I'm currently reading What Video Games have to teach us about Learning and Literacy and there's an interesting passage on design grammar i wanna talk about.

In this book, Gee defines design grammar as thw way a field can define something as belonging to a certain category.

For Example, lets say you're at a bar and they're playing a guilty gear strive bracket on the TV. you overhear someone ask their friend "Hey what game is this?" And the friend replies "oh its basically street fighter"

And you pause for a second because you ubderstand the design grammar of fighting games. You understand that despite both of them being 2D Fighters with inputs for special moves, that SF and GG gear have multiple qualities that sets them wildly apart to those that are knowledgable.

It's an interesting because Gee also describes how these design grammars can be altered internally (the actual content) and externally (the social ecosystem surround the content or its enjoyment). How authors, readers, critics, developers, etc. Can constantly change what becomes a norm within a particular fields design grammar.

What's an Igavania?

One example i found interesting to apply this was metrodvanias. I like playing Metroidvanias. But im not as invested in them as puzzle or fighting games. However i thought about how the field of metroidvanias has alot of terms for various kinds of games within the genre, and it got me thinking about igavanias.

Now im mostly writing this from memory, so ill probably be wrong on alot, but Igavanias are Castlevania games that were directed by one guy named Iga-something im sure. They're not just mamed that because of authorship, but because Iga does similar things in many of the games he makes.

Another interesting thing is (i think) Igavania has been used to describe games not made/directed by Iga. So the vocabulary in MV world has advanced so much that games not developed by John Iga himself can still be Igavanias because those that understand the design grammar can categorize something as an Igavania without its being Iga's work.

I just wanted to share that. There's lot more in the design grammar section, and I'll share more interesting info as i read it.

Igavania is a term used to describe SOME Castlevania games made with heavy involvement of Koji Igarashi, starting with Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. It is primarily used to delineate the older style of CV games (mostly linear stage-based action games descended from arcade principles) from the newer style that started with SotN (nonlinear games with leveling and item drops more suited to consoles). SotN is the originator of the "Vania" half of "Metroidvania" btw.

I have genuinely never heard of a game without Igarashi's involvement being called an Igavania. His SotN spiritual sequel Bloodstained Ritual of the Night is the only non-Castlevania game ive personally heard of referred to as an Igavania. It's possible that people are using Igavania to refer to non Igarashi games but it wouldn't tell me anything than more than Metroidvania already does (almost nothing)

Hi my name is Vastlecania and I'm afraid i can't let people be wrong about Castlevania games.