In honor of this game jam, I want to chat about people’s experience with cursed game mechanics. A game mechanic is pretty broad. For this topic, I’m thinking basically anything in a video game that influences the game play. Usually a cursed game mechanic is something that makes the game annoying or laughable to play. Here are a couple cursed game mechanics that I can think of:
Jumping having to be pixel perfect
Physics not being what you expect
Having to select a menu item in order to move or do anything
Portals where you don’t expect them
Time warp shenanigans
The controls not being intuitive
The list above might be different for others, and if you can’t think of a cursed mechanic, I recommend looking at the submissions from the first cursed jam. Regardless, what was the most cursed mechanic that you’ve had to deal with in a game? Did it make you stop playing or did it motivate you to keep going? Let’s chat about it!
This isn’t something that is very “cursed game mechanic”, but more of a mechanic red flag. If the poster/creator has to explain the buttons or controls to the game and then a link? RED FLAG. Most of the time, it means that there isn’t a good tutorial/introduction for players when playing your game and it also shows (in certain scenarios) that the controls may be grating or overdone!
It’s a tip that I cannot stress enough: MAKE TUTORIALS IN YOUR GAME!!! It really helps the game feel polished and smooths the learning curve for your players! It doesn’t even have to be good, just something simple!
This reminds me of a YouTube video I watched about games with unreliable checkpoints! Like, sometimes they don’t work or do something… as a game mechanic.
I once played a game were the screen was flipped on both axis but the controls stayed the same so you controlled the sprite backwards. It was so weird to play.
Games that have a very open world, but you have no idea where you are going. why you are their. what the key mechanic of the game does and how to progress.
Also, games without checkpoints it sucks when you just die, and it restarts to the beginning.
