| Name | Descshort | |
|---|
| Absolute rulership | Player has absolute rulership of their particular nation, its goals and policies. | 41 games |
| Airdash | The protagonist can dash mid-air, causing a sudden burst of speed in the defined direction. | 4 games |
| Alchemy | You can concoct potions and/or create other alchemical substances. | 34 games |
| Astronavigation (Celestial navigation) | Includes a somewhat realistic starfield that can be used for navigation, mapping, or time. | 1 games |
| Atmospheric flight | All or part of the flying is done within the gases surrounding any planetary body. | 30 games |
| Barricading (Makeshift defenses) | Player can or must build makeshift barricades. Moving furniture, hammering planks on, welding things shut, and otherwise attempting to make entrance as difficult as possible. | 5 games |
| Base building | Involves building, maintaining and possibly defending your base of operations. | 157 games |
| Body dragging [body carrying] | Player can or must carry or drag unconscious or dead people or other creatures about. | 34 games |
| Bribes (Bribery) | The player may engage in the giving or taking of bribes | 1 games |
| Capturing | | 3 games |
| Ceiling clinging | The protagonist can cling momentarily or permanently to ceilings or other mostly downward facing surfaces. | 7 games |
| Ceiling traversal | The protagonist can freely traverse any ceiling or mostly downward facing surfaces. | 9 games |
| Chase | Involves chasing, usually in the form of police trying to catch some criminal. Regardless of which side of the chase the player is. | 28 games |
| Cloaking (Cloaking field;Stealth field;Cloak generator) | Player can turn themselves invisible - to optical and possibly other sensors - or nearly so. | 16 games |
| Colonization | Involves colonization of a new continent(s) or even planet(s). | 16 games |
| Combat styles (Combat stances) | Player has access to multiple combat styles with single character and is required to mix and match them against different opponents. | 9 games |
| Combo moves (Combo attacks) | Player can perform some devastating combo attacks and other moves by following a precise sequence of controller actions. | 13 games |
| Cooking | The player is able to do some cooking. | 19 games |
| Cooperation | Requires cooperation between two or more characters to progress. | 77 games |
| Corpse harvesting | Corpses and other remainders of dead or destroyed creatures can be harvested somehow. | 9 games |
| Counter attacks | Player has the ability to take advantage of their opponents' attacks and turn them into devastating attacks of their own. Often the opponents can also do this. | 4 games |
| Cover mechanics | Player can interact with cover and/or gains various bonuses from using them. | 26 games |
| Crafting | Features item crafting. | 43 games |
| Cybernetics | Player character can or must work with cybernetic hardware, especially if it's their own. | 15 games |
| Dashing | A sudden and short run or other movement. | 2 games |
| Deception (Misinformation) | | 3 games |
| Deduction | Deduction plays a central role in gameplay. | 6 games |
| Devouring alive | Involves eating some creatures while they're still alive. | 14 games |
| Digging (Tunneling) | Involves digging up tunnels and/or chambers in rock or other solid material. | 59 games |
| Dimensional travel (Planar travel) | Involves traveling between dimensions or planes of existence. | 73 games |
| Diplomacy | | 4 games |
| Disarming | The protagonist can somehow disarm her opponents. | 9 games |
| Disguising | Player can or is required to disguise themselves. | 7 games |
| Dismemberment | Limbs get chopped off. | 27 games |
| Dodging (Evasion) | Includes movement functionality solely meant for dodging. | 57 games |
| Drawing | Involves drawing shapes or symbols. | 12 games |
| Driving | Features driving any land-based vehicle(s) as the whole point, for significant part of the game or prominent side activity. | 177 games |
| Emergency service | | 2 games |
| Emotes (Actions) | Player can perform emotes. Point at things, laugh, hop, cry, etc. Things that by themselves do little, but prompt others to respond, are responses themselves or aid verbal or other cues. | 11 games |
| Enchanting | Player can place magical enchantments on objects that adds, changes or removes properties it normally has. | 9 games |
| Environmental combat | Player can use the environment to vanguish their foes. | 6 games |
| Escape | A significant portion of the story involves escaping from somewhere. | 59 games |
| Espionage (clandestine;spying) | Gathering of information without knowledge, consent, or being noticed by the target. In some cases, manipulation of information by the same means. | 57 games |
| Excretion (Urination and defecation) | Excretion serves some gameplay purpose. | 11 games |
| Flying | | 26 games |
