Back to the Future was hugely influential for me, growing up. I've always been completely fascinated by the manipulation and non-linear treatment of time. As anyone who's attempted it likely knows, implementing it in a way that's true to the spirit of time travel, while still being fun, fair, and interesting, as a multiplayer experience is extremely difficult.
I've been playing with a couple of ideas. The first is a co-op style game with a secret traitor. I couldn't easily devise a way for players to split up, and keep track of things changing in multiple timelines, without making it a nightmare in bookkeeping. Unfortunately, having everyone time-hop as a group (Sliders, anyone?) seems to incorporate time travel only nominally.
Another idea pits individuals against one another on a constantly shifting map of timelines, using connecting tiles. This allows players the freedom and power to manipulate and reshape events, and it's currently my best implementation of time travel, but it still seems to be missing that certain jes ne se quois. Maybe my expectations and passion for it are unreasonably high, but the search continues.
Has anyone else had similar frustration with making a game about time travel? What are some of your favorite games that incorporate it well? What are some key elements that contribute to an awesome, time travel-y experience?
Comments
Time Travel
Since time travel itself is something that's hard enough, I wouldn't even think about any kind of traitor element until you get the time travel mechanic down since time travel itself is enough of a hook.
I've thought about time travel in a game since those kinds of games really fascinate me. Part of me has played with a small board that gets populated, but then gets reset when you travel (a la Battlestar Galactica) and rebuilt depending on which way you've traveled.
There are some time travel-like games that do so lightly, but is not bad...there's an actual Back to the Future card game using the Chrononauts game engine. Personally, I think it could use some streamlining, but I don't have anything offhand.
I'll probably visit this again sometime in the future after my game gets released :)
Off-hand, I think an
Off-hand, I think an interesting mechanic would be to build timelines using cards, each as its own parallel reality. This may be the same as what you are talking about using tiles, but players could travel back along a line and do something to disrupt it, either swapping out one or more cards or collapsing the timeline altogether. Perhaps they could transport one aspect from a timeline to another and attempt to superimpose it. I think that could work out well for a competitive game. I envision it is multiple lines stemming from a common time nexus. The goal would perhaps be for the player's timeline to reach some seminal event, like the foundation of the organization that the player works for, to concrete that timelines dominance as reality.
The Timeline As Traversable Cards
That's actually almost exactly what I've got with that second idea. Players hop between connecting nodes, change connections by rotating or swapping out tiles/cards, and try achieve a certain configuration of the timeline to win. Some things have rippling effects, and I added a mechanic that allows players to set up personal waypoints, if travel is otherwise blocked. And, because what's a time travel game without paradox, getting flipped/rotated/rippled too much by other players causes you to delay your actions, or whole turns, to reduce paradox/heat.
Maybe I should pursue that one after all!
The Traitor Role
I feel like a traitor, at least as an option, is necessary for big co-op games. But maybe that's just from playing too much BSG and Betrayal at House on the Hill.
And who doesn't love the time travel story where the protagonists only had to go back in time to fix things because one of them turned out to be the traitor that caused the problem in the first place?
lonebluewolf wrote:That's
Maybe I should pursue that one after all!
I like that because it allows for both cooperative and competitive play, particularly if you add a turn limit, someone must stabilize a timeline by turn x or reality collapses and everyone loses. It isn't quite time travel, but I often find myself recommending Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber for its concept of travel between shadow worlds. A very fun read, if nothing else, but I think it may inspire you.
It would be neat to have some unpredictability, because time travel really doesn't seem like the right theme for sure things. Maybe options for slow and steady progress versus big gains and big losses. You play something with a 66% chance, for example, of splicing someone else's timeline into one that you are building, but there is that 16% chance of failure and a 16% chance that both timelines begin to unravel unless they can be stabilized. I like paradox needing a cooldown, but how about having it level penalties as well. There could even be certain actions that require a high paradox to attempt.
Good luck with things. I think it could be a whole lot of fun, and I don't think that time travel has been done nearly enough. A good theme will be key.
Tragedy Looper
I thought you might find this game interesting just for inspiration. It's called Tragedy Looper. http://initiativetabletop.com/2014/12/01/guest-written-review-tragedy-lo...
My thoughts on Time Travel
A few times I've had some thoughts on Time Travel in board games. I've posted about most of them in my game design blog:
http://sedjtroll.blogspot.com/search/label/TimeTravel
I particularly like the very first post in that collection - about time rewinding every once in a while, pushing players back some number of decision points, and allowing them to make those same decisions, or different ones, based on the information they've learned since the last time they had to choose.
I should have been more specific
In particular, I was referring to the idea in this post:
http://sedjtroll.blogspot.com/2009/07/time-travel-and-board-games.html
Which I eventually played an approximation o, as described here:
http://sedjtroll.blogspot.com/2009/12/time-rewind-first-draft-test.html
And more recently, this other idea altogether:
http://sedjtroll.blogspot.com/2014/04/youre-not-thinking-4th-dimensional...
A card game idea.
One thing that excites me about time travel in a game is the variety time travel should provide. I think cards would fit that variety well.
Here's an idea. You play cards for different events/actions into a space in the time line. Each card has a trait that changes the world, like Order vs Anarchy, Allies vs Axis (WW2 time travel is fun), or for different technological advancements. To play a card in the timeline, events that happen before it must meet it's requirements. For example, passing a certain law that benefits you may require high order before it in the time line. Another player could go back in time, to stop an event or cause a new event that lowers order, preventing the law from being passed. In this way, changing an early event can ripple forward through time, canceling out different events.
Maybe an event would go through stages of canceling out. If you go back in time fast enough, you might be able to respond to the other time traveler that's meddling, so the law can pass. But if you take too long, the law card that was canceled out gets completely discarded.
