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[SplinterOfChaos]

I love time paradoxes. True food for thought.
So is time travel.

So, what I was thinking is, you have an adventure game. The game records your every move. You try to solve puzzles in a 30 minute time slot. Then you go back in time when it's nearing the end, rinse and repeat. But you can go back (and forward) to ANY specific time you want. Not predestined times, but any time you want.

Now here's where it gets fun.
If you pick up a watch in the future, and then go back in the past and pick up that watch, you have two of the same watch (make sure they're not touching)! But when you try to pick it up in the future, TIME PARADOX! Technically, there's no real paradox,  just an inconsistency, and instead of the future you picking it up, he'd just walk away, but we're talking about a GAME, not a NOVEL. So, the tricky part is to complete the game, and avoid paradoxes.

But no one ever said you couldn't do something that would cause a paradox. Let's say you need two keys to open this door, and two of you needs to put the key in at the same time. Well, go back in time and set the key down, then wait and pick the key up. go back in time and pick it up again, go to the door, both put your keys in, and make sure the key is back to the original place you got it before you pick it up again. Isn't that awesome? (Trying to be modest, but I wouldn't share it here if I didn't think it was pretty cool.)

I haven't got the story, character, puzzles, or concept complete yet. Nor do I...know how I'd make the game... I was Kind of hoping I could be involved in the production without producing it myself (writer, or designer, maybe programmer).

But what do you guys think so far?

[Akhel]

Sounds interesting. It could be an awesome adventure game.

Also, I've played a few games with similar premises. One I can recall immediately is Timebot.

[Melly]

Using time-bending to solve puzzles?

http://braid-game.com/news/

Braid comes to mind too.

[SplinterOfChaos]

Akhel: Cool robot game.

Melly: What's Braid? I'd have to HUNT through that blog to find out.

Both games have the same concept, but I don't really see much of the same idea as mine. Mine would be more of an AVG type thing, and would be a lot deeper. More than the robot one, it would be like that mouse clicks one that was up a while ago.

[Montoli]

Some other neat games that have dealt with time travel in innovative ways:


Flash game, cursor 10.

Interactive fiction game, All things devours.

Both touch on the sorts of things you're describing, and are worth looking at, if you're interested in how games can handle time paradoxes.

[deadeye]

Here's a time-bendy little adventurish puzzle game from the guy who made Grow:

http://www.eyezmaze.com/chronon/v0/index.html

You can choose any available point along the timeline to perform actions.  Some actions are only available at certain times, and if conditions in previous times have been met.  Worth checking out.

It works pretty well because of the limited scope of the game.  There are a relatively small amount of actions you can do at any given time, only six points along the timeline where you can interact with the world, you can't take objects from one time to another, and there's effectively only one "you" interacting with the world. 

I'd hate to think of the coding nightmare it would be to have thirty points along the timeline and dynamic object duplication and multiple "selves" with their own inventories that are constantly shifting because the third you picked up the seventh iteration of the Rusty Key off of the table before the second you did which means that timelines B through Q didn't happen and now you're wearing someone else's socks.  How would you even interact with that, let alone begin to code it?

[Melly]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braid_%28video_game%29

You'll probably find links there to places that can better explain it, but I believe most are out of date.

[SplinterOfChaos]

There are some neat things in this discussion (some pretty cool games and all), but it belongs in another thread. The idea of time-influenced games is discussion-worthy, but not why I took time out of my day to talk about my idea.

I ask that if anyone wants to further discuss time travel games, please make a thread.

If anyone has ANYTHING to say about the concept I had, please speak up.

[moi]

Interactive fiction game, All things devours.

f'in sconded, this game gives a great feeling about time paradox and continuity, very well done.

[Montoli]

There are some neat things in this discussion (some pretty cool games and all), but it belongs in another thread. The idea of time-influenced games is discussion-worthy, but not why I took time out of my day to talk about my idea.

I ask that if anyone wants to further discuss time travel games, please make a thread.

If anyone has ANYTHING to say about the concept I had, please speak up.

I think I can summarize:  Time travel is neat in games, if handled well.  the concept you have is neat, and if handled well, could be cool.  Everyone likes a good time-travel setup where at the end, everything that has been done fits together like a jigsaw puzzle.  The problem is making it work, since the only successful versions so far have largely been either light on the time travel aspect (Prince of Persia: Sands of Time) or limited in scope of where you can travel to.  (Everything on in this thread.)

People are throwing games around because various parts of what you're describing have been done in other games, and at the very least, other games with similar themes give us something known to talk about and analyze.  (Which generally leads to more concrete conclusions than simple speculation.)

For example, because Cursor 10 exists and we've (many of us at least) played it, we can say things like "They handled it neatly, although I got tired of seeing that first room by the end, just because I saw it SOO many times."  That's useful information that might not be obvious if we were just speculating.  that's information that could help you make a better game.  (Figure out a way to make the user see (and do) the same thing multiple times.)  So it's worth at least glancing at other games that are tackling the same sorts of ideas, so you can see in advance what they did well (what worked) and what could be improved on.

So just imagine that all the game links that are being thrown around are just shorthand for "Neat idea, sort of like the mechanic in THIS?".

[handCraftedRadio]

This is a pretty good one.

[SplinterOfChaos]

Not having played that, I hope it was a joke.

