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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.

apotheotic ,

Tunic is incredibly unique and I can’t say I’ve played anything like it. On the surface it’s a classic dungeon crawler zelda inspired thing, but once you play… Really any amount of it, you start to see past the veil and the real game is revealed to you. Even after completing the entire game and all achievements, there is technically more of the game available to be explored.

Outer Wilds (not to be confused with Obsidian’s Outer Worlds) will be an absolute bliss for anyone who enjoyed portal or superliminal. It may be the single greatest puzzle/exploration game ever made, with no exaggeration.

Return of the Obra Dinn was a game that I could not put down. I played it in one sitting beginning to end. I was enthralled and I felt like Sherlock fucking Holmes. It is a very unassuming game but by God, you will be gripped. It stands up there with Outer Wilds as being a game that absolutely propelled itsself up to one of the best of its genre (this one being Mystery/Puzzle)

Spood_Beest ,

Bump for Outer Wilds. Genuinely an amazing and unique game. I’ve never seen another “found knowledge” game mechanic like this.

frank ,

I so wholeheartedly agree with Tunic. It absolutely blew my mind to complete. I’d love to experience that again.

apotheotic ,

@Spood_Beest @frank

If you haven’t played either of the other two games I mentioned, I think you’ll thoroughly enjoy them. All 3 of the games are absolute masterclasses in how to hand the player knowledge that transforms their experience of the game, over and over again.

frank ,

I’ve heard great things of outer wilds, just wishlisted it. I hadn’t heard of Obra Dinner but it’s Lucase Pope! The Papers, Please creator. Instant buy from me.

Thanks for the suggestions, my SO and I are stoked to delve into more mystery and confusion

apotheotic ,

If you remember me when you’re done with the game(s) I’d love to hear what you think! Have fun!

frank ,

Thanks! Playing through Return of Obra Dinn now. Really enjoying it so far. What a cool concept and it’s so pretty!

apotheotic ,

Oh man, you weren’t kidding about getting right on that shit! Glad you’re enjoying!

frank ,

Okay! I’m not sure anyone else will see this but Obra Dinn was fantastic.

Music was down and has been stuck in my head since. It’s a cool murder mystery with such amazing imagery/creepy depictions of sea monsters. I really enjoyed how subtle some of the hints were and we felt like geniuses when we got something right

apotheotic ,

So glad you enjoyed! Did you 100% everything/get the “true” ending?

The music is SO good! And yes, 100% agree on feeling like a genius when you connect the more subtle dots!

frank ,

We sure did. The endings besides that were not gonna work for this completionist household haha

apotheotic ,

Truly awesome. I know I am only an Internet stranger, but if you do play Outer Wilds I’d be thrilled to hear you and your partners thoughts!

frank ,

I appreciate your recommendation, internet stranger, and I’m gonna pass it forward.

We will! Tis wishlisted :)

GentlemanLoser ,

Do Not Feed The Monkeys - spy on people via hidden cameras for fun and profit. It’s mostly point and click but it’s fun.

Evergreen5970 ,

In a similar vein, Not For Broadcast. Pick what camera feed to show, what to censor, etc. Will admit I haven’t played it myself and am going off the Steam description page, but it seems pretty unique mechanics-wise.

GentlemanLoser ,

I have this game and it looks to be amazing, but OMG I can’t keep up with the pace of dealing with the cameras and censoring stuff. I want to love it but I’m just not quick enough.

It definitely fits the criteria that op wanted tho, good call

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

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.

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.

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.

superkret , (edited )

Stanley Parable

You’re an office worker bee who one day realizes the office you work in is deserted except for a voice that narrates what you do and gets frustrated with you if you do something else. There really isn’t a point to it apart from discovering your word surroundings and trying to break the game apart.

Also, there’s a Steam achievement you get by not playing it for 10 years.

Exec ,

Also, there’s a Steam achievement you get by not playing it for 10 years.

Wasn’t that 4 or 5 years?

superkret ,

In the original, yes. The super deluxe version currently on steam made it 10

Exec ,

Ah, but that’s a different game technically

superkret ,

It also includes Stanley Parable 2-n.

JakenVeina ,

Tunic and Outer Wilds

Both have a heavy focus on using knowledge as your core resource in the game, and obtaining new knowledge as a primary gameplay loop.

Dangdoggo ,
@Dangdoggo@kbin.social avatar

I feel like Tunic leans too much on the LttP format to be called unique but it is a delight

MrBobDobalina ,

Ah yes, LttP… Obviously, I know what this means, but for others who don’t maybe you could elaborate?

or4n ,

I think it's a Link to the Past.

apotheotic ,

I can’t believe I typed out a whole recommendation about tunic and outer Wilds, and then scrolled down and saw your exact same recommendations. Lol. I guess excellent games are universal

Schadrach ,

I had a moment in Tunic where I realized what the references in the manual to the [HOLY CROSS] were talking about, but I don’t think my revelation was the typical.

I’d actually figured out the [HOLY CROSS] really early on, solved a bunch of puzzles using it, got some manual pages I probably wasn’t supposed to have yet, but didn’t know that the thing I was using was the [HOLY CROSS] because I lacked the context of a certain page that spells it out and based on some comments and videos elsewhere is the point where a lot of people first figure out how to use it.

It probably didn’t hurt that I was fresh off The Witness and my brain was subconsciously looking for tricks of perspective and environmental puzzles, which Tunic is absolutely full of.

