explored. Their simplicity provides the authors with access to the original "building blocks" of videogames, thus allowing them to develop a rich vocabulary for the discussion.

Key Words: videogames • arcade • gameplay • game analysis • game ontology

This version was published on April 1, 2008

Games and Culture, Vol. 3, No. 2, 175-198 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/1555412008314129
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