Media Access Control address. The address on a piece of hardware, on the MAC layer of the network, that is used to identify a node on a network. This address is unchangable since it resides in the hardware itself.

See Also:Node

Scripted (non-interactive) 3D animation comprised of pre-set camera motion, character motion and environment changes. Mostly used for cutscenes within a game in place of pre-rendered CGI animation or film. Typically uses a game's real-time 3D engine to depict a portion of the game story in a non-interactive cinematic representation. Gamasutra Article

A fast RISC-based OS with a good user interface and fast graphics.

A site dedicated to showcasing indepedent games.

A Korean-based translated 2D sidescrolling free MMORPG. Currently (as of Nov 15, 04) in Beta production stages. Features clean, cute anime-style artwork. Can be downloaded at Mapleglobal.com. Warning: Extremely addictive!

The process of convincing a gamer to buy that piece of cheap tat on the shelf. A good marketer can sell snow to Alaska. A bad marketer would have trouble selling snow in a desert. So if you find you've bought a dud game, criticize everyone but the marketing team: they're *paid* to make you buy these things.

TOP

A weighted graph in which all weights are nonnegative and the total weight of outgoing edges is positive.

A specific designation of multiplayer game in which the number of simultaneuous players is on the order of hundreds or even thousands.

A vertex on an matched edge in a matching, or, one which has been matched.

MaxScript is a built in feature of 3D Studio MAX. Is a very basic scripting language that allow you to customize the program (i.e. Macros). With MaxScript you can add buttons and tabs to the 3D Studio MAX interface, create small automated tasks, program shortcuts or just write a quick script to help you in a everyday task. MaxScript is versitle and very straight forward. You tell it what you would like it to do. It also comes w/ many functions that are in the Max/help/scrips file.

A premium modelling program produced by Alias, it is used by several companies in the games industry as their primary modelling tool. A free version is available at alias.com

A complex system of paths

IBM's PS/2 32-bit expansion bus. In 1987, IBM created the PS/2, with a 32-bit expansion bus, to replace the original PC's ISA 8 bit (and later 16 bit) buses. The MCA bus was patented, so other brands than IBM couldn't use them. That has lead a consortium to create EISA bus. Very few cards are in MCA bus nowadays.

TOP

The model format used in Quake II. Supports vertex interpolation for animation.

Quake III model format. Supports complete skeletal animation.

The value which has an equal number of values greater and less than it. For an even number of values, it is the mean of the two middle values.

Can be shortened to MB. 1 MB Approx.: 1,000,000 Bytes

Sid Meier, one of the most creative, influential, and successful game designers of all time, is most well known for his classic strategy games, Civilization and Railroad Tycoon. Meier has designed over a dozen games, including the award-winning Colonization, Pirates, Gettysburg and Alpha Centauri and founded two companies: Microrprose and Firaxis.

Specializing in game industry careers, Marc Mencher has helped thousands of job seekers. He is author of the book, Get in the Game; Careers in the Game Industry. He worked for several game companies such as Spectrum Holobyte, Microprose and The 3DO Company, before joining GameRecruiter.com. Marc served as President of the International Game Developers Network. He has spoken and held roundtables at several Game Developers Conferences and The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). In addition to representing the game industry¡¯s hottest talent, Marc also volunteers his time as a career coach for graduates from Full Sail Real World Education, helping them land their first game industry jobs. His articles have been featured in GIGnews.com, Gamasutra, and GameWEEK. He works with the IGDA on chapter development and Games-Florida, a non-profit organization formed with the intent of nurturing and expanding the interactive multi-media industry in the state of Florida. He is also Technical Advisor and Executive Producer for the recently released PC Adventure Game, Watchmaker. Currently, Marc is working on the release of the PC Adventure Game Tony Tough and The Night of the Roasted Moths (PC) and a Action Shooter, Tsunami 2265 (PC & PS2), published by Got Game Entertainment.

TOP

A windowed operating system that can be booted an run entirely from a floppy disk. It is possible to run this operating system with no hard drive at all by saving to the ram "disk." It comes with an HTTP server, assembler, note pad-like application, and 3D maze game, along with other things, all fitting on the floppy along with the entire operating system.

