10 Most Bizarre Video Game Mechanics (That Actually Worked)

1. Constantly Evolving Game Rules - Baba Is You

If you want things to get really crazy game mechanic-wise there’s only one place to be and that’s indie games.

The genre of game that revolves around pushing blocks around a contained level in a 2D environment is very standard. What is way less standard is the way Baba Is You handles its game rules. Now these are literally spelled out for you as tiles in the game world. One tile will read ‘rock’, for example, one tile says ‘Baba’, another reads ‘flag’. These are tied by ‘is’ tiles to rules, so you may find ‘rock is push’ meaning you can push the rock or ‘flag is win’ meaning arriving at the flag will complete the level.

Where this gets really crazy is when you can push around these tiles to assign the rules to different objects. This then becomes the main puzzle.

If you can change ‘flag is win’ to ‘rock is win’ then go touch that rock and you’re home free. As you can imagine the possibilities get really extensive and the way the game forces you to think within and around its parameters is a puzzle fan’s dream. You can even change the main character in some levels by swapping out the ‘Baba’ in ‘Baba is you’ and that’s where we get our title. It’s a really clever puzzle game that requires a tonne of intelligence and lateral thinking from its audience and developer, Arvi Teikara.