Since when I started my Master of Research at Imperial College, time management has always been an issue. The problem actually lies in the “time” part, rather than in the “management” one. There is not enough time. I think this paradoxally probably motivates me to create “Still time”, a game in which you are never going to be out of time.
Internet is actually filled with games that exhibit some kind of time re-winding ability, however they have always been scientifically inaccurate in order to be both easy to play and fast to compute. Going back in time, in fact, means storing somehow the entire game timeline. Even the famous “Braid“, that was supposed to overcome limitations of its predecessors, it actually fails on this. What you can do in “Braid” is simply rewinding the timeline and start again from your past.
I honestly wanted to push the concept of time bending to the next level. What is going to happen if we really go back in time? Firstly, being a time travel, I expect not to move in space. What I expect, instead, is to find myself in the world as it was before. Including finding the previous myself doing my same actions. Lot of games and movies actually ended up in a paradox that, even if very mind tripping, wouldn’t be actually possible. If you managed to create a paradox, it means that the time travel you are trying to do is not really possible.
Joining together all these details, I managed to came up with a very interesting gameplay. In “Still time” is possible to go back in time, appearing in the world as it was before. The player will find the previous himself repeating the same actions, and eventually going back in time as well, disappearing. This enables to create a sound timeline with no space for paradox. In advanced levels it will however possible to generate a paradox. This happens, for instance, if a previous character die. In that case, since the “old” yourself died, it won’t be able to become you. And here it arises a paradoxes. Paradoxes are the only way you can properly fail a level in “Still time”. And believe me… it is much more easy than how it might seem.
To manipulate the time, the player can stop time to see how different timelines interact with the others. The picture above shows a very confusing example of the time bending mechanic. Coloured bordless rectangles are previous characters, followed by a tails that helps the player to understand what they are going to do in the immediate past or future. The top of the screen contains the timelines – one for each character – that highlight when the respective character is/was/will interact with an object. Will you be able to open the door?
I am keen in posting a video trailer soon. Unfortunately for me, I can bend time only in my game.
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