Fun & Innovative Gameplay Mechanics

[Rigatoni]

I don't do a whole lot of gaming anymore. But as an indie developer, I like to keep up on trends, developments and innovations within the entertainment medium. I also remember the countless fun experiences my friends and I had with video games over the years, and various elements of them that caught my interest. Who can forget vehicle jacking in Halo 2, the Barrel Roll in Star Fox and wall jumping in Super Mario?

Are there any gameplay mechanics you found interesting, fun or innovative? Here are some that stand out to me:

Gears of War

Active Reload Minigame

Quite ingenious for Epic Games to take such a common, monotonous action like weapon reloading and completely revolutionize it. In the Gears of War franchise, reloading has become a minigame in which you have to pay attention and perform the action just right, in order to be rewarded with a quick reload. If you miss, you can still get a moderately fast reload, or have your weapon jam if you're off completely.

Grenade and Torque Bow Targeting Arcs

When throwing grenade, a 3D targeting reticle or arc appears, showing you exactly where the grenade will land, even when colliding with nearby objects. Very useful and not something I've seen before. The Torque Bow has its own targetting arc that "blooms" and expands into a straight line as the bow charges. This show exactly where the bolt will land, depend on the extent you charge it.

Roadie Run

You have the option to quickly retreat or advance using the Roadie Run. When the "run" button is held, your character will lower his weapon, crouch and sprint in the intended direction. This has its advantages and disadvantages: while it does allow you to move faster and makes you less of a target, you also lose the ability to quickly turn and to fire your gun.

One major advantage of this mechanic is being able to run up and surprise your enemy with a chainsaw bayonet to the face.

Multiplayer Death Message

Not really a mechanic, but a feature of multiplayer I found interesting. When your player takes fire, a red gear begins to fill in on the screen, indicating the loss of health and nearness of death. When the fear fills in completely, your player becomes "downed", unable to move or return fire. If your player is shot in this state, they die, and the death message show the player and weapon used for the dastardly deed.

I really like how the death message simply overlays upon the dying graphic. The weapon used appears within the gear, and both player's names are adjoined along side. Quick, simple and effective.

 

[Multifavs]

Great thread idea! I like the gameplay mechanics you posted. I think that having a minigame for the active reload is a creative way to make a monotonous task more interesting.

Hmm...I can think of a lot of gameplay mechanics that I find interesting! Here are a few of them. Maybe I'll post some more later.

Super Mario Odyssey: "Capturing" enemies, characters, and objects and being able to control them is really fun and cool - especially when Mario gets to control a powerful T-Rex!

Kirby 64: Being able to combine two copy abilities to make a new ability is something I've always enjoyed. Some abilities are very useful and some are wacky! One of the crazy combinations that always stood out to me was Spark+Freeze, where Kirby turns into a refrigerator and tosses food at his enemies! Kirby Star Allies has a method of combining abilities too, but it's different from Kirby 64's method.

Kirby Squeak Squad: Perhaps the interesting mechanics in this game are part of why I enjoy it so much. Kirby can store a few items at a time that you can use anytime, and there's even an option to change his coloring. Some copy abilities can be used to alter the environment (such as Fire burning up clouds, snow, and grass, Ice freezing water, and Animal digging through dirt). For some reason it's so much fun to play around with this feature.

Multiple Bomberman games: The custom features included in a couple games are fun (battle mode only).
Super Bomberman 2 allows you to change the color of your Bomberman, but unfortunately this only appears to work for Player 1. (If you have the Golden Bomber setting turned on and you win a match, your Bomberman will become gold no matter what color you choose.)
Super Bomberman 5 has a custom mode where you can choose your custom character and what items he will start every battle with, but I find it boring because you can only play one stage with no items.
Bomberman 64 and Bomberman 64: The Second Attack! have a custom mode where you can choose your Bomberman's outfit. Some of them look funny! You can even copy the custom to the controller pack so you can use him on a friend's N64!
Another feature included in the battle game of multiple games that I like is the option to choose which items will appear and how many of each will appear. It's fun to try out different combinations.

Bomberman Hero: Apparently some people don't like this game because it doesn't have a battle mode, but I think it has one of the best story modes in the series! The gameplay mechanics are awesome! Instead of setting bombs down and waiting for them to explode, you can throw them with a simple push of a button and they'll explode on contact. It's also one of the few games where Bomberman can jump. There are special types of levels that have different gameplay from the typical stages: Bomber Jet, Bomber Marine, Bomber Slider, Bomber Copter, and riding on Rooey. Admittedly I'm not good at the first three so I'm not a big fan of them, but they're still interesting and creative. I do like the Bomber Copter and I love the Rooey levels. Too bad there's only two of each!

 

[Rigatoni]

Great thread idea! I like the gameplay mechanics you posted. I think that having a minigame for the active reload is a creative way to make a monotonous task more interesting.

Hmm...I can think of a lot of gameplay mechanics that I find interesting! Here are a few of them. Maybe I'll post some more later.

