Shocking, the guy who has the audacity to complain about free stuff is THINKING. Maybe he'll come to his senses and buy every match-3 he can get his hands on...
Sorry, but no. It had me thinking about the lack of imagination in many of these games. Have you noticed how many match-3s have been offered on this site compared to shooters? Which category has more diverse gameplay between its examples - match-3s or shooters? The shooters, hands-down. Why is this?
Personally, I think that the person who came up with Bejeweled was pretty smart. It was a gameplay mechanic that nobody had thought of before - crossing a slider puzzle with an old-school linear match-3 was original and fun, and Bejeweled made millions for PopCap. That success has brought us here.
When others saw how well Bejeweled was doing, they made knockoffs of their own. Fans of Bejeweled liked the idea of a game that they enjoyed clothed in new graphics, and the clones sold well, too. Some people formed companies simply to sell their own versions of Bejeweled.
However, the central mechanic of Bejeweled simply does not lend itself to innovation - switch blocks A and B, watch pretty animation of blocks dissolving, repeat. That's what makes them all so similar. The same applies even more to extremely linear game concepts like Puzzle Bobble and Puzzloop.
What makes shooters and platformers different? It's simple - the core mechanic is much simpler and loosely defined. Super Mario Brothers was a platformer, and it was structured around jumping. Gish is a platformer, and you spend most of your time sliding around and sticking to walls. They're both platformers, but their central concepts are vastly different.
Level design is another way that action games can innovate. Super Mario Brothers basically had a collection of levels that you ran down while trying not to get killed. Castlevania was one giant level. Both are undeniably fun, but at the same time far apart with their gameplay.
There is also huge variety in shooters. We have side-scrollers, vertical shooters, and arena shooters - and those are just the different ways of moving! Then you have the structured waves of Galaga, the curtain firing in practically every Japanese shooter, and the integrated scenery popular in the West. When you consider the different level design styles unique to their creators, the variety is mind-blowing.
And don't get me started on weapons. Sure, some weapons are just spread fire as opposed to straight, but a few are genuinely innovative. The Ice Beam in Metroid and the Flex Gun in RaiDen are perfect examples.
But why stay focused on shooters and platformers? Not everybody likes games where you actually have to fire a gun, right? Well, there are more ways to go besides those. Breakout games have a pretty basic concept - get in the way of the ball so it doesn't go away. But there are many ways to add to that - you could double a level's playablity by making it 3-D, like in some of the more recent Giveaways, or you could simply take 2-D examples and add things like enemies, 2-D paddle movement, unbreakable walls, or just throw everything in the blender and make BreakQuest.
And what about new concepts? Here's how today's giveaway, Bistro Stars, could have been made infinitely better:
1. Actually set it in a bistro. That alone would make me like it more.
2. Lose the Bejeweled mechanic. It's way overused and has to go.
3. It will need a new mechanic, how about taking inspiration from Ratatouille and actually cooking food? You'd have to carefully measure your ingredients, make sure that nothing was overdone or undercooked, serve meals in a timely fashion, etc. Of course, you would have assistants to help you by fetching ingredients and making sure that nothing was too hot or cold - but the focus would be on you, the sous-chef.
4. Make the food look appetizing. Nobody wants to eat a burger that looks like it was done in CorelDraw by a ten-year-old. If you're a chef, then you serve fancy-pants stuff like crepes and soups, rendered in 3-D by someone who knows how to make it look good. You could also have the muted conversations of your restaurant's patrons in the background for added atmosphere.
5. Don't patronize the player with lame hints. Have a tutorial instead.
Well, I've pretty much covered everything, inventing a game concept in the process. Wow.
Post away!