PlanetCrap 6.0!
Front Page (ATOM) • Submission Bin (4) • ArchivesUsersLoginCreate Account
You are currently not logged in.
T O P I C
The Save Anywhere of the Future?
June 6th 2005, 17:19 CEST by Hugin

The videogame industry has come a long way since the original Wolfenstein 3D, DOOM, and Quake.  But it is still clearly learning how to explore and exploit the gameplay implications of 3 dimensional space.  What I'm wondering is, is the next fundamental axis of gameplay going to be time?


Max Payne (nee The Matrix) gave us bullet time.  Prince of Persia allowed for the limited rewinding of events.  The upcoming Sega combat racer Full Auto allows for a somewhat more expansive rewinding of time as well.  And the gameplay of Timeshift seems to revolve entirely around the manipulation of time, speeding up, slowing down, reversing, and freezing.

But instead of it being the twist or feature or gimmick of specific games, could this ability to control time in games slowly become a fairly standard feature, allowing players the ability to control and edit their play experiences as routinely as cheat codes and creative use of saves do now?  Will developers ever feel comfortable giving players that much agency, given the impact time control could have on linearity, event scripting, environment destruction, player death, the sheer idea of cause and effect itself?  

Will players come to expect to be able to control their position in a game's temporal space as much as they expect to be able to control their position in the game's physical space?  Will a game that unspools in unmodifiable linear time be as unthinkable (or as idiosyncratically ultra-hardcore oriented) as a current game with no ability to save?
C O M M E N T S
Home » Topic: The Save Anywhere of the Future?

|«« - Previous Page - Next Page - »»|
#47 by mgns
2005-06-06 19:47:03
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/jun/06intel.html

Just those three words, said and meant. I love you. They were quite hopeless. He said it as he might have said, I have cancer.
#48 by Shadarr
2005-06-06 19:50:15
shadarr@yahoo.com http://digital-luddite.com
I could see it being kind of fun to play multiple characters at the same time, but the controlling time thing seems like a substitute for save-reloading your way through a level, which isn't fun anyway.  Much better to create games where you don't have to replay the same thing multiple times than to change the way you're going back to replay it.

"I spent a year in Vancouver; now I have to kill a hooker and feed her to the pigs just to get going in the mornings." - Leslie Nassar
#49 by Neale
2005-06-06 19:55:28
neale@pimurho.co.uk www.pimurho.co.uk
I think the rewind-as-a-save function is a great idea, personally. As with save anywhere, just don't use it if you don't like it.

I have a hard time accepting that anyone could achieve this miraculously high level of stupidity. - Caryn
#50 by Warren Marshall
2005-06-06 19:55:47
http://www.wantonhubris.com/
This discussion reminds me of a game called "The Sting".  You had to plan robberies and once planned, you could hit the "play" button and see them carried out.  If a guard saw you or something went wrong, you could rewind to that spot in the plan and try something else.
#51 by Shadarr
2005-06-06 19:57:45
shadarr@yahoo.com http://digital-luddite.com
As with save anywhere, just don't use it if you don't like it.

Uh huh.  The only thing worse than a game that requires you to save all the time is a game that requires saving all the time but doesn't let you.  I'm looking at you, Medal of Honor.

"I spent a year in Vancouver; now I have to kill a hooker and feed her to the pigs just to get going in the mornings." - Leslie Nassar
#52 by Neale
2005-06-06 20:00:37
neale@pimurho.co.uk www.pimurho.co.uk
Well, it's obviously shouldn't be a crutch for poor design. I can't imagine any system making the MoH sniper village even playable, let alone actually fun.

I have a hard time accepting that anyone could achieve this miraculously high level of stupidity. - Caryn
#53 by Wyst
2005-06-06 20:03:41
I wouldn't see it as "reversing the same area"

I would start at a place so far "away" from my potential death.. reversed exactly along my path. Maybe I can fast forward it back and forward from that "death" point.. the world looking a bit greyed out during travel.
I then can stop and "materialize" anywhere in my journey along that one timeline. This would allow me to quickly (if I payed attention) find the divergent path, or even have certian things only viewable in the "timeline mode", and then I can go to the UNEXPLORED AREA and kill the snipers.
Upon killing of the snipers, that previous timeline is erased so to speak(still there for reversal from the next death minus the death we erased) and we are standing where we died in "forward" time.

So help me, If I could model I would be all over this.

