The following glossary explains the definition of some words and acronyms used on the series, the wiki, and the community. Terms that have their own article or redirect to an article will not be in this glossary, so if you cannot find the term you are looking for, try using the search feature.
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A
- Alpha
- A development version of a game before the "beta" version.
- Artificial intelligence, AI
- Refers to the behavior logic of a creatured or entity that is not controlled by the player, like a Pikmin or enemy.
- AW
- Short for Awakening Wood.
B
- Ban
- A user that is banned can no longer contribute or post on the wiki. Normally, only problematic users are banned.
- Base
- A the area around a ship where Pikmin are general considered safe.
- Beta
- A prototype version of a game. Depending on the developers, a game in this state could be almost nearly complete, or still in the middle of development. This term is normally used to refer to any version before the final release, although at Pikipedia, the terms "prototype", "prerelease" or "early" are used instead.
- BGM
- Abbreviation of "background music".
- Brawl
- Short for Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
- Buff
- Something that gets buffed receives an improvement, when compared to a previous version.
C
- Category
- A group of pages whose subjects follow a similar theme.
- CPU
- Central Processing Unit. In a computer or console, this is the main brain. In gaming, it could also refer to an A.I.-controlled character.
D
- Despawn
- Term used in gaming to refer to an object's disappearance from the level or scene.
- Diff
- Short for "difference". This is the difference between two revisions of an article.
- Dolphin
- A popular emulator for GameCube and Wii games. Alternately, the S.S. Dolphin.
- DS
- Short for The Distant Spring, or the Nintendo DS (or a console on the Nintendo DS family, such as the Nintendo 3DS).
- DT
- Short for Distant Tundra.
- DYK
- Short for "Did You Know?"
E
- Emulator
- A tool that allows users to play console games on a PC, with benefits such as gameplay-enhancing tools and the ability to examine the game's files and inner workings. The most popular emulator for GameCube and Wii games is Dolphin, and for Wii U games, Cemu.
- Exploit
When a player abuses a game mechanic or a glitch in extreme ways in order to do something not intended by the developers.
F
- Family
- A taxonomic rank above genus and below order; in Pikmin and Pikmin 2, animals and plants are categorized in common-name families based on similar evolutionary backgrounds. For example, Bulborbs and their evolutionary derivatives are all categorized in the grub-dog family. For a list of families, see the families category.
- Featured article, feature, FA
- An article with high quality, suitable to be shown on the main page of the wiki.
- FH, FOH, FoH
- Short for The Forest of Hope.
- Flower
- As a verb ("to flower"), this is used by the community to say "to evolve a Pikmin's maturity into the flower stage".
- FN
- Short for The Forest Navel.
- Forum
- A service where users can discuss several subjects. Pikipedia's forum can be found here.
- FO
- Short for Formidable Oak.
- Franchise
- See series.
- FT
- Short for The Final Trial.
G
- Game Over
- When the adventure in the game ends in a failure. Normally, players are given the chance to try again from a previous point. In Pikmin, this would be considered the bad ending, which occurs if all 30 days are up and the 25 mandatory ship parts have not been collected, and in Pikmin 3, a Game Over is when the explorers run out of food.
- Genus
- A taxonomic rank above species and below family, given to members of a family with a common ancestor or similar characteristics. In the Pikmin series, primarily Pikmin 2 and Hey! Pikmin, this is the first name in the "scientific names" given to enemies and plants, resembling binomial nomenclature. For example, all true Bulborbs belong to the genus Oculus.
- GIF
- An image format that is popular for its ability to contain animations.
- GOH, GoH
- Short for Garden of Hope.
H
- Hexadecimal, hex
- A number representation system where the digits are: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F. This means that it takes 16 numbers before the next digit is incremented (e.g. to get to 10, you need to increase one to 0F). Normally used in technical environments because of its convenience.
- Hole
- An entrace to a cave, or an opening that leads to the next sublevel.
- HTML
- Hypertext Markup Language. A set of standards used to represent web pages. On the wiki, editors are allowed to use some HTML tags to format an article, although these are normally frowned upon in favor of MediaWiki's own formatting system.
I
- Index
- See table of contents.
- IS
- Short for The Impact Site.
- ISO
- See ROM.
J
K
- Kanji
- Japanese characters used in modern writing.
- Katakana
- Japanese characters used for the likes of transcripts and foreign words.
L
- Lag
- Could either refer to the delay suffered when sending and receiving data through a network (such as online play), or refer to when a game asks too much for the console to process in normal time, making it run slower than normal.
M
- Mainspace
- Shorthand for "main namespace". Content on the main namespace pertains mainly to the information Pikipedia covers, as opposed to information regarding the wiki's functioning or forums, for example.
- MediaWiki
- The wiki engine Pikipedia runs on. It allows editors to write content and format it using characters like apostrophes or equals signs (e.g.
'''bold'''results in "bold").
- Melee
- Short for Super Smash Bros. Melee.
- Multiplayer, multi-player
- When more than one player is playing the same game simultaneously. In the Pikmin series, this is possible in for the alternate game modes in the following category: Category:Multiplayer modes.
- Multitasking, multi-tasking, multi tasking
- The ability to do more than one task at the same time. In the Pikmin games, this normally refers to a player's ability to have one group of Pikmin or one leader perform a task, while other groups or leaders perform different tasks, meaning that more things get done in less time.
N
- Namespace
- A namespace is a group that articles can be put in, so that they are organized by purpose. An article can serve as pure information (mainspace), as a template, as a forum page, etc. The namespace of an article appears ending in a colon, before the name of the page itself (e.g. Template:J).
