Time travelling games

[JRD]

I`m splitting this topic as Art suggested... might be a good discussion!  ;)

(...)

But your post also got me thinking... does any of you guys know about a game making use of time travelling logic?

Like a game you can time travel to the past and change something that in turn would chenge your future? The possibilities are endless - and quite hard to implement. But just like an RPG, you can only change so much of the story it self, so it wouldn't be that hard to make!

Now that I'm thinking about it, movies had explored that idea to exhaustion, but games haven't!  ????

[Art Blade]

interesting question -- If you want replies, consider that you're posting in AP topic. You'd have a better chance to get replies if you cut that out of your previous post and create a new topic in either the Other Games board or, perhaps even better, in our Sci-Fi and Fantasy board. :)

[fragger]

Can I just stick my head in the door briefly to answer JRD's question - yes, there was a time-travel game fairly recently, roughly along the lines you mentioned, called Darkest of Days. I think it was actually discussed in the forum here some time ago, but nobody was too keen on it (too linear, or buggy, or something). Check this out also (not that there's much of interest regarding the type of gaming that we seem to go for here):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_containing_time_travel

Btw Art - I haven't commented yet, but I'm enjoying your review of AP. Sounds like quite an interesting game - yucky, smelly brown stuff notwithstanding :-X Just remember to wipe your feet before you rejoin polite company :-\\

[JRD]

You are right, fragger... Darkest of Days!

I think I mentioned this game and D_B went as far as to get a demo running on his machine!

But although DoD is a time travel themed game, this is not what I meant exactly! DoD is a FPS that uses the premise of time travel to place the player in different moments of history to kill or protect key characters in order to change (or not) the future. But it is a very linear shooter where you have to accomplish an objective to end a level. Like kill young Hitler or protect young Churchill so the story goes on, you have little or no choice at all in how you want to change the future.

I was thinking along the lines of an RPG where you can interact with characters in many different ways and your choices will affect the rest of the game... even STALKER (not a thorough RPG) has something like that.

Imagine if your character could travel back in time in certain points of the game - you could choose not to travel at all or go to the past or future as you wish!

Once in the past, you could kill or save a character and in the present he would help or try to kill you and in the future it would have a consequence as well.

It opens space to have so many different time lines... like if you save a guy in the past, he turns to the dark side in the present, kill your family and start a war in the future or if you kill that very same guy in the past, there is no war in the present but you have to do something in the future... you could have even different scenarios for each time... a peaceful present or a wartime present or a future where good prevails versus a dark future where you are a fugitive!

Many RPGs actually let you choose among a few options and it does affect the immediate ingame future but the scenario remains the same. I thought about radical changes like "Back to the future" where Martin McFly goes through so many different presents with great twists in the plot!

You start as a douchebag and goes back... you can be a hero, evil, president, a target or whatever in the present... it could be at war, peace, underwater, frozen or burned to ashes and lead to another twist that would affect the future.. all of it under your control (with limited options provided by the game, of course)

I know, again a very tough game to implement, but if you have games like FO3 with so many endings (STALKER has 9 ending I guess).. one can dream of a game like that soon!  8)

[fragger]

Right, I get what you mean now, mate. A game containing elements like the ones you describe would be awesome - but as you say, very difficult to create. But who knows, someone, somewhere, someday, just might. Stalker and FO3 have shown what can be possible with game branching, and games like those were once nigh unthinkable, such as back in ye olden Doom days ;D

And yeah, you're right, it's been done a lot in films, and even more in books, but hasn't really been explored in games. Not the way you're suggesting.

Just on the subject, there's a cool book by Dean Koontz called "Lightning" dealing with time travel and consequences. An early story of his, but one of his best, with some unique takes and twists on the concept.

[JRD]

Thanks for the book tip... I`m looking for something to read and I might give it a try!  :-X

I just thought about that time travel thing on games now because I just finished watching LOST  :-D

And I`m sure I`m not the first to come up with that... I`m curious as if are there any nice games like that or near like that.  I can`t stop thinking how cool it would be... you could play the same mission or level several times with many different developments!

