Arts and Crafts
This iconic rendering technique is used in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and Persona 5 gives the graphics a hand drawn or comic book appearance.
What is Cel-shading
Created by Valve for Half-Life 2 in 2004, this engine went on to power games like Portal, Titanfall 2, and Garry’s Mod.
What is the Source Engine
This gaming giant initially founded in 1889 was notable for producing Hanafuda playing cards before getting into the video game industry many many decades later.
Who is Nintendo
In platformers like Celeste and Super Mario, this forgiving grace period allows a player to jump for a few milliseconds or frames after walking off the edge of a platform.
Coyote Time
Sony reportedly spent up to $200 million and 8 years developing this hero shooter, and proceeded to take it offline and shut down the studio just two weeks after launch.
What is Concord
This 3D modeling term primarily refers to the low polygon model generated over a high poly sculpt to optimize performance without losing visual detail
What is Retopology
This free 2D and 3D game engine derives its name from a famous Samuel Beckett play, and was the most used game engine for this years GMTK Game Jam.
What is Godot
Widely considered one of the first modern video games, this interactive program built at the Brookhaven National Laboratory used an oscilloscope for it’s display.
What is Tennis for Two
This gameplay design technique prevents players from encountering a “missed input” by allowing player actions to trigger as soon as they are allowed
What us Input Buffering
This game engine took a whole year to back down from it’s attempted introduction of a “runtime fee” in 2024 despite developer outcry.
What is Unity
The term often used for a single “unit” of a game world or object composed of 3D cubes, used in games like Teardown and Crossy Road.
What is a Voxel
Originating it’s development from a 1998 FPS game, this game engine has gone on to power more than just video games, expanding into many other industries like film and TV.
What is Unreal Engine
This famous 1994 video game console was initially created from a failed partnership between two Japanese corporations.
What is the Playstation
In game balancing, this design loop mechanic gives losing players an advantage to catch up (like extra speed or stronger items) to keep matches competitive and close.
What is Rubber Banding
Despite releasing the critically acclaimed rhythm action game Hi-Fi Rush, this Microsoft owned Japanese studio was suddenly closed down in 2024.
Who are Tango Gameworks
Adopted heavily in the mid-2010s, this lighting model uses real-world optical properties—like roughness and metallicness to ensure materials look consistent across any lighting environment, abbreviated as PBR.
What is Physically Based Rendering
While initially developed for a certain FPS franchise, this EA DICE developed engine found use in everything from Dragon Age: Inquisition to Need for Speed Unbound.
What is Frostbite
The North American video game crash of 1983 is famously associated with the commercial failure and massive landfill burial of this Atari 2600 movie tie in game.
what is E.T.
This programming pattern is commonly used for a wide range of applications from animations to AI decisions.
What is a state machine
According to the Game Developers Conference, 1/3 of all surveyed developers reported experiencing this common industry phenomenon within the past 2 years.
What is being layed off
The process of mapping a 3D mesh onto a 2D coordinate plane for texture mapping, or vice versa.
What is UV Unwrapping
While not itself a direct game engine, this game is the root grandfather of many game engines itself. More modern games like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, COD: Black Ops 7, Apex Legends, and Deadlock are all in some way built upon this 1996 game.
What is Quake
This company was the target of gaming’s largest acquisition wherein Microsoft paid an absorbent 75 billion dollars to obtain franchises like Overwatch and Call of Duty.
What is Activision Blizzard
this term describes the jarring conflict between a game's narrative themes and its actual gameplay mechanics.
What is ludonarrative dissonance
The term often given to the period near the end of a game’s development cycle where employees are worked upwards of 85 hours a week.
What is crunch