8 Recent Video Game Mechanics That Absolutely BOMBED

When it comes to making a video game, each developer must ask themselves a truly important question.

"What is it that my game will do that's different from everything else?"

The answers to this are myriad, as you could approach the industry at an angle that no one else has thought of, or take a well-worn trope and revitalize it in a new way, and some teams have even found massive success in already saturated genres by just tweaking one key element and becoming the best at what that niche corner of gaming represents.

However, sometimes video games shoot for the moon and end up on the outskirts of Gateshead, battered, bruised, and likely being laughed at by the locals for either adding in needless guff to make their game stand out from the crowd, or introducing a new mechanic that to be honest, absolutely sucked.

So let's take a look at the ideas that might have been good on paper but in execution left a lot to be desired in recent video games.

When Of Bird And Cage was announced, it sounded like sweet music to the ears of gamers looking for something well and truly different.

According to the pre-release hype, this was a game that contained both an in-depth and emotional narrative throughline and delivered its story through the lens of music. Not just any music, however, as here the tracks wouldn't repeat themselves Ad nauseam while the player ambled about, instead gameplay was timed with sections of the music, and once the track shifted so to would the entire experience.

In practice, this seemed like it would truly tie the score to the emotion on screen, however, in practice things were more divorced dad rock than they were West End musical.

This was down to the often convoluted way puzzles were presented to the player, causing them to waste a tonne of time trying to figure out how to progress, leading to the music then ticking over and the section ending with little understanding of what's going on. This in turn made the emotional beats drag enough to give JK Simmons fizzy blood, and left the player feeling disconnected from the events they were supposed to be invested in.

It was all the right notes, just played in the wrong order.