Games with completely unique mechanics

[Alex79]

I was listening to The Computer Game Show podcast yesterday and Sean talking about Dragons Dogma 2, and I played a good chunk of the first game (but never got round to finishing it) and it occurred to me that the pawn system is something completely unique in gaming.

Being able to hire other players NPC characters who can even help you with quests if they have already done that quest with their 'owner' and everything else associated with the pawn system - I can't think of any other game where anything like this has been implemented.

It also got me thinking about other mechanics in games, and specifically about games that do something no other games do. I couldn't think of many. Even Link's powers in the pair of most recent Zelda games are iterations on systems we've seen a thousand times before. Telekenisis, building vehicles from component parts, freezing enemies etc. They're a lot of fun to use, but they're not completely original.

I thought of Bulletstorm, with it's leash mechanic where you can pull enemies, drag them around etc. but is this just an evolution of force like powers from Star Wars? Maybe. Bullet time is so ubiquitous these days that it's not seemed original for a long time, and then there are Corvo's powers in the Dishonored games - all fun to use but teleporting, stopping time and everything else he can do - is it totally original? I'm not sure.

The only other games I could really think of are the Shadow of Mordor/War games with their nemesis system, NPCs remembering battles you've had and getting more powerful as they climb the ranks of their armies etc. I've not played those games so don't know fully how that system works, but can anyone think of any games that do something no other game has tried before?

[Scrustle]

This question is probably one of those ones that are way harder than they seem. Nothing is really totally original, there's always some inspiration for it somewhere. But at a point that's probably getting a bit pedantic anyway.

The best one I can think of though is probably in OneShot, but I think it counts as a pretty big spoiler, albeit a purely mechanical/puzzle solution one. Not to do with the story. But regardless...

Spoiler: show

There's a point late in the game where you have to make your way through a maze that has no clues on how to solve it in the game itself. The way you solve it is that you overlay a second .exe window on top of the main game window, that has been mysteriously sitting in the install folder for the game the whole time. The overlay is transparent but shows instructions telling you which direction to go that change depending on what room you are in on the main window. It's pretty wild to see these two completely different programs reacting to each other at the same time like that, and is just one of the many cool things that game does to break the fourth wall.

The only other games I could really think of are the Shadow of Mordor/War games with their nemesis system, NPCs remembering battles you've had and getting more powerful as they climb the ranks of their armies etc. I've not played those games so don't know fully how that system works, but can anyone think of any games that do something no other game has tried before?

I have heard comparisons made to that system with the Mercenaries games, but I don't think those did the thing where they changed ranks over time based on their own internal conflicts. But I think that system is probably one of the more unique ones out there. And will probably remain as such with it being patented of course.