Studio closures have run amok over the last few years, greatly owing to companies and corporations ever-estimating the longevity of the distinctly unique market conditions at the turn of the decade. While much has been made about the IPs and game series that have ended as a result, in one case, the loss was a game mechanic.
Invented by Monolith Productions, the superb Nemesis system is now locked behind IP ownership of Warner Bros until 2036 without the masterminds that refined it for audiences. It’s a shrewd study of how mechanics underpin great games, and that players, ultimately, seek popular and engaging mechanics above all.
Mechanics Make the Game
Over the centuries of human gaming, it’s always been unique mechanics that have led to games becoming popular. Often, it’s a simple and accessible mechanic that can then be spun off into many different zany creations and variations to form a diverse space for games of that genre.
The prime example is one of the oldest mechanical, and now digital, forms of gaming. The slot machine, since its inception in the late 19th Century, has always had a payline. It’s on this payline that the same symbols would have to align to create wins. Now, there are slots with hundreds of thousands of paylines in the Megaways series.
From just one payline to create a clear-cut mechanic in the game, some now feature 117,649 paylines, and others have even more. Chance has long been a key mechanic in games – one that board games have long relied upon. You’ve got dice rolls and a set circuit for piece movements as well as randomised card draws from a deck.
It’s the randomness that can play as a core mechanic to keep board games interesting and unpredictable. After all, many of the most famous ones can see the most skilled players take a backseat for a while in jail or by losing on a dice roll. In this way, drafting from randomly revealed community cards has become a hit mechanic in many modern board games, like zoo-builders and the wall-tiling game.
Expanding Mechanics in Video Gaming
Classic games were long limited by the physical space, and while many have transitioned to the digital space, the mechanics that made them so popular remain more or less creations of the physical world. In video gaming, developers have been able to run wild from the get-go with their creative mechanics.
A mechanic that’s picked up a lot of steam of late has been the roguelike mechanic that’s become a much sought-after genre in its own right. From poker-like games to escaping the depths of the ancient Greek underworld, the formula allows for inherent replayability and a huge amount of scope for varying each run and each advancement.
Of course, one of the most prevalent of the last decade, which has both made and broken projects, has been creating an open-world setting. Here, players can explore the whole map almost unhindered by locked doors and walls, while the quests, missions, chance encounters, and battles are all hidden around the sandbox ready to be found.
Built into many open world games is one of the most retro and beloved game mechanics that people continue to seek out today. The secret or hidden level is a classic mechanic that keeps players guessing and exploring in even the most linear of games, such as platformers. In open worlds, there are even more ways to hide these bonuses.
There are almost too many game mechanics to count, from the many kinds of mini-games to genre-defining mechanics, but it’s always these underpinning ways to play that let the best games reach maximum levels of popularity.