WHAT TO PLAY
Genres
16 genres · 5324 games in the catalog. Pick a genre and follow it from its first attempts to today — what started it, what changed it and what is worth playing now.
RPGs
952 games in the catalog
The RPG began as an attempt to move tabletop role-playing, above all Dungeons & Dragons from 1974, onto a computer. The player leads a character or a…
Platformers
709 games in the catalog
A platformer is a game in which a character moves across solid ledges, jumps over gaps and enemies, and the player's main skill is timing the jump. Th…
Adventure games
323 games in the catalog
An adventure game is one where you move through a world built in advance, pick up objects, talk to characters and work out what to do with what so the…
First-person shooters
240 games in the catalog
A first-person shooter puts you behind a character's eyes: the weapon sits at the bottom of the screen, the crosshair in the middle, and the world tur…
Shooters
608 games in the catalog
A shooter is the most direct game idea there is: something approaches, you aim, and you fire before it reaches you. The groundwork was laid in 1962, w…
Fighting games
262 games in the catalog
Fighting games rest on a simple idea: you control a character who has to get past opponents with fists, feet or a weapon. Two branches grew out of it…
Strategy
549 games in the catalog
Strategy is the genre where the player who plans better wins, not the one who clicks faster. You run an army, a city, an empire or just a handful of u…
Simulations
296 games in the catalog
A simulator is a game that promises neither a story nor quick reflexes but a model of something real: an aircraft, a submarine, a lorry, a city or a f…
Puzzle games
340 games in the catalog
Logic games rest on rules you can explain in a minute and on solutions you have to find with your head, not with quick fingers. The genre takes in fal…
Racing games
383 games in the catalog
A racing game rests on one simple idea: you drive a machine faster than you could ever run, and you try to keep it on the track. The groundwork was la…
Sports games
291 games in the catalog
A sports game takes the rules of a real sport and boils them down to controls that fit under a few buttons. The earliest attempts, from a tennis demo…
Survival horror
142 games in the catalog
Survival horror is a genre in which the player is too weak to simply shoot the threat away. Ammunition is scarce, healing items scarcer, the inventory…
Stealth games
57 games in the catalog
A stealth game rests on a simple trade: the player is weaker than the world around them, so they have to avoid it. Instead of a fight you get observat…
Metroidvanias
44 games in the catalog
A metroidvania is an action platformer in which the world is not a string of separate levels but one connected map. Most routes start out closed: a ju…
Rhythm games
53 games in the catalog
A rhythm game is one where what matters is not where you aim but when you press. The music is not a backdrop: it sets the tempo, the player has to fol…
Party games
75 games in the catalog
A party game is one you start when guests are already on the sofa and can explain in a minute. Rounds are short, the rules fit in a sentence, and luck…