But I guess we just have to wait for the future in gaming to arive as we did while playing Doom  :-(

(or try to sell this idea to Ubi and make some money  >:D )

[mandru]

A couple years ago I saw a funky little flash game that consisted of a 20 x 20 grid where you would nudge a ball to start it moving and try to get it to go out through a portal that would open when you pushed a button.  The first level was straight forward.  Kick, push the button and exit.

From there it became progressively more complex and you would have to guide the ball around obstacles in the grid by imposing angled barriers to deflect the ball towards the portal or a bounce spot to make the ball hop over a wall but as the levels advanced you would not have enough time to set everything in place and the ball would fall off the edge of the grid and the turn would end with the word FAIL.

Here's where the time element of the game would come into play.  The "failed" level would start over and any key clicks you had made from your previous attempt would be duplicated exactly (where and when) as before as if you had gone back in time and were witnessing your key clicks and was able to add to them.

For example if you had directed the ball to the portal but had been late in opening it for the ball to pass, at an appropriate moment on the next loop through you could hit the portal open button this time to clear the level.

Tougher levels might require several time loops to obtain the objective and each loop through a failed level would continue to stack the key strokes of all the previous loops in the exact time each loop's input was added through out the uncompleted sequence.  As I recall there was no way to go back and remove incorrect moves you had made outside of a complete game reset and they became part of the obstacles you had to overcome to complete the level.

As I said it was a few years back and I have no idea what the game was called.  I had come across it by Googling  flash games and was only able to make it to level 5 out of 30 or so before it gave me a headache and I had bailed on it.

It was an interesting concept but the controls were unwieldy and the instructions for the game consisted of a statement  "Jump in and figure it out for yourself".   ????

[JRD]

That sound like fun... puzzle games are cool!  :-X

The concept of adding your previous moves to the repeated level is nice too... if you ever remember the name, let us know!

[mandru]

I just did a quick search and it didn't jump right out at me.  If I do remember I'll confirm it and get back to you.

[Dweller_Benthos]

Yeah, I had the demo of Darkest of Days and wasn't impressed. It's been long enough now that I've forgotten it, but I seem to remember another game where you have a "time suit" and have to go back in time to catch another guy who has one to save the present. Forget the name of it, but the suit would let you speed up or slow down and even go back in time a little, but not to the extent of going into the past to change it, but in order to get a second chance at getting past an obstacle. I think you went back like 5 seconds or something. It was OK, but since my memory of it is so foggy, it must not have been that good.

As for the concept of going back and forth in time, it would be hard to implement and the biggest problem being you'd need to allow for all the consequences, eh?

[JRD]

As for the concept of going back and forth in time, it would be hard to implement and the biggest problem being you'd need to allow for all the consequences, eh?

Exactly... that's the point.  :-(

I was just putting forward an idea... one day maybe.  ;)

[Art Blade]

The few games that had been released during the coming years were a total failure so developers withdrew them not long ago to w@&k them over. We'll see a re-release not far from now. If they don't change it again, that is.

[mandru]

From what I understand Prince of Persia: Sands of Time was supposed to have a tool that allowed something along the lines of "a ten second do over" to be able to w@&k through different problems safely.  I never played it but had heard mention of the concept.

