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[jarnik]

Recollex (working title) is a puzzle / timespace exploration game.

A certain series of events is happening on stage, with participations of actors.
As a player, you can:

• rewind time forwards and backwards, frame by frame
• freeze some actors to change the course of events

The story describes a set of specific moments (stages) from a life of an old man. To traverse between stages, a common link has to be activated by triggering a specific action.

For each stage, there might be multiple forward and backward links, however only one of them can be active at the moment.

The goal would be to explore all the stages.
I would to have stages from both distant future (space exploration), past (ancient cultures) and some strange alternate realities.

PLAY PROTOTYPE (flash):

I like the current resolution (120x80), I don't like current crappy low-frame animations.

As of project scope, I'm thinking about 60 screens, aiming fot handheld devices.

CONTROLS:

• rewind - click the arrow buttons on side or the seekbar, hold LEFT / RIGHT keys
• freeze/unfreeze - click an actor ( animated contours )

Screenies:
    
    

Next steps:

• make sure the controls and the core mechanics are explained in a simple and sensible way
• add some audio and placeholder music

Whatever kind of feedback you might have, I'll be glad to hear it.

[Danmark]

It's really unclear how to follow the backward link from the first screen. There should be some indicator that stays there. Also, the first time I did it, it apparently led to a black screen (not sure if I accidentally clicked something else).

[jarnik]

I've talked about the prototype with a few people. The core idea seems to be solid, but the current implementation and the UI need some work.

It's really unclear how to follow the backward link from the first screen. There should be some indicator that stays there. Also, the first time I did it, it apparently led to a black screen (not sure if I accidentally clicked something else).

Thanks for pointing that out! I've got a few ideas on how to approach the tutorial, I'll keep your comment in mind.

I want to put the tutorial directly in to the first scene - it is built to be as simple as possible, but to show all the player actions present in the game. Instead of having a complete control over the game right from the beginning, the player would be prompted to perform following actions, adding new actions gradually:
 - go forward to see the glasses getting broken -> ok, i can see some events
 - rewind before the glasses got broken -> ah, I can rewind time
 - tap the cat -> ok, now I'm freezing some object
 - go forward again, get glasses -> ah, I've changed the course of events
 - go even further forward, read photo album -> something just got unlocked
 - rewind all the way back, getting to the previous scene -> I guess I'm solving another stage now
 - entered a classroom stage at the end of the timeline, rewind to the beginning -> hmm, I came from the future, I have to rewind to the beginning of the scene

I'm also facing another challenge - getting contributors. It's gonna be hard, as I've never worked in a team. It seems inevitable though - I'm getting stuck much too often due to the lack of a proper feedback.
I'll definitely need a writer (might be kinda hard, the game is supposed to be speechless). There is no story yet to build the game upon. I've got a few ideas, but non-programmer folks might freshen it up a lot.
As soon as I have a clearer idea on the theme, I'll start looking for some music and hopefully also an artist.

[Pandara_RA!]

I actually really enjoyed this, if this amped up in complexity I think we'd have a very interesting project to go from.

Like going back then making an event that allows you to change the future, that then alters the past that you can go back to later to change the event in a third way.

even if it doesn't get complex the story so far is cute, and really fun to watch and play with.

[IndieGamesDig]

I agree, a really cool idea for a game. Even if the end result ends up being completely linear, it still seems like it could be a great experience. I enjoyed what I could play of the demo, but I did have some issues with it freezing to a black screen when changing between levels.

[AaronLee]

Love the concept. How far do you think you can obfuscate it into advanced puzzles? If the current mechanics can go pretty far then I'm with this

[jarnik]

Hey, thanks for trying it out, everyone! 

Like going back then making an event that allows you to change the future, that then alters the past that you can go back to later to change the event in a third way.

That's exactly what I'd love to aim for - to focus on a complexity of parallel branches, rather than making a few long linear paths.

Love the concept. How far do you think you can obfuscate it into advanced puzzles? If the current mechanics can go pretty far then I'm with this

As this is just a prototype, all the current stages are a sort of a placeholder to showcase the mechanics and might be completely left out in the final release. Therefore, with carefull planning, I think there's a chance for crafting some pretty intriguing puzzles.

However, I'd like to keep the average difficulty of each screen rather at the medium levels (with maximum of 3 past links and 3 future links), solvable in around 10 minutes.
Also the screen space is limited, not giving enough visual space for telling some overly complex stories.

Planning your steps on the event map could also add some interesting value ("Ah, so I need to get to THAT event, how should I do that?")

I agree, a really cool idea for a game. Even if the end result ends up being completely linear, it still seems like it could be a great experience.

Just recently, I've been told there are various games dealing with the theme of going up and down the river of time in a linear manner (Braid, To the Moon, LD23 Memento, ... ). That's why I'd like to focus on the interesting part - exploring and traversing alternative timelines, rather than just sticking to a single linear path.

Do you know of any other games dealing with the time manipulation, memories and/or alternative timelines? Tell me please! I'd hate to miss something that might have been already around and reinvent the wheel 

[Franklin's Ghost]

Day of the Tentacle and Chrono Trigger are two I can think of from the top of my head

[screwtape]

I love the style and concept here, I can't wait to see it finished
Agree about the slightly unintuitive UI, it would be nice if you could click on an unlocked scene to play it, rather than use the arrow keys.

[jarnik]

Just a short notice to assure you the project is still alive

Made an important breakthrough yesterday in devising a context to frame the whole gameplay. I will not reveal anything specific yet, though. Not until I'm sure the idea is solid.

[jarnik]

Still not dead

Had a couple of awesome scriptwriter friends over for a few days. I've shared my context vision, they seemed to like it, agreed to join me.
We have a rough idea of the storyline and immersion mechanics, now the next step is to come up with a specific setting and a story.

[Rasher]

You might want to look into Radiant Historia for some additional inspiration, but it sounds very promising already.

I've worked on a similar game a few years ago and gave up when it became too complex.