DaSaw ,

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

PugJesus , (edited )
@PugJesus@kbin.social avatar

Hey, I might have a few for you!

  1. Majesty (Majesty 2 is okay, but lacks the charm of the original, but YMMV) - you run a kingdom full of heroes. The catch? You don't command the heroes. They have their own AI and goals and you have to offer incentives and place the necessary buildings appropriately to both enable and encourage them to do their jobs of saving the kingdom.
  2. Ronin - a stealth/platformer. Combat is turn-based. No, combat is not mechanically separate from the stealth OR the platforming. Relatively short but very fascinating.
  3. Pawnbarian - Roguelike, but movement and combat is done by chess rules.
  4. Exanima. Combat is based entirely around physics/momentum and positioning. It's hard to get the hang of, but is immensely satisfying once you get your "He's starting to believe" Matrix moment and successfully block a few attacks in a row.
  5. Crusader Kings 3. You know those map-painting Grand Strategy games, where the goal is to conquer other territories? One of those, but you're running a noble dynasty whose fortunes rise and fall, even passing between the overlordship of different countries and kingdoms. A lot of personality. I guess it's not as innovative as it once was, since it's spawned imitators at this point. Hm.
  6. Ring of Pain. It's... hard to describe.
  7. Phasmophobia. Multiplayer only. You hunt ghosts. Not like, 'combat' hunt ghosts, like 'You need to find evidence of ghosts' hunt ghosts. But the ghosts definitely hunt you back - in a much more malicious way.
  8. Death Stranding. Walking simulator. No, not like 'You don't do anything but hold down the walk button', like 'You need to keep your balance while carrying things' walking simulator. Immensely weird.
  9. Star Trek: Bridge Crew. Multiplayer only (at least practically speaking). Each person plays a separate member of the titular bridge crew, and cooperation to achieve even simple tasks is key.
  10. Gods Will Be Watching. A series of puzzle scenarios about calculated risk, failure, and learning the rules anew each time.
ConstableJelly ,

I strongly object to the characterization of Death Stranding as a walking simulator. Walking place to place is core to the experience for maybe one quarter of the game. Once you get to the largest area and continue unlocking new tools and features, you spend very little time walking. It also dismisses combat, which I felt was considerably more prevalent than I expected.

Cool picks though.

PugJesus ,
@PugJesus@kbin.social avatar

I feel like I spent a good portion of my time walking and finding ways across rough terrain even after all the fancy gear was unlocked. The motorcycle could get you maybe half the way, usually.

I mean, at least until the zip-lines. Those ruined the game. Honestly, the rebuildable roads were a bad inclusion as well. Sitting on top of a hill, looking down at the streams and terrain around you, figuring out the best route with your tools, was peak satisfaction in that game.

ConstableJelly ,

Yeah, that’s fair. The first time you go to any new site there is walking involved along with everything else, but I still think calling it a walking simulator is reductive, since it just one tool in an ever-expanding toolbox.

Maybe it’s better to call it a scifi delivery simulator (including factions of delivery addicts you have to fight because they keep trying to take your things).

teawrecks ,

I took their description of “walking sim” as facetious. Kinda like calling QWOP a walking sim.

LoamImprovement ,

To be fair, QWOP is a walking sim, it’s just that you’re really bad at it.

Adramis ,

+1 for Majesty. The combination of fawning over your champions while also absolutely cursing those stupid useless fuckers was fun.

Schadrach ,

Majesty (Majesty 2 is okay, but lacks the charm of the original, but YMMV) - you run a kingdom full of heroes. The catch? You don’t command the heroes. They have their own AI and goals and you have to offer incentives and place the necessary buildings appropriately to both enable and encourage them to do their jobs of saving the kingdom.

I loved that you could build temples and get specialty priests for 5 different gods, but never more than two in one level, because some of the gods were opposed to others, including the one I never used because they were monotheists and I didn’t want to give up all other types of priests.

Also that every hero type had their own priorities and preferences and would do what they preferred barring a significant bounty on something else. Also that Rogues could fuck you over if a hero died and you wanted to use the resurrection spell on them because a rogue near where they died might just rob their grave.

Star Trek: Bridge Crew. Multiplayer only (at least practically speaking). Each person plays a separate member of the titular bridge crew, and cooperation to achieve even simple tasks is key.

Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator did it before that, in 2010. ST: Bridge Crew is more or less “Artemis but with Star Trek branding”. Artemis just released a remake/sequel-sort-of-thing a bit over a month ago (called Artemis Cosmos, though it’s had a…rocky…launch so far) that’s a complete rewrite from the ground up.

And when I say they did it first, I mean to the point that some of the reviews describe Artemis by likening it to being a member of the bridge crew on the Enterprise, because there wasn’t a game like that on the market.

Gods Will Be Watching. A series of puzzle scenarios about calculated risk, failure, and learning the rules anew each time.

Under known, under appreciated but fantastic.

icicle , (edited )

Before Your Eyes

The recently deceased Benjamin Brynn is on his way to the afterlife. The player must interact with Brynn’s memories through an eye-tracking webcam to progress, as the game reads and responds to the player’s eye movement and blinking - from Wikipedia

It tries to emulate life flashing by your eyes as you are dying. I haven’t gotten around to play it but, the concept is cool nonetheless.

Found about it from this video - www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTI1WCopTsg

Cheskaz ,

When I saw this thread I thought of the exact same game, which I heard about in the exact same video

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