Fable (video game)

Fable is an action role-playing open world video game, the first in the Fable series. It was developed for Xbox, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows platforms, by Big Blue Box Studios, a satellite developer of Lionhead Studios, and was published by Microsoft Game Studios. The game shipped for Xbox on 14 September 2004. An extended version of the game, Fable: The Lost Chapters, was released for Xbox and Microsoft Windows in September 2005; Feral Interactive ported the game to the Mac platform on 31 March 2008 and Robosoft Technologies created the platform after a delay of more than two years due to licensing issues.

Originally developed under the name Project Ego, Fable's development involved more than 150 people. The game's music was composed by Russell Shaw, with the opening title theme written by Oscar-nominated composer Danny Elfman. The game's release was widely anticipated, due in part to Lionhead creator Peter Molyneux's enthusiastic hype of the game.

Fable was well received by critics for the quality of its gameplay and execution, though the failure to include many promised features was noted. Fable was the top-selling game of September 2004 and sold more than two million units by 2007. The game was followed by two sequels, Fable II in 2008, and Fable III in 2010. A high-definition remake of the game, entitled Fable Anniversary, which includes The Lost Chapters was released in February 2014 for the Xbox 360.

Video game

A video game is an electronic game that involves human interaction with a user interface to generate visual feedback on a video device such as a TV screen or computer monitor. The word video in video game traditionally referred to a raster display device, but it now implies any type of display device that can produce two- or three-dimensional images. Video games are sometimes believed to be a form of art, but this designation is controversial.

The electronic systems used to play video games are known as platforms; examples of these are personal computers and video game consoles. These platforms range from large mainframe computers to small handheld computing devices. Specialized video games such as arcade games, while common in the 1980s, have gradually declined in use due to the widespread availability of home video game devices (e.g., PlayStation 4 and Xbox One) and video games on desktop and laptop computers and smartphones.

The input device used for games, the game controller, varies across platforms. Common controllers include gamepads, mouses, keyboards, joysticks, the touchscreens of mobile devices and buttons. In addition to video and (in most cases) audio feedback, some games include haptic, vibration or force feedback peripherals.

Fable

Fable is a literary genre: a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, mythical creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized (given human qualities, such as verbal communication) and that illustrates or leads to an interpretation of a moral lesson (a "moral"), which may at the end be added explicitly as a pithy maxim.

A fable differs from a parable in that the latter excludes animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as actors that assume speech or other powers of humankind.

Usage has not always been so clearly distinguished. In the King James Version of the New Testament, "μῦθος" ("mythos") was rendered by the translators as "fable" in the First Epistle to Timothy, the Second Epistle to Timothy, the Epistle to Titus and the First Epistle of Peter.

A person who writes fables is a fabulist.

History

The fable is one of the most enduring forms of folk literature, spread abroad, modern researchers agree, less by literary anthologies than by oral transmission. Fables can be found in the literature of almost every country.

Game

A game is structured form of play, usually undertaken for enjoyment and sometimes used as an educational tool. Games are distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more often an expression of aesthetic or ideological elements. However, the distinction is not clear-cut, and many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports or games) or art (such as jigsaw puzzles or games involving an artistic layout such as Mahjong, solitaire, or some video games).

Key components of games are goals, rules, challenge, and interaction. Games generally involve mental or physical stimulation, and often both. Many games help develop practical skills, serve as a form of exercise, or otherwise perform an educational, simulational, or psychological role.

Attested as early as 2600 BC, games are a universal part of human experience and present in all cultures. The Royal Game of Ur, Senet, and Mancala are some of the oldest known games.

Video

Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media.

Video systems vary greatly in the resolution of the display, how they are refreshed, and the rate of refreshed, and 3D video systems exist. They can also be carried on a variety of media, including radio broadcast, tapes, DVDs, computer files etc.

History

Video technology was first developed for Mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode ray tube (CRT) television systems, but several new technologies for video display devices have since been invented. Charles Ginsburg led an Ampex research team developing one of the first practical video tape recorder (VTR). In 1951 the first video tape recorder captured live images from television cameras by converting the camera's electrical impulses and saving the information onto magnetic video tape.

Video recorders were sold for $50,000 in 1956, and videotapes cost $300 per one-hour reel. However, prices gradually dropped over the years; in 1971, Sony began selling videocassette recorder (VCR) decks and tapes to the public.