I can't. I can't code either.

must learn!
#54 by Warren Marshall
2005-06-06 20:13:28
http://www.wantonhubris.com/
Wyst

You sound like a fabulous Idea Man.  You're on the team!
#55 by mgns
2005-06-06 20:15:40
you people need to put in more hours. Work smarter, and harder. Anyone caught below a 60 hour workweek gets a wedgie and a night out on the balcony.

Just those three words, said and meant. I love you. They were quite hopeless. He said it as he might have said, I have cancer.
#56 by Wyst
2005-06-06 20:15:40
lol
I do try.
#57 by Wyst
2005-06-06 20:16:51
Balcony?

Who can afford that. I am used to being put out with the trash in the morning, along with most my ideas.
#58 by G-Man
2005-06-06 20:22:10
Re: Hugin's Game
It is a great idea, but it has been done to a degree. Games like Hidden and Dangerous or Commandos offer that sort of "working as a team and hopping between different parts of the team seamlessly" experience. Ditto for tons of turn-based games like X-Com etc. And while they don't offer you that Groundhog day business of involving synchronisity, other games like TimeSplitters 2 have. Finally, The Last Express has exactly the kind of rewinding and TiVo style mechanics that you are all talking about. Some other early IF games probably featured some of the stuff Hugin talks about too (ie you taking part of one half of a conversation now, only to perform the other half later, or dropping an item in a room which explains how it got there for you to pick up in the beginning, etc.) It is less common in modern games, but still not uncommon - Day of the Tentacle for example did this a lot). Another game like that is The Journeyman Project series. Also Zelda etc.
#59 by Wyst
2005-06-06 20:23:04
I miss those games, and I want them with todays graphics.


Now please-- get to work!
#60 by G-Man
2005-06-06 20:25:01
#50 Warren Marshall
This discussion reminds me of a game called "The Sting".  You had to plan robberies and once planned, you could hit the "play" button and see them carried out.  If a guard saw you or something went wrong, you could rewind to that spot in the plan and try something else.

Yeah I remember that game too. It was really awful. There a TON of games that use that mechanic, but they are really TBS in a sense ala X-Com/LSN, just disguised as realtime, so I didn't bother listing a bunch of them as examples.
#61 by LPMiller
2005-06-06 20:25:34
lpmiller@gotapex.com http://www.gotapex.com
ARRESTING NEW ARRIVAL: Comedian-magician Penn Jillette and his wife had a baby girl on Friday. The baby’s name is, and we're not making this up, Moxie CrimeFighter.


When LP says he's bringing Armageddon, he brings fucking Armageddon. - Caryn, 6/01/2004
#62 by Wyst
2005-06-06 20:25:40
The question is ..
When your second self dies, do you then unlock a 3rd self?


So you go kill the snipers, and die from say a trapline that can only be disabled from this other spot.


This starts to take on the dementions of that game Warren mentioned, or you would have to limit how many times you can "save yourself".
If you elminated the ultimate number of saves, you then have the "where should we save again" routine.


I will think on that.
#63 by Wyst
2005-06-06 20:26:37
LPmiller--

Heard It!



I hate my boyfriend and his Fark viewing!
#64 by Greg
2005-06-06 20:26:55
Timesplitters 2 was such a shitty, boring game.

こんにちは
#65 by Hugin
2005-06-06 20:27:31
lmccain@nber.org
Ugh.  I'd definitely want it to be better than the Jouneyman Project games.

But yes, it's totally a split team objective thing just with one person as the team, and with a different framing device. No argument there.
#66 by Charles
2005-06-06 20:27:37
www.bluh.org
I think the core solution to the argument of death is to turn it in to a gameplay device, a la Prey E3 2005 video.

Videogames!  Why waste good technology on science and medicine?
#67 by Ergo
2005-06-06 20:27:38
#61 LPMiller
ARRESTING NEW ARRIVAL: Comedian-magician Penn Jillette and his wife had a baby girl on Friday. The baby’s name is, and we're not making this up, Moxie CrimeFighter.

Oh, man. As much as I love Penn, you have to be one mean bastard to name your kid something like that.

"Every sect as far as reason will help them, gladly use it; when it fails them, they cry out it is a matter of faith, and beyond reason." --John Locke
DVDs
#68 by Charles
2005-06-06 20:28:57
www.bluh.org
He's not mean till he forces the kid to wear a cape and mask all the time.