| Flying in caves | You must pilot a flying vessel in confined cave-like spaces. | 38 games |
| Formations (Military formations) | Allows or requires the use of formations, pre or user defined arrangements of people, creatures or vehicles. | 26 games |
| Garrisons (Garrisoning) | Player can utilize garrisons, either by building and assigning troops to them or using whatever is already available. | 13 games |
| Genetic assimilation | Involves assimilation of genetic material which is used to evolve, mutate or otherwise modfy the characters automatically or something akin to voluntary evolution. | 9 games |
| Gesturing(Mouse gestures) | Uses gestures for control; moving the controller in vague motions of varying complexity with or without visual feedback. | 4 games |
| Gifting (Giving;Object transfer) | Player can give NPCs objects outside of dialogs and other regular item transfer prompts. | 1 games |
| Gliding | | 22 games |
| Grappling | Player can take a firm hold of opponents to either to throw, incapacitate or somehow physically use them or proceed with more straightforward pounding. | 26 games |
| Grouping | Player can create arbitrary groups that either become literal groups or simple shortcuts to selecting them. | 34 games |
| Healing | Player can or must heal other characters, usually limited to organic beings. | 9 games |
| Healing magic (Healing device) | The protagonist has an ability, power or device that can be used indefinitely to heal themselves and possibly others. | 8 games |
| Health draining (Life draining) | Player can somehow transfer the health of others onto themselves, either when they're still alive or after they've perished. | 27 games |
| Hijacking (Commandeering) | Player can hijack or commandeer vehicles. | 40 games |
| Home (House owning) | Player has or can have a home of some sort. | 13 games |
| Hover flight | Player character can fly, ride a flying animal or control a vehicle that can fly but does not require constant forward motion or similar to stay airborne. | 11 games |
| Hunger and thirst (food/water requirement;FWR) | Player must keep their characters and/or minions fed and watered lest they suffer starvation or dehydration and possibly death. | 50 games |
| Hunting | Stalking prey, shooting or otherwise killing it, displaying some of its body as a trophy, & eating everything else. | 27 games |
| Imprisoning (Taking prisoners;Taking hostages;Taking captives) | Player can take prisoners, hostages or other captives. | 4 games |
| Intercluster travel | Involves traveling between star clusters or similar astral bodies. | 0 games |
| Intergalactic travel | Involves traveling between galaxies or similar astral bodies. | 0 games |
| Internal resource allocation (Energy allocation)[resource distribution] | Player can or must manage resource allocation within a single system, such as a vehicle. | 1 games |
| Interplanetary travel | Involves traveling between planets or similar astral bodies. | 7 games |
| Interstellar travel | Involves traveling between star systems or similar astral bodies. | 7 games |
| Intimidation[intimidating;threatening] | Player character can somehow intimidate others, especially when this is by their own actions. | 0 games |
| Investigation | | 23 games |
| Jump steering | Player has high amount of steering control mid-jump. | 5 games |
| Jumping | | 215 games |
| Landing | Player must manually land some aircraft, spacecraft or any other flying vehicle. | 10 games |
| Leader participation | | 31 games |
| Leaning[peeking] | Player can lean left and right to peek around corners without revealing much of their body, either to avoid being detected or to reduce the hitting area for incoming fire. | 17 games |
| Ledges | Player can use ledges to pull themselves up to surfaces higher than what they can jump to, move left and right on them while hanging helplessly from them, or otherwise interact with them. | 95 games |
| Light (Illumination) | Light and illumination plays a vital role in gameplay, and not simply by dispelling darkness. | 16 games |
| Light dousing (Light extinguishing) | Player can extinguish or destroy light sources or otherwise make them inoperable for a time. | 15 games |
| Lock picking | Player can or must open locks without damaging them or using the appropriate key for whatever reason. | 95 games |
| Logic | Gameplay for these games involves very basic logic. | 24 games |
| Logistics (Resource distribution) | Player must build, manage and maintain logistics networks for storage and delivery of resources across their domain and possibly beyond. | 6 games |
| Looting | Player must search through corpses to gain any valuables they were carrying. | 27 games |
| Map annotation | Player can add notes on maps to describe things found. | 7 games |
| Mathematics | Gameplay requires the use of Math, the science of patterns, often expressed in numbers and equations. | 73 games |
