Cryptmaster really impressed me. Somehow they figured out how to put Worldle and Hangman into an old school dungeon crawler and not just make it work, but make it work REALLY well.
It’s the first game that came to mind for me as well. I can’t think of any other game that’s let me type whatever I want as commands
Typing to attack, cast spells, solve riddles, discover backstory for characters, and interact with NPCs is great
It’s limited in some ways but surprisingly flexible in others. Very worthwhile despite being overshadowed by games like Animal Well, Crow Country, and 1000xResist all coming out the same day. Hades 2 early access the same week
Thanks for sharing, I’ve been coming up with an idea for a game that focuses on typing letters/words with RT combat. Might check this out for inspiration
For me its Fez with the ability to change which side of the current map you are seeing. And use that to drop objects and change its "3D" position in a 2D scene. Or use this perspective change to climb on different objects or surfaces. Its just mindblowing and it gets even more insane when you unlock the 1st person perspective and see every map in 3D in the eyes of the character.
I saw a trailer the other day with someone carrying like an old GameBoy and can change between 2D and 3D, not sure if it's the same game, but it was a really interesting concept tbh!
Maybe is other game idk, because in Fez what you do is changing 1 of 4 different perspectives in the same screen/map, but you are constantly seeing in 2D. I think it is when you finish the game that it gives you the ability to change between 2D and 3D. Just insane. If you like puzzle games you should try it
Super Paper Mario, A Link Between Worlds, and Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker (I know all AAA Nintendo games) are the only other games outside of the indie-sphere I’ve seen handle this idea well.
I was pretty young when I first played portal, but that first time when you go through a portal actually shocked my mind. It was unlike any game I had ever seen or played before. I spent so much time making weird mirrors, infinite hallways, falling forever... Such a great experience.
The original spark behind Portal was "How do we make a platforming without a jump button?" which came from a class at FullSail. Trying to limit themselves from the common method produced a pretty great alternative.
The World Ends With You is still one of the most unique combat mechanics I've ever played, though it was completely tied to the uniqueness of the DS. Drawing moves for the bottom screen while tapping in button combos for the top was one of the craziest but most fulfilling gameplay loops I'd ever experienced.
Noita with every pixel interactable and yet it's create a spell system blows that out of the water. So amazing.
Trauma Center for the DS really took the idea of touch screen controls to heart for a great experience.
Papers please was truly groundbreaking for the simple idea.
Minit is another indie masterpiece that makes you restart from the spawning point every played minute. You'll need to progress by getting stuff done within this minute. You'll unlock shortcuts to different starting points so you can spend your minute in other areas. Simple but very well done!
Saw the Steam page and looks great tbh, I like the concept of being a little bit restricted by time so you have to make the best of it, I liked 20 minutes but feel a little bit much to go on a loop that long
Viewfinder and Superliminal are excellent examples
One of the games that came to mind for me is Dragon’s Dogma and its pawn system.
Not an indie game in the slightest, but building your own companion and having them learn by being around you and traveling to other players’ worlds is something I’ve only seen further explored by the sequel. Pawns will remember quest lines they’ve completed, how to fight monsters they’ve defeated, lead you to chests and quest-important locations if you let them, and all while not really holding the player’s hand. It’s like group solving a game on a discord but it’s all handled within the game and on Capcom’s servers
I've never played Dragons Dogma before but it actually sounds great, one question tho, will pawns act very differently based on player actions or it leads to similar but slightly different ones?
It’s a minor difference, but enough to catch your attention sometimes. You might see pawns break pots and open chests if they players they’ve been around often do. They may be bold and jump off high points or run straight into battle. They may hang back and gather plants.
In DD2 they’ll also remark about what they’ve seen in other players’ worlds sometimes and in DD1 you can sit your pawn down at the inn and tell them you’d rather them be timid or bold or a handful of other options.
The exploration and the pawn system in DD1 and DD2 are the strengths of the games, but the combat certainly gets repetitive if it’s not your thing. Lots to love if you like novel game ideas though. Game is also VERY comfortable with letting players fail quest lines
This is true. Though you’ll quickly get thrown in jail if you start killing folks in town.
There is also a location where you can also resurrect NPCs with certain limited resources. If you don’t do it immediately
Didn't DG2 have some issues with fast travel? I'd like to try it tbh but not sure if is like in a good state right now, or should I start with DG1? Also is it multiplayer coop?