Videogames!  Why waste good technology on science and medicine?
#69 by Hugin
2005-06-06 20:30:27
lmccain@nber.org
Yeah, I'm assuming some kind of Groundhog Day meets Quantum Leap-ish story framing the whole that that posits that dying "resets" you more than anything else.
#70 by Hugin
2005-06-06 20:31:59
lmccain@nber.org
Hey, maybe he's got an underground training facility and a battlesuit all ready for the kid.  I can see him now, sitting at home, thinking "Screw this ranting about the stupidity and evil in the world.  I'll just raise a little psychopath to kill the stupid and evil."
#71 by G-Man
2005-06-06 20:39:12
Hugin did you read the TimeSplitters link?
#72 by Hugin
2005-06-06 20:43:41
lmccain@nber.org
I read it.  I never played the Timesplitters games, but now I might, just to see how its implemented.  If there can be a million Space Marines Fighting Alien Bugs games, and a million WW2 games, I feel the market is ripe for a million time hopping games.
#73 by TheTrunkDr.
2005-06-06 22:19:12
Other stupid names for celebrities' children include Pilot Inspektor (yes, with a 'k' since it wasn't stupid enough already) thanks to Jason Lee, Apple, thanks to Gwyneth Paltrow and even Brooklyn curtesy of Posh Spice (I don't remeber her real name).

I SAID PURPLE, BITCH!
#74 by Your Friend
2005-06-06 22:41:10
Brooklyn and Apple are pull-off-able, particularly if the girls turn out hot.

Moxie CrimeFighter and Pilot Inspektor are guaranteed to have all manner of psychiatric problems.

I hate people who are so smug with their cleverness and uniqueness that they saddle their kids with names that might as well be "Why Doesn't Someone Give Me a Wedgie?"

I didn't ask for a shrink, that must've been somebody else.  Also, that pudding isn't mine.  Also, I'm wearing this suit today because I had a very important meeting this morning.  And I don't have a crying problem.
#75 by Leslie Nassar
2005-06-06 22:45:35
http://departmentofinternets.com
YF, my daughter's name is Zoe Danger.  i believe Moxie CrimeFighter will be her do-gooding nemesis.

You've already tried the iPod, that smoothly transitions into trying the Mac Mini, and before you know it you're married to a man.  Apple's master plan to make everything stylish wins. -- ChunkStyle
#76 by schnee
2005-06-06 22:46:27
david@snowdesign.com http://www.snowdesign.com
Brooklyn, Apple, Moxie, Zoe.

Stripper names, all of 'em.

Gawd wuz a dream of good gubmint.
#77 by Neale
2005-06-06 22:48:01
neale@pimurho.co.uk www.pimurho.co.uk
Brooklyn Beckham is, you know, a boy.

I have a hard time accepting that anyone could achieve this miraculously high level of stupidity. - Caryn
#78 by Ergo
2005-06-06 22:48:46
#75 Leslie Nassar
YF, my daughter's name is Zoe Danger.  i believe Moxie CrimeFighter will be her do-gooding nemesis.

You're a cruel, heartless man. But as long as she doesn't divulge her middle name to her classmates, she should escape most ridicule.

"Every sect as far as reason will help them, gladly use it; when it fails them, they cry out it is a matter of faith, and beyond reason." --John Locke
DVDs
#79 by CheesyPoof
2005-06-06 22:49:03
You mean a fag, (or puff in your culture).
#80 by Shadarr
2005-06-06 22:51:23
shadarr@yahoo.com http://digital-luddite.com
This is why children should be assigned GUIDs.

Actually, if I had a daughter I'd name her Candy PoleRider.

"I spent a year in Vancouver; now I have to kill a hooker and feed her to the pigs just to get going in the mornings." - Leslie Nassar
#81 by Warren Marshall
2005-06-06 22:51:30
http://www.wantonhubris.com/
I was talking to a co-worker the other day about his soon to be born daughter.

"Have you picked a name yet?"

"My wife did ... Zoe."

*awkward pause*

"Stripper?"

"Yeah, I know, but it's out of my hands..."
#82 by Leslie Nassar
2005-06-06 22:54:54
http://departmentofinternets.com
haha, that's great!  i wish i worked in an environment that fostered pithy conversations, but sadly i must content myself with wearing headphones and placing mental speech bubbles above my co-worker's heads.

You've already tried the iPod, that smoothly transitions into trying the Mac Mini, and before you know it you're married to a man.  Apple's master plan to make everything stylish wins. -- ChunkStyle
#83 by Greg
2005-06-06 22:57:00
Did you name her that so she could say "Danger's my middle name." and be completely truthful about it?

