The ghost mechanic or explaining the player that even dead he can continue moving and attacking but not being able to interact with the rest of the units in battle (you can read more about the ghost mechanic here). In most of the games, when you die you have to wait to start again, but not in our time-traveling game IsoChronous. To amend this problem we decided to use the obvious metaphor of it: being a ghost, that is also what other games have used (World of warcraft, Dark Souls, Soul Reaver). The problem we encounter is that most of the mentioned games also modify the look and feel of the environment giving like some sort of implication of “ghost view”. This visual reinforcement sure helped them but it was not suitable for us since both players are sharing the same screen (it could be applied for an online mode, but we prefer the “offline” mode, where the 2 players are together and can see, yell and smash each other).

Right now we decided just continuing with the individual ghost metaphor by doing an explosion followed by a grave that comes out and converting the player into a ghost:

The problem is that we have experienced that some of the new players either don’t realize that they are dead or they stop moving when the character dies. We introduced even more details apart from the mentioned ghost appearance, to reinforce the idea: we disable the gamepad vibration that happens when you are alive and you deal damage to another unit, the thrown projectiles don’t collide with the environment as they do when you are alive…

Finally, to address the problem of people that stop playing when they are dead we make a message pop out and blink when the dead player keeps his unit immobile.

Time rewinds at the end of each round. In most of round based games when one round finishes the next one is completely new but in IsoChronous when a new round starts the previous actions already have effect in the world. We represent this fact with the time travelling  but we could have used any other metaphor like saying that each unit was some sort of robot that recorded what it did and repeated it again and again. We chose the time travelling explanation because is easier to represent graphically, and we wanted the player to discover the mechanic by himself without many textual help. To make more clear this metaphor, we added a rewind effect similar to Braid (either visual and with the music) with some visual reinforcements (clouds on the ground of the island and the mid river which go backwards when time goes back in order to help the player understand that time is rewinding).

Now the problem was letting the players know that the previous units would repeat what they did and that they were not controllable any more, since in most of the games where you have several units playing you can change between them (either just having one of them at the same time in the battleground like in Tatsunoko vs Capcom or having all them like in LEGOs or RTS in general). What we did was to lower the contrast of the previous units as well as putting a marker on top of the current unit. Also we kept the previous units in front of the tower and when the new round starts you can see how to new unit comes to the battlefield while the others are still there. All this to emphasize that the current units and the previous ones are not the same. Other things we tried were some footsteps that appeared in front of the previous units advancing its nexts movements and giving the feeling of being following a path (the one recorded when you controlled it), but we had to remove this as it was more chaotic and confusing than helpful.

Rounds vs time layers or wining a round doesn’t makes you win anything. One of the things that we wanted to change in IsoChronous is one of “problems” in having rounds: imagine that you are battling to the best of 5 rounds and you have lost the first 2. This situation, depending on the person, can provide a feeling of despair since you have to beat all the next 3 rounds without failing. As stated, depending on the person this can be seen as an extra motivation to do your best but we wanted to experiment and see what happened if we tried to change this by making only the last round the decisive one,  removing all feeling of despair (if you lose firsts rounds it doesn’t matter because you can change the results in last round and also if your unit is defeated in the current round you can continue using it so you are never useless). The first problem we saw is that if you use the term “round” players directly imply that the one of them who wins more rounds is the final winner. To prevent this we had to come up with a different word when we wanted to refer to rounds, so we decided to use “time layer” instead as this was a new concept that attracts the player’s attention and helps them understand the game. Also it helps to explain the time-travelling thing: you add a new layer to the existing battle so all rounds happen at the same time-lapse (that’s where the name Iso (same)+Chronous (time) comes from))

There are plenty of well established concepts and interaction methods in players minds and dealing with ones that break with them or provide new ones can bring some extra design problems, but at the end this is worth it, either for the developers which will have to think and deal with problems that help them improve, but also for the player which will be thankful to see something that defies and presents new concepts. Because at the end is by dealing with new concepts that we learn the most and experience a richer and more stimulating interaction. Good examples that experimenting and trying to break classic mechanics is beneficial include interesting games like: Braid (different interactions with the space-time), Journey (non verbal communication between players), The marriage (games as art), Miegakure (exploration and understanding of 4D spaces), Bara Bari Ball (8 jumps instead of the typical double jump), Storyteller (storytelling as a game mechanic), Johann Sebastian Joust (no-graphics game), SpyParty (detection of human behaviour) and Antichamber (exploration of non-Euclidean spaces) to mention some of them.

“What if you could change your fate not by changing your actions, but with the actions of others”

The state above shows our positioning in how we deal with the time travelling paradox: you can change what your previous units did and is one of the main mechanics in IsoChronous.