A 3d modelling term that refers to a model as a series of polygons.

Microsoft Foundation Class library. This is an API which programmers may use when writing programs for Windows operating systems.
See Also:API

Market Development Funds. Money used to secure shelf space and end caps with retailers and advertising.

Business that created OS Windows 3.1, 95, 98, NT, 2000. Also creates development SDK called DirectX which is used by most games on Windows OS. (WWW)

Musical Instrument Digital Interface. The interface between different sound hardware and software to pass on musicial information.

A popular 3D modelling package. It was originally made for modding games, and can export and import a wide variety of popular game formats. It supports textures and texture coordinate mapping very well, and has a nice SDK. The registered version is currently '25. http://www.swissquake.ch/chumbalum-soft/

A free Windows C/C++ compiler by Mumit Khan.

TOP

An algorithm for searching through possible moves. Used in turn based AI to calculate best move.

This process takes a texture and breaks it down into smaller pieces such as 1/2 the size, then 1/2 the size of that, and so on, so that different textures can be used at different distances from the texture. This helps the texture retain what its overall image should look like at different distances.

Million Instructions Per Second. Measurement of speed for processors.

See Expansion Pack.

The creator of the ever-so-popular Super Mario Bros & Legend of Zelda games.

Massively Multiplayer Online. Games built with MMO support have the ability to connect hundreds or thousands of players throughout the world into a single and continuous gameplay. The most popular genre that support MMO is what people commonly refer as RPG, where people interact to each other either by regular social interactions such as talking, hunting together, or killing each other.
See Also:Role Playing Game

MMORPG stands for: Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. A type of role playing game that supports a huge number of players in the game world. Such examples are Ultima Online, Everquest, Ragnarok, the new up and coming Star Wars: Galaxies and many more.

An advancement to Intel microprocessors which added 57 new instructions which are designed to handle video, audio, and graphical data more efficiently.

MNG (pronounced "ming"), is short for Multiple-image Network Graphics. Designed with the same modular philosophy as PNG and by many of the same people, MNG is intended to provide a home for all of the multi-image capabilities that have no place in PNG. Although the idea of MNG has been around almost as long as PNG has, serious design discussions didn't begin until May 1996, and even then there was considerable debate over whether to make MNG a dirt-simple ``glue'' format around PNG or a complex multimedia format capable of integrating animations, audio and even video. By mid-1998, MNG had settled down to something in between; while it has fairly extensive animation and image-manipulation capabilities, there is no serious expectation that it will ever integrate audio or video. MNG Homepage

TOP

Short for modification. Many current games have tools that have been developed by the creators or players which allow the game to be changed by players to create different looking and sometimes playing games. See Total Conversion.

A music file format composed of sound samples in digitized format. Mod files both record the position, pitch and duration of notes, as well as including the actual sample data, and in this respect are almost a hybrid of some of the better features of both the WAV and MIDI formats. A free editor for mod files can be found at www.modplug.com.
See Also:MIDI, WAV File

MOD is a trackerbased music format well used and spread on bbs.

A tweaked VGA card graphics resolution that displayed graphics at 320x240 which created a square pixel resolution. The term Mode X was coined by Michael Abrash.

Usually referring to an object that is created out of a number of polygons, splines or NURBS which to create an object in 3D.

A formal, abstract definition of a computer. Using a model one can more easily analyze the intrinsic execution time or memory space of an algorithm while ignoring many implementation issues. There are many models of computation which differ in computing power (that is, some models can perform computations impossible for other models) and the cost of various operations.

A shorter term for "modulator/demodulator". This is a device which takes data from a computer and turns it into a series of audio pulses which can be sent over a telephone line; on the receiving end, these pulses are "demodulated" into a copy of the original data. Modern internet devices like ADSL and cable no longer use this exact type of technology, but the term "modem" has been expanded to include these devices.
See Also:Cable Modem

TOP

a collection of data and routines that act on the data. It might also be a collection of routines that provides a cohesive set of services even if no common data is involved. Examples include a source file in C, a class in C++, a package in Ada, and a unit in some versions of Pascal.