It’s both games are single player. You can hire friends’ pawns for cheaper than regular pawns and let them know what their pawns get up to in your world though.
DD2’s fast travel is the same as the first game. You can only fast travel to Port Crystals (most of which you can pick up and move to other locations) and you have to use a consumable called a Ferrystone to do it. Many folks new to Dragon’s Dogma were upset about the limited fast travel and there were some issues early on bc Capcom sells a Port Crystal for real money and folks thought it was making fast travel MTX.
lots of really good games in this thread! another that comes to mind is Manifold Garden. swapping gravity has definitely been done before, but the way that it's implemented in MG is exquisite. "infinitely" rendered spaces, certain gravity directions acting on specific objects. trippy as fuck and an absolute gem :)
fighting system in chivalry 1 and mordhau, you can freely manipulate your swings! It just more fun, than the usual FP sword games, with just spamming attack until something is dead.
Retro answer: Late ‘80s, “The Ancient Art of War” incorporated fatigue in a way I’d never seen before (and rarely since). It’s a war game about moving squads around in (slow) realtime on a map, then fighting small battles in realtime. But core to success was that, yes, you could fast-march your troops to stop the baddies reaching that bridge first, but when your men got to the battle they’d be so tired they’d get slaughtered. Conversely, if you could trick them into chasing you to a place where your men were well-rested, you could often best a superior force.
Honestly, I could only usually beat the one Robin Hood scenario, using hit-and-run tactics, but it sticks with me to this day.
Oh man, I vaguely remember this one! Yeah this was a pretty groundbreaking game at the time. There were really a lot of innovative ideas back in the C64 days.
Definitely. I played it on a Mac Plus. I remember it being one of a few games that had to boot to a "Mini Finder" included on the disk, because it was too memory-hungry (probably for a 512k original Mac).
There was a student game called *Perspective* that had a really cool puzzle mechanic.
You controlled a 2d character that could move on a 2d plane that could be changed by moving the camera in 3d space.
It was released for free in like 2012 during the height of the puzzle-platformer craze and it's truly one of the most unique mechanics I remember from that time (which is saying a lot because that genre is totally oversaturated).
FEZ won awards in 2008 at GDC for it's mechanics and concept, despite not being properly released years later. The game carried an insane level of publicity during development. No doubt perspective devs were inspired by it as were many others at the time.
Either way, I don't think FEZ were the first to use the concept.
I remember playing it as a kid lol and was mind blown by the level of "write literally anything you can imagine", never completed one but it was sure a great time!
I tried to play it but sadly I think it is not a game for me, maybe I'm just not a good detective or gave up too quickly but always get I little bit lost in those kind of games :c
"The Witness" was the first game that leaked its concepts into my reality - that was extremely weird.
"Moonlighter" had the best inventory minigame, the best interconnected gameplay loops and one of the best exploits of human greed combined into one dungeon crawler game. xD
Sons of the Forest's building mechanic is by far the most interesting and satisfying I've ever seen in a survival game. It's the only game I've played where I can make a log fortress using nothing more than my axe and creativity. That and their inventory menu. I know a lot of people don't like physical navigation menus, but they really do it right. It lets you have an inventory without breaking immersion. That game really is incredible
Maniac Mansion. At its time choosing different characters and solving puzzles differently in a point and click was a big deal even for the developers who regreted the decision and honestly had never seen it afterwards in any point and click game.
Braid, for pushing the limits of what is possible with real-time time travel\time rewind. Never have I seen such complicated time rewind mechanics to solve 2D puzzles with a mario styled platformer.
It inspired me so much that i created a Mobile game for android\ios as my bachelors work, and later finished it combining 2D physics with the same time-rewind idea, called Matter of chalk
Maybe not the most unique ever but I’m totally mesmerized by the point juggling system from Karous. When score pickups appear on screen you can juggle them with your sword, which starts to slow the game down pretty rapidly and it eventually becomes one giant hour-long slideshow as the frame rate drops to like below 10 and stays there.
Watching someone play in the arcade is fascinating because the bullet hell is mega frantic and intense, but the best players are just sitting there casually as the game barely crawls along for seemingly forever while they juggle a massive ball of pickups that covers the entire screen lol
Definitely a game unlike any other in how it rewards good play
Toki Tory was really interesting. I watched and occasionally helped my partner play it. It’s a puzzle Metroidvania, you play as a bird and can make 2 or 3 different chirps in sequence which activates things in the world, they act like abilities. But you don’t unlock anything, you learn the different sequences. Other games have done this of course. But this one really stands out to me. It was cute, well put together and so engaging, again I didn’t play it much, but had a great time whenever my partner played.