Using time travelling as a game mechanic can bring some undesirable problems. For instance the time travelling paradox known as the grandfather paradox. This was introduced by René Barjavel in 1943 in the book “Le voyageur imprudent”. There, a time traveller goes back before his grandfather gets married to kill him and therefore avoids himself to be born and consequently not being able to go back in time (here the paradox itself).

How this applies to the time travelling game mechanic? Imagine that with your current actions you end up modifying what your previous players did: saving the character that you previously controlled from a fatal death. As this is just a game, there are no logic implications that make this impossible, but what we do have are some undesirable consequences.

Returning to the grandfather paradox and trying to solve it, we can find different solutions:

• Restricted action resolution states that laws of nature would make it impossible for the time traveller to modify in such a way that a paradox was created. This approach can be seen in Super TIME Force
• But another possibility, the one we choose for IsoChronous, is the parallel universes resolution. It supposes the existence of several parallel realities with all the different possibilities for each of your decisions. The basic idea is that when the time traveller went back and caused the paradox killing his grandfather he actually had travelled to another reality in which he kills his grandfather, but in his own reality his grandfather wasn’t killed by him making his action not being a paradox. So time travelling could be seen as travelling not just in the one dimensional interpretation of time, but in the whole plane of the different parallel realities.
• Yet others exist. For more solutions you can watch the film “Back to the future”, “Looper” or “The melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya”

The problem with the parallel universes resolution is that implies an infinite number of possibilities for each of the moments that the player could change the behaviour of his previous actions, thing which can be difficult to control (an idea of this was implemented in the game Achron). Let’s try to think a way to limit as much as possible the number of these bifurcations to make it feasible. Why not avoiding the players changing the movements (therefore position) of their previous actions? This implies not changing the walkable map from round to round and not having collision between units. Which are the only states that can be modified now given this limitation? Yes, just the death of the character.

How we let the player decide what he did after dying? One solution would be letting him have control of that character again (something proposed in the video “A mind bending gunfight”). But this would break one of our early game design desicions: controlling just one unit per round so that you can have micromanagement of your units. What we have decided to do is, in fact, an obvious answer: we let him decide what happens after dying just by allowing him controlling the character even if he is already dead. He then can keep controlling a “ghost” version of the unit. This brings even another question: if dead doesn’t stop the player from controlling his unit, what does it? Well, time. Our decisions force us to have a time limit per round which didn’t exist in the case of the restricted action resolution or if we had allowed the player changing between all the current living units (which would be like playing without the game travelling mechanic).

To sum up, when the current unit dies, player keeps controlling a ghosty version of it which will not deal damage in the current round. On next rounds, if the player manages to keep the unit alive, all the actions done as a ghost will affect the rest of units.

Notes:

All of our decisions have been taken to provide an easy and tractable strategy through the mechanic of time travelling. Other decisions would have lead us to other games rather than IsoChronous such the mentioned Super TIME Force, Achron or others such as Braid, The company of myself, Recursion, Prometheus, Chronotron, the other IGF entrant of this year Still Time and any of the other games which have dealt with time travelling. It was even this August and September topic (not exactly, it was time manipulation, in fact) in Experimental gameplay project. So experiment with it and see what you can do with it.

Part of the purpose of this post was to research and collect the examples that people has told us since it was surprising discovering how many games (and videos) have used the time travelling mechanic.

If you want to learn more, we recommend you these related media:

Innovative Gameplay Using Time Travel and Time Manipulation

Jonathan Blow: Indie Prototyping

How ‘Super T.I.M.E. Force’ avoids the time travel paradox

The first day, we were amazed to see the huge exhibition centre and all the people waiting at the entrance. It was Thursday and there were already a lot of people before door opening, while we were preparing the computers to show the game.

This was not the first time we showcasted IsoChronous so we expected everything to work ok, but we soon realized that one of the computers (from the sponsor Alienware) was not working fine, and the game ran really slow. After trying different things we were able to change the machine and everything worked like a charm again.

Second day, it was a bit less crowded so we had the opportunity to leave the booth and see the other games of the expo: Halo 4, Crysis 3, Assassins Creed 3, Hitman, and the Wii U (which was by far the most crowded section of all the expo)

Then Saturday, THE day. Clearly, this was the most exhausting day. A lot of people played the game (and liked it!). We have found a way to know if the people understand the game when we explain it: When they do, they exclaim a big “OHHHH I SEE!”. Always. So for every one of you who played IsoChronous and are proud of having understood it, this virtual badge is for you:

We also had the opportunity to play all the other games of the Indie Games Arcade section. Personally, a great option if you want to see very creative and innovative ideas, compared with the “Yet-another-shooter” games shown by the big companies. And it’s even better because you can talk with the developers! And so we did, too: We meet some of the developers there and shared experiences with them. Good people!

