Well, I'm pitting the two against each other because there's such a difficult-to-define line between them.
Hence the "Halfways" list at the bottom

Also, these Level Keys in the guise of a Fun Mechanic frequently have as much work put into them (in technical terms) as the Fun Mechanic would.

You wouldn't have to make bombs (in Zelda) be able to blow everything up of course; they should, however, be fun. If you have bombs, they are an ineffective combat tool for the most part. Why? Why shouldn't you be able to throw bombs at enemies and not feel like a tool for doing so (for most of them, anyhow)?

Too many enemies have a straightforward method of defeat. "This guy eats bombs and is practically untouchable by anything else". "That eye tower is made of metal so obviously you can't damage it with anything -- you can just stun it with a bomb".

Not to say I have anything against Zelda games, but I feel like in general Level Keys are cop-outs. They're easier to design for, but the end result in general is not as good as a game filled with Fun Mechanics.

[Fun Mechanics]

I eventually made this post on my blog expanding upon this concept

Fun Mechanic:
Bombs (Spelunky)

Level Key:
Bombs (Zelda)


In Spelunky, what do you do with bombs? Whatever the hell you want. They're fun tools with multiple uses: You blow up obstacles, enemies, and sticky bombs make things even better.

In Zelda, what do you do with bombs? ... Well, you blow up preset obstacles (as examples: cracked walls, big rocks). Sometimes you use them to kill certain enemies, too -- but they're only really useful for the ones you're meant to kill with bombs. They're kind of fun tools (but not really very fun aside from the BOOM! animation) with just about no uses aside from what the game has specifically laid out for them.


There are more examples to be had, of course, but this is all I'm going to go into for now -- it's a great comparison, bombs vs. bombs.

Having Bombs in Spelunky is fun. You save them for when you really need them, but it's ultimately up to you: When do you need them? Whether you're going to be blowing up a boss, a shopkeeper, or a wall that's in your way, they're there to say "Hey! Use us as you will!"

In Zelda games, Bombs are not as fun. You get bombs, but what do you do with them? You test things that look like they could be blown up. If it works, hooray! You've made a bit of progress or found a secret. If not? No big deal, you go pick up some more bombs along your way.


Back to the more general topic of Fun Mechanics vs. Level Keys.
When you have a Fun Mechanic, the player should be able to use the mechanic as he sees fit. It isn't always just a question of level design, whereas with a Level Key it is.

Fun Mechanic: The player says "I want to use X for Y. It would be fun to use it for Z."

Level Key: The player says "I need to use X for Y. Why would I use it for Z? It's there to be used for Y."

And I imagine this is why people like sequence breaking in Metroidvanias. They're taking something that is supposed to be a level key, and instead using the fun mechanics that already exist (even if they are such simple things as movement, or jumping of various flavours) to stick it to the man, where "the man" is the game developer creating level keys instead of more fun mechanics.

I like Fun Mechanics and dislike Level Keys (which are in some cases simply door keys; at least they aren't trying to disguise themselves as a Fun Mechanic!), hence the connotations I've assigned to the names I have given to them. However, I don't know about others. What do you think about these two things? Do you like Level Keys in a game?


Other Examples

Fun Mechanics:

• Myriad of Weapons (Cave Story). You never need a certain weapon; they only exist for ease and fun, otherwise Polar Star runs wouldn't exist.
• Gravity Gun (Half-Life 2). I think this one was more akin to a Fun Mechanic. Although sometimes the physics puzzles you had to solve with it were pretty basic, it's also way too much fun to ragdoll enemies with barrels and crates. Oh, and the sawblades.
• Various Cool Weapons (Et Cetera). In general, most alternate weapons are Fun Mechanics. However they aren't always different enough to provide a wide variety of fun.
• Give me more examples of Fun Mechanics in games!

