A browser game is a video game that is played via the internet using a web browser. They are mostly free-to-play and can be single-player or multiplayer. Alternative names for the browser game genre reference their software platform used, with common examples being Flash games, and HTML5 games.
Christy Marx is an American scriptwriter, author, and game designer, especially narrative designer. She is best known for her work on various television series including Jem, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Conan the Adventurer, G.I. Joe, Hypernauts, and Captain Power. She is also known for her comic book work, including her original comic book series Sisterhood of Steel as well as work on Conan, Red Sonja, and Elfquest. Marx has also authored several biographies and history books.
The Escapist is an American video game website and online magazine. First published as a weekly online magazine by Themis Media on July 12, 2005, The Escapist eventually pivoted to a traditional web journalism format. In 2018, Escapist Magazine launched Volume Two, a rehauled website in conjunction with its purchase by Enthusiast Gaming. The site name reverted to The Escapist in April 2020. Gamurs Group acquired the site in September 2022. The company's entire video production team resigned to form Second Wind in November 2023 after editor-in-chief Nick Calandra was fired.
In video games, loot is the collection of items picked up by the player character that increase their power or level up their abilities, such as currency, spells, equipment and weapons. Loot is meant to reward the player for progressing in the game, and can be of superior quality to items that can be purchased. It can also be part of an upgrade system that permanently increases the player's abilities.
Role-playing games (RPGs) have developed specialized terminology. This includes both terminology used within RPGs to describe in-game concepts and terminology used to describe RPGs. Role-playing games also have specialized slang and jargon associated with them.
Worldbuilding is the process of constructing an imaginary world or setting, sometimes associated with a fictional universe. Developing the world with coherent qualities such as a history, geography, culture and ecology is a key task for many science fiction or fantasy writers. Worldbuilding often involves the creation of geography, a backstory, flora, fauna, inhabitants, technology and often if writing speculative fiction, different peoples. This may include social customs as well as invented languages for the world.
Brenda Louise Romero, previously known as Brenda Brathwaite, is an American game designer and developer in the video game industry. She was born in Ogdensburg, New York and is a graduate of Clarkson University. Romero is best known for her work on the Wizardry series of role-playing video games and, more recently, the non-digital series The Mechanic is the Message. She has worked in game development since 1981 and has credits on 49 game titles.
Armor Games is an American video game publisher and free web gaming portal. The website hosts over a thousand HTML5 browser games. Based in Irvine, California, the site was founded in 2004 by Daniel McNeely.
Amanita Design is a Czech independent video game developing company founded in 2003 by Jakub Dvorský and headquartered in Prague, Czech Republic. The company has created award-winning games including Machinarium, the Samorost series and Botanicula, as well as educational and advertising minigames and animations, all using Adobe Flash. Clients include BBC, Nike and The Polyphonic Spree. Since Pilgrims (2019) and Creaks (2020), the company has been using Unity to develop its games. Amanita Design currently operates in several smaller teams, each developing a game of their own. One of them is the upcoming cardboard-built adventure Phonopolis.
In video gaming, an achievement is a meta-goal defined outside a game's parameters, a digital reward that signifies a player's mastery of a specific task or challenge within a video game. Unlike the in-game systems of quests, tasks, and/or levels that usually define the goals of a video game and have a direct effect on further gameplay, the management of achievements usually takes place outside the confines of the game environment and architecture. Meeting the fulfillment conditions, and receiving recognition of fulfillment by the game, is referred to as unlocking the achievement.
Fastboot is a communication protocol used primarily with Android devices. It is implemented in a command-line interface tool of the same name and as a mode of the bootloader of Android devices. The tool is included with the Android SDK package and used primarily to modify the flash filesystem via a USB connection from a host computer. It requires that the device be started in Fastboot mode. If the mode is enabled, it will accept a specific set of commands, sent through USB bulk transfers. Fastboot on some devices allows unlocking the bootloader, and subsequently, enables installing custom recovery image and custom ROM on the device. Fastboot does not require USB debugging to be enabled on the device. To use fastboot, a specific combination of keys must be held during boot.
