Interesting Game Concepts That Amazingly Haven't Been Copied Yet

[baddude1337]

There have been quite a few games with commander and unit roles for players similar to what natural election does, but usually they are rather unsuccessful. People mostly either don't like being ordered around even if following orders would mean victory, are about as smart as a particular dense brick or way to egoistical to support/lead a team.

Only real one I can think of that pulled it off is Battlefield 2's commander mode. As said above The Project Reality mod takes it a step further with the ability to build smaller bases and what not.

Anyway, have not seen a single game in the vein of Full Spectrum Warrior. At all. A very unique tactical combat game.

 

[cojo965]

So I was watching videos on a little game called Natural Selection 2, a game whose big feature is being both a first person shooter and a real-time strategy game. The way this works is, one player plays an rts as the Commander while his units do the fps part of the game as they are controlled by other players. The Commander's... well, commands in the other player's perspectives as that voice in the single player fpses telling you to build stuff, shoot stuff, or repair stuff. You know what though? It would probably be easier to just show you all what I mean.


Now I've never played the game, mind but this looks very intuitively designed. See, I don't like how in the experiences I've had with rtses is how I have to watch any battle that unfolds because the guys you control cannot be trusted to do the best thing in a situation. However, in Natural Selection, because the units are self aware human beings, you don't have to baby them so much, meaning that if an engagement doesn't go so well I can spend more time thinking of how to help the next battle go better for your allies. It's the sort of thing that appeals to me, so then why are the Natural Selection games the only ones I can name that try this? What other concepts have amazed you by how they haven't been copied to death?

As someone who owns Natural Selection I can tell you that the concept is a lot of fun when it works and it works extremely rarely. If you play with pubs either no one wants to be the commander, or the commander ends up being terrible and always focusing on the wrong thing, or the players are terrible and blame everything on the commander. The only time the game really works is if you're playing with people you know and everyone is actually working as a team, which is something that you can't expect to happen very often considering the low population of the game.

So yeah, the reason no one else copies this concept is that it's too hard to implement well, and even when you do implement it well the entire thing is dependent on everyone participating to actually know what they're doing. The game takes too long to learn and because of that has a very small population of people who actually know what they're doing and how to play properly 80% of the matches end up with neither team using the mechanics to the fullest.

That's a shame, though I guess it't not unexpected when you try to play matchmaker to Call of Duty on one end and Starcraft on the other and expect sparks to fly.

 

[Kotaro]

Not a concept as much as a gameplay style, but I wish more games would copy the combat system of the Mega Man Battle Network series.
That unique blend of real-time grid-based movement, an ATB gauge, and deck-building elements worked far better than one would think, and ended up becoming one of my favorite RPG combat systems ever. The Mega Man Star Force series uses a similar system, but the removal of free forward/back movement to go with the horizontal movement removed a not-insubstantial amount of the depth from the system and left it feeling rather lacking.
I'm genuinely surprised that no other game has ripped this system off.

 

[Neverhoodian]

Dungeons of Daggorath's health system. You have a heart icon at the bottom of the screen that slowly beats. Every time you move or attack your heartbeat goes up slightly, and when an enemy hits you it goes up significantly more. You pass out if your heart beats too fast, which gives enemies a golden opportunity to finish you off. Your heartbeat decreases slowly when inactive. As you slay monsters and descend to lower dungeon levels your heart can take increasing levels of exertion before beating too fast (though you'll encounter tougher enemies, so it's not like it gets easy).

The heartbeat mechanic adds to the game's tension, keeping you on the edge of your seat. It's pretty nerve-wracking having your heart beat madly while you're running from a mob of high level enemies.

 

[Erttheking]

Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner, Soul Hacker's loyalty system. I think a couple of other SMT games might have done this, but basically in order to get your demons to stay loyal, you have to let them fight the way they want to. You have to let brawlers who like to fight punch people in the face, let the nice ones not fight and heal, etc etc. It's interesting because it makes you feel like you really are trying to keep a team of powerful demons from falling apart, and if their loyalty isn't high enough sometimes they'll ignore your orders.

 

[aozgolo]

Secret of Evermore had several interesting things that I haven't seen in other games, at least not in the same way:

-A trading market where you barter quantities of commodities instead of money to acquire rare items
-Different locations had different currencies and exchange rates (though they were simple 2:1 rates)
-A magic system built solely on combining alchemical ingredients you mostly found by using a dog to sniff around the environment.

Secret of Mana also had this as well but I'm surprised it didn't make it into more games:

-The Ring menu system where you can access your entire spell menu, weapons, and items, all without ever leaving the main screen.

I still believe the Ring Menu system would be a great addition to even modern games.

Other game concepts I haven't seen repeated:

-Jade Cocoon's breeding system for pets
-Shadow Madness' battle avoidance method (hear a howl before a random battle and if you press L2+R2 quick enough you avoid it)
-Final Fantasy XII's Gambit System (Custom Battle AI)
-Super Mario RPG's isometric platform jumper with turn based battles.
-Earthbound's Rolling HP Counter
-Oddworld's Gamespeak function

 

[Diablo1099_v1legacy]

Not sure if this counts, but the Personal Report in TF2.
I really am amazed that since that game has came out I haven't seen many games copy that idea.
Granted, you could make the case that perhaps progression and unlocks renders it redundant these days, but I still love the idea and it's nice seeing when I broke a personal record as I load in

 

[MerlinCross]

-Earthbound's Rolling HP Counter

-Earthbound's Auto Win.

If I'm strong enough to go first, and kill them in one blow, just give me the win already!

 

[DrOswald]

The timeline/time-travel system in Majora's mask.

While it was wonderful in the game I thought at the time it would end up as a staple in every game for a while and I'd end up hating it.

The reason why time loops very rarely show up in games (I can think of only 3 instances off the top of my head) is because it is really, really hard to pull off well and that fact is evident from the very early stages of game creation. I would be prepared to bet that thousands of people have started hashing out the idea and never got past the conceptual phase before they realized their idea would be a nightmare to do right.