toro
Arcane
- Joined
- Apr 14, 2009
- Messages
- 14,791
Ok. My bad. Maybe other people will enjoy the new Psi class. Have fun.
-
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Game News Underrail Dev Log #49: Temporal Manipulation
- Thread starter Infinitron
- Start date
Ok. My bad. Maybe other people will enjoy the new Psi class. Have fun.
Woohoo!!!
Azrael the cat
Arcane
Not sure that I want another game that does time-manipulation abilities without incorporating such a massive setting-altering tech into the meat of the setting/campaign. It's just jarring for me - time manipulation and psychic abilities are things that should alter a setting at a fundamental level.
It's kind of like with the Flash, when they introduce his ability to dimension-hop and time-travel, and then carry on pretending that his main superpower is 'running really fast'.
It's kind of like with the Flash, when they introduce his ability to dimension-hop and time-travel, and then carry on pretending that his main superpower is 'running really fast'.
I did have an idea for a 'Dishonoured with Silent Hill 2 atmosphere' time-travel game, where the protagonist gets various time-travel abilities akin to Dishonoured powers at the start, and has to keep replaying the same day, as the ability to time-travel has let in various Lovecraftian mooks in through rips in time. Protagonist is a physicist working on time-travel experiments, shit blows us and he realises that the experiment shouldn't have worked, but somehow it has, and now he can rewind time to any degree and has a host of other combat/stealth related time abilities. Every time the protagonist dies, somebody else grabs him, reverses time to the last save spot, and disappears (ala PS:T). 'Constrained-freeform' playstyle like Dishonoured. I.e. map-based, but free-form gameplay within those maps.
Each 'chapter' (day) ends with the protagonist getting closer to finding out the source of the Lovecraftian mooks, but also fucking things up worse and worse, most notably that by about day 3 (of 7, i.e. game has 7 attempts at the one day) his estranged wife can die depending on player actions, and from 4-6 she will die because player has so much other shit to deal with that even with open freedom of where to go, he can no longer make it to the location in time. End villain is future version of the protagonist (is also the guy that keeps reversing time to the last save point when the player dies - he can't survive without protagonist, so has to perform a temporal gambit in order to 'resurrect' himself) - the protagonist's experiment at the start of the game didn't work, it wasn't what gave him time-travel abilities. Those abilities came from his future experiments 8 years later (non-linearity of time meant that his powers manifested earlier than the experiment itself). The various Lovecraftian mooks are suggested (but not confirmed, leave that bit open to interpretation) to be versions of the protagonist that are even further into the future than the villain (only has normal human life-expectancy in terms of solid years, but the ability to keep rewinding and manipulating time means that 75 years of 'normal life' could be thousands of years of time-travelling, warping him beyond recognition). The player meets and fights his future self at the end of each 'day' - but every time he kills him, the Lovecraftian mooks appear and perform the same temporal gambit that occurs when the player dies, dragging both the player and his future self/villain back to the start of the day. This means that it's not just the player who gets to redo things - the villain is changing things too, which is why things are getting increasingly worse each day/chapter.
Story is ultimately that the purpose of the villain's time-travel was to go back to the point where the player started the game (the early failed experiment being an easy temporal marker to use for his later successful one) because this is the point where he believes that his marriage began to disintegrate, with his original motivation (before getting warped by so many rewindings of time) being to try and salvage things. It's an impossible task, because the cause of the relationship disintigrating was his inability to cope with his wife's miscarriage, which happened just before the start of the game (which is why the wife appears estranged/distant when the player encounters her - she thinks that the miscarriage might have something to do with the crazy time-travel research, so she's quietly half-blaming him, and neither of them are ready to talk about it yet). He can't bring himself go back further than that, because that would mean the fetus never existed, he'd be 'killing' it by altering events, and the paranoia that he might have already done that (that he might have caused the miscarriage without remembering it) is what caused him to become the way he is. By day 7, space-time is falling apart, the lovecraftian mooks aren't just attacking the player now, they're executing some kind of plan, and the player can end the game by either (a) going back further in time and stopping himself from ever meeting his wife, saving her by preventing the whole series of events from ever happening (he'll still invent time-travel, but under psychologically stable circumstances, keeping alive the possibility of using it for the benefit of humanity; (b) finding a way to kill himself without his future-self being able to resurrect him via temporal gambit (stopping time-travel from being invented for better or worse, but doesn't get to save his wife); (c) going back further in time and destroying the time-travel research (possibly stopping time-travel from being invented but it could just be invented later by somebody else, who might be more responsible, or might be even worse. However, without their exposure to the time-travel research it's an open question whether or not the miscarriage and deterioration of his marriage will still occur), or (d) deciding that whatever the lovecraftian mooks are doing, they've seen this play out an infinitely greater number of times than he or the antagonist, and leaving with them in the hope that they mean well.
Ok, shitty idea - but my point is that there are some game mechanics that can't just be combat mechanics because their existence breaks the logic of the setting. If you have even a mild time-manipulation skill tree, then that setting is now about time manipulation, because it makes no sense for it to be about anything else. If you have psychic abilities, then that setting is about psychic abilities, because you can't just handwaive the paranoia that would arise from the possibility of people mind-controlling political leaders, stealing state secrets, manipulating voters, etc. Putting that stuff in a game as mere 'skill trees' would be like if you had a CoD game where the player had Deus Ex style augs, and nobody fucking comments on it (as opposed to the actual Deus Ex games, where it's generally done right - the implications of the tech are central to the setting and plot, not just the combat mechanics).
