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Looking for games with unique core mechanics

I’m requesting for recommendations for games that stand out from the rest in their genre, and not in the sense of being the best game in that niche but actually bringing something new and innovative to the table. I’ve not had much experience in gaming, but I have a few games to give you a hint on what I am talking about:

  • Superhot: Time only moves when you do
  • Viewfinder: Convert 2D pictures seamlessly into interactive 3D environments
  • Superliminal: Change size of objects by working with perception
  • Portal: Portals
  • Scribblenauts: Summon objects by describing them in a notepad

I am not focused on the story, no. of hours of playtime, date of release or its popularity. It just needs to be playable and be enjoyable (and be available in PC).

jonathanwerewolf ,

The Swapper: 2d side scrolling puzzle game where you clone your character and swap consciousness between the clones.

Kolanaki ,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

Dwarf Fortress mostly doesn’t have unique gameplay mechanics or anything; but the Legends viewer certainly is a unique feature, due to how all the systems work together to weave randomly generated stories and history of the world through the entire world generation process. So even though you didn’t play the game through all those years, the game still kept track of everything going on while simulating the world creation and you can go through it and see all the battles, conflicts, migrations, rise and fall of civilizations, deaths of monsters, etc.

Floey ,

Opus Magnum. It’s an optimization puzzle game. You have to assemble mechanical arms and other bits (that grab, swing, rotate, push, and pull) into contraptions that assemble resources that look like molecular diagrams. Optimization puzzles aren’t unique but I felt like the pieces you build the contraptions out of in this game are pretty unique, the game is on a hex grid so rotation can play a big roll. Another interesting thing the game does is that to beat a level you simply have to accomplish a proper assembly, which in itself isn’t that hard, but the game grades you on three different metrics (speed, size, cost) and gives you no overall score to tell you how much you should value each metric. In this way it is up to your preferences what you want to optimize for if anything. I had fun trying to minmax every stat separately on every level before building my “compromise” machine was not supposed to make big sacrifices in any field.

A lot of people have mentioned it but I definitely recommend Obra Dinn, haven’t played a mystery game as unique and enthralling.

zipzoopaboop ,

Donut county, you’re a hole in the ground growing as you consume the environment.

Katamari damacy, you’re a ball rolling over and collecting items in the environment and steering is like steering a canoe.

Octodad, be an octopus in a suit pretending to be human who can’t control his limbs properly. I am bread is similar.

hascat ,

Death Stranding makes the player think about how to walk over difficult terrain with a large amount of cargo on their back without losing their balance and falling down. Most games allow you to run as far and recklessly as you want without having to worry about falling, so it was interesting to actually have to work at it, at least before you unlock various modes of transportation.

Schadrach ,

Heaven’s Vault

You play a space archaeologist, and the big central mechanic of the game is translating things written in the Ancient language.

Ancient is written using ideographs, and more complex ideas are represented by combining glyphs that describe the concept, like ever more complex compound words. There are art of speech markers, glyphs that describe how other glyphs in a word relate to each other, intensifiers, and even a few cases where super common words are just the combination of other basic glyphs into a single composite like a Norse bindrune (for example the symbols for creature and knowledge overlap to make person, an intelligent creature). 46 base ideographs, but that includes digits, so it’s only 10 more than English.

So for example, a word that reads NOUN-person-Sub/Obj CONNECTOR-NOUN-knowledge-person means “Emperor”, because noun-knowledge-person means “law” and thus the result is a person who the law belongs to, aka a ruler or in the context of an empire the emperor. Replace that noun marker glyph at the beginning with the adjective marker glyph and you would have “imperial”, the quality of being emperor-like.

