Genre emulation is the goal and process of making a game resemble a particular genre of game or fiction. The goals of genre emulation include:
- Aesthetics and tropes: Things like whether a game has katana, longswords, or Colt .45s; character types like the gruff detective or brave knight; aspects of the world such as technology, magic, organizations, and resources.
- Themes: Things like how morality is portrayed, the importance of the player characters, romanticism versus realism, and so forth.
- Dramatic conventions: Do the good guys win? Is attempting a million-to-one shot a sure thing or absolute insanity? Is the action slow or fast? Psychological or action-adventure?