Interesting Game Mechanics

As you can imagine things have been pretty hectic over the past few weeks what with Uni starting and all that.  I haven't done much more than read the things I need to read, learn to use my Wacom tablet and do my best to start drawing stuff.

The assessment for one subject is to prototype a board game.  This can be any number of different things as long as it fits within one of four themes we've been given.  Gotta love working within constraints so make you think outside the box - pun intended.  Part of this is looking into the inner workings of games to see what makes them tick, be it a table top game or a video game.  One of the games mentioned in one of the readings was Mirrors Edge which was released back in 2012 I believe.

Recently I picked up a copy on Steam so I could have a look at the setting, the story line, and one specific aspect of the game play - parkour.  Mirrors Edge is all about running around a near future city that has a definite dystopian touch (just read the "news reports" that appear on screens around the place), but this running isn't down down on street level.  Oh no, you run and jump and climb around the rooftops - leaping from building to building, grabbing pipes to shimmy up or down, balancing on beams that span yawning chasms between buildings, sliding under low hanging air con ducts or using the cranes constructing new buildings as your personal freeway.

All of this is done in first person view, but with a twist.  Unlike most first person views, in all of this running, jumping and sliding, your hands an feet come into view.  And making a jump from the side of a building to a narrow ledge above you can really get the heart racing.  Miss and you plummet numerous floors to your rather crunching demise.  It's not a pleasant way to go.

Below is short bit of footage I captured showing you making your way across the rooftops.

I also came across another title - Remember Me -  that also uses elements of parkour in it's play.  Like Mirrors Edge, Remember Me is also set in a dystopian universe, and like all good cyberpunk stories it is you against the faceless corporations.    What made me want to check this title out though was something else.  In Remember Me you have the ability to reorganise people's memories, allowing you to change what they remember as true and thus manipulate them in order to achieve your goals.  A really interesting concept, like the use of parkour, and one that works quite well.

What this shows is that there are plenty of under utilized ideas out there ripe for the picking, it just takes someone willing to take a punt on it.