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I’m Winn Liu. I always talk about main mechanics, but it has occurred to me recently that I have never elaborated on why and how the main mechanic is so important.

So today, I will be giving you tips and tricks on choosing your main mechanic and making it fun and engaging.

First things first, what is the purpose of the main mechanic?

The main mechanic is the most important part of your game. It is the game itself, without the main mechanic there would be no game. It is the thing the player will be doing for 90% of their playthrough. The main mechanics of a game are often the first thing that comes to mind whenever you think of a game.

Before anything can start, we need to determine what kind of game you are planning on making.

Are you making a platformer game? Or a Sandbox game? Or a FPS (First Person Shooter)? Each kind of game has a different set of fundamental guidelines that it must follow.

Let’s break down the platformer games. The premise of a platformer game is to get from A to B. For platformers, it is vital to hone the main mechanics as much as possible because it is often the only thing your players will be doing for most of the game. Since we know a platformer game is about jumping and moving, we can start to build on this premise.

Take the game, Celeste. It is also just a regular platformer game where your goal is to jump from A to B, but it adds one extra thing, the ability to dash. This is the main mechanic of Celeste. It is the gear that every other power-up or puzzle is built around.

The next thing to determine is the audience. What kind of audience do you intend to target?

Are you targeting families, where parents play with their kids? If so, you will need to adjust your mechanics to suit your audience. Parents are less likely to be able to do fast-paced button controls as well as moving the camera quickly. Thus your controls shouldn’t include lots of complex button combinations and lots of camera movement.

A central message can be anything. A central message is something you as the developer want to convey to your players. The best way to convey this message is through your main mechanic as the players would be doing these controls for the majority of the game.

Now, how are we to convey your central message through the main mechanic?

Let’s say that you want to make an action RPG (Role Playing Game) and your central message is finding your inner voice. You could do this by making the character's attacks based on summoning creatures to fight for you. As you progress you get to find progressively stronger monsters.

By the end of the game, you could give a buff to the first creature your player gets to emphasise on finding your inner voice, or you could let them create their own creature.

It is important to emphasise that you should not overcomplicate your main mechanic. The main mechanic is the first thing your player learns and you want it to be easy and intuitive.

Not only that, the main mechanic is always the thing that people rely on, you want it to be reliable and consistent. Adding too many concepts to the main mechanic will make it too complicated and unreliable.

The main mechanic should always be simple and consistent, you can add depth and complexity through challenges.

As we’ve been saying throughout this blog, the main mechanic is something your player will be repeatedly doing for the majority of your game. Thus, it is vital to make it fun and enjoyable to do, as an unenjoyable main mechanic will make your players quit in a heartbeat.

Also, ensure to include instant feedback or rewards in your main mechanics to keep the players engaged. This could be through music or animation.

Another to give instant feedback is to make a combo sequence that if your player is able to do, they will get a buff of some sort.

When you are developing your main mechanics, or anything in your game. Make sure that you have the resources to create it before putting more effort into it. That is a very good way to lose money because you realise something you have been developing for months won't work and you have to throw away months of hard work.

This sounds extremely obvious, but it's surprising how easily we can go overboard on our ideas once the creative juices start to flow.

Also take into consideration what kind of platform you are releasing your games on because even if it works perfectly on your PC, if your game is not able to run smoothly on the platform no one will want to play the game.

You may be wondering, if the main mechanic is supposed to be simple and easy to do, how are you supposed to add challenge and depth?

Well, you do that by adding onto the main mechanic. Let’s take Mario Odyssey for example. The main mechanic is the ability to transform into the monsters in each world. This ability allows you to have many challenges that require a certain monster for each area.

On top of that, every time Mario and Cappy arrive at a new area, the monsters are all different, so the player will get a new set of challenges and powers to try out which keeps things fresh.

Finally, playtest and iterate. It is impossible to get a perfect main mechanic with just one iteration, you will definitely find problems and bugs in your mechanics that you will have to fix.

Another thing to keep in mind is the feedback you get from your playtesters, as they will give you critical information to improve the feel of your game.

The main mechanic is the heart of your game, it is something that the player will do for most of your game. Thus you want it to be easy to do and reliable. A main mechanic is also a good way to include your central message.

Make sure to not overcomplicate your main mechanic as players will be repeating this control over and over.

I hope this blog has helped you with your game-making process, feel free to contact me if you have any questions to do with game development or story writing in games.

I look forward to playing your games in the future!