One of the longest words to appear in the game translates as “mouse” and it’s 21 letters long and is literally something like creature-CONNECTOR-many-many-Sub/Obj CONNECTOR-ADJECTIVE-NOT-ADJECTIVE-CONNECTOR-many-creature-CONNECTOR-ADJECTIVE-ABSTRACT NOUN-person-CONNECTOR-light-NOUN-plant-CONNECTOR-rock, which is several words stitched into a compound word, where some of those words are themselves compound words (the idea is something like “creature like a very small pig”, but the word I’m calling “pig” means “creature that is happy in the soil” where happy is something like “the quality of a person who is metaphorically full of light” and “soil” is “plant-earth”). Those CONNECTORS are letters that are used to build compound words.

DaSaw ,

Crypt of the Necrodancer: Roguelike to the beat! Dance pad compatible.

Destraight , (edited )

Kenshi, or noita are the 2 indie games I can think of

Kenshi is unique in a way that it doesn’t give you main character vibes. You’re a nobody like mostly everyone else.

wintrparkgrl ,
@wintrparkgrl@beehaw.org avatar

+1 to kenshi. I have ~1500 hours in it. Noita is dope too, but Ive barely touched it as I suck at it

Destraight ,

I beat the tutorial boss, but I have yet to defeat the high alchemist

nightmareofahorse ,

Its retro and really rough around the edges (and QTE heavy) and is more of a life sim than a traditional adventure game, but Shenmue I & II introduced day/night cycles with NPC schedules, has a fun martial arts combat system, and the story is kind of like an 80s martial arts film with a detective kick. There’s also gambling, drinking, a little bit of working at the docks, darts, retro arcade games, and some sleuthing to progress the story. Your progress from Shenmue I carries over to II

But again its rough around the edges and sometimes referred to as QTE simulator (or Dock Worker Simulator, as I jokingly call it). But somehow, all these elements blend together well to create a unique game. Not going to be for everyone but I really enjoyed it

Final note: I highly recommend using a controller. I ran into issues with KB+M, especially after remapping keys. It broke some of the QTEs.

Shilkanni ,

The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom

jjagaimo ,

Qube and anti-chamber if you’re a fan of superluminal

You_are_dust ,

I have a couple kinda unique things to suggest. There is a small indie game called Eversion that you can find on Steam. The core mechanic is about shifting to these different planes of existence to finish levels. You can only shift at certain places and shifting opens up pathways that weren’t there before. Its retro style graphics and otherwise very simple controls. The Turing Test is a puzzle game like Portal, but instead of portals, you have a gun that can be used to move energy orbs from around the rooms to unlock doors. The game feels like it encourages creative problem solving a lot more than most puzzle games. Catherine. Catherine is a game in a few styles. You spend part of the time at a diner/bar interacting with people. Then you go to sleep and in the dream world you ascend towers using moveable blocks that you must climb. Sometimes you are chased up the tower by a boss enemy. There is no combat in the game. It’s about ascending the tower as fast as possible at night and progressing the story by day.

Schadrach ,

The Turing Test is a puzzle game like Portal, but instead of portals, you have a gun that can be used to move energy orbs from around the rooms to unlock doors. The game feels like it encourages creative problem solving a lot more than most puzzle games.

Along those lines I’d want to recommend the Talos Principle as well.

And also the Witness, which does fantastic things with environmental puzzles.

You_are_dust ,

The Talos Principle is fantastic. Probably my favorite puzzle game. The sequel is finally happening as well.

bermuda ,

In Return of the Obra Dinn you play an insurance claims investigator. You can magically view the moment of somebody’s death and hear the audio prior to it to aid in your investigation of a ghost ship.

amazing2 ,

Shadow of the Colossus is an experimental action puzzle game where you navigate a desolate world in search of 16 colossuses you need to kill by strategically and carefully climbing on their bodies.

This mechanic is probably familiar to many from other newer action games. This is where they stole it from, and SOTC still did it the best.

Erdrick ,

Also the story is one of the best in the entire history of gaming (IMO).
The other of course being To the Moon.

Adramis ,

Snake Pass - “What does a platformer look like without jump (or a regular walk for that matter)?” It’s really fun and unique.

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