Duplicate post
Oops. I clicked save twice on my post.
Re: Tragedy Looper
I like it! By looks alone, it reminds me of Shadow Hunters, with what sounds like a good effort at time travel. Also reminds me of the separate books used in Betrayal at House on the Hill. I'd give it a shot!
Have you tried Temporum?
I played Temporum recently and that has time travel, where you're all on the same timeline. However you can be in a different era. When someone alters the timeline from above, it shifts which reality the players in a later era are in. I liked the diversity in the cards which makes the game more of an individual race or allow lots of interactions to mess with others (depending on what cards are selected). It makes for very different game play from one game to the next.
This game inspired me to try to create a time travel game. I have two ideas I'm working on. The first involves similar game progression Mechanics to Temporum, but players can screw with the timeline more and are not from the same timeline. The premise is each player is the same person from different timelines who all start to build influence throughout the various histories. But then players can alter the timelines, destroying the work of other players. There's also the possibility of eliminating a player from existence.
The Second idea I had (which would be for a different game) is centered on the Dr. Who universe. This would be a cooperative game where event cards will occur during various eras and and along different timelines. How those events get resolved impacts the cards down the timeline. If the villains take control of all futures, then the players lose.
These are on the back burner till I get through Biker Bar Brawl and Nut Job.
Inception
There's a P&P on BGG, originally part of a contest I believe. It's called Inception, directly based on the movie. I printed it out and played it a dozen or two times. It's good. The different "levels" of the dream could be interpreted as "time lines."
Check it out. It is almost exactly like Soulfinger's first comment. I wonder if he/she's ever played it??
You could figure out a story
You could figure out a story line and have the players race around time to complete certain goals. Kind of like bill and ted esque. Have several points in time where you need to go and collect something. Not sure what game mechanic you'd use to do this but the person to complete it all first would win.
primer
Side note - you should watch the movie Primer.
Oh man, if we are
Oh man, if we are recommending movies then I'd like to add the Butterfly Effect, particularly with the director's cut ending. Yes, it stars Ashton Kutcher and was poorly received, but it turns out to be a pretty decent time travel flick. I suggest it more as an overlooked film with a really fun concept than a particularly great one.
Time Travel Movies
Yes! Butterfly Effect was surprisingly good. I enjoyed it, despite starring Ashton Kutcher.
I have -- it was utterly confusing. But, that sort of treachery and consequence is kind of what I'd really like to capture in a time travel game.
One of my absolute favorite animes is Steins Gate. Hands down, excellent time travel story. It even incorporates the mythical John Titor. Has anyone else seen it?
I like the idea of
I like the idea of versus-play much better. For a coop game to work, you need a sufficiently disrupting mechanic. In this case I can only think of pretty artificial ways of generating chaos which would make the game much less fun to play. On the other hand, playing against each other ensures disruption will be both destructive and constructive, depending on playstyle. I would very much like to see the result.
Some good ideas
http://sedjtroll.blogspot.com/2009/07/time-travel-and-board-games.html
Which I eventually played an approximation o, as described here:
http://sedjtroll.blogspot.com/2009/12/time-rewind-first-draft-test.html
And more recently, this other idea altogether:
http://sedjtroll.blogspot.com/2014/04/youre-not-thinking-4th-dimensionally.html
I think both these ideas are good and workable.
The first one would make a fun co-op due to the unpredictability.
The second one (card game) would be particularly interesting because of the non-linear strategy required; the challenge would be to figure out how to make the actions general enough to affect multiple potential actions by the other player, but specific enough to allow making progress toward the goal (whatever it is). Bonus points if the cards can be applied to multiple different goals, so different games (or different players in the game) can have different end goals.
Some great and workable ideas here
Maybe I should pursue that one after all!
I like this, and it's very similar to my first thought of how to do time travel.
Thinking about it a little more, another way to handle it would be to have the players building out multiple branching time lines, and then fighting over which time line they're all in so they can make it branch the way they want. Basically, player strategy would involve both going back and causing a branch (hard) or going back and "switching" the time line back over to another time line that was active before (easier).
Whenever the time line was switched, all the players would get forcefully shunted into the same spot in the new time line, which could either royally screw up their plans or give them a chance to do something that wasn't possible in the previous time line. Any players at a time from before the switch wouldn't be affected by the change.
Another possible player strategy comes to mind - maybe the more players are in the present time or close to it the harder it is to switch the time line in the past? Then a player that was happy with the current time line could camp out in the present to try and prevent anyone else from changing the past.
But I think however you did it, you'd probably have to make it harder both to travel farther back in time and to cause a change farther back. In fact, it might get harder and harder to affect a change further back as time kept moving forward.
One of the biggest challenges I think with most of these ideas is keeping the number of branches (breadth) and the number of time segments along each time line (length) manageable.
In terms of breadth, you might be able to limit it to a certain number of parallel time lines (maybe 5 or 6). Then if someone wanted to create a new time line they'd need to collapse one of the old ones first (yet another potential player action, maybe as difficult or more difficult than creating a new branch).
In terms of length, you'd also probably need to limit it. But that might actually help determine the end conditions for the game; for example, maybe you start with 5 or 10 time segments already laid out, and the game would progress through 10-15 turns, with a new time segment being laid out each turn. The goal is to influence an event that's coming up (which could just happen in turn 20, ending the game, or might happen earlier depending on what manipulations to the time stream happen).
I thought of another different approach that might be a little easier to manage, but at this time of the night I can't figure out how to explain it.
Anyway, as with all things involving time travel, some of this may not make alot of sense reading it. But there's some great ideas in this thread, and I definitely see some workable mechanics here, as long as the length and breadth of time lines are handled.
If anybody plans to develop this further, I'd definitely be interested in discussing it more and/or playtesting when it gets to that point.