Heather Kelley is a media artist, writer and video game designer. She is a co-founder of the Kokoromi experimental game collective, with whom she produces and curates the annual Gamma game event promoting experimental games as creative expression in a social context. She regularly appears as a jury member for several computer gaming festivals. She is also a frequent public speaker at technology events.
I Wish I Were the Moon is a short Flash game by Argentine game developer Daniel Benmergui. It has been described as "a short love story told in the form of a puzzle game." The game was, as part of a collection of Benmergui's games, a finalist at the Sense of Wonder Night at the 2009 Tokyo Game Show. The game brought its maker, Benmergui, to international attention.
Mattie Brice is an independent video game designer, critic, educator, and industry activist. Her games and writing focus on diversity initiatives in the games industry, discussing the perspective of marginalized minority voices to publications like Paste, Kotaku, and The Border House. Her games are freeware and do not require programming to create.
TIGSource, short for The Independent Games Source, is a news blog and Internet community centered around the creation of independent video games, founded in 2005 by Jordan Magnuson but soon taken over by Derek Yu, both independent game developers. The site has been described as having been an important "cultural nexus" for the creation of indie games development in the 2000s and early 2010s, and a key player in changing the perception of independent video games as merely casual games to that of an art form. Its forums were the launchpad for several award-winning games, including the best-selling video game of all time, Minecraft, BAFTA-winning dystopian immigration officer simulation Papers, Please, viral phenomenon QWOP, puzzle-platform game Fez, and Yu's own Spelunky. The site was in 2009 referred to as "one of the primary sources of information about the indie scene on the web and host to one of indie's best forums, bringing creators and fans together to share novel new ideas and the greatest new games." In 2008, it was chosen as one of "100 top sites for the year ahead" by The Guardian.
Eli Piilonen, also known under the pseudonym 2DArray, is a Nebraska-based American video game developer working as lead designer at indie studio Messhof. Piilonen is however mainly known for his earlier, independent work on browser games such as Spewer, the art game The Company of Myself, its prequel Fixation and the roguelike Not The Robots. The Company of Myself and to a lesser extent its prequel Fixation have frequently been cited as an early art game that successfully explores issues of mental health.
The Company of Myself is a 2009 Flash platformer by Eli Piilonen featuring a hermit as the protagonist whose depressed inner thoughts appears as writing on the "walls" of the game. Piilonen has stated that the "core intent [of the game] is to be half puzzle game and half character study". It's been frequently cited as an early example of an art game and has received praise for how it deals with issues of mental health. Tom Fronczak of Destructoid called the game "brilliant". It was included in Michael Rose's 2014 book "250 Indie Games You Must Play" and has been frequently cited in video games research. Piilonen later released a prequel for the game called Fixation.
John Cooney, also known by his pseudonym jmtb02, is an American game developer and former chief executive officer of Armor Games. He is best known for his numerous Flash games, many of which feature a blue elephant as the player avatar, including Achievement Unlocked and This is the Only Level.
This is the Only Level is a 2009 meta Flash game developed by John Cooney and published by Armor Games. The title of the game is a literal description of the game - the whole game takes place in a single level the player has to play over and over again, albeit with several game-changing variations as the game progresses. The game has received an (unofficial) port to PICO-8. Cooney also released two sequels to the game, This is the Only Level Too and This is the Only Level 3. The game was included on a list of "10 Flash Games That Pushed the Limits of the Genre" in a 2021 Screen Rant listicle.
You Only Live Once is a 2009 Flash platformer by game developer Marcus Richert, designed to be only playable once, not allowing the player another chance after dying in the game, even if it is restarted. It was a finalist at Sense of Wonder Night at the Tokyo Game Show 2009. It has together with One Chance been frequently cited in computer game academia as an example of the game mechanic permadeath. It has been also called a metagame and a "response" to Super Mario Bros. or an "affectionate parody of the tendency of video games to trivialise victims."