| Mid-air jump (Double jump) | Player can, by some mystic force, jump again in mid-air, reaching twice as high as he or she normally would. | 61 games |
| Moral choices | The player is presented with moral choices which may stray the story or side-story to different directions. A common tool for character building in RPGs. | 17 games |
| Naval (Navy command) | Commanding a single or whole fleet of maritime vessels. | 79 games |
| Necromancy | | 1 games |
| Objective: Collecting | To progress, player must collect all or most objects - possibly of certain type - on each level. | 33 games |
| Objective: Find Exit | To progress, all you have to do is find the exit or whatever serves a similar purpose. | 13 games |
| Objective: Guide (Escort) | Player must guide someone or something besides the protagonist (if there even is one) somewhere. | 17 games |
| Objective: Protect (Defend) | The protagonist must protect someone or something besides themselves for a significant portion of the story. | 28 games |
| Orbital flight | All or part of the flying is done in orbit around a planetary body, outside their gaseous atmosphere but close enough to be affected by their gravity. | 1 games |
| Parkour (Semi-automatic obstacle navigation) | Involves parkour or parkour-like action. | 10 games |
| Parrying | Player can parry attacks. | 5 games |
| Photographing | | 13 games |
| Physics | Physics play an important role in gameplay, usually puzzles that rely in understanding or manipulation of physics. | 71 games |
| Pickpocketing | Player can or must steal from the pockets, belt or other worn apparel something of value without being noticed. | 14 games |
| Player initiated reproduction | A rarity in videogames, that players can choose for their characters to attempt have children. Not to be confused with [[tag:breeding breeding]]. | 10 games |
| Possession | Taking control of other characters besides your own through possession, regardless of the specific method. | 35 games |
| Postal Service | Player participates in an officially service of mail or package delivery as an employee or participant. | 43 games |
| Postures [Stances] | Player can assume various postures from upright to crawling. | 12 games |
| Premature detonation | Player can somehow detonate explosives prematurely, such as shooting the dynamite in the opponent's hand or when they've just thrown it. | 4 games |
| Priorities | Player can somehow control the priorities of their controlled characters, units, or anything else. | 4 games |
| Prison break | Your task is to break out of a prison or similar institution. Be this the main point or not. | 26 games |
| Programming | Player can or must program devices or other things using a language, set of symbols or commands or any other method to perform tasks. | 25 games |
| Projectile deflection | Player can deflect incoming projectiles somehow. | 11 games |
| Projectile recovery | Player can recover projectiles after firing them, usually arrows or similar. | 8 games |
| Prospecting (Mineral exploration) | | 5 games |
| Psychic Powers (Psionics) | Player character wields psychic powers. | 84 games |
| Racism / speciesism | Involves racism and/or speciesism; possibly with the player partaking in it, fighting against it, or simply witnessing it. | 6 games |
| Recruiting (Unit construction) | Player can recruit, construct or otherwise acquire more people they can control. | 46 games |
| Remote control | Player can or must remotely control several devices, bots or vehicles. | 7 games |
| Repairing | Player can or must repair mechanical, electronic or otherwise artificial entities. | 14 games |
| Rescue | Involves rescuing, or attempting to rescue, one or more people. | 325 games |
| Researching | Involves researching and studying things you find or encounter. | 19 games |
| Resource generation | Player is required to generate one or more types of resources. | 12 games |
| Resource harvesting | Involves harvesting of one or more types of resources. | 157 games |
| Resting (Camping;Sleeping) | | 26 games |
| Restoration | Restoration of some thing to its former state is a major plot element or activity. | 4 games |
| Riding | Animal riding, either as a game element or the whole point. | 177 games |
| Romance | Involves romance, either as the whole point or some (optional) sub-plot. | 25 games |
| Rope swinging | Swinging from ropes, often to get over death pits. | 31 games |
| Sacrificing | Features sacrificial ritual or rituals. | 7 games |
| Search | Searching for an object, a place, a person or something else is a major element and activity in the story. | 122 games |
| Selective breeding | Manipulating creatures to produce offspring with specific traits. | 7 games |
| Shapeshifting (Shapechanging) | Player can change their shape, voluntarily or not. | 105 games |