Level Keys:

• Time Period Shifting (Paradox Embrace). It may change in further levels, but what is a purportedly interesting mechanic seems horribly dull and lifeless to me. Although this is probably the least-known game on my list, this game is what made me think about this entire concept.
• Silver/Golden Gaunlets (Zelda). You pick up big rocks... to get them out of your way. Pretty much as key-like as it comes. They also let you push heavy stuff, but this is all really the same as lifting/pushing light stuff, except... it's heavier stuff.
• Give me more examples of Level Keys in games!

Halfways:

• Clairvoyance (Psychonauts). It's useless outside of what it's required for, but it's still a lot of fun to see how other entities see you.
• Songs (Zelda). They vary from "holy shit I can use this to freeze re-deads, or something" to "wow it opens this one door I'm so excited". I live for the Fun Mechanic songs in Zelda games. Which, sadly, have seen little love as of late.
  
• Give me more examples of elements that are between the two!

[Bookworm + Pong]

William Broom: That sounds awesome.

Bookworm + Pong
You need to avoid the letters you want to add next. There are 11 (or more? odd number, though) letters bouncing around the middle of the screen.

Scoring is based on Longest Word - # of Letters not used in that word

For example,
Droqen makes "BEAPPLE", getting 5 (APPLE) - 2 (BE) = 3 points
Mikademus makes "NICE", getting 4 (NICE) - 0 () = 4 points

Mikademus wins because Droqen got too many spare letters.

Chao, 3.5k's no score to be ashamed of!
Don't worry about being "trash at this game" because I honestly have no idea what kind of level of skill I'd consider "average" or "decent" any more.

On roadblocks:
They should be fixed when I come out with the next update, which will include a few changes and options.

Vanguard, nice catch! I'll fix that right now.

there are impressive attempts at innovating if you consider the extremely limited bounds the designers have to work in.

Aside from the "wow, that's great, you managed to innovate whilst limiting yourself" factor, why is this a good thing?

If I decided to make a platformer where all of your controls are in awkward positions, even if I make the best of that and make it little interesting, the question still arises: Why not just do something different?

[When I am designing games]

Aside from actually doing it, what do you do to prime or help along your creativity?

I will start, so that you understand what this madman speaks of!

When I am designing games I sometimes talk to people, and I sometimes write small test files on the computer, but usually I draw on paper with pencil and as a result I have too much paper wasted on ideas I'll never finish. Frequently I make little diagrams of things that have little to do with anything but they're fun to make and very occasionally help me out.

Also, I always use regular pencils (none of them mechanical guys).


This topic might be a bit mundane, but maybe that's just because my methods are a bit mundane. Do you have anything crazier to share? Maybe you write one thousand words before drawing a picture, or you consider game design by shouting at homeless people?
If you've a mad tale to tell, or a sane one, speak your process of creative thinking.

[should]

I'm proud to announce that I have gone through my pathfinding code (used to ensure there are no full blockages) and it is now better than it should have been, had it even worked in the first place.

pen: Holy shit, nice :D // I'll give you a hint; it has a prerequisite, and prerequisites are always (no exceptions) found on the same column as the ability itself.

I am posting here because I want to make sure I see the updates and stuff.
Keep up the delicious delicious delicious work?

[I'll continue to use the game and provide what bug reports/feedback I can]

Oh! Yeah. In such a way to keep things nice and hidden, I'll only say yes -- fall damage is always 1.

Ortoslon gave me an escapable but not-supposed-to-show-up screenshot, but keep trying to screencap if you see one :]

Stomp

Chao, the way original Stomp worked:

You would take fall damage as though you had hit a block. Fall too far, you get hurt.
If you fall past "regular" fall damage height (even if you have Knees+ it uses regular fall damage) it deals 2 damage instead of 1. If you fall even further than Knees+ can save you from, it deals 3 damage instead of 2.

I never really found huge huge stomps to be useful until I removed fall damage from it. And then I realized that made it a bit too useful.