Montoli:
That does put some things in perspective (thanks), but many of the games don't have much I can take from.

But what I can learn from:
Time Bot: When you hit space, it's like traveling to the moment the game started. Your location doesn't change, but your "ghosts" take your predestined paths. My game would be much like this.

Cursor 10: Yeah, my game would be a lot like this, except when you go back, you don't go back to your starting location. In fact, that is the solution to one of the abstract puzzles I've thought of! And, it was while playing this game that I thought of how there should be multiple endings that work on an AI system and not switch (predestined outcomes based on certain variables) system.

I can't really say that any other game so for has had much obvious connect to mine.
But please, if you post a game, say WHY it's related. And "it's about time travel!" isn't good enough.

[Montoli]

I can't really say that any other game so for has had much obvious connect to mine.
But please, if you post a game, say WHY it's related. And "it's about time travel!" isn't good enough.

[Potential spoilers in this next paragraph.  Limited to this next paragraph]
For all things devours, it features a time machine, and you can move to any point in the timeline to try to do things.  It handles paradoxes by making them the main game-over state.  (Any time you change something in such a way that would change any of the established "history" of the game so far, you have to undo it before that history happens, or the universe explodes.)  So this is a little different from what you're talking about, but not THAT far.  (It still involves puzzles where the solution comes from duplicating items through time travel, and massive "trying to keep track of all the duplicates running around" etc.)

And, it was while playing this game that I thought of how there should be multiple endings that work on an AI system and not switch (predestined outcomes based on certain variables) system.

Quibble:  An AI system running on a computer is still going to be a predestined outcome based on certain variables.

[SplinterOfChaos]

And, it was while playing this game that I thought of how there should be multiple endings that work on an AI system and not switch (predestined outcomes based on certain variables) system.

Quibble:  An AI system running on a computer is still going to be a predestined outcome based on certain variables.

If I programmed an enemy to jump when the player is near, you wouldn't say that I predestined it to jump at the time the player was near it. It will jump ANY time the player comes near. It's really just a word I used to describe my strategy.

Instead of saying: you have the fish, you ate the blueberry, you get ending B--shoot for A next time!

I would say: Joe is alive--have Joe go to the microwave. The microwave works, have Joe use it. The microwave does not...

Get the difference?

[Akhel]

Flash game, cursor 10.

Interactive fiction game, All things devours.

Both of these are very nice games. Talking about IF, there's also Möbius. It's pretty interesting, more of a huge puzzle than a story.

[Montoli]

If I programmed an enemy to jump when the player is near, you wouldn't say that I predestined it to jump at the time the player was near it. It will jump ANY time the player comes near. It's really just a word I used to describe my strategy.

Instead of saying: you have the fish, you ate the blueberry, you get ending B--shoot for A next time!

I would say: Joe is alive--have Joe go to the microwave. The microwave works, have Joe use it. The microwave does not...

Get the difference?

....  No....

 

Your explaination  raises more questions than it answers.

Sorry, not trying to derail your conversation.  (Feel free to ignore me and carry on with your original point if you don't want to get bogged down in explanations.)  My point was just that ANY determination of endings is going to boil down to some kind of decision tree or matrix:

At the end of the game, does Joe:
Have no muffins or microwaves?  Ending 1
Have muffin, but no microwave?   Ending 1
Have microwave, but no muffin?  Ending 2
Have microwave AND muffin?  DEATH

[Krishh]

....  No....

 

Your explaination  raises more questions than it answers.

If I understand correctly his point is to not write the decision tree by hand, but, since the game becomes quite a bit more variable with the addition of time travel, have a system that generates the specific decision tree depending on the players actions in the past and future. (In effect just writing the decisions at a higher level than normally.) What I don't understand is how he supposes to go about this in a way that's easier than just making the decision tree by hand.

[SplinterOfChaos]

The reason this is BETTER is there could be unpredictable things due to unseen cheap-solutions.

Joe has marble? Make soup!
Joe has muffin? Make toast!
Joe has muffin and marble? Make soup. Then toast. The get shot for taking up so much time in the kitchen.

Sure, I might have predicted the player would do something to spend too much time in the kitchen, but I would have never guessed it was a marble/muffin combo.

BTW: It's not a distraction from the OP if it pertains to the OP, which this certainly does.

I think the only real hard part about this would be making sure it's based more on AI, and less on laziness.

In fact, despite how complex the puzzle sounds, I don't really think the game would be nearly so especially hard to program. I think the hardest task would be getting the computer to remember your every move and replay in real time. Even paradox checking wouldn't be to tricky. Past me tries to pick up egg. Is egg there? NO!? Is something there in it's place? NO!? PARADOX -- game over, please try again.

[Montoli]

Ahh, I think where I was getting confused, is that that still sounds like a decision tree to me, just one with vaguer terms.

So instead of "Did Joe bring a muffin AND a marble to the kitchen?  Then die!" multiplied X times for each combination, it's a decision like "Did Joe spend more time than x in the kitchen?"  Or "did Joe make more than x items in the kitchen?"

It still seems like a series of "rules", just with ones that deal with classes of things and other generalizations, and less that involve specific item IDs.

Either way, at this point I'm clearly quibbling over semantics.  The idea is neat!

[SplinterOfChaos]

Sweet!

Any idea on how I could convince people to do it for...I mean, *ahem* make it with me?