| Shopping | Includes shops, merchants, traders or item dispensers where the player can purchase new items. | 435 games |
| Singing / karaoke | Gameplay involves singing. | 9 games |
| Skinning | Player can remove the skin from dead critters. | 2 games |
| Sorcery (Witchcraft;Spellcasting) | Player can or must employ knowledge of the arcane, cast magic spells or do other sorcerous deeds. | 400 games |
| Space flight | All or part of the flying is done in deep space, outside the gravitational effects of planetary bodies. | 116 games |
| Spacecraft Combat | | 2 games |
| Spell designing (Spell creation) | Player can create new spells by combining various effectors together, varying from spell properties (duration, range, power) to effects (burn, heal, create fork) to application methods (by touch, throw, "just happens", etc.) and so forth. | 12 games |
| Stealing | Player can or must steal items or wealth from someone. | 45 games |
| Stealth (Sneaking) | Stealth may be required or simply possible. Avoid being seen, heard or smelt. Take care where you leave finger & foot prints, dust & even your shadow. | 228 games |
| Stock market | Financial games that mainly deal with share / stock trading, brokerage etc. | 12 games |
| Summoning (Conjuration) | Player can summon creatures to do her bidding. These usually perish after a set time, but not necessarily. | 73 games |
| Superjump | The protagonist can jump abnormally high and far. | 7 games |
| Survival | Has an overarching goal of surviving. | 5 games |
| Tactics | Requires the use of tactics. Although not much different from strategy on brief glance, tactics involves much greater control over units and their operation. | 292 games |
| Taxi | Player picks up customers and delivers them to their desired destination, usually with better pay the faster you get them there. | 15 games |
| Taxonomy | Characters can identify and categorize the creatures they encounter. Likely automatic and based on related skills. | 4 games |
| Teaching (Training) | Player must somehow teach or train characters or creatures. | 5 games |
| Telekinesis (Psychokinesis) | Player can manipulate objects at a distance, whether this is by psychic powers, magic or by some other means. | 14 games |
| Teleporting | Player can teleport. Always or after acquiring a device, skill or spell that accomplishes it. | 23 games |
| Temperature control | | 1 games |
| Time shifting (Time control) | Player has limited control over time, excluding only actual time travel. | 13 games |
| Time travel | Travelling across time to the past or to the future. Excluding minute time shifting. | 91 games |
| Torture | Involves torture, especially cases where the player takes active part as the perpetrator. | 8 games |
| Tracking | | 1 games |
| Trading | Features buying and selling goods to and from merchants, manufacturers, prospectors, potential enemies and others for profit. | 76 games |
| Traffic | Games where the player must deal with non-player vehicles traveling the roads also used by the player. Not limited to racing games. | 37 games |
| Trapping | Player can set up traps, either to capture, wound, kill, tag or otherwise affect the creature(s) that set off the trap. | 12 games |
| Typing | | 10 games |
| Virtual articulation (Digital articulation) | A more lifelike control mechanism, although usually limited to single limb such as your dominant arm while the rest are controlled in the regular way. | 3 games |
| Walking (On foot;Ambulation) | Player can or must move about on foot. | 318 games |
| Wall climbing (Wall scaling) | Involves scaling vertical surfaces without the aid of ladders or similar aides. | 22 games |
| Wall clinging | The protagonist can cling momentarily or permanently to walls or other mostly sideways facing surfaces. | 15 games |
| Wall jumping | Pouncing off walls to reach greater heights. | 36 games |
| Wall traversal | The protagonist can freely traverse any wall or mostly sideways facing surfaces. | 11 games |
| Wallrunning | Player is able to run short distances on the walls, usually to sides avoiding something or as some other mechanic. | 26 games |
| Warp travel (Warping;Hyperspace;FTL travel;Superluminal travel) | Includes any method of travel that breaks known laws of physics by usually exceeding the speed of light or using alternate dimension - such as hyperspace, subspace, etc. - to achieve effects similar to it. Excluding outright teleportation. | 23 games |
| Wilderness survival | Features wilderness survival as either the main or side activity. Fighting against starvation, dehydration, and any other difficulties you might encounter when living out in the back without the safety nets of modern society. | 14 games |
| Word input (Textual control;Typed-in commands) | Player controls the game or part of the game by typing in full or partial sentences that are interpreted as commands. | 108 games |
