quote: Original post by Tron3k
Perhaps a form of "death" in this game is if you mess up something, making it impossible for you to have ended up where you were at the "beginning" of the game! Wouldn''t that be awesome? So the goal of the game will be to preserve the space-time continuum by not doing anything that would mess up the future you already experienced!

actually it wouldnt be a time-travelling game, its just a story told backwards, and as the player isnt meant to know this then it wouldnt make sense to make it that way
that thing of not being able to die would be kinda weird though

I like the idea alot, sounds like a curious-driven game

would be good if it could be non-linear, and depending on your actions in the future, your past will change (irbrian, not sure if this is what you meant with having different options to perform while playing)
for example, if you escape from the jail that may lead you to having killed someone; but if instead you manage to get some friend''s help that may have lead you to having been mis-put in jail and then (before) being blamed for a crime you didnt do

maybe i missed something... but changing the future has no effect on the past...? so nothing would really happen...

quote: Original post by theNestruo
It''s "Memento".

...

Anyway, I like a lot the idea; there are not a lot of plots based on amnesia, insomnio, double personality and many other psicological disorders.

It''s insomnia and psychological.

Sorry, the irony was too sweet to resist...

quote: Original post by Oluseyi
It''s insomnia and psychological.

Ooops... I thought those words spell more like they do in Spanish ("Insomnio" and "Psicologico").
Sorry

theNestruo

Syntax error in 2410
Ok

Sounds like the majority of you are quite interested in the idea. As I said it would take a LOT of effort to pull off both in the design and development phases, but I love games that experiment with alternate realities, timelines, and so forth, and I feel that many players would be similarly intrigued. It''s certainly not for everyone though.

A few key points:
1) The game would be non-linear. The idea is that what happens to the player next in the game (or previously, in the chronology) depends on how the player responds to his/her current situation.
2) The player does not know that events are occurring in reverse order initially. Part of the fun of the game is that the player gets to figure this out for him/herself.

Of course, these two points needn''t apply in the case of a time-travel game unless the player doesn''t know he''s travelling through time. Time travel could be a good alternative to the non-linear approach, and Tron3k''s suggestion does have some merit in this case: If the player does something that is defies the reality of the past, the failure condition is met, and some kind of theoretical phenomenon could be referenced as the reason for the player''s "death".

****************************************

Brian Lacy
ForeverDream Studios

Comments? Questions? Curious?
brian@foreverdreamstudios.com

"I create. Therefore I am."

Or lets take it a step further, you are in your mind doing all this stuff, going over past events and don''t know this until you wake up and realize where you really are. The whole point could be that something was done to you and you are searching through your memories to make sense of stuff so you can wake from your coma. Maybe within all this there is a falling sequence as well.

If we take reality''s rules of cause and effect, actions at the beginning of this backwards game would have no effect on the end. Traditionally we''d call this a linear story, but since we''re playing games with the perception of time, we may have to call it a static-path story.

Anyways, the whole altering the perception of time is important to note. Since we''re working as though the flashback is the whole point of the story, theres a bit of a coherency learning curve for the player to adapt to. if you remember, Me mento did run it''s first scene completely backwards with forward running sound. This visual and audio clue was there to offer an insight on how the film would work. We''d need a similiar aspect in the game to take place.

how i would implement this sort of concept in a video game is have the story told through multiple characters. i would make it a grand theft auto style game.. something all centered around a big heist. the game tells the story pretty much reverse chronological but jumps around to key points at the appropriate times. depending on what happens in the first few moments of one of the first levels might make the ending of a further a little different, taking the level a completely different path. you could even make the game crazy sci fi heist style and still keep the gta gameplay style. ahh ideas are brewing

quote: Original post by iNfuSeD
how i would implement this sort of concept in a video game is have the story told through multiple characters.

Ah, the schitzo avatar, that might even be a good title

"..He''s god, then a demon, then someone else altogther. The NPC''s love him, then fear him, then are confused and need therapy."

Now THIS is interesting, but it would take a large amount of figuring everything into detail. Baically, if I get it right, the player''s actions in the future(which he doesn''t know...) determine what kind of person he is playing, and will thus determine what has happened. The problem here is mainly giving full coverage of all of the possibilities, and that would be terribly hard. You would have to take into account every kind f conflict which could happen. But it would be really interesting to see something like this get worked out.