Game Design: Gotta Get Back In Time!
Man, all I needed was some Huey Lewis.

Due to an article I'm writing for another website, I already had the wayback machine set on my brain for around 1985. In fact, I managed to dig up an essay I'd written back in high school about the topic of said article. It was very convenient for my younger self to provide me with so many forgotten details.

In the middle of writing about events from over twenty years ago, I took a break to play the newly-downloaded Rush album, Moving Pictures, for Rock Band 2. That actually turned into something of a Rush-fest, as I played every non-cover Rush song in the game, plus a little bit of Boston, Blue Oyster Cult, and even a Duran Duran song for flavor. Somewhere in the middle of the set, as I was pulling off a perfect solo (which probably means it is time to up my difficulty to expert on those songs), the hypnotic effect of the moving buttons on the guitar track did something to my brain. I found myself back in 1983 or 1984. I'm not sure which. It was like the whole bizarre premise of Somewhere In Time was playing out.

And that got me thinking about games and time travel. See, this is the very weird and bizarre way my brain works. Kids, don't try this at home.

Time travel is a moderately popular topic in speculative fiction. One of my all-time favorite movies was Groundhog Day. There's been the aforementioned Somewhere In Time, Star Trek IV (claimed by many critics to be the best ST movie of them all - but I'm partial to The Wrath of Khan myself), Star Trek: First Contact, the Back to the Future series, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, The Philadelphia Experiment, The Terminator films, 13 Going on 30, Time Bandits (important to me only because of its influence on the Ultima games), and probably a bunch of others I am forgetting (purposefully, in the case of a couple of them I remember suffering through).

On TV, we've had Doctor Who, Quantum Leap, Terminator: he Sarah Conner Chronicles, and a bunch of "one-off" episodes of various sci-fi & fantasy shows. A couple of the main characters in Heroes jump through time as a matter of course. In fact, if it's a science fiction series that has lasted more than a couple of seasons, you are almost guaranteed to have an obligatory time-travelling episode (and the amnesia episode, and the ...) Sometimes they can even pull it off without jumping the shark.

But the best of linear media can't hold a candle to the capabilities of exploring the subject in video games. Surprisingly, there's not been a whole lot of games dealing with the subject. Chrono Trigger is perhaps the first one to come to mind. One of my first games for the Commodore 64 was a pretty terrible one called Dino Eggs that was interesting only because a giant dinosaur foot would come down to stomp you. Daikatana and Anachronox had time travel as part of their storyline, if I recall. City of Heroes had an expansion all about time travel. Recent Prince of Persia games used time reversal as a game element. Recently, that concept was taken to a more extreme degree with the indie game Braid, which uses time flow is as much a part of the mechanics as the standard platforming action.

Assuming Braid is not the final word on the use of time flow or time travel in games, what else is there, and how could we play with the concept of time in games?

In the back of my mind, I've got an idea for a deterministic real-time strategy game. A short one - not a Total Annihilation / Supreme Commander style multi-hour slugfest. The whole game is played out to conclusion before you arrive. You can fast forward or reverse to play through the battle at any point. You have a limited number of actions you are allowed to take, which might include sending units from "the future" back to the past if they could be more influential in the battle.

At that level, it would turn into something of a puzzle game, attempting to use the "butterfly effect" to win. But what if your opponent had the same power? But you'd take your actions simultaneously? Suddenly it becomes a battle for time control, anticipating your opponent's moves in reverse.

I could see this working in a sim-heavy RPG (like Dwarf Fortress) as well - though the data required to to store (or recalculate) states throughout time could get a little out of hand.

What other possibilities are there for playing with time in games?

Labels: Game Design, retro, rock band

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 5:03 AM (Permalink)