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Video Games in the Digital Age

Media language and the codes of video games

  • 3 things to know
  • A2 Unit 3

Overview

How lighting can be used to guide a player, game's art style and loading screen used for beyond hiding a load.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

Distinguish a first-person from a third-person camera and give one effect of each.

Key term

Name the three broad kinds of code that create meaning in a video game.

Key term

Why do designers use cutscenes sparingly?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Name the three broad kinds of code that create meaning in a video game.

    Model answer

    Technical codes such as camera position and interface design, visual codes such as setting, character design and colour, and audio codes such as music, sound effects and voice acting.

  2. 2

    What is a HUD?

    Model answer

    The heads-up display is the layer of interface information drawn over the game world, showing health, ammunition, a map or objective markers, so that the player has what they need without leaving the action.

  3. 3

    How does a minimal HUD change the player's experience?

    Model answer

    Removing interface elements makes the world look more like a film and increases immersion, but it forces the player to read the environment itself for the information the display would have given them.

  4. 4

    Distinguish a first-person from a third-person camera and give one effect of each.

    Model answer

    A first-person camera puts the player behind the character's eyes, which maximises immediacy and threat, whereas a third-person camera shows the avatar's body, which lets the player admire and identify with a designed character.

  5. 5

    What is a cutscene?

    Model answer

    A cutscene is a non-interactive sequence in which the game takes control from the player to deliver story, using the language of film such as shot/reverse shot and continuity editing.

  6. 6

    Why do designers use cutscenes sparingly?

    Model answer

    Every cutscene removes the player's agency, which is the medium's distinctive pleasure, so a game that cuts away too often starts to feel like a film that keeps being interrupted by play.

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Contexts of Media
Media Language
Media Representations
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