Each 'chapter' (day) ends with the protagonist getting closer to finding out the source of the Lovecraftian mooks, but also fucking things up worse and worse, most notably that by about day 3 (of 7, i.e. game has 7 attempts at the one day) his estranged wife can die depending on player actions, and from 4-6 she will die because player has so much other shit to deal with that even with open freedom of where to go, he can no longer make it to the location in time. End villain is future version of the protagonist (is also the guy that keeps reversing time to the last save point when the player dies - he can't survive without protagonist, so has to perform a temporal gambit in order to 'resurrect' himself) - the protagonist's experiment at the start of the game didn't work, it wasn't what gave him time-travel abilities. Those abilities came from his future experiments 8 years later (non-linearity of time meant that his powers manifested earlier than the experiment itself). The various Lovecraftian mooks are suggested (but not confirmed, leave that bit open to interpretation) to be versions of the protagonist that are even further into the future than the villain (only has normal human life-expectancy in terms of solid years, but the ability to keep rewinding and manipulating time means that 75 years of 'normal life' could be thousands of years of time-travelling, warping him beyond recognition). The player meets and fights his future self at the end of each 'day' - but every time he kills him, the Lovecraftian mooks appear and perform the same temporal gambit that occurs when the player dies, dragging both the player and his future self/villain back to the start of the day. This means that it's not just the player who gets to redo things - the villain is changing things too, which is why things are getting increasingly worse each day/chapter.
Story is ultimately that the purpose of the villain's time-travel was to go back to the point where the player started the game (the early failed experiment being an easy temporal marker to use for his later successful one) because this is the point where he believes that his marriage began to disintegrate, with his original motivation (before getting warped by so many rewindings of time) being to try and salvage things. It's an impossible task, because the cause of the relationship disintigrating was his inability to cope with his wife's miscarriage, which happened just before the start of the game (which is why the wife appears estranged/distant when the player encounters her - she thinks that the miscarriage might have something to do with the crazy time-travel research, so she's quietly half-blaming him, and neither of them are ready to talk about it yet). He can't bring himself go back further than that, because that would mean the fetus never existed, he'd be 'killing' it by altering events, and the paranoia that he might have already done that (that he might have caused the miscarriage without remembering it) is what caused him to become the way he is. By day 7, space-time is falling apart, the lovecraftian mooks aren't just attacking the player now, they're executing some kind of plan, and the player can end the game by either (a) going back further in time and stopping himself from ever meeting his wife, saving her by preventing the whole series of events from ever happening (he'll still invent time-travel, but under psychologically stable circumstances, keeping alive the possibility of using it for the benefit of humanity; (b) finding a way to kill himself without his future-self being able to resurrect him via temporal gambit (stopping time-travel from being invented for better or worse, but doesn't get to save his wife); (c) going back further in time and destroying the time-travel research (possibly stopping time-travel from being invented but it could just be invented later by somebody else, who might be more responsible, or might be even worse. However, without their exposure to the time-travel research it's an open question whether or not the miscarriage and deterioration of his marriage will still occur), or (d) deciding that whatever the lovecraftian mooks are doing, they've seen this play out an infinitely greater number of times than he or the antagonist, and leaving with them in the hope that they mean well.
Ok, shitty idea - but my point is that there are some game mechanics that can't just be combat mechanics because their existence breaks the logic of the setting. If you have even a mild time-manipulation skill tree, then that setting is now about time manipulation, because it makes no sense for it to be about anything else. If you have psychic abilities, then that setting is about psychic abilities, because you can't just handwaive the paranoia that would arise from the possibility of people mind-controlling political leaders, stealing state secrets, manipulating voters, etc. Putting that stuff in a game as mere 'skill trees' would be like if you had a CoD game where the player had Deus Ex style augs, and nobody fucking comments on it (as opposed to the actual Deus Ex games, where it's generally done right - the implications of the tech are central to the setting and plot, not just the combat mechanics).
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Yes.
Tom Baker's Arse
Savant
I'm currently on my 2nd playthrough right now, so I'm all for Underrail ... Expeditions sounds great
Styg I've just recently discovered this (I assume good people™) forums and, with it, your (brilliant™) game. A little public confession: as you know how economy thing functions in our part of the (third-ish) world and I am late weeks upon weeks to get my honoraria — I descended to the lowest and pirated your work of art.
As soon as the miracle happens (should be any day™) and I am back at my feet and not thinking about tomorrow's food, coffee and cigarettes supplies — off to internets to pay it in full price. In the meantime, as a form of an apology, I can offer you with the link and password to access my "child" — a documentary that took, similarly to your remek-delo, six years to make. If that is kind of a fair deal. v0v
Trademarks and pirates.
As soon as the miracle happens (should be any day™) and I am back at my feet and not thinking about tomorrow's food, coffee and cigarettes supplies — off to internets to pay it in full price. In the meantime, as a form of an apology, I can offer you with the link and password to access my "child" — a documentary that took, similarly to your remek-delo, six years to make. If that is kind of a fair deal. v0v
Trademarks and pirates.
Well, from rags-to-riches went quicker than expected. My producers probably ping-pong'd a pizza to Moloch and sweet euros dinged on our accounts. Your bijou got insta-bought!
Now I feel a little embarrassed for ^ and if not for all those ™s I would edited. Ze film offer still stands, stronk.
Also was sure to get Age of Decadence and for "some" reason skipped Tiranny (this forums' level of inclination and commanding a view are 1930s Munich's beer halls scary).
Thanks for patience Styg and izvini bro. RL sometimes happens.
Now I feel a little embarrassed for ^ and if not for all those ™s I would edited. Ze film offer still stands, stronk.
Also was sure to get Age of Decadence and for "some" reason skipped Tiranny (this forums' level of inclination and commanding a view are 1930s Munich's beer halls scary).
Thanks for patience Styg and izvini bro. RL sometimes happens.
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