Games

I really REALLY enjoy boss invulnerability phases.

Builds. Build builds builds. Whether its slowly tailoring your class to a build, or roguelike unlocking items and abilities to build around each run. It's why I like things such as Diablo, PoE, Last Epoch, Binding of Isaac, Tales of Maj'Eyal, Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate, etc.

Its also why I was severely disappointed with ArcheAge. And unhappy when I returned to GW2 to find my world bossing combat medic off-meta bleed Warrior pretty much useless. Used to tank boss AoEs to revive downed people using healing shouts and increased revival speed. They nerfed and removed the revival speed node from Warrior and the build lost half it's function.

Newness. I like a game that unfolds at a nice pace with moderate challenges. Games like Uncharted or Stray. I don't like doing things over and over and over, so no to roguelikes or soulsborne games.

I'm even tired of open world games for the most part unless they reveal nicely and have good fast travel like Horizon. I didn't finish the most recent GTA's even, too much backtracking. I just want to be taken to a new place and see it unfold with some interesting but solvable challenges in between.

I'm not sure if this counts as gameplay mechanics or rather narrative structure, but games like Outer Wilds, Fez, Tunic, where the exploration and discovery of the game is the end goal of playing the game, not just getting to the game's end state.

I'm not sure if there's an accepted term for these games, but I've always thought of them as "archaeology" games. There's a bunch of stuff, both plot and gameplay, that is hidden (sometimes in plain sight), until you discover it and find out what meaning it carries.

I love the histogram system from Zachtronics' games. I find it much more useful to see my score compared to the proportion of people who got a similar score, than a leaderboard rank that doesn't mean much.

Broadly speaking, I enjoy stealth in games as long as it's implemented correctly and doesn't break the game or function poorly and leave you at a disadvantage. Despite the many qualms I have with tlou2, the added mechanic of going prone and all the upgrades associated with stealth was quite fun—and, of course, the functionality of the bow and arrow, and how you can conserve ammo. Parsing an area with dogs and navigating their heightened scent through long grass and deciding when to pick off certain enemies or ninja though is tremendously fun for me.

Desperados III and Shadow Tactics are two other stealth games that I love that use a design similar to The Commandos series. You can navigate through their detailed environments deciphering a path through on your own, using whichever abilities your party has to your advantage. I think the ninja/feudal Japan game world fits better with Shadow Tactics (I also prefer the characters) but Desperados III has just as good, if not better level design.

To add a somewhat weird one, I'll say a good save feature. Saving with an ink ribbon in RE was so freaking awesome—especially in regards to how it adds a level of complexity to item management. Another cool example that doesn't add anything to gameplay but was neat: ICO and how you save your game with Yorda on the couch. So wholesome; I can hear the music in my head, even.

E: Also, Demon's Souls' character and world tendency mechanics were so incredibly imaginative. The fact that you can unknowingly die too many times in human form, turn an area into black world tendency, and get eviscerated by black phantoms for seemingly no reason is wildly brutal and awesome.

I really like the resource/inventory systems of survival horror games. Often they can force interesting decisions as long as your current state doesn’t starve you of options.

• I can’t pick up shit! Well, I’m not using these three things so maybe I should box them. Or, I could use up some ammo on nearby enemies.
• I’m low on healing items! But I have a lot of ammo. Maybe I could stop conserving nuke launcher rounds to trivialize the next few rooms of giant zombies; try a bit more of this other weapon I don’t use much and stow my normal pistol.
• I’m low on ammo! But, I’ve been saving a hundred healing items. Maybe I can practice tanking past enemies and see just how much it will affect me.
• I’m okay on ammo but these enemies keep coming. But…I think if I make it to this area, it will give me a stationary healing spot. So I’ll just conserve ammo and take hits on the way.
• I’ve been poisoned! But there’s gonna be a bunch of other poisonous enemies before I get through this area. Maybe I can ignore it until I’m through.

I think I’d even like to find more games that focus on that sort of item management without being so horror-focused; helping you feel excited for saving an inventory spot or prioritizing the right things. It’s especially cool when you’re finding ways to shift risk in the right directions based on what you can afford losing. Example in Back 4 Blood: There are tools/resources that retain/add more “possible downs” for a survivor, which may mean you can put off healing for a long time and keep picking each other off the floor. One game has a death prevention item that you can only hold one of; so you’re encouraged to “get killed” before you find another one.

I've very rarely disliked "prepping". For example building boss arenas in Terraria or setting up my equipment for a hunt in Monster Hunter or learning about the monsters in Witcher 3. Anything that lets me prepare for future encounters is a system I enjoy, even if it's only superficial.

I hate it only when it's turned into somekind of a survival element that exists solely for the purpose of resource management. For example I hated hunger and water in Subnautica. From a certain point forward those two things become just mindless busywork because when you plant it in your base it just grows and whenever you need to fill up you just go to your base and eat and drink and there's no upside nor a real downside to those two mechanics.

With a few exceptions all the games I have played in the last 10 years have one thing in common - open world. Then again I have mostly played only Dayz/Arma, Rust and Space Engineers.