YO

Been really busy lately.

Also, every year, I do my “Not Game of the Year” list, which is a GOTY list comprised only of games that no one else put on their lists. 2017 was surprisingly strong!
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Once your done finding me not funny, I want to ask you what you call certain things in games.

I’m always fascinated what people around the world call “finishing” a game.
North Americans seem to always say they “beat” a game, which is funny, as it’s so victorious-sounding.

In Australia, we generally say we “finished” a game, which sounds very complete, with no room for continuation, whereas “beating” a game could imply you would maybe play it again. I’ve also used the term “clocked” a game to say I’ve completed it.

Another one is what we call “Quests/Missions/Jobs/Tasks”.

I’m curious if these game the same regional differences. Obviously it depends on what the developer calls them in the game, but I’m interested what fellow developers around the world default to calling Tasks in their games.

Personally, I don’t like “Mission”, as it sounds too militaristic, and implies a planned, correct end-state for the task that can either be successful, or a failure. This comes back to my feelings on “beating” a game.

“Quest” is nice, but seems very righteous, maybe reinforcing the notion that the player is inherently the hero of this story.

For Desert Child, I’ve used the name “Jobs”, since you’re working for someone for a monetary return. It seemed very strange to call them either “missions” (since they are mostly illegal activities), or “quests” since it’s a scifi racing game.

Finally, What do you call the main gameplay portion of your game? Do you use “Campaign”, “Single Player”, “Story Mode”, etc.?

These all carry different connotations too, which I find super interesting. It’s also interesting how we need to use these ones to define/explain the difference between say Single player and Multiplayer in games that have both.

Leave a comment bellow if you’ve got some interesting names for things in games!