But the cushioning is something I like a lot so I decided to see how well Stomp worked if it returned to its 1-damage roots :)


mokesmoe: Cool! I'm glad. -- I'd like to mention that getting stuck on spikes sounds kind of nice. I almost don't want to fix it. Just because you have armour doesn't mean spikes should be totally nullified :D // I probably still will for the above mentioned (if it's on the last page does it still count as "above"?) previously mentioned reasons.

JaJitsu, I support your post fully

and think that the pokemon has the same sort of pose as your current display picture, if your current display picture were to be a large indifferent amorphous pink blob instead of a black-and-white person.


But really, what happened to you, Futurology? Better still be alive :D

Droqen, I assume you've seen all of the things referenced in the sidebar here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuation

If not, have fun!

I have been here before, but it does not make it any less fun the second time around

[Lightning Rod]

Imagine it more like a Zelda-type adventure game maybe?, where the environment acts differently depending on where you are -- along with tools who function better, worse, or not at all depending on the environment. But not tools that you need.

Cold: Any water that is outside instead turns to ice. You can now cross to places you could not before, whereas in other places waterfalls might be frozen over, for example. You could still find a bridge around, or burn through waterfalls with a fire item.
---> An area which normally has a bridge with enemies on it, perhaps promising a difficult fight; if it's cold outside, though, the fight is different because you can cross without fighting, or come from behind.

Thunderstorm: There is a Lightning Rod which deals huge damage, but only carries 5 charges. You can hold it up during a thunderstorm to charge it up.


Er, that's all I got. There might be places that require it to be cold enough or hot enough or windy enough to gain access to, and these places would not be necessary but could be cool extras for those who can get to them?

Chao I'm sorry that I have failed to fix the dots bug ;__;

Smash is good but it shouldn't be necessary... are you absolutely certain it's totally blocked off, and not just a twisted air path? If you think to do so, get me some screenshots.

You might just be suffering at the hands of malice, though.


edit ::

Stomp is going to become more of a useful Knees+ replacement than a really offensive tool. It will do 1 damage, always. But it gains the ability to cushion any landing. If you want to save on points or use your body as a weapon, the new Stomp will let you replace, at least under some conditions, the Knees+ and Double Jump combo. However, you need to position yourself right or it's useless. Obviously, K+DJ is still more universally versatile. If you liked the way Stomp was before, voice complaints now.

Headbutt deals 2 damage, making it a more viable 5th-tier offensive option as well as remaining a useful mobility utility.

Boring HUD is on its way. Life counter is still just as messed up (:D) but everything is condensed, at the top of the screen, and depth is more reliable (unfortunately).

Note: It's also there to make maneuvering around a spike block a bit more manageable.
As it is, with sufficient skill you can usually make your way around spike blocks that seem tough to avoid.

And I like that.

(Note I am still bumbling through step-up coding.
A friend of mine pointed out something interesting: that this little bump is just a little tiny bit of an extra obstacle to be applied even to those with spike armour; I will still fix it though, as it could pop up and feel like an annoying bug (I'm stuck!) more than a gameplay element.)

InvisibleMan: The point of such a game would be to ensure that, in any given condition, there would be something new to experience. Naturally, you should be able to access most aspects under any weather condition, but some things might be more difficult or impossible to experience without a certain weather condition. Weather should have a big effect on everything -- but not in a way that would feel like you're being limited, rather in a way that you feel like every new weather condition brings a whole new world of options and interactions.

shig:

The flight simulator having real weather data is pretty cool.

Google maps doesn't have weather data, does it?

Whispering your name from registry is awesome o_o I always wondered what that whispering was.


Finally!
Niko: As per the top bit of this post, my hopes would be for, if you have snow most of the time, sunny days to be a special event. Having grown accustomed to snowy levels, a sunny day brings bright new sunny levels. It's true though that weather reports aren't always accurate... but the "right now" weather does tend to be pretty close.

No, most are. That's the fundamental element of a platformer. You go from one platform to another. Usually the going between involves a death chasm as an obstacle.

