Design a new game mechanic

[benbenthegamerman]

If you could make a new innovative mechanic for games, what would it be? For me, it would be (what i like to call) Real-time fencing. You are given four controls: Parry, Block, Dodge, and Strike. You are only given a certain amount of times to use each individual ability. In real-time, you must decide quickly which ability to strategically use, in a sort of rock-paper-scissors way:

Block beats parry
parry beats strike
strike beats dodge
dodge beats block etc.

However, i say these abilities are limited because every time you make a wrong move, either your sword or shield is damaged depending on what move you made, and same for your opponent if you win. the first person to have completely broken gear loses.

Another mechanic i have is for 3PS's called Marco Polo: you are given a melee weapon, and you must defeat a room of baddies while your control scheme alters about every 5 seconds, making it a decent exercise in hand-eye coordination.

 

[scnj]

A zombie stealth game for Kinect where you have to literally walk like a zombie to sneak past them. Using the Kinect camera, you emulate the zombie walk and you have to try to keep the same pace in order to not attract their attention.

 

[benbenthegamerman]

A zombie stealth game for Kinect where you have to literally walk like a zombie to sneak past them. Using the Kinect camera, you emulate the zombie walk and you have to try to keep the same pace in order to not attract their attention.

That sounds really fun! i would totally buy that.

 

[C_sector]

An RTS game where after fighting an opponent and crushing their army, your army can then pick up their weapons and supplies that go into your resources. Im not sure if a game like that already exists.

 

[Jennacide]

I came up with a system for magic usage when I was a kid, and I've still yet to see any game come close to how I designed it. Only game even remotely close was Dragon Age having some sembleance of spell combos, though they were almost exclusively area of effect spell stacking. Part of the system I had allowed for on the fly spell casting combos to create new effects. An example, spellweave Slow and Fire together to create Immolate, which instead of being a single fire blast turned into a fire damage over time. This is the simplest and easiest to understand example, I had one for basically any combination of spells the player could come up with.

There is more nuance to it, like a scale of magnitude based on how much it cost to cast and more, altering the base spell or combo effect.

 

[Xyliss]

A zombie stealth game for Kinect where you have to literally walk like a zombie to sneak past them. Using the Kinect camera, you emulate the zombie walk and you have to try to keep the same pace in order to not attract their attention.

How long would it take before that gets boring?

 

[Zap Rowsdower]

A realistic shooter in which if you shoot something's legs, it can't walk, And if you shoot it's torso it dies slowly, and if you shoot something in the head it just dies.

 

[scnj]

A zombie stealth game for Kinect where you have to literally walk like a zombie to sneak past them. Using the Kinect camera, you emulate the zombie walk and you have to try to keep the same pace in order to not attract their attention.

How long would it take before that gets boring?

You're right, but making Kinect appeal to hardcore gamers has to start somewhere.

 

[SnowdensOfYesteryear]

A zombie stealth game for Kinect where you have to literally walk like a zombie to sneak past them. Using the Kinect camera, you emulate the zombie walk and you have to try to keep the same pace in order to not attract their attention.

How long would it take before that gets boring?

You're right, but making Kinect appeal to hardcore gamers has to start somewhere.

\

Of course, you could do it Simon-Says style, with different groups of zombies having different sways... like maybe have some goofy story where there's different clans of zombies with different identifying sways, or maybe some zombie groups have limbs missing so you have to put limbs behind your back, et cetera.

I dunno, uhm.

OT: How about a game mechanic that's centered around locational damage, ala Dwarf Fortress or Liberal Crime Squad, but in full 3D, and it'd have the L4D2 effect where you could see the gore and such?

 

[RobDJClark]

An RTS game where instead of just playing preset armies. You play as your own designed armies, Complete customisation is yours. Heck you can even design the history of them. Then instead of playing birdseye view you play as your highest ranking soldier, going about and giving orders. Before each mission is a QTE pep talk you give your soldiers, and if you get it perfect then your attack stat goes up for a while at the start, get it pants and your defense goes down a little or something like that.

I dunno, just thought of it there on the spot. I've never been a fan of RTS games

 

[SnowdensOfYesteryear]

An RTS game where instead of just playing preset armies. You play as your own designed armies, Complete customisation is yours. Heck you can even design the history of them. Then instead of playing birdseye view you play as your highest ranking soldier, going about and giving orders. Before each mission is a QTE pep talk you give your soldiers, and if you get it perfect then your attack stat goes up for a while at the start, get it pants and your defense goes down a little or something like that.

I dunno, just thought of it there on the spot. I've never been a fan of RTS games

All good up until "QTE," and now I want to smack you. Why not a dialogue choice, or purely skill-based one?

