Many great games have unique mechanics. Some of them are more associated with the game than others. Everyone associates Kirby with his copy ability, for example. This topic is about the discussion of these interesting mechanics, whether they're from a game you enjoy, from a game you made, from a game you're making, or simply something you've been thinking about.

One particular thing I've been thinking about was an intriguing twist on time manipulation I've thought of: What if you could alter the speed at which time moves, but not be affected? What if every slowed down but you? Could an interesting game be build around such a mechanic? I've been thinking about it, certainly. There could be interesting takes upon it, like enemies that are also unaffected, or perhaps that become faster the slower everything else is. Aside from this, being moving at full speed while other things aren't can be dangerous, if, for example, an attack that is normally easy to avoid becomes significantly harder because of how much longer it lasts.

That's my interesting mechanics. Does anyone else have any? Ill probably post more if I cna think of them.

[Post 2: Firey Boss o' Doom]

Newest Release: 0.4
My current Version ~0.48

Post 2: Firey Boss o' Doom

So I made the boss for fire pit over the past couple days. I quite like how it came out, although as per usual, my pixel art leaves much to  be desired. The actual coding behind the boss is fairly extensive, spanning several attacks, including spawn an enemy, creating pillars of flame, creating pillars of flame that travel in a chain, and sending out a pulse that does high damage and deflects your shots.

Aside from this, I added a new power-up that you gain for his defeat, which allows for more powerful projectiles, which can be used to destroy the dirt blocks found in the Dig Site.
I mentioned last time the majorly improved trigger for boss 2; I thought I'd elaborate. Instead of the floor simply disappearing, one of the bosses fists shoots up, punching a hole through the ground, which leads to the rest of the floor falling down based on how far away it is. I really liked the way it came out, although graphical improvements, if I ever have any, will undoubtedly make it much more appealing.

There it is for now, although getting a good picture is pretty difficult. No images of the new boss though, you'll have to wait for that one.

Any improvement upon the game would be well received with me. The first is great, and more would be just fine.

Newest Release: 0.4
My current Version ~0.45

I've decided to make updates every couple days or so about what I'm actually doing with the game. The "New additions" in my feedback topic is achieving this moderately well with what I've done, but I though I'd keep a log of how I did it. It also would be giving sneak previews of what's to come. And possibly help gain interest, although I doubt it.
So, first post:
Major things is that I have some very basic tilesets in the game. I have 3 thus far. Aside from this, I've fixed up one of my scripts to be slightly more effective, and will probably begin work on the next area of the game tonight.

A major thing I did was remove most of the arbitrary walls that can't be passed until certain bosses are defeated, allowing you to actually go nearly anywhere early, were it not for the dangers involved. You still need to defeat boss 1 to get to the underside and the hub, however, as it's role is a sort of guard, blocking off the entire game until it's defeat. you can access the dig site, however. Additionally, the trigger for the second boss has been majorly improved aesthetically.

That's it for now.

Future Plans:
Implement images into this thing.
Add more to DeepSide
Create either Farmount or Fire Pit boss.

Awesome. I'll have to remember that this worked.
THEN I WILL HAVE IT MADE!
 

Hopefully, anyway.

You could alter the parameters to activate slightly farther than the veiw actually reaches, IE:
instance_activate_region(view_xview-32,view_yview-32,view_wview+32,view_hview+32,true);
to increase the parameters by 32 pixels in all directions.

It's quite simple really.
The kind of simple where I've never tried this before, and I think I figured it out.  :D

In theory that would work. I may have gotten the signs wrong, but knowing game maker, I'd say I didn't.

new version! see first post for details!

I could drop the player's max speed a bit more, I suppose. Maybe boost the friction a bit, too.

Update. Also, help with graphics would be great.

Finished the demo with all 10 health upgrades. This might seem like an odd question, but are you good at platformers? The player feels very overpowered most of the time.

I like how the armor makes you immune to weaker enemies/projectiles over time.

Using the mouse to place platforms when you move with the arrow keys and jump with "x" either requires three hands or two people. In general, this ability could be very overpowered.

Hyperdash works well, as in FLaiL.

Having to shoot a block in midair then jump to avoid hitting a near insta-kill spike is fairly cruel to ask of the player just to save after the first boss fight.

Loading should probably be a menu item, not an in-world object.

Bosses have enough hits that you should probably show a health bar.

I didn't see any pattern for the block destruction after each hit in the third boss. Sometimes the blocks spawn over the player unpredictably. One block blocked the entrance and it wasn't intuitive that you could make a block jump by shooting it at an angle.

in no particular order:

Boss 3: There isn't a true pattern for block destruction during boss 3. every time he get's hit, each block has a 1 in 3 chance of being destroyed. I also programmed it so they all get destroyed when the boss dies. I guess that's not in the newest release, however.


Yeah, You're right, a boss health bar would be a good idea.

I actually didn't like armor being so powerful. I got rid of two of the 3 that were added so far.

Not being able to easily use the mouse platform is actually part of the balancing.

As for the difficulty, it's actually something I'm trying to work out. The next version has a lot more enemies in area one, and a couple new enemy types.

I'll probably release a new version after creating boss 4 and a few new rooms.

Guess not, huh?

Could I get some feedback? No one's posted in weeks, but I get several views a day!

I love boss design. Clever and interesting bosses can be very fun to make and to fight. Unfortunately, none of my bosses so far have been. Except for one.

This is a good idea. Level 1 is actually the aftermath of a giant deathworm jumping through the city, so it'd make sense to even have a small tremor there and let a car or something fall down.
The bad side of that is that having things go somewhere offscreen is bound to make people want to investigate and jump down. I think I'm safe with the civillian falling in and screaming, cos then you know it's bad.
On a side note, this is mad that I have to make sure nobody jumps down this bloody great hole in the floor.

You could always have fire come out of the hole when the car falls down

Clever

I love that idea. sounds really complicated, though. most of them, anyway. the gun effects seem simple enough.

Add a carrot on the other side of the pit, so the player jumps over to get to it.

one of the worries is that they won't notice the pit at all, and just walk into it.

here's another suggestion:

make your preloader so cool that people are sad when the game is done loading.

Wouldn't that make people close the game and just open it over and over?

Having a sort of danger sign would be useful, and perhaps it could be made sort of funny. I'd certainly laugh at a sign labeled "WARNING: BOTTOMLESS PIT"

True enough. The problem arises that I'm bad at asking, but you have to try, I suppose.

Interesting article. I'm kinda surprised Spelunky is mentioned along side tons of classic 8-bit and 16-bit games.