Super Mario Odyssey: "Capturing" enemies, characters, and objects and being able to control them is really fun and cool - especially when Mario gets to control a powerful T-Rex!

Kirby 64: Being able to combine two copy abilities to make a new ability is something I've always enjoyed. Some abilities are very useful and some are wacky! One of the crazy combinations that always stood out to me was Spark+Freeze, where Kirby turns into a refrigerator and tosses food at his enemies! Kirby Star Allies has a method of combining abilities too, but it's different from Kirby 64's method.

Kirby Squeak Squad: Perhaps the interesting mechanics in this game are part of why I enjoy it so much. Kirby can store a few items at a time that you can use anytime, and there's even an option to change his coloring. Some copy abilities can be used to alter the environment (such as Fire burning up clouds, snow, and grass, Ice freezing water, and Animal digging through dirt). For some reason it's so much fun to play around with this feature.

Multiple Bomberman games: The custom features included in a couple games are fun (battle mode only).
Super Bomberman 2 allows you to change the color of your Bomberman, but unfortunately this only appears to work for Player 1. (If you have the Golden Bomber setting turned on and you win a match, your Bomberman will become gold no matter what color you choose.)
Super Bomberman 5 has a custom mode where you can choose your custom character and what items he will start every battle with, but I find it boring because you can only play one stage with no items.
Bomberman 64 and Bomberman 64: The Second Attack! have a custom mode where you can choose your Bomberman's outfit. Some of them look funny! You can even copy the custom to the controller pack so you can use him on a friend's N64!
Another feature included in the battle game of multiple games that I like is the option to choose which items will appear and how many of each will appear. It's fun to try out different combinations.

Bomberman Hero: Apparently some people don't like this game because it doesn't have a battle mode, but I think it has one of the best story modes in the series! The gameplay mechanics are awesome! Instead of setting bombs down and waiting for them to explode, you can throw them with a simple push of a button and they'll explode on contact. It's also one of the few games where Bomberman can jump. There are special types of levels that have different gameplay from the typical stages: Bomber Jet, Bomber Marine, Bomber Slider, Bomber Copter, and riding on Rooey. Admittedly I'm not good at the first three so I'm not a big fan of them, but they're still interesting and creative. I do like the Bomber Copter and I love the Rooey levels. Too bad there's only two of each!

Great contributions, Multis.

I personally think the capture mechanic In Odyssey is a bit strange, but very unique and creative. I love how you can capture a T-Rex as well, and posses Taxis, rockets and flying squids.

 

[Rigatoni]

Halo Trilogy

Vehicle Boarding

Obviously inspired by GTA games, Halo 2 introduced the ability for Spartans to hijack enemy vehicles and quickly take them over, instantly changing the tide of gameplay. When in close proximity, players could mount a vehicle by pressing a key, and the hijack animation would soon follow. This would force the opposing player out, and the advancing Spartan into the driver seat. As for tanks, players could still mount the vehicle, but would plant a grenade inside instead.

2-Weapon Arsenal Limit

Iconic to the Halo franchise is the ability to only carry two weapons on your player at the same time. This is meant to force players to make intelligent decisions when preparing their strategy for each arena. Players could also use two different types of grenades as a secondary option.

Succeeding games later slightly modified this concept by adding more grenade types, dual-wielding and equipment, but the basic principle stayed the same.

Duel-Wielding

I still remember watching the unveil of the demo for Halo 2 at E3, and hearing the roar of the audience when the player picked up dual SMGs from a soldier. The final release built upon the mechanic by allowing players to wield two weapons of similar or different types at the same time. The tradeoff to balance this was that the player couldn't use grenades when dual-wielding, so they had to use it intelligently. There is a definite strategy to deciding when to dual-wield and which weapons to combine. Some of the most fun I had in H2 was experimenting with countless combinations.

Recharging Energy Shield

A new concept introduced in the game is a recharging energy shield that replaced the usual concept of health (even though standard health was still implemented and would be reduced when your shield was down). The following games removed the concept of health entirely, as well as the need to collect medical kits. They also later removed fall damage after Combat Evolved. Being able to completely restore your health simply by ducking behind cover, and being able to fall from enormous heights without taking fall damage, both have a significant influence on the gameplay tactics used by players.

Marine A.I.

In Halo CE, a revolutionary idea was implemented in the artificial intelligence in marines: the ability for them to turn against the player if enough are killed by the Spartan protagonist. We never saw anything like this before in gaming, and it seemed incredible at the time.

In Halo 2, Bungie further expanded the A.I. of marines by scripting them to intelligently drive vehicles, building upon the sandbox elements you can have fun with. In the previous Halo, marines could only use the turret or ride shotgun. However in the sequel, they would drive around for you whenever you would ride shotgun or man a vehicle's turret. You also had the option of swapping weapons with soldiers if they had a gun that better suited your strategy.

 

[iluvatar5150]

Pubg is about the only thing I've played regularly in a while. I've been liking the revive mechanics in squad mode - first, you could revive teammates, then they added an AED loot item that allows you to revive yourself, and soon they'll be adding the ability to carry downed teammates.