- Accompanist (role)
- Ad libitum
- Agenda
- Aleatoricism
- Aspect
- Balance
- Bartle types
- BCG
- Conductor (role)
- Constellation
- Constructor (role)
- Co-optionality
- Cue cards
- Dice
- Dimension
- Downbeat
- Downtime
- Elegant Game
- Emergence
- End Condition
- Event (musical event)
- Extended technique
- Facilitator
- Fighting
- Flow
- Found sound
- Gameplay flow
- Genre
- Goals
- Heteronomous Music
- Horizon of intent
- Insert game
- Inspire cards
- Instrument Preparation
- Judge (role)
- Karaoke
- King-making
- Learning curve
- Ludomusical dissonance
- Meaningful Choice
- Mechanic
- Music game
- Non-idiomatic music
- Notation Cards
- Open work
- Parameter
- Pervasive Game
- Player (role)
- Prompter (role)
- Psychographics
- Quarterbacking
- Rhythm cards
- Rhythm game
- Roles
- RPG
- Rule Cards
- Speedrun
- Stacking
- Trading
- Transition
- Upgrade
- Victory condition
- Xenochrony
- XP
- Yes, and...
Three player types, Timmy, Johnny, and Spike, by main internal motivation to play.
Usage
This typology is used by developers of Magic the Gathering especially Mark Rosewater. Despite being devised for a popular Collectible Card Game (CCG), it's fitting to music games:
Timmy — plays for unusual experience,
Johnny — plays for self-expression,
Spike — plays for challenge, skill and competition.
The types are also occasionally referred to in their feminine form as Tammy, Jenny, and Spike.
A musician of games
All types might happen in music games, but the one that surely stands out in this typology is a Johnny/Jenny. It's an often overlooked fact, that a game (the way you play it) might be a medium of self-expression (as music usually is treated). Expressiveness isn't possible in every game, as it needs to be rich (in emergence) and balanced, but it's an area of a promising coherence between the the fields of music and games.