And... are you saying, customizing units, or picking which units, because that's a tad confusing when you say "preset armies."

 

[RobDJClark]

An RTS game where instead of just playing preset armies. You play as your own designed armies, Complete customisation is yours. Heck you can even design the history of them. Then instead of playing birdseye view you play as your highest ranking soldier, going about and giving orders. Before each mission is a QTE pep talk you give your soldiers, and if you get it perfect then your attack stat goes up for a while at the start, get it pants and your defense goes down a little or something like that.

I dunno, just thought of it there on the spot. I've never been a fan of RTS games

All good up until "QTE," and now I want to smack you. Why not a dialogue choice, or purely skill-based one?

And... are you saying, customizing units, or picking which units, because that's a tad confusing when you say "preset armies."

Ok so no QTE, A dialogue choice would be pretty cool. Something else entirely. And I mean designing your own armies. The colours, the attitudes, how they portray there severe "We're going to kick all your asses cause we can" Literally every aspect you could possibly control in customisation. Maybe with a bit of skill point setting. RPG RTS. Woops

 

[Xyliss]

A zombie stealth game for Kinect where you have to literally walk like a zombie to sneak past them. Using the Kinect camera, you emulate the zombie walk and you have to try to keep the same pace in order to not attract their attention.

How long would it take before that gets boring?

You're right, but making Kinect appeal to hardcore gamers has to start somewhere.

True, and i understand where you're coming from...it is intuitive. But maybe if there was a bit more to it, then I think it could be better.

 

[The Amazing Tea Alligator]

An RTS game where after fighting an opponent and crushing their army, your army can then pick up their weapons and supplies that go into your resources. Im not sure if a game like that already exists.

Men of War. I can't explain how brilliant this game its. BUY IT. NOW.

 

[scnj]

A zombie stealth game for Kinect where you have to literally walk like a zombie to sneak past them. Using the Kinect camera, you emulate the zombie walk and you have to try to keep the same pace in order to not attract their attention.

How long would it take before that gets boring?

You're right, but making Kinect appeal to hardcore gamers has to start somewhere.

True, and i understand where you're coming from...it is intuitive. But maybe if there was a bit more to it, then I think it could be better.

To be fair, the thread did say to design a single mechanic, not a whole game

 

[AgentBJ09]

Trigger/Stick controlled Melee

Let me explain. In Condemned, you attack by hitting the Right trigger button, which looks really good and feels natural. In Condemned 2, both triggers are used to attack when your hands are empty.

So, what I'm thinking is a melee system like Condemned 2 where you hold the Left trigger to ready a weapon, then use the Right Stick to attack in a certain direction. This would not override the old system where you can hit the Right trigger to attack in a preset direction based on movement.

 

[Druyn]

I came up with a system for magic usage when I was a kid, and I've still yet to see any game come close to how I designed it. Only game even remotely close was Dragon Age having some sembleance of spell combos, though they were almost exclusively area of effect spell stacking. Part of the system I had allowed for on the fly spell casting combos to create new effects. An example, spellweave Slow and Fire together to create Immolate, which instead of being a single fire blast turned into a fire damage over time. This is the simplest and easiest to understand example, I had one for basically any combination of spells the player could come up with.

There is more nuance to it, like a scale of magnitude based on how much it cost to cast and more, altering the base spell or combo effect.

I dont know if youre a fan, but Fable 3 seems like it may have that feature. Its definitely not D&D magic, but I guess its a starting point, no?

 

[MortalForNow]

An incredibly realistic simulation of what a battle would be like. This would include the player not being able to withstand numerous gunshot wounds and relying on the teamwork of their allies to defeat the enemy. A large number of multiplayer allies could help this work if they were all willing to give strategy a go and could be able to realize that going all Rambo on the enemy wouldn't work.

They would have to use different classes to create a perfect balance among their team. This would mean that many people would have to be medics with the amount of shooting going on. Also, instead of tracking a team's number of kills, the battle would be determined by the team who can drive back their enemy before they are overwhelmed themselves. A boundary line would be set at the exact half distance between the frontlines of each team and the winner would be determined when a "tug-of-war" style defeat/victory line is crossed by the opposing team.

 

[ThatSexyGuy]

A completely customizable weapon system. I mean down to every screw extensive. You could use weapons you already have for parts or a base or you could buy parts and completely from the ground up build your weapon. You would also be able to modify already existing weapons from camo to firing modes. E.X. you could take an M16A2 of a dead soldier buy parts mess around and make it fully automatic and give it arctic camo. Also you could have a camo creater which as the name suggest create your own camo. Not limited to firearms either. A bow or slingshot even.