Hello everybody, i'm brand new around these parts and wanted to make a thread no only to say hi, but start an intersting discussion. So, i've been thinking about game mechanics. Many of the mainstream games now available are first person shooters. Do you think that this genre has been done to death. I mean how many Call of Duties do we need? Why arn't games that implement different game mechanics more popular? Now to the main question do you any of you guys have ideas about new game mechanics. One thing i've been thinking about a lot has been time travel and integrating that into game play maybe not in the general sense, but as one of a few other dimensions. It's possible to do 6 dimensions, but I imagine it could be a bit daunting to the player. I know i'm probably ratling on here but i'm just trying to make discussion, so please chime in! :)

This is a game design question, and seems to me would be well placed in that forum.

I think people like what is known. Exotic mechanics have to be understood, which is a first big effort. Then have to be mastered, which is another one.

Why put that effort on a game when you could simply pick a gun and kill things, or jump through platforms, or solve puzzle moving squares or some other well-known mechanic?

That said, I hate first person shooters, I hate too difficult platforms with impossible jumps and I get bored soon with puzzles :)

I think the key for a succesful yet original design is to use these good old mechanics to produce something new, or mix them in a fun (and playable!) way, but not to stress player with lot of new concepts to learn.

I wonder where this weird concept that everyone thinks first person shooters are the only games being made comes from? Is the only source of video game information you have the TV? Even then I see adverts for that penguin game and Wizards 101 and Pirates 101 about as much as I see Call of Duty. Hit up indiegames.com, look for a first person shooter, they're relatively hard to find. Are some of the big mainstream games out there FPS? Sure, but you don't have to look all that hard to see a myriad of other genres of games out there. (hell, even mainstream wise, it's a hodge podge of 3rd person action games as much as it is 1st person games. Last of Us, Tomb Raider, GTA V, etc)

Time travel has been done before. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_containing_time_travel

(heh, enough so that they have their own category on wikipedia)

My take on the games that tend to include it as a game mechanic is that it's usually complicated, and not really all that much fun.