PK, PKing: SeePlayer Killer.
Place-Holder: Typically refers to sound or art used in a game while it is in develop-
ment but which the development team plans to replace before the game is released to
the public.
Platform: Often used to describe the different systems a game can be developed for.
Popular gaming platforms past and present include the Apple II, Atari 800, Commodore
64, IBM PC, Commodore Amiga, Macintosh, Atari 2600, Nintendo Entertainment Sys-
tem, Sega Genesis, and Sony PlayStation.
Player Character: This is the character the player controls in the game, such as
Mario inSuper Mario 64, Lara Croft inTomb Raider, or the space marine inDoom. This
term is a holdover from pencil and paper RPGs such asDungeons & Dragons.
Player Killer: In multi-player games, players who go out of their way to ruthlessly
kill other players. These are particularly problematic in games that are supposed to be
more collaborative in nature, such as massively multi-player online RPGs.
Player Surrogate: SeeSurrogate.
Player’s Story: This is the story the players create through their actions in playing
the game. This will involve the clever techniques they used for succeeding at the
game’s challenges, whether it was where they positioned themselves to shoot and kill
their enemies, how they laid the streets down to build up a city, or which plays they
chose to win a football game. Some would be hesitant to call this a story, as it can often
more resemble a simple chronology of events. However, the player’s story is unique to
that player’s game experience, and is what he is most likely to remember and talk about
with his friends.
Playtesting: A term referring to the process of testing the gameplay of the game to
see how well it plays. Playtesting is different from bug fixing or quality assurance in
general since playtesting focuses on the performance of gameplay itself instead of gen-
eral bug fixing. See Chapter 25, “Playtesting.”
Port/Porting: The process of converting a game from one gaming platform to
another, such as from the PC to the Macintosh, or from the Sony PlayStation to the
Nintendo 64. Typically, games that are ported are completed on one system first, and
only then brought over to the other system.
Power-Up: A generic term that refers to any item in the game-world players may
acquire to improve their abilities, either briefly or long-term. Typically used in
action/adventure type games, a power-up may include a weapon, ammo, a key, a health
pack, a jet pack, or money.Power-ups are often used to draw the player to explore cer-
tain locations, with the abilities granted by their acquisition conferring a generally
positive reward on the player.
PR: SeePublic Relations.
Pre-Rendered: 3D graphics that are rendered into 2D sprites or images before the
player plays the game.Mystfeatures pre-rendered 3D graphics, whileUnrealfeatures
real-time 3D graphics.See alsoReal-Time 3D.
Proposal: SeeConcept Document.
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