Longplay
Encyclopedia
A longplay is a play-through of a computer or video game, 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 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
s, there is no time constraint aside from those imposed by bandwidth/filesize concerns.
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 may be ignored, but in general every task necessary to reach the end is to be recorded, including cutscenes.
software, a feature built-in to an emulator
, or via a video capture
device connected to a console
or another computer.
External guides have mentioned these emulators for Amiga
and Commodore 64
games.
WinUAE can directly save to avi, but it is best used for initial lossless recording prior to editing and reencoding with external tools.
WinVice
has proprietary History files which can reconstruct a gaming session with substantial filesize savings over traditional video codecs. The downside is that such files require exactly the same version of WinVice to view them.
MAME
emulator can record and replay game sessions in a similar way using .inp file format.
FRAPS
is a PC software that can be used to capture every frame drawn by the video card in a game and can save it in the HD. The downside is that only with the full version can you record more than 30 seconds and with audio. Also, even in the full version, Fraps captures in an uncompressed AVI format so captures may require a large storage device. Third party plug-ins are required in some media players to be able to see its uncompressed capture, or re-encoding the video with software like Windows Movie Maker.
DOSBox
is emulator software that emulates an IBM PC compatible
computer running MS-DOS
. It is intended especially for use with old PC games. Videos are recorded using ZMVB codec, which uses AVI
as a container.
Some games (for example, Doom) have a demo recording feature built-into the game.
" and "game replay
" 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
websites accelerated their acceptance. Advances in consumer recording equipment, codec
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.
Strategy guide
Strategy guides are instruction books that contain hints or complete solutions to specific video games. The line between strategy guides and walkthroughs is somewhat blurred, with the former often containing or being written around the latter. Strategy guides are often published in print, both in...
. Also, for people 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
Speedrun
A speedrun is a play-through, or recording thereof, of a whole video game or a selected part of it performed with the intent of completing it as fast as possible, optionally under certain prerequisites, mainly for the purposes of entertainment and competition...
s, there is no time constraint aside from those imposed by bandwidth/filesize concerns.
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 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, screencastScreencast
A screencast is a digital recording of computer screen output, also known as a video screen capture, often containing audio narration. The term screencast compares with the related term screenshot; whereas screenshot is a picture of a computer screen, a screencast is essentially a movie of the...
software, a feature built-in to an emulator
Emulator
In computing, an emulator is hardware or software or both that duplicates the functions of a first computer system in a different second computer system, so that the behavior of the second system closely resembles the behavior of the first system...
, or via a video capture
Video capture
Video capture is the process of converting an analog video signal—such as that produced by a video camera or DVD player—to digital video. The resulting digital data are computer files referred to as a digital video stream, or more often, simply video stream...
device connected to a console
Video game console
A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or customized computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...
or another computer.
External guides have mentioned these emulators for Amiga
Amiga
The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
and Commodore 64
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
games.
WinUAE can directly save to avi, but it is best used for initial lossless recording prior to editing and reencoding with external tools.
WinVice
VICE
The software program VICE, standing for VersatIle Commodore Emulator, is an emulator for Commodore's 8-bit computers, running on Amiga, Unix, MS-DOS, Win32, Mac OS X, OS/2, Acorn RISC OS, and BeOS host machines...
has proprietary History files which can reconstruct a gaming session with substantial filesize savings over traditional video codecs. The downside is that such files require exactly the same version of WinVice to view them.
MAME
MAME
MAME is an emulator application designed to recreate the hardware of arcade game systems in software on modern personal computers and other platforms. The intention is to preserve gaming history by preventing vintage games from being lost or forgotten...
emulator can record and replay game sessions in a similar way using .inp file format.
FRAPS
Fraps
Fraps is a benchmarking, screen capture, and real-time video capture utility for DirectX and OpenGL applications. It is commonly used to determine a computer's performance with a game, as well as record gaming footage...
is a PC software that can be used to capture every frame drawn by the video card in a game and can save it in the HD. The downside is that only with the full version can you record more than 30 seconds and with audio. Also, even in the full version, Fraps captures in an uncompressed AVI format so captures may require a large storage device. Third party plug-ins are required in some media players to be able to see its uncompressed capture, or re-encoding the video with software like Windows Movie Maker.
DOSBox
DOSBox
DOSBox is emulator software that emulates an IBM PC compatible computer running MS-DOS. It is intended especially for use with old PC games. DOSBox is free software....
is emulator software that emulates an IBM PC compatible
IBM PC compatible
IBM PC compatible computers are those generally similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT. Such computers used to be referred to as PC clones, or IBM clones since they almost exactly duplicated all the significant features of the PC architecture, facilitated by various manufacturers' ability to...
computer running MS-DOS
MS-DOS
MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
. It is intended especially for use with old PC games. Videos are recorded using ZMVB codec
Audio Video Interleave
Audio Video Interleave , known by its acronym AVI, is a multimedia container format introduced by Microsoft in November 1992 as part of its Video for Windows technology. AVI files can contain both audio and video data in a file container that allows synchronous audio-with-video playback...
as a container.
Some games (for example, Doom) have a demo recording feature built-into the game.
Neologism status
"SpeedrunSpeedrun
A speedrun is a play-through, or recording thereof, of a whole video game or a selected part of it performed with the intent of completing it as fast as possible, optionally under certain prerequisites, mainly for the purposes of entertainment and competition...
" and "game replay
Game replay
A game replay 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...
" 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
Video hosting service
A video hosting service allows individuals to upload video clips to an Internet website. The video host will then store the video on its server, and show the individual different types of code to allow others to view this video...
websites accelerated their acceptance. Advances in consumer recording equipment, codec
Codec
A codec is a device or computer program capable of encoding or decoding a digital data stream or signal. The word codec is a portmanteau of "compressor-decompressor" or, more commonly, "coder-decoder"...
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.