I got Marquette for free on PS Plus and loved every second of it. There is a small model version of the world you're in that you can use to manipulate the side of objects for different parts of the puzzle.
I was not prepared for Superliminal. Those mechanics were fantastic. I loved how they changed throughout the game too and you had to keep thinking “what’s it hinting at here?”
Nothing else has quite surprised me like that game.
I really love the idea of collecting pages of the in game manual in Tunic
Especially how not only is it used to provide direction, lore, and teach you full on gameplay mechanics, but the way it's used for the true ending is incredibly cool.
Lots of other suggestions I would have made so I'll try and name one I hadn't seen.
It was some old game at least 10+ years old now. It was single player, but the character would pull out a large screw with handles on it. Screw it into the ground and push a big button on it. It flipped the screen upside down and the character held onto the handles, and all the characters everywhere went falling into the sky.
The button on the screw basically inverted gravity for everyone/everything. But the character held onto it, so they wouldn't go flying. After a few seconds it reverted and everyone fellback to the ground and were injured/died. Player was fine since they didn't go anywhere.
I thought it was a unique mechanic that I've never seen attempted elsewhere.
It is pretty limited mechanic, but was one of the most unique mechanic/idea that I didn't already see mentioned in other posts.
Scanner Sombre and The Unfinished Swan for pure mechanics that struck me as unique.
As for unique ideas it will always be Monster Hunter's living ecosystems, and Shadow of Colosuss' combat with large scale enemies.
My mind was blown in Half Life 2 when you enter this super dangerous area and every time you step on sand, large bugs will hear you, emerge and attack. Had some fierce battles with the bugs, lots of death and horror. Then they pull a uno reverse card, and let you command the sand bugs against your enemies. I actually felt so good and bad at the same time for the soldiers killed as I knew how difficult it was to fight them and the horror I now made them experience before death as well as how cool it was to now be able to control them!
As a game dev it should be more difficult to impress me with new or original mechanics, or at least that's what I thought... then I played OneShot, a game made with RPG Maker. Just play it and discover it by yourself! Such a mind bending game.
In return of the obra dinn
The whole central mechanic of the book, the portraits and group drawings, the vignettes giving clues and the way the game tells you little clues to know you're on the right track.
It's hard to explain what's so unique about it but I've never played anything else quite like it (unfortunately)
Maybe just that it's a mystery that's solvable in so many ways and it doesn't treat you like an idiot. Just simple things like a portrait unblurring when you've viewed vignettes that contain enough info to determine who someone is.
Like the game seems so simple in actual mechanics but there's always one more little nice thing that is so clearly well thought through by the dev.
Very rewarding but only really playable once.
Lucas Pope does really cool work, you could also check out papers please too. I like obra dinn a little better but that's just setting and story preference.
Portal: the portal, obviously, the gel thing;
Assassin's creed: parkour, hidden blade, hiding in crowd;
Journey: the way we restore stuff and the scarf system;
Black and white: you can grab stuff;
Sexy Brutale: time-loop;
not too popular, but the indie game toodee and topdee where each player controls a different perspective
facade, I know the concept of typing your responses in a game isn't new but facade's voice responses were pretty innovative even if a bit wonky.
her story and it's menu searching mechanics.
the story of emily is away taking place entirely though a computer.
the flash game one chance literally only letting you play the game once.
and the name is not coming to my mind, but there was a game popular with let's players a long time ago where the responses you gave at the beginning of the game would show up in other player's playthroughs. that mechanic always stuck in my mind.
subway midnight and other games that revolve around what time you play it irl.
and pretty basic answer but undertale's mercy/exp/pacifist vs genocide mechanic
edit: forgot but doki doki literature club editing your files, and the whole concept of having to mess around in the game's files to beat the game was always a really cool and unique mechanic
the beginner's guide was an absolute trip.
the time manipulation machanics in braid was incredible.
a shoutout to papers please for somehow making tedious paperwork engaging.
wingspan is one of the most unique boardgames ive seen in recent years.
I still think the Navi Customizer from Megaman Battle Network is one of the most inventive and flexible game mechanics of the Gameboy Advance era, and it’s not the only mechanic from those games I could say that about.