There are some more "hardcore" platformers in which the focus of the gameplay is making sure you make every jump perfectly, and I don't care terribly for those -- but frequently the "death chasm" is just there as an additional element to consider while you do something else. (Such as combat enemies, explore an area, or solve a puzzle?)

But I guess i have a turn to make a small complaint, which is that I don't really think your issue is with adventure games. Adventure games are far better than most games when it comes to interacting with their stories, as they're built explicitly to do so. Just games in general tend to have crappy stories and no actual interactivity with the plot. Adventure games have the failing that they can't hide behind Michael Bay explosions to disguise this.

Indeed you do get a turn :D // I guess I'm not so much thinking about interacting with the stories as I am thinking about interacting with the gameplay.

Even in other games (like Braid, which C.A. mentioned), there are interesting elements for you to play around with. In adventure games, the "elements" that you get to interact with are

1. Talking to people
2. Moving around
3. Using items on entities
4. Using items on entities and advancing your progress slightly

and that's what bugs me -- that adventure games boil down to wandering around a somewhat restrictive or non-reactive environment... and when they do react, it's only in predefined ways.

Let me put it another way: Adventure games (usually?) lack emergence. I have almost never come across one that was "more than the sum of its parts". I imagine that adding attributes to items would make things a bit more interesting, though you'd have to make sure the player couldn't get stuck (or perhaps you wouldn't make sure of such a thing )


Shade Jackrabbit: I'd love to get a new outlook on my least favourite genre (or even ones that I am mildly displeased with such as Puzzle), though :D

PS: I found myself really liking Blue Lacuna.

Ben Kuhn, what you said reminded me of that which had been forgotten. There would come an issue with "what is the opposite of not-windy-at-all when there's really no limit to windiness?", though.

BK+SJ, regarding weather from a certain place that is not where you live: Though it definitely does stray from the linking to a player, personally -- it could still be interesting (tying it to a real modern-day city could be cool too). Though at that point it does sort of start losing the concept to the point where "random" weather might work better (... well, unless you're living in New York).

If (when? hopefully) I end up fixing that, it'll just let the player do a little step-up sort of thing.

The size difference is there, though, so that when the player lands halfway between a spike block and a regular block, I don't get collision detection issues D; (i.e. player lands mostly on regular block but partially on spike block and technically hits the spike block "first" and so takes damage).

[THE INTERNET]

No, I'm not talking about realistically simulated weather.
Yes, I uh, mentioned this before in another thread I made but now it's the focus instead of a side mention :D

The game starts and prompts you with a dialog: "Where do you live?"
It wants a country, a city, and other such information. Using that information, and THE INTERNET, it churns out for you a weather. The moment you start the game, every time, it picks up the current weather for wherever you live.
You look out your window, and it's sunny -- in the game, it's sunny, too.
You're coming coming and it's pouring hard -- in the game, it's pouring just as hard.

Thunderstorm on its way? Big blizzard? Harsh winds? Thick fog?

In the game.

That's the theory, anyway. Of course... I came here, to the Design thread, because this is not at all a complete idea for a game.

What kind of game would best complement this, and how could this idea function?

1. Some people live in very mild conditions.
2. Some people live in a place where disaster-type things happen, or the temperature varies wildly.

Things must be interesting for players who fall under either group 1 or 2, and hopefully weather patterns should have some kind of interesting, serious effect.

Part of the point of this is
"Oh! It's raining, and even though I haven't played this game in a while, maybe this will make something interesting happen!"
"Holy shit a thunderstorm! Maybe I can _____!"

Most thoughts in regard to this were in terms of either a platformer sort of game or a top-down, Zelda-ish kind of game, both with a relatively free and open world.

But that doesn't mean you should feel limited in terms of thinking about this mechanic.

Anyway, I've sort of failed to keep thinking about this concept, but I'd love to get to thinking about it again (and obviously that's why I created this thread).