Interesting Game Mechanics?

[PetiteLapin]

So, I've got fairly far with a game that I'm making and while doing it, I decided to change one of the features. Now, I'm not quite sure what to replace it with, so I was wondering if anyone had any interesting ideas or things played in other games that might trigger some ideas!

Basically, I am writing a game where the MC is a young woman growing up after the death of her parents which causes all sorts of life changes, etc. I have a stat builder because I think that goes well with that kind of story, with skills giving additional choices and events etc. I was going to include some sort of leisure/mood thing (think LLTQ-ish), but honestly I can't be bothered to mess around with the stat builder again, all the numbers are working right for building up to correct milestones at the right difficulties and I don't want to accidentally ruin it.

I was going to include some sort of random finding of objects related to characters/endings in this, and I'm still kind of into this idea, but obviously I'll need a new main thing for this to be attached to. I need like something to use MC's money on also, so that the player has a choice to decide what to do with that. I'll probably end up going with some sort of leisure activity type screen, but I'm not sure what to do with it other than having two side uses that it needs to fill...

This is where some inspiration is necessary.

So, what's the coolest mechanism/feature you've come across, or one that you think would be cool? I need to start my brainstorming somewhere

[RicharDann]

I'm not sure if this is considered a game mechanic, but I like games that are divided in time periods and give the player specific goals to complete during each period that become progresively more difficult as the game advances. Not sure if this is what you're going for, but for stat building or managing games this is something that can be well linked to the stats mechanic. Non-visual novel examples could be the Persona 4 and Persona 5 games, and the Harvest Moon and Rune Factory series.

As for visual novels, for example, I really liked the mechanics in VA-11 HALL-A.

This game is also kinda divided by time periods and the protagonist is required to have a certain amount of money by the end of each period that's used to pay for things like the rent of her apartment and other stuff. The protagonist obtains money everyday at work, and how much you get depends on a cool bartending mini-game where customers ask you for drinks and you have to prepare them. Outside of work, she also has the ability to buy things from a store like decorations for her room that you can freely select and customize, among other things. I think that's a good way for the player to spend their money, there could be accessories or stat raising items to give them an incentive to use their hard earned money.

In Valhalla, there's also a mechanic where if you don't buy something she wants, she will be in a bad mood and not focus on her work making the game more difficult. So you have to balance between saving enough money for not getting kicked out and at the same time satisfy her wishes. What's interesting here is that failing to pay for certain goals actually not always results in a game over, and it can completely change the course of the story depending on what you do or don't do.