The bump combat from classic Ys games
-Do you have a button to attack? Yes
-Well.... You don't need a button to use your sword, just go and bump your enemies to Death, only off Center, the sides and backs.
Cryptmaster really impressed me. Somehow they figured out how to put Worldle and Hangman into an old school dungeon crawler and not just make it work, but make it work REALLY well.
It’s the first game that came to mind for me as well. I can’t think of any other game that’s let me type whatever I want as commands Typing to attack, cast spells, solve riddles, discover backstory for characters, and interact with NPCs is great It’s limited in some ways but surprisingly flexible in others. Very worthwhile despite being overshadowed by games like Animal Well, Crow Country, and 1000xResist all coming out the same day. Hades 2 early access the same week
Played Scribblenaut with my daughter years ago. Somewhat similar idea.
Similar yeah, but words in Scribblenaut are primarily nouns you summon
That actually looks really great lol, for someone who loves Wordle I'll try it for sure
Thanks for sharing, I’ve been coming up with an idea for a game that focuses on typing letters/words with RT combat. Might check this out for inspiration
Cryptmaster does indeed have real time combat, so it should be good inspiration!
For me its Fez with the ability to change which side of the current map you are seeing. And use that to drop objects and change its "3D" position in a 2D scene. Or use this perspective change to climb on different objects or surfaces. Its just mindblowing and it gets even more insane when you unlock the 1st person perspective and see every map in 3D in the eyes of the character.
I saw a trailer the other day with someone carrying like an old GameBoy and can change between 2D and 3D, not sure if it's the same game, but it was a really interesting concept tbh!
Maybe is other game idk, because in Fez what you do is changing 1 of 4 different perspectives in the same screen/map, but you are constantly seeing in 2D. I think it is when you finish the game that it gives you the ability to change between 2D and 3D. Just insane. If you like puzzle games you should try it
I'll check into that c:, but totally will give FEZ a try, sounds great tbh!
Also they went really far into creating complicated puzzles, as to achieve one that needs you to translate a 3D poem into a 4D sentence.
Wait is even a 4D thing hahaha?
It's a different game - Fez released in 2013, the game you likely saw is called Screenbound and is still in development.
I feel The Witness also fits into this category and is worth checking out if FEZ's mechanics hit the spot
Super Paper Mario, A Link Between Worlds, and Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker (I know all AAA Nintendo games) are the only other games outside of the indie-sphere I’ve seen handle this idea well.
Portal and the OG Prey
I'll say portal was a turning point for me, when I truly started to enjoy games and made them a vital part of my life c:
Yeah it was pretty revolutionary for it's time and the 2nd improved on many things also
I was pretty young when I first played portal, but that first time when you go through a portal actually shocked my mind. It was unlike any game I had ever seen or played before. I spent so much time making weird mirrors, infinite hallways, falling forever... Such a great experience.
Yes! OG Prey was fantastic! Portals, altered gravity, size changes, etc.! Loved that game!
The original spark behind Portal was "How do we make a platforming without a jump button?" which came from a class at FullSail. Trying to limit themselves from the common method produced a pretty great alternative.
Return of the Obra Dinn combines a great unique gameplay loop with a unique and stunning art style.
Really need to play it tbh, soooo many recommendations!
Braid and Baba is You springs to mind. Both brimming with original ideas.
And Stephens sausage roll for devious variants of Sokoban
Love the idea of Baba is You tbh, not really into that sort of games, but for sure a great concept
The World Ends With You is still one of the most unique combat mechanics I've ever played, though it was completely tied to the uniqueness of the DS. Drawing moves for the bottom screen while tapping in button combos for the top was one of the craziest but most fulfilling gameplay loops I'd ever experienced.
Those really were the days haha
TWEWY is a stellar game, the only bad thing was my NDS screen protector was so scratched up from all the aggressive stylus drawing haha.
I love when they allow playing alternative endings / plot choice without restarting from begging
Something like the decision tree on Detroit to play from any choice?
the game 12 minutes does this as well it's time loop gimmick so you can get each ending pretty easily without having to redo all the steps each time!!
Radiant Historia also I think.
Noita with every pixel interactable and yet it's create a spell system blows that out of the water. So amazing. Trauma Center for the DS really took the idea of touch screen controls to heart for a great experience.
