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[X3N]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0130827/



Ok, I just watched this movie. Way freaking cool. A woman, Lola, has 20 minutes to run from her apartment to her boyfriend, who has lost 100,000 marks, and will be killed by the people he owes it to in 20 minutes. Lola has 20 minutes to get 100,000 marks and reach him. The movie goes through three different possibilities of how the story could occur, with the same scenes repeated with variations, and then showing new scenes that otherwise wouldn't have occurred.
The constant pulsing music and trippy lyrics showing up faintly every once in a while gives the movie a constant fast pace.

it reminded me of an IF where your different choices affect what happens next, chain of events. Or maybe Deus Ex meets http://www.kongregate.com/games/TerryCavanagh_B/bullet-time or Sonic.

really nice how the music, camera angling, shots, zoom effects fit into the events.
they also show frequent "futures" of people Lola runs by, snapshots of those people getting mugged, married, killed, winning the lottery etc, in somewhat butterfly effects from Lola's passing by.

i think there's some definite game-making material here. gonna be thinking about it, might even make something after i complete a few other projects if i manage to flesh out some sort of fast-moving arcade/puzzle game with a dynamic plot.

but what do you think of the possibilities? what would you do with an idea like this? 

[TeeGee]

You know, most games are like Lola Rennt already. Or maybe Lola Rennt is just very game-like. Think about it - she tries to accomplish a goal on time, fails one way or another, "loads" to the start of the "mission" and tries again. Eventually, she succeeds by using different strategy and with some amount of luck. Sounds like a game to me .

EDIT:

In his review of the film, Roger Ebert noted how the film's structure was very similar to that of a video game. Ebert mentioned the kinetic style of the film and commented that the "heroine is like the avatar in a video game -- Lara Croft made flesh."[2] The narrative itself evokes the typical video game. Just like a character in a video game, Lola dies once and sees Manni die once before figuring out how to "beat the level." The opening of the film sets the film up as a game, albeit a soccer game, however the point remains. Just like somebody who must replay a level in a video game and learn from their mistakes, Lola is given several more chances to successfully complete her mission.

[X3N]

Yes.
Lola has more narrative dynamics than most games though, something more like Deus Ex than Mario Bros. Or Blue Chairs meets Runman.

[Parthon]

The premise of Majora's Mask is very similar. You have to keep restarting the three days in order to complete the game by getting the events that happen *just* right.

Taking the restart-over-and-over idea would be fun though, depending on how good the game is. As long as it didn't turn the game into one giant tedious mess.

[nihilocrat]

You know, most games are like Lola Rennt already. Or maybe Lola Rennt is just very game-like. Think about it - she tries to accomplish a goal on time, fails one way or another, "loads" to the start of the "mission" and tries again. Eventually, she succeeds by using different strategy and with some amount of luck. Sounds like a game to me .

EDIT:

In his review of the film, Roger Ebert noted how the film's structure was very similar to that of a video game. Ebert mentioned the kinetic style of the film and commented that the "heroine is like the avatar in a video game -- Lara Croft made flesh."[2] The narrative itself evokes the typical video game. Just like a character in a video game, Lola dies once and sees Manni die once before figuring out how to "beat the level." The opening of the film sets the film up as a game, albeit a soccer game, however the point remains. Just like somebody who must replay a level in a video game and learn from their mistakes, Lola is given several more chances to successfully complete her mission.

I totally see this in the movie as well. Translating it to a game would merely be a question of presentation rather than mechanics. Games like Cursor*12 or Time Donkey feature many past "playthroughs" of the game occurring simultaneously, except in their case the several playthroughs actually cooperate with one another.