Why do we need hidden game mechanics

Video games are a unique art. All because of how they create impressions. The player controls what is happening and creates an immersion level that cannot be compared with anything else. He is not just watching something, he is participating in it.

The formation of these sensations - that is the essence of game design. Every twist or game mechanic helps create emotions. Most of them are obvious to the player, but sometimes they have to be cunning. Developers hide certain mechanics to give the player the best experience. They are working in the background, but the player is never informed about it.

Cheat the player so that he feels cool

One of the most popular types of mechanics is the one that makes a player feel powerful and unkillable. Slightly correcting some of the elements of "boevki" designers can make players feel more powerful than they really are.
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Excellent examples of this can be Assassin's Creed or Doom, where the last few health points are made a little differently. Naturally, when a player sees a health bar, he assumes that all health divisions are equal, but this is not the case. The last few strips of HP are more important than the rest - because of this, the player spends more time in this state - it feels like he is holding the ball from dying.



System Shock uses a similar tactic, but turns it over. In it, your last bullet deals extra damage, which increases the player’s chances of winning.

Do you know what annoys you? Suddenly being killed out of nowhere. That is why in some games (for example, Bioshock, Assassin's Creed and Luftrausers) there are systems when in certain situations the AI ​​deliberately misses the first shot.

For the destruction of the player's shield in the first Halo, an almost full magazine of cartridges is required - the player ends up with health at about the same time as the enemy begins to recharge. This forces players to make decisions in a split second in order to survive.

Creating suspense

Instead of making the player feel cool and strong, these hidden mechanics are designed to create fear, anxiety, or tension. Such mechanics are often used to enhance the atmosphere in horrors and surways.

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is a great example. At the beginning of the passage, the players are told about the "dark rot", which with each death more and more covers the hand of the main character - if she reaches the head, then the game will have to start anew. But at some point this curse just stops growing - the threat of losing all the progress is needed in order to increase the feeling of tension.



Another example can be found in the Uncharted series, where a player must flee from crumbling places — for example, from a train falling from a cliff. It seems that the train may fall at any time and will have to be loaded from the checkpoint. But the animation of the falling object is actually tied to the progress of the passage - it will accelerate and slow down depending on how far the player is. At such levels, the user always has time for the last moment, and the object finally falls apart literally a few moments after the rescue.

Another example is Alien vs Predator. Usually, autosave is turned on when a player reaches a kind of checkpoint - whether it is passing a certain zone or defeating a difficult boss. But in AvP, autosave is often used to create suspensions. When the auto-save icon appears right before entering the room without any obvious reason, the player naturally assumes that something will happen now. This builds up extra stress.

AI that behaves differently than you think.

By itself, artificial intelligence can be regarded as a kind of hidden mechanics, because you never know what they are going to do. In most video games, AI is fairly simple, and a player can easily predict his actions. This category will be about AI in video games that behave so covertly or not intuitively that the player will never notice.

The earliest example can be found in Pac-Man - each of the ghost characters actually has a unique AI that controls their movement. The red ghost just haunts the player, and the pink and blue ghosts try to jump out in front of Pac-Man. The movement of the orange ghost is most likely just random.

Something similar can be found in the Amnesia series. It may seem that the enemies simply pursue the player, but in reality everything is a bit more complicated. Enemies are trying to get as close as possible to the player, while remaining outside his zone. This creates the feeling that a player is being watched, and the impression that enemies appear from nowhere.



Sometimes the AI ​​really changes as you progress through the game. In Alien: Isolation A stranger can learn a player’s habits (for example, where he likes to hide) and fine-tune his behavior. Another example is Enter the Gungeon, in which artificial intelligence needs time to “warm up” - the further the player passes, the better the AI ​​becomes.

Dynamic complexity change

Perhaps this is the largest of the hidden mechanics. Annoying to play again and again in the same place, so many games dynamically change the complexity right in the process. The game can give the player a little more “good luck” or add additional difficulties when necessary.

Other

Some games adjust physics to make the game more fun in some moments. In FEAR, bullets are slightly attracted to explosive objects. And in Doom and Half-Life 2, Ragdoll opponents are drawn to the ledges to increase the likelihood of a fall.



Other games try to hide the download of new locations due to in-game actions. Sometimes it looks silly - for example, accidentally “stumble” in Jak and Daxter. Or vice versa - as in The Suffering, where the character slowly goes crazy - the hero holds his head until the level is loaded around.