こんにちは
#84 by Hugin
2005-06-06 23:15:42
lmccain@nber.org
I have no problem with Zoe.
#85 by Chunkstyle
2005-06-06 23:16:22
Moxie is a cute name.

Game Developers: Don't forget the zombie monkeys.
#86 by Squeaky
2005-06-06 23:17:05
Moxie and Zoe are fine names. 'Danger' is kinda silly, and 'CrimeFighter' is fucking lame.

#87 by Your Friend
2005-06-06 23:21:38

Brooklyn Beckham is, you know, a boy.


I bow before your superior knowledge of celebrity tabloid information.

I didn't ask for a shrink, that must've been somebody else.  Also, that pudding isn't mine.  Also, I'm wearing this suit today because I had a very important meeting this morning.  And I don't have a crying problem.
#88 by LPMiller
2005-06-06 23:48:02
lpmiller@gotapex.com http://www.gotapex.com
From Law.com(http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1117616720269):

Computer game publisher Michael Wilson sued publishing giant Random House Inc. on May 10, alleging that statements made about him in a book about two gaming industry gurus are false and have damaged his reputation…

At issue in Wilson v. Random House Inc., filed in U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks' court, are statements that Random House published in "Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture," written by David Kushner…

Wilson alleges in the complaint that Random House defamed him when it published statements in the book that, while he was at Ion Storm, "without the owner's knowledge, Wilson had borrowed company money to buy a new BMW." …Wilson says Ion Storm's chief operating officer was aware of the loan and that the company's chief financial officer signed the loan documents…

"There's nothing they could have possibly said that could be more damaging," Wilson says in an interview, noting that he's trying to raise money for a new video game publishing company, Gamecock Media Group. "This is an industry publication read almost exclusively by my peers in the industry," he says…Wilson also alleges that he sustained special damages as a result of being harmed in his business interests, in his reputation and standing in the community and "has suffered shame, humiliation and mental anguish."

The lawsuit seeks damages of fifty million dollars.


When LP says he's bringing Armageddon, he brings fucking Armageddon. - Caryn, 6/01/2004
#89 by Your Friend
2005-06-06 23:52:26
SEEN IT.

I didn't ask for a shrink, that must've been somebody else.  Also, that pudding isn't mine.  Also, I'm wearing this suit today because I had a very important meeting this morning.  And I don't have a crying problem.
#90 by LPMiller
2005-06-06 23:55:58
lpmiller@gotapex.com http://www.gotapex.com
DON'T CARE.

When LP says he's bringing Armageddon, he brings fucking Armageddon. - Caryn, 6/01/2004
#91 by Shadarr
2005-06-06 23:59:33
shadarr@yahoo.com http://digital-luddite.com
Weren't you here for the whole "Gamecock" discussion?

"I spent a year in Vancouver; now I have to kill a hooker and feed her to the pigs just to get going in the mornings." - Leslie Nassar
#92 by Squeaky
2005-06-07 00:00:22
Linked here, not five days ago.

#93 by G-Man
2005-06-07 00:11:29
MOTION TO DISMISS'D IT
#94 by CheesyPoof
2005-06-07 00:14:44
SUSTAINED IT
#95 by Dumdeedum
2005-06-07 00:21:33
http://www.dumdeedum.com
IT IS SO ORDERED

#96 by Ergo
2005-06-07 00:22:23
SCROLLWHEELED IT

"Every sect as far as reason will help them, gladly use it; when it fails them, they cry out it is a matter of faith, and beyond reason." --John Locke
DVDs
C O M M E N T S
Home » Topic: The Save Anywhere of the Future?

|«« - Previous Page - Next Page - »»|
P O S T   A   C O M M E N T

You need to be logged in to post a comment here. If you don't have an account yet, you can create one here. Registration is free.
C R A P T A G S
Simple formatting: [b]bold[/b], [i]italic[/i], [u]underline[/u]
Web Links: [url=www.mans.de]Cool Site[/url], [url]www.mans.de[/url]
Email Links: [email=some@email.com]Email me[/email], [email]some@email.com[/email]
Simple formatting: Quoted text: [quote]Yadda yadda[/quote]
Front Page (ATOM) • Submission Bin (4) • ArchivesUsersLoginCreate Account
You are currently not logged in.
There are currently 0 people browsing this site. [Details]