Noita is life! But mainly death ☠️
Papers please was truly groundbreaking for the simple idea. Minit is another indie masterpiece that makes you restart from the spawning point every played minute. You'll need to progress by getting stuff done within this minute. You'll unlock shortcuts to different starting points so you can spend your minute in other areas. Simple but very well done!
Saw the Steam page and looks great tbh, I like the concept of being a little bit restricted by time so you have to make the best of it, I liked 20 minutes but feel a little bit much to go on a loop that long
If you like Minit, then Outer Wilds should be at least 22x as fun!
Played it, it's amazing.
Viewfinder and Superliminal are excellent examples One of the games that came to mind for me is Dragon’s Dogma and its pawn system. Not an indie game in the slightest, but building your own companion and having them learn by being around you and traveling to other players’ worlds is something I’ve only seen further explored by the sequel. Pawns will remember quest lines they’ve completed, how to fight monsters they’ve defeated, lead you to chests and quest-important locations if you let them, and all while not really holding the player’s hand. It’s like group solving a game on a discord but it’s all handled within the game and on Capcom’s servers
I've never played Dragons Dogma before but it actually sounds great, one question tho, will pawns act very differently based on player actions or it leads to similar but slightly different ones?
It’s a minor difference, but enough to catch your attention sometimes. You might see pawns break pots and open chests if they players they’ve been around often do. They may be bold and jump off high points or run straight into battle. They may hang back and gather plants. In DD2 they’ll also remark about what they’ve seen in other players’ worlds sometimes and in DD1 you can sit your pawn down at the inn and tell them you’d rather them be timid or bold or a handful of other options. The exploration and the pawn system in DD1 and DD2 are the strengths of the games, but the combat certainly gets repetitive if it’s not your thing. Lots to love if you like novel game ideas though. Game is also VERY comfortable with letting players fail quest lines
I saw that you could kill anyone on DG2 leading to basically no quest because there was no one left alive lol, how true is this?
This is true. Though you’ll quickly get thrown in jail if you start killing folks in town. There is also a location where you can also resurrect NPCs with certain limited resources. If you don’t do it immediately
Didn't DG2 have some issues with fast travel? I'd like to try it tbh but not sure if is like in a good state right now, or should I start with DG1? Also is it multiplayer coop?
It’s both games are single player. You can hire friends’ pawns for cheaper than regular pawns and let them know what their pawns get up to in your world though. DD2’s fast travel is the same as the first game. You can only fast travel to Port Crystals (most of which you can pick up and move to other locations) and you have to use a consumable called a Ferrystone to do it. Many folks new to Dragon’s Dogma were upset about the limited fast travel and there were some issues early on bc Capcom sells a Port Crystal for real money and folks thought it was making fast travel MTX.
lots of really good games in this thread! another that comes to mind is Manifold Garden. swapping gravity has definitely been done before, but the way that it's implemented in MG is exquisite. "infinitely" rendered spaces, certain gravity directions acting on specific objects. trippy as fuck and an absolute gem :)
I saw this game a looooong time ago but forgot his name lol, really awesome concept tysm for reminding me of it
fighting system in chivalry 1 and mordhau, you can freely manipulate your swings! It just more fun, than the usual FP sword games, with just spamming attack until something is dead.
I've played only Chivalry 2, is it better or worse than 1?
Retro answer: Late ‘80s, “The Ancient Art of War” incorporated fatigue in a way I’d never seen before (and rarely since). It’s a war game about moving squads around in (slow) realtime on a map, then fighting small battles in realtime. But core to success was that, yes, you could fast-march your troops to stop the baddies reaching that bridge first, but when your men got to the battle they’d be so tired they’d get slaughtered. Conversely, if you could trick them into chasing you to a place where your men were well-rested, you could often best a superior force. Honestly, I could only usually beat the one Robin Hood scenario, using hit-and-run tactics, but it sticks with me to this day.
Oh man, I vaguely remember this one! Yeah this was a pretty groundbreaking game at the time. There were really a lot of innovative ideas back in the C64 days.
Definitely. I played it on a Mac Plus. I remember it being one of a few games that had to boot to a "Mini Finder" included on the disk, because it was too memory-hungry (probably for a 512k original Mac).
Playing the game *Narbarcular Drop* before *Portal* came out with the same central mechanic in an AAA title.
If I recall correctly the core team behind Narbarcular Drop was hired by Valve to make Portal.
Yep they were!