- Nerf
- A nerf is when something is made worse, compared to a previous version.
- NIWA
- The Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance. A network of wikis dedicated on Nintendo franchises.
- NOA, NoA
- Short for Nintendo of America.
- NOE, NoE
- Short for Nintendo of Europe.
- NOJ, NoJ
- Short for Nintendo of Japan.
- Nowiki
- Text inside a <nowiki> tag will be written exactly as it is. For instance:
<nowiki>'''bold'''</nowiki>will appear as "'''bold'''".
- NPC
- Short for either "non-playable character" (a character players cannot control), or New Play Control!.
- NTSC
- A color encoding system used mostly in American analogue televisions. Often incorrectly used as a way to identify a game's region.
O
- OB, OoB
- Short for out of bounds.
- OST
- Acronym that stands for "Official Sound Track". This refers to the collection of music that plays in a game or other form of media.
P
- PAL
- A color encoding system used mostly in European and Australian analogue televisions. Often incorrectly used as a way to identify a game's region.
- Path-finding, pathfinding
- Algorithms to find the (normally shortest) path between point A and B, usually taking into account walls and obstacles.
- Patrol
- Pikipedia staff (and staff on most wikis) have an internal system where they mark new edits as "patrolled" after they have cleaned them or accepted them, so that other staff members do not need to do the same.
- Player
- The person that plays the game.
- Port
- A version of a game or other media that was created for a platform different from the original game's platform, normally with little to no changes.
- PP
- Short for Perplexing Pool.
- Preview
- On MediaWiki, it is possible to preview an article's changes before submitting. This allows editors to confirm if their edit is right before actually making the change.
Q
R
- Redirect
- A page that, when entered, simply gives the user a different article. For instance, the page "Pellets" would just redirect the reader to the page Pellet, instead of presenting them with an empty page.
- Remake
- A different version of a game that improves upon the original version. In the Pikmin series, this would usually be mistaken as the New Play Control! games, but they are actually ports.
- Reset
- The process of shutting a game off and turning it back on. A "soft" reset exists in the GameCube and Wii titles, via a dedicated button in the console proper.
- Respawn
- Term used when something that disappears from play reappears. See also spawn.
- Revision
- This is how a page is like on a certain point in time. A revision contains information about who edited what, and when, as well as information about the previous and next revision.
- ROM
- Name given to the collection of files that make up a console game. Normally used in conjunction with emulators.
- Run
- A (commonly speedy) playthrough of the game, from start to finish. Used commonly when attempting a challenge run.
S
- Screenshot
- A photo taken of a game. This is a photo of the game's graphics itself, not of a television or monitor showing the game. For a quick guide on how to take screenshots, see Help:Files.
- Series
- A collection of games, movies, and other forms of media that use the same characters, ideas, universes, etc. Also used in Pikmin 2 to refer to a collection of treasures following a certain theme; see the article Series.
- SFX
- Abbreviation of "sound effects".
- Signature, sig
- Text containing a user's name, added after a user's comment on a talk page on a wiki, so that people can identify who the author of the message is.
- Snapshot
- See screenshot.
- Spam
- Comments and content that do not add anything to a topic, are uncalled for, and are generally annoying. Some characters in Pikmin 2s mail send "spam", although users of wikis can also spam (which can result in them being banned).
- Spawn
- Term used in gaming to refer to an object's appearance on the level or scene.
- Species
- A basic taxonomic rank, given to one specific member of a genus. In the Pikmin series, primarily Pikmin 2, this is the second name in the "scientific names" given to enemies and plants, resembling binomial nomenclature. In three-name nomenclatures, the third name is a subspecies used for further classification; for example, a Red Bulborb is a subspecies (russus) of the species kageyamii.
- Spin-off, spinoff
- A game or other form of media that uses characters and ideas from a franchise, but in a completely different way, such that it is not usually canon.
- SSB
- Short for Super Smash Bros.
- SSBB
- Short for Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
- SSBM
- Short for Super Smash Bros. Melee.
- SSB4, SSB3DS, SSBWiiU
- Short for either or both versions of Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U.
- SSBU
- Short for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
- Stub
- An article that doesn't have enough important information. A list of stubs can be found here.
T
- Table of contents
- A list of all of the article's sections. This is automatically created by MediaWiki, and whether it is placed on the article or not depends on a few internal rules.
- Tag
- A tag is a feature in HTML. Text inside a tag acts different from normal text. Tags may also contain extra information that tweaks how the text is meant to look like. A common tag is "span":
<span style="color:red">red text</span>results in red text.
- TDS
- Short for The Distant Spring.
- Template
- Something with pre-made content, and placeholder spots that can be filled with custom values. On wikis, these could be things like information boxes. Templates are called in pages with
{{template name}}.
- TFH, TFOH, TFoH
- Short for The Forest of Hope.
- TFN
- Short for The Forest Navel.
- TFT
- Short for The Final Trial.
- Thread
- A topic on a forum.
- TIS
- Short for The Impact Site.
- TR
- Short for Twilight River.
- TW
- Short for Tropical Wilds.
- Two-player, two player
- When two players are playing the same game simultaneously. See multiplayer.
U
- Unlockable
- Content in a game that is not available to the player from the start. The player must first do some things before that content can be unlocked and made available.
V
- Vandalism
- Any edit with the purpose of bringing harm to the wiki.
- VOR, VoR
- Short for Valley of Repose.
W
- Wiki
- An electronic encyclopedia about a certain topic. Pikipedia is a wiki about the Pikmin series.
- WW
- Short for Wistful Wild.