The inventor of the real-time strategy genre with his games Powermonger and Populous, Peter Molyneux is a legend in game design. Founder of Bullfrog he also designed Syndicate, Magic Carpet, and Theme Park. He quit Bullfrog near the release of Dungeon Keeper and co-founded Lionhead Studios where he went on to design Black & White.

This series of Lucas Arts' adventure games started with The Secret Of Monkey Island, and was created by designer Ron Gilbert. Guybrush Threepwood, it's leading character, continued in three sequels (The last one, Escape form Monkey Island, being 3D).

This series gained a wide variety of fans due to it's witty humour and interesting gameplay.

While the word mood doesn't seem to require a definition, I believe that its importance in game design merits an entry in the Dictionary.

Although the mood of a game is often overlooked by players, it is very important to every game.

Some game genres, such as Horror, must pay very strict attention to the mood of their games. This is because if a Horror game doesn't capture the right mood, it will fail completely.

A 3d engine developed in the late 1990s based on DirectX. Now known as 3d State. It has generated a large following of programmers and is praised for it's ease of use and compatability with many programming languages and compilers such as Microsoft Visual C++, Borland C++, Delphi, and Visual Basics. More information can be found at thier website at www.3dState.com.

Created by Northampton, Massachusetts based Independent Game Developer Ethereal Darkness Interactive; Morning's Wrath is a Classical Adventure/RPG game. The emphasis is placed on a strong storyline and intellectually stimulating game play. Players guide the main character, Princess Morning, through a series of locales containing tasks that require the completion of puzzles.

The third installment in the Elder Scrolls chronicles. This is a highly detailed world with a vast amount of freedom for a character while still having a great storyline. Morrowind is a first person Fantasy RPG that aims to bring all of the depth of Daggerfall into the high tech 3D world that is ensuing. As Daggerfall became a timeless classic so should Morrowind.

A series of popular fighting games created by Midway. Mortal Kombat was one of the first console games to show blood. Thus, it has always been a target, for the "Violence in video games" issue.

A series of popular fighting games created by Midway. Mortal Kombat was one of the first console games to show blood. Thus, it has always been a target, for the "Violence in video games" issue.

Multicast Open Shortest Path First. A Multicast Version of OSPF
See Also:OSF

Used for creating complex movements for 3D objects, such as a persons walk, run, jump or other actions. This is currently used more on console games due to the expensive costs in owning or renting equipment.

Anything a character can do in a game. While early games, like Galaga, may have had only three moves (move left, move right, and shoot), newer games, particularly fighting games, may have hundreds (low punch, block, mid-kick, high block, etc). Often, in fighting games many of the moves are hidden, and not revealed in the documentation.

a format for audio compression, MP3 uses psychoacoustics to eliminate/reduce redundancy.

The MPEG-3 format. An audio format with CD quality music. It is usually created by converting a WAV file to the format via an MP3 Converter.

a format for audio compression, MP3 uses psychoacoustics to eliminate/reduce redundancy.

The MPEG-3 format. An audio format with CD quality music. It is usually created by converting a WAV file to the format via an MP3 Converter.

A format for encoding video. MPEG-1 was the original format which is used extensively for computer graphics, MPEG-2 is the basis for DVD.

The native format for the Milkshape 3D modelling package. It supports texture coords, normals, skeletal animation among other things.

Multi-User Dungeon. A multiplayer online game, usually an RPG, where users telnet to the server to play the game with other people.

A mode of game in which the primary aspect is to compete against one or more human players.

An advancement system in which points are only rewarded once an opposing creature is killed. This is a specialized form of Combat based experience that doesn't reward the player for defeating the enemy unless death has occurred.

Multi-User Shared Hallucination. A type of MUD where the users can create their own rooms, items and environments.

A game that is somewhat different than other games; you're alone on a desolated island and you must solve some very complicated puzzles. A game for people with a good brain. Superior graphics. Made with Bryce (graphics) and Hypercard (underlying programming).

TOP