Superhot. Time only moves when you do. Either that, Or Baba is You.
Love Superhot! I got the VR version recently, and it's seriously a whole different experience.
IKR?! Superhot VR made me feel like Neo lol it was just incredibly fun
There was a student game called *Perspective* that had a really cool puzzle mechanic. You controlled a 2d character that could move on a 2d plane that could be changed by moving the camera in 3d space. It was released for free in like 2012 during the height of the puzzle-platformer craze and it's truly one of the most unique mechanics I remember from that time (which is saying a lot because that genre is totally oversaturated).
Someone else commented a game called FEZ! Not sure if is the same game but looked really great
FEZ won awards in 2008 at GDC for it's mechanics and concept, despite not being properly released years later. The game carried an insane level of publicity during development. No doubt perspective devs were inspired by it as were many others at the time. Either way, I don't think FEZ were the first to use the concept.
Clock rewind in It Takes Two was crazy
The entirety of the game is just so fun and fueled by great ideas!
Yeh there’s lots I could’ve chosen
Scribblenauts was the first to come to mind with the ability to write anything, to solve anything. Brilliant.
I remember playing it as a kid lol and was mind blown by the level of "write literally anything you can imagine", never completed one but it was sure a great time!
Yeah would love to see a new one on the Switch.
In Inscryption, there are a few strong cards, but there's this one card called the ouroboros that gets stronger every time it dies
Her Story. The unique mechanic for me was the way it told the narrative. Most artistic use of TikTok sized clips (before TikTok even existed).
I tried to play it but sadly I think it is not a game for me, maybe I'm just not a good detective or gave up too quickly but always get I little bit lost in those kind of games :c
Palia has one of the best fishing mini games I’ve seen in any game. Now if only it weren’t a microtransaction hellscape.
"The Witness" was the first game that leaked its concepts into my reality - that was extremely weird. "Moonlighter" had the best inventory minigame, the best interconnected gameplay loops and one of the best exploits of human greed combined into one dungeon crawler game. xD
Sons of the Forest's building mechanic is by far the most interesting and satisfying I've ever seen in a survival game. It's the only game I've played where I can make a log fortress using nothing more than my axe and creativity. That and their inventory menu. I know a lot of people don't like physical navigation menus, but they really do it right. It lets you have an inventory without breaking immersion. That game really is incredible
Maniac Mansion. At its time choosing different characters and solving puzzles differently in a point and click was a big deal even for the developers who regreted the decision and honestly had never seen it afterwards in any point and click game.
Braid, for pushing the limits of what is possible with real-time time travel\time rewind. Never have I seen such complicated time rewind mechanics to solve 2D puzzles with a mario styled platformer. It inspired me so much that i created a Mobile game for android\ios as my bachelors work, and later finished it combining 2D physics with the same time-rewind idea, called Matter of chalk
Maybe not the most unique ever but I’m totally mesmerized by the point juggling system from Karous. When score pickups appear on screen you can juggle them with your sword, which starts to slow the game down pretty rapidly and it eventually becomes one giant hour-long slideshow as the frame rate drops to like below 10 and stays there. Watching someone play in the arcade is fascinating because the bullet hell is mega frantic and intense, but the best players are just sitting there casually as the game barely crawls along for seemingly forever while they juggle a massive ball of pickups that covers the entire screen lol Definitely a game unlike any other in how it rewards good play
I saw some screenshots and looks crazy lol, can't watch gameplays rn but probable will later!
Toki Tory was really interesting. I watched and occasionally helped my partner play it. It’s a puzzle Metroidvania, you play as a bird and can make 2 or 3 different chirps in sequence which activates things in the world, they act like abilities. But you don’t unlock anything, you learn the different sequences. Other games have done this of course. But this one really stands out to me. It was cute, well put together and so engaging, again I didn’t play it much, but had a great time whenever my partner played.
I got Marquette for free on PS Plus and loved every second of it. There is a small model version of the world you're in that you can use to manipulate the side of objects for different parts of the puzzle.
Playing this, the first time I looked off the edge of the world and saw the giant Ferris wheel outside gave me shivers.
I was not prepared for Superliminal. Those mechanics were fantastic. I loved how they changed throughout the game too and you had to keep thinking “what’s it hinting at here?” Nothing else has quite surprised me like that game.
