EXAMPLES OF BASIC GAME MECHANICS

1. The most basic game mechanics (which can be seen in any game from any era) are moving your player/character left/right. This mechanic was usually seen on old GameBoy games such as Mario Bros, Donkey Kong & Sonic. The mechanic simply enables you to progress through the level by pressing the directional buttons. You may move your player up/down across the screen if your character has the ability to fly.

2. Another basic mechanic is jumping. Enabling your player to jump is one step up from moving across the screen as it will allow the player to avoid obstacles that will be useful for progressing through the level. Jumping is usually enabled by pressing the space bar, or the up arrow on your PC, or if you are playing the PS3, it will usually be enabled by pressing the 'X' button

3. Aiming using the 'Triangle' button on the PS is another simple mechanic, which enables the player to toggle the main game camera left/right/up/down. This is a useful mechanic for 3D games as the player will need to have a full view of the screen.

SKYROADS MECHANICS:

The retro early 90s game 'Skyroads,' even more so the 'Rock of Ages' overlays genres. It can be considered a driving game, but at some point we call it jumping in a platformer style + the action in angle to it. Mechanically the game is all about driving the screen rather than the player. Each level is a gauntlet of driving + jumping. Like any game today, the difficulty will increase as you progress through the game, but just for fun different levels have different gravity levels which affect your jump mechanics.

Here are the basic controls for the mechanics for SkyRoads:

Here are the types of roads with certain colours that have certain effects:

The fan-made game known as CubeField is a half-replica of SkyRoads in some ways. Again the game involves driving the screen rather than the character. Like Skyroads, the difficulty will increase as you progress. One major contrast between SkyRoads and Cubefield is that Cubefield is an everlasting game, as the difficulty will come to a halt at some point, but within the first 4 or 5 levels the screen/player will speed up after an array of obstacles, as where SkyRoads comes with selective levels that will unlock with every other level that is completed.

The mechanics in this game are very simple. Just use the left and right arrow keys to move the screen left and right to avoid obstacles.

TOMB RAIDER - LARA CROFT MECHANICS

An example of a much more advanced game, the most recent Tomb Raider game was released around a year ago. I have never played this game as I tend to play the older versions and don't tend to buy new games anymore. I looked into the game and will talk about some mechanics and how the game has evolved since the early Tomb Raider from the PS1.

1. Jumping & Catching

The mechanics for this action are broadly similar to the classic Tomb Raider. The usual stuff, left, right, up, down + leaping from object to object. It is a much for fluid and realistic movement of course.

2. Walking On Edge

This mechanic enables 'balancing before jumping' which the developers really nailed for bringing the original Tomb Raider experience, however it's not realistic because the maneuver would be impossible in real life.

3. Rock-Climbing

Not quite the same as the old Tomb Raider as Lara will climb freely without using a grapple, just her hands and feet. To put realism into the game, Lara will only climb or hack into walls that are white and rough.

4. Ropes

A new feature in the game, Lara now uses her bow to attach a rope on the other end and tie the other on a pole or a harness. When she makes this device, she would do a sort of monkey crawl to get across.

5. Weapons

In the old Tomb Raider she would just auto-aim. Now she uses a wide range of weapons such as the bow, handgun, machine gun and shotgun. You come across upgrades for these weapons as you progress through the game.

POKEMON - GAME MECHANICS

Pokemon has been a popular game for handheld electronics such as the GameBoy & the DS for many years. Most of you would have played these games at some point in your life, but are oblivious to the complex mechanics the producers pack into these games.

Below are a list of examples of the mechanics shown in Pokemon:

1. TALL GRASS:

Tall Grass is a mechanic shown in almost every version of Pokemon. Wild Pokemon supposedly leap out of the grass, and is almost always the first form of wild pokemon encounter in the game. Other forms of wild encounter can be in caves, water, forests, factories etc which work in the same way as the tall grass. Patches of tall grass are displayed throughout grassy or basic land areas. In recent pokemon games such as Black & White, rustling grass allows the player to encounter a rare pokemon.

2. CATCHING:



Wild Pokemon can be caught using poke-balls from your items pack, ables to be accessed during most battles. There are different kinds of poke-balls e.g the great-ball(more chance of success than a poke-ball), master-ball (catches anything without fail), and dusk-ball (works better at night). The pokemon may break out of the ball after a wiggle or two if not weakened with attacks (with the master ball this is not possible). Each type of pokemon has a catch rate from 1-255 (the higher the catch rate, the easier to catch). However it is pure luck, just like wild encounter and is probably a random value within game-coding.

3. LEVEL:

Every pokemon, caught given or stolen has a certain level from 1-100. The higher the level, the fatter the power in general. Pokemon gain experience points from killing another pokemon, and when that pokemon gains enough experience points they will move up a level. When the pokemon gets to a certain level, they may evolve into a stronger pokemon.

4. TRADING:

In Pokemon games, you can trade your pokemon for someone else's via game-link, or you can trade with the computer in-game. Some pokemon need to be traded in order to evolve into a more powerful pokemon. 




Above is an example of trading. The player is trading his Pikachu (yellow bunny thing) for a Lapras (blue loch ness monster thing).