Who, What, When, Where, Why, How?
On Genre Variation, Proper Categorization, And Why Aesthetics Are Not Actions.
Genre is Descriptive and as such, Prescriptive.
It maps the boundaries of things and in doing so, gives us an understanding of what those things are and how to make them. But its scope is limited and the lines it draws are more gesture than border.
See, “Genre” is an incomplete term.
We traditionally used it in a remarkably literal sense (“Genre” being a French word meaning “type” or “kind”), using it to categorize things like we were sorting them into buckets. And while that’s not an incorrect use, it also flattens things out. As mediums gain more dimensions, that kind of “is it X or Y?” kind of categorizing starts becoming more obfuscatory than illuminating.
So we need a new structure, one that can manage the mediums and works we are seeing today, and so we must complete our definition of Genre. Because in order to make real use of what genre can offer, we have to clarify what’s describing what. Since, as it turns out, we’ve been using one word to mean three different things.
“Steampunk”, “Noir”, and “Rail Shooter” are all “Genres” but not all the same type of genre.
And so, if we want to get any real use out of the term, we have to define what type of genre we’re talking about.
“So, Renoir, David Lynch, and John Romero walk into a bar…”
There are, essentially, three kinds of genre: Aesthetic, Narrative, and Mechanical. Every creative work will deal with at least one of these categories, and likely multiple, dependent on the medium in question. Since we’re talking games here, we’ll be engaging all three.
First up is Aesthetic Genre. This refers to visual/conceptual style like Pastoral (for Paintings) or Wild West (for more narrative mediums like Film and Literature). This genre type deals with establishing common background themes and passive expectations. A Wild West aesthetic or Setting means you’re not gonna be surprised by a high noon showdown but you might be surprised if one of the fighters rolls up in a flying saucer.
This does not have to do with the actual story of a work, though it does help frame the tone and sensibility of it. You’re going to have different expectations of a story in a Fairy Tale setting than a Gothic Horror one, even if the stories are identical otherwise.
Second is Narrative Genre. This refers to the structure of story being told like Romance or Tragedy. This variety of genre sets expectations about the events of the narrative and the roles of the characters involved. A tall brooding individual will wind up in a very different place in a romantic story than in a tragic one. It also helps frame what the common takeaway from a scene is, a romance story is going to be more preoccupied with what the impact events have on the characters relationships whereas a grand drama will be more focused on the broader ramifications and lingering consequences events will have for larger groups in the story.
Last is Mechanical Genre. This refers to the interactive style of a game like Racer or First-Person Shooter. This kind of genre defines how the player interacts with the world displayed to them and frames the character’s experience of the world around them. A Gothic Romance Strategy where you manage the subtleties of courtship like a game of chess would be fundamentally different than a Gothic Romance First-Person Slasher where you are dueling your way to the hand of your beloved and they would say very different things from each other about the mentality of our lovelorn hero.
We can understand these like spacial dimensions:
Aesthetic Genre is akin to Painting and Photography, capturing a place or thing in a moment in time.
Narrative Genre is akin to Literature and Film, portraying a series of events through a chronology, linear or otherwise.
Mechanical Genre is wholly Gaming’s own, putting agency and interactivity into otherwise unchanging and independent territory.
Ladies, Gentlemen, and Individuals of Complex and Manifold Gender, may I present our X, Y, and Z axes.
Now, none of these are inherently dominant over each other, we’ve all seen stories where the aesthetic is the reason why we’re here and we’ve all played games for the mechanics while ignoring a paper-thin plot.
But all of them both contribute to the overall work and each describe a different category the work falls into.
And that’s why “genre” is an incomplete term: we are using one category to describe something with far more complexity than that one can hold.
If I tell you a game is “Steampunk”, what kind of game do you think of? That could accurately describe Frostpunk, Evil West, or 80 Days.
What if I tell you the game is a “Noir” instead, what then? That could describe Chicken Police, Gunpoint, or Disco Elysium.
And if rather I tell you it’s a “Puzzler”? That covers The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, Jenny LeClue, and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.
