It would have to have some kind of limits, though. Players dying in the first 5 minutes shouldn't be allowed to "skip" to the end ... or should they? An RPG may not be the best venue to exercise this technique, but a puzzle game definitely would. Say you need certain information in the beginning of the game in order to get past later stages. It must be carefully done to not allow the player to progress too far with incomplete knowledge, as this would just lead to frustration in 4 hours wasted.

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Original post by smitty1276 Actually, this is almost exactly what Eternal Darkness (on the Gamecube) did. That was a great game... you should check it out to get some idea of how it was done there and you can probably get it used for under $10.

Sweet - thanks for the info. I'll definitely check this game out.

Breath of Fire III;
Sorta like the hibernation idea, the main charactor(Ryu) fights his friend and,also, enemy(Garr) and runs off. Cutscenes to were ten years into the future Garr meets up with Ryu again in a cave. Ryu could turn into a dragon, so he untransforms as Garr walks onto the screen and they talk for a momment and and then play returns to normal but the world and its occupants are ten years older as are the main charactors.

Yes, and I've been looking at games like Ocarina of Time, which also used time travel to an outstanding degree. The thing about OOT was that it didn't matter that you missed out on those 7 years, so it was much easier for me to relate to Link.

Now that I bring Zelda up, what do you guys think about combining reincarnation/possession with time dilation? Think of the character in limbo (or hell, heaven, nirvana, wherever) while not in human form. Gameplay would be able to continue in this state, and select events could also be obvserved as they happen (in the span of say 50 years).

Or, for those with more fantasy roots, think about the dreamworld in The Wheel of Time series. Time could be hours or days depending on a number things while you're in this world (which was a hazy mirror of the real world, including only those people asleep. Text on paper would morph as the characters in the real world were moving them around, etc.).

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Original post by stylin It would have to have some kind of limits, though. Players dying in the first 5 minutes shouldn't be allowed to "skip" to the end ... or should they? An RPG may not be the best venue to exercise this technique, but a puzzle game definitely would. Say you need certain information in the beginning of the game in order to get past later stages. It must be carefully done to not allow the player to progress too far with incomplete knowledge, as this would just lead to frustration in 4 hours wasted.

One challenge here might be to figure out just what paradigms you're going to invert or bend. For instance, is death failure? Or is death a doorway to new opportunity (a strategy)? If it's the later, then maybe dying is fine, but dying prematurely just means that you end up with a suboptimal ending.

I'm not sure about what you're trying to achieve in the big picture, but going with the chapter idea above, if there were 8 chapters, each with varying degrees of success, death in all but the right time and place would mean that you get a more negative story.

And what if death was the ONLY way to progress to the next chapter? Again, might not fit, but I'm thinking of some of the acts of sacrifice in the movie Sin City as a kind of template. You have characters sacrificing themselves to save an innocent, or foil evil, or trading their lives to take a villain out. Just a weird thought.

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Side note: As for armor from different periods, unless the emphasis is on upgrading, it might be best to have a unique strategy to fit each era. You probably don't want to be running around in Bronze Age hoplite gear when everyone is using flintlock pistols, no matter how cool it might look. If it's in your genre, maybe older armor is better because it has a longer time to be magically imbued?

I was thinking about death being the player's sole means of progress through plot structure. Think about a sentient robotic character being gunned down by his own troops after becoming self-aware, later to be awakened in a military lab with scientists about to wipe his memory banks.

If I implement a spiritual/soul character for my particular game as you suggested, death could mean the loss of opportunity in collecting a certain weapon (that's not vital to ultimate success), or losing out on valuable cash/rewards in optional side quests for each chapter. Either way, I don't see how I could make the loss itself an integral part of the game, for reasons we discussed above.

As for armor, since my main character is a world traveller, I agree there should be focus on technique as well as tools. Besides, I'd want my vampire to be stylish rather than brutish. My time frame is roughly 1500 - 1900 B.C.