A longplay is a play-through of a
video game
Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...
, created with the intent of completing it as fully as possible, mainly for the purposes of nostalgia, preservation, and possibly as a
walkthrough. Also, for people who are unable or unwilling to play a certain game, yet wish to know and experience its story, a longplay can be viewed simply as a long digitally animated movie. Unlike
speedrun
Speedrunning is the act of playing a video game, or section of a video game, with the goal of completing it as fast as possible. Speedrunning often involves following planned routes, which may incorporate sequence breaking and can exploit glit ...
s, there is no time constraint aside from those imposed by bandwidth/filesize concerns.
Likewise, a longplay is distinct from a
Let's Play
A Let's Play (LP) is a video (or screenshots accompanied by text) documenting the playthrough of a video game, often including commentary and/or a camera view of the gamer's face. A Let's Play differs from a video game walkthrough or strat ...
, in that there tends to be little to no commentary on the game from the player.
The defining characteristic of a longplay is that few shortcuts, if any, are taken to finish the game. Dull moments may be ultimately edited out of the final video, and
sidequests
A quest, or mission, is a task in video games that a player-controlled character, party, or group of characters may complete in order to gain a reward. Quests are most commonly seen in role-playing games and massively multiplayer online games. ...
may be ignored, but in general every task necessary to reach the end is to be recorded, including cutscenes.
Creation
Games may be recorded in several ways: using
screencast software, a feature built into an
emulator
In computing, an emulator is hardware or software that enables one computer system (called the ''host'') to behave like another computer system (called the ''guest''). An emulator typically enables the host system to run software or use pe ...
, or via a
video capture
Video capture is the process of converting an analog video signal—such as that produced by a video camera, DVD player, or television tuner—to digital video and sending it to local storage or to external circuitry. The resulting digital data ar ...
device connected to a
console
Console may refer to:
Computing and video games
* System console, a physical device to operate a computer
** Virtual console, a user interface for multiple computer consoles on one device
** Command-line interface, a method of interacting with ...
or another computer. Some games (for example,
Doom
Doom is another name for damnation.
Doom may also refer to:
People
* Doom (professional wrestling), the tag team of Ron Simmons and Butch Reed
* Daniel Doom (born 1934), Belgian cyclist
* Debbie Doom (born 1963), American softball pitcher
* ...
) have a demo recording feature built into the game.
Neologism status
"
Speedrun
Speedrunning is the act of playing a video game, or section of a video game, with the goal of completing it as fast as possible. Speedrunning often involves following planned routes, which may incorporate sequence breaking and can exploit glit ...
" and "
game replay A game replay, also known as a demo, is a form of user-generated content. In most instances, a game replay is a recording of a battle between opponents in a video game which can then be viewed by other players.
It is most common in real-time strate ...
" emerged in recent years as a subset of "play-through" and gained popularity by being entertaining and competitive while needing only minutes of video.
Video sharing
An online video platform (OVP), provided by a video hosting service, enables users to upload, convert, store and play back video content on the Internet, often via a structured, large-scale system that may generate revenue. Users will generally u ...
websites accelerated their acceptance. Advances in consumer recording equipment,
codec
A codec is a device or computer program that encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. ''Codec'' is a portmanteau of coder/decoder.
In electronic communications, an endec is a device that acts as both an encoder and a decoder on a signal or ...
s, hard drive space, and internet services were necessary before complete games could reasonably be saved and shared.
Outside of the communities specializing in the practice, "longplay" is relatively unknown, though understood from context. The ambiguous umbrella term "play-through" is widely used instead.
History
The term "Longplay" was first introduced by the German
computer magazine
Computer magazines are about computers and related subjects, such as networking and the Internet. Most computer magazines offer (or offered) advice, some offer programming tutorials, reviews of the latest technologies, and advertisements.
His ...
"64’er – Das Magazin für Computerfans" in the late 1980s. Each issue from 4/89 to 10/94 had a section in which a
walkthrough of a more complex or difficult
video game
Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...
was described in detail. These so-called "Longplays" can be considered early printed versions of
let's play
A Let's Play (LP) is a video (or screenshots accompanied by text) documenting the playthrough of a video game, often including commentary and/or a camera view of the gamer's face. A Let's Play differs from a video game walkthrough or strat ...
s, a later form of live commenting while videorecording a video game. In 2002 – before the rise of
online video platforms – the German video game documentarist
Reinhard Klinksiek started a project in which he wanted to preserve videos of classical video games (mainly for the
C64) and make them accessible on the internet.
In search for a simple name he adopted the
neologistic
A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...
term "Longplay" from the "64’er" magazines, which he had read as a teenager.
[Heinrich Lenhardt: "RETRO REPUBLIK DEUTSCHLAND". In: CHIP – COMMODORE 64. EIN KULT-COMPUTER WIRD 30. München 2012. pp. 127-128.] After the release of more than 600 "longplay"-recordings of classical video games, the term was adopted by the
video game culture, gaming community internationally and is occasionally used by Online-Videogame-Magazines.
See also
*
Video game walkthrough
Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syste ...
References
{{reflist
External links
World of Longplays (main website)LongplayArchive (YouTube)
Video game culture
2000s neologisms
2002 neologisms
Video game gameplay
Video game video content