Put all those together and I’m describing Lamplight City and Dark Train.
“These categories are massive and they share almost nothing in common? What’s the point of them?” Well, they actually do have major elements in common, they just approach them in very different ways and that’s what makes genre useful: by knowing each genre’s core elements, we can experiment with them more effectively!
Braeburns, Bartletts, and Breaking Rules
By understanding what key elements a genre is built around, we can experiment with meeting those requirements in new and interesting ways. Whether by mixing new genres by finding shared themes (mix dungeon crawler and strategy and get Dungeon Keeper! Toss in Roguelike and get Legend of Keepers!), or by being able to strip down elements and build in new directions (tabletop wargaming>fantasy roleplaying>computer dungeon crawlers>Doom), we can play around with genre to create something new and in the process redefine what we understood the genre to be!
However, trying to do this without really grasping what a genre is talking about leads to awkward mashups that either wind up a confusing and vomit-like slurry or something clearly of one genre with parts of others stapled to the side like a hashed-together Frankenstein’s Monster. Even keeping a straightforward approach, keeping to one genre of each applicable type, can get messy if you don’t understand what genre applies to your work and what you may or may not want to do to follow it further.
That’s what I mean by genre is descriptive and prescriptive: it describes a set of traits and so helps structure works that want to center those traits. Knowing what makes a work “hard science fiction” means you can highlight it better in other aspects or you can deconstruct it with greater skill or even more neatly avoid it if you so choose.
Being able to make the conscious decision to either integrate a genre’s core elements or to just leave it at its trappings is remarkably useful on its own, even before you begin to experiment with things.
And one of the important things to understand is that genres don’t really cross type boundaries so well.
“Looks can be deceiving. Actions, more so.”
Unfortunately for a lot of designers, you cannot substitute one type of genre for another. Aesthetics cannot take the place of Narrative and vise versa. Even ones that are seemingly capable of that kind of ‘lateral’ movement are actually just related genres in other categories: Wild West aesthetics are related to Western narratives but are still a separate and distinct genre!
Let me show you what I mean: Horror (Aesthetic), Horror (Narrative), and Horror (Mechanical) are, much like genre itself, three separate things sharing the same name. They’re related in that all three of them share the same core intent (unsettling the audience) but do so in different, unique but ultimately compatible, ways.
Horror as Aesthetic genre is centered on displaying unsettling imagery. Whether gory, unnatural, or non-Euclidian, they all make for an image that unnerves its audience and sticks like tar in their minds.
Horror as Narrative uses control of information to create an atmosphere of dread and growing…well, horror as the events unfold to their conclusions. It may do so through the main character/audience slowly learning the identity of their stalker is someone close and trusted, or the missing slasher bursting through the window just as their victims (mistakenly) think they’re safe, or even the last survivors staring at each other, wondering who among them is the monster in disguise.
Horror as Mechanics disempowers its players, forcing them on the defensive and keeping them from finding their footing. Lethal enemies, limited resources, and restricted capabilities all weaken players and keep them from becoming the hunter instead of the hunted.
All of these are fully compatible with each other, but none of them could replace each other. An image cannot disempower its audience nor could it restrict one’s knowledge in a chronological way. In the same way, you couldn’t have gory or unnatural gameplay because those are simply aesthetic elements placed on top of game mechanics (how would a game’s structure be unnerving unrelated to either the game’s aesthetics or its chronological events?).
Getting this all corralled
Getting used to identifying what genres fall into what categories is important for figuring out what your game is missing, even setting aside all the other experimental stuff it enables. Knowing that your Cyberpunk Rail shooter lacks a Narrative genre or your Victorian Gothic Mystery needs a Mechanical genre to give your player something to actually do will help you both identify when one of your genres is overextended and to think about what genres in the neglected category would make the experience you want to craft stronger.
The core elements of genres are constantly being discovered and redefined, so working within them is not some pop culture pop quiz. It is a process of experimentation and discovery and at the end of the day, your game being as clear in what you want it to be is the number one priority. Just keep in mind that you may have just found a new core concept for the genres you’re working in or even the roots of a new genre when you do so!