So, what is a Gaming Cliche? Well, its essentially something thats been done before numerous times. If you want to make a klik game as original as you can, then take a look at this list of cliches and try and ensure they don't take place in your game. I'll be looking at platform games here.

The character jumps about4 or five times his/her own height
In platformers, developers always ensure this, so that you can easily access higher platforms or avoid enemies heading towards you. Utilizing this means that the player has a choice. He can either avoid the enemy or kill it. If the player could only jump a few pixels from above ground, there's no way he could avoid the enemy, so the only way past would be to kill it.


The Player Always Starts With Three Lives
Why? God knows. Although there is the odd game which gives you five lives initially. But those kind of games tend to be a lot harder. Seemingly, relatively easy games (like the Sonic series) start with three lives. You know its possible to complete the game just by using those three lives, and if you are actually better than average at the game, its possible to complete it using one life. So use your judgement..make the game first, then decide how many lives you'll need.

The enemies are as thick as two short planks
Well, what I mean by this is that they lack any Artificial Intelligence. They just wander backwards and forwards until they reach the edge of a platform, where hidden detectors are which make them move back. Some enemies may stop and shoot at you. Very rarely does a bad guy chase you (unless its a boulder from every single Crash Bandicoot game) and very rarely does he jump from platform to platform in an AI movement, rather than a predefined movement. Its pretty hard to code intelligent AI in MMF though, so we'll let that slide for now.

Boss Fights
In virtually every single platformer, there are boss fights...generally these are also giant versions of certain baddies in that level (unless its Dr Robotnik) which take more hits. They almost always follow a predefined route, and when they're at the right spot, thats their weakness and your character goes in all guns blazing. And why the hell do they always flash white or red once hit? Why not pink with yellow spots??

Cheats
Virtually all platformers have cheats in them. Sometimes they're announced after a game is completed... sometimes they're announced in magazines. But isn't completing a very hard game you've spent the last month on reward enough? And simultaneously, why do magazines always release cheats about a month after the games release?! It totally ruins the game, because the player encourages him/her self to use them after he/she can't get past a certain point. And platformers are not just guilty of this, all other genres are too. Except Nintendo, who don't put proper cheats in their games...you have to really earn them.

So..uh...thats it really. There are doubtless more cliches like this, such as "Why does every game have special power ups" or "Why does the last boss in a game have different music"? but I can't be bothered to answer them. Maybe someone could continue this article or something, maybe I will at a later date. Anyway...bye.