[mmosu]

I played a cool little PC game awhile back called "Chronotron", it was very similar (at least in concept) to the game Mandru was talking about.  You had to guide a little robot through a series of time portals, but he wouldn't be able to reach any of them by himself, so you would have to utilize help from "past selves" who would continually behave the same each time you reset the time loop.  It was a good brain teaser.  Here's a link to it: http://www.addictinggames.com/chronotron.html
As far as actual time travel games, way back on the Nintendo 64 there was Legend of Zelda: Ocharina of Time and Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. Both games centered around a limited time travel mechanic, with lots of consequences from past actions appearing in the future (naturally the "choices" - usually "help" or "not help" - were of somewhat superficial by today's standards).  In Ocharina of Time you would have to travel back and forth between a time when you were a child and an adult to right wrongs, or simply because there was some physical barrier, like a hole you could fit through as a child but not as an adult.  It was funny because you would meet people who were happy in the past, and miserable or in some sort of trouble in the future, and you would have to travel back and change something to help them out.  A very fun game and best of the series imo.  In Majora's Mask the time travel was present but more limited -  you were reliving a three day block of time over and over in order to prevent the moon from crashing in to the earth.  As each day progressed the moon would get bigger and bigger in the sky, and right before it crashed on the third day you would be forced to time travel back to the beginning of the first day and start over.  The catch was you could take items back with you, so you would try to cover as much ground as possible before being forced back.  These are the two earliest examples of this type of thing that I'm aware of.

[JRD]

Thanks mmosu, these are indeed good examples of the time travelling concept applied to gaming!  :-X

I always heard about Legend of Zelda, but never actually got curious enough to find out more about it. Will check on some gameplay vids!  ;)

[eor123]

The sales droid at Gamestop was encouraging me to try Singularity. A lot of time bending, apparently.

Singularity Last Resort Trailer [HD]

[Dweller_Benthos]

The review of Singularity in PCGamer wasn't too impressive. Seems you can only effect certain things, and not in ways that you would expect or that even make sense. If I was looking for a game to play right now, I might think about it, but I'm busy doing other things.

[eor123]

I have three games on deck right now, including Halo Reach, but I'm  determined to complete FC2 on Infamous again before putting it away for a while and moving on.  ;D

[Art Blade]

 ;D :-X

[mmosu]

sales droid . . .  ;D :-X

[KingRat]

Yeah, I had the demo of Darkest of Days and wasn't impressed. It's been long enough now that I've forgotten it, but I seem to remember another game where you have a "time suit" and have to go back in time to catch another guy who has one to save the present. Forget the name of it, but the suit would let you speed up or slow down and even go back in time a little, but not to the extent of going into the past to change it, but in order to get a second chance at getting past an obstacle. I think you went back like 5 seconds or something. It was OK, but since my memory of it is so foggy, it must not have been that good.

As for the concept of going back and forth in time, it would be hard to implement and the biggest problem being you'd need to allow for all the consequences, eh?

Timeshift...I've had it on the shelf since it came out and finally got around to playing it last month. Not a bad game; I'd give it 7.5

I picked up Singularity after playing Timeshift, but got stuck on 'the train boss'  :D so I pulled it and went back to playing the Mass Effect. Read something on the xbox forums about adjusting the sensitivity helps with the 'train monster' so I'll eventually try that to see if I can continue on.  :)

[Fiach]

I agree with your assessment of Timeshift, it was OK, but after playing Singularity, it showed how shallow and unimaginitive Timeshift was in comparison.

I remember that train boss, it had many people tearing their hair out in frustration, when in actuality it was simple after you actually did it correctly, you would laugh, but still curse the devs under your breath. :)

[Art Blade]

 ^+-+

[KingRat]

I agree with your assessment of Timeshift, it was OK, but after playing Singularity, it showed how shallow and unimaginitive Timeshift was in comparison.

I remember that train boss, it had many people tearing their hair out in frustration, when in actuality it was simple after you actually did it correctly, you would laugh, but still curse the devs under your breath. :)

Feel free to clue me in on 'doing it correctly'  :) I get to the last platform and use the TMD, but unlike this vid> Singularity Walkthrough - Area 3: Rail Line 8/8 - Boss Battle: King Phase Tick

the Tick just keeps advancing till I'm toast......the only ones on the xbox forum that had trouble adjusted their sensitivity and got it done. Am I missing something obvious?

[mmosu]

Sheesh, that thing is relentless!  Kind of reminds me of the fight with Crawmerax the Invincible in Borderlands.