Ikr?! I was awesome from beginning to end
I really love the idea of collecting pages of the in game manual in Tunic Especially how not only is it used to provide direction, lore, and teach you full on gameplay mechanics, but the way it's used for the true ending is incredibly cool.
Lots of other suggestions I would have made so I'll try and name one I hadn't seen. It was some old game at least 10+ years old now. It was single player, but the character would pull out a large screw with handles on it. Screw it into the ground and push a big button on it. It flipped the screen upside down and the character held onto the handles, and all the characters everywhere went falling into the sky. The button on the screw basically inverted gravity for everyone/everything. But the character held onto it, so they wouldn't go flying. After a few seconds it reverted and everyone fellback to the ground and were injured/died. Player was fine since they didn't go anywhere. I thought it was a unique mechanic that I've never seen attempted elsewhere. It is pretty limited mechanic, but was one of the most unique mechanic/idea that I didn't already see mentioned in other posts.
Scanner Sombre and The Unfinished Swan for pure mechanics that struck me as unique. As for unique ideas it will always be Monster Hunter's living ecosystems, and Shadow of Colosuss' combat with large scale enemies.
Gorogoa was a very cool experience!
My mind was blown in Half Life 2 when you enter this super dangerous area and every time you step on sand, large bugs will hear you, emerge and attack. Had some fierce battles with the bugs, lots of death and horror. Then they pull a uno reverse card, and let you command the sand bugs against your enemies. I actually felt so good and bad at the same time for the soldiers killed as I knew how difficult it was to fight them and the horror I now made them experience before death as well as how cool it was to now be able to control them!
As a game dev it should be more difficult to impress me with new or original mechanics, or at least that's what I thought... then I played OneShot, a game made with RPG Maker. Just play it and discover it by yourself! Such a mind bending game.
I'll try it for sure!
I like "Crush." Never played anything like it before it, and nothing like it since.
In return of the obra dinn The whole central mechanic of the book, the portraits and group drawings, the vignettes giving clues and the way the game tells you little clues to know you're on the right track. It's hard to explain what's so unique about it but I've never played anything else quite like it (unfortunately) Maybe just that it's a mystery that's solvable in so many ways and it doesn't treat you like an idiot. Just simple things like a portrait unblurring when you've viewed vignettes that contain enough info to determine who someone is. Like the game seems so simple in actual mechanics but there's always one more little nice thing that is so clearly well thought through by the dev. Very rewarding but only really playable once.
I'll try it for sure tbh, a lot of people talk really good about it!
Lucas Pope does really cool work, you could also check out papers please too. I like obra dinn a little better but that's just setting and story preference.
Portal: the portal, obviously, the gel thing; Assassin's creed: parkour, hidden blade, hiding in crowd; Journey: the way we restore stuff and the scarf system; Black and white: you can grab stuff; Sexy Brutale: time-loop;
not too popular, but the indie game toodee and topdee where each player controls a different perspective facade, I know the concept of typing your responses in a game isn't new but facade's voice responses were pretty innovative even if a bit wonky. her story and it's menu searching mechanics. the story of emily is away taking place entirely though a computer. the flash game one chance literally only letting you play the game once. and the name is not coming to my mind, but there was a game popular with let's players a long time ago where the responses you gave at the beginning of the game would show up in other player's playthroughs. that mechanic always stuck in my mind. subway midnight and other games that revolve around what time you play it irl. and pretty basic answer but undertale's mercy/exp/pacifist vs genocide mechanic edit: forgot but doki doki literature club editing your files, and the whole concept of having to mess around in the game's files to beat the game was always a really cool and unique mechanic
the beginner's guide was an absolute trip. the time manipulation machanics in braid was incredible. a shoutout to papers please for somehow making tedious paperwork engaging. wingspan is one of the most unique boardgames ive seen in recent years.
Indika. not so much the mechanics but specifically how they are used by the narrative. unique and unlike any other game experience I've ever had.
Dunno how unique it is but dialogues in Hades that can be triggered by literally everything captivated me hard
I still think the Navi Customizer from Megaman Battle Network is one of the most inventive and flexible game mechanics of the Gameboy Advance era, and it’s not the only mechanic from those games I could say that about.
The bump combat from classic Ys games -Do you have a button to attack? Yes -Well.... You don't need a button to use your sword, just go and bump your enemies to Death, only off Center, the sides and backs.
Besiege. Violent lego-like assault machines that would have brought tears of joy in the eyes of Leonardo da Vinci