I wish there was actually a tvtropes.org-type listing of game mechanics employed in video games. I think the design space isn't that large, and most games tend to reuse the same mechanics which work well. A lot of games use rock-paper-scissor either as primitives, or at a meta level. Does anyone know of any such listing or book which covers important game mechanics? It would be the equivalent of CLRS but for game mechanics.<p>This particular site is not that, because it's the author's list of novel game mechanics. They aren't particularly fundamental, and have a lot of the biases due to the author's preferences, or trends of the time.