Sunday was a long day, after 3 days showing the game, standing all the time, we were quite exhausted. Well, also due to some party time the night before: we ended somehow drinking beer and playing IsoChronous in a pub.

It has been such a pleasure having the opportunity to show the game again and see all the positive reception as well as being able to meet all the awesome game developers out there. We would like to thank David Hayward and Eurogamer for it.

After all this experience, we have returned to our daily life (that means studying!) and let all the euphoria down. But we are also preparing for the Independent Game Festival. Stay tuned for the new version of Moebii with improved controls, gamepad compatibility and more that we did to present it to the IGF (along with IsoChronous).

We are very happy to announce that we have been chosen to take part in the Indie Games Arcade during the Eurogamer Expo in London! We will be there along other awesome indie games such:

• Dirac
• DRM
• Where is My Heart
• Barabariball
• Don’t Starve
• The Button Affair
• Last Knight
• Zineth
• Kairo
• Proteus
• A Bastard
• Tower of the Gorillion
• Sentinel
• Sokobond
• Gear Up

Some of us will be there to show the game and answer whatever you want to know about it. We are also willing to meet the other indie developers and exchange some “war stories”.

During 3 exhausting days a lot of people was able to play IsoChronous along all the other games of the competition. The booths of all the teams were amazing:

We decided to decorate ours with elements of the game, so we converted one of the screens into a fortified castle!

We were not sure enough if kids would enjoy 100% de game since the idea behind it is a bit complex, but in Dare ProtoPlay we found a LOT of kids playing again and again (also some of them coming after a while to continue playing it), so we can say that kids enjoy it too! There was also a great reception by adults: the whole process of understanding the game and trying to master it trying different strategies kept them engaged. We are very happy with the feedback from both kids and adults!

Finally, on Sunday took place the award giving ceremony. The 3 BAFTA nominations to the “Ones to watch” award were for our fellows who developed Pixel Story, Starcrossed and Project Thanatos. Good job guys!

The public, with their votes during the event, chose Project Thanatos for the Public award, and finally we received the Team choice award given by the other teams!

Congratulations to everyone that has taken part in Dare to be Digital. because all the games done have been amazing. This two months working side by side with the other teams, sharing problems and ideas (and beers) have been awesome, so thank you all! Also thanks to the organizers for leting us enjoy this experience. For sure this is one of those summers that we will never forget.

- Adding the healer and the trapper as playable units. This incorporation will help the player to have a proper feeling of building his own army. Right now, with just 4 units per team all the battles end with the same units and this can make the player feel a bit disconnected with his army. With the new units and maintaining the 4 time layers we want the battles to end with different armies and let the player specialize and build his own army hopefully making him more connected to it.

- Changing the GUI: healthbars, selector flags and change all the texts with a custom font to make them more eye candy.

- Include a tutorial to show players the game mechanics if they need to.

- Making victory animations to get the player feel rewarded when winning.

- Adding a summary at the end of the battle with useful information about how the battle has developed. This has two reasons: on the one hand it gives rewards to both players: you can be the winner but not being the one that has defeated more units and on the other hand this helps both players understand what they have been doing well and what they have to improve so if you lose you get useful information that will help you to master IsoChronous.

- Working on a dynamic camera for the last replay so we can show a more cinematic and epic final replay to make the players want to watch and enjoy the whole battle.

So let´s see what has version pandora brought so far:

- Level changed by pandora, a floating island in the middle of the sky with a river that divides the battlefield.

- Added interactive environment and props: trees, caravan, sign posts, barrels, butterflies, flowers and seagulls so that everything is more alive and gives feedback making the player  feel better when attacking.

- Camera travelling introducing IsoChronia and both kings so you can watch the scene and  the kings making them a bit more noticeable (still not obvious that the goal is having other player´s king with less health in the fourth time layer).

- Sound fx for most of the interactions. Some of the sounds have been used to help player understand the game mechanics. For example the king says messages like: “Protect the king” and “Attack” to empathize what you are suppose to do. Also as they keep giving orders it gives the information of being important for the team.

- GUI redesign to include: small flags on top of the screen to give information about the total number of time layers in a battle, indicators of attack, health and speed to give information about the different units. The style of the GUI elements has been changed to be more integrated with the game: flags, towers and banners have been used. Time indicator is a needle clock to make more obvious that it is indicating time. When the time layer finishes the clock enlarges and is centered facilitating the player to understand that everything rewinds and that there is a clock.

As you can see, in general, we´ve worked a lot to improve player experience and making the battlefield stand out. Also the GUI has been redesigned to help player understand the game mechanics.

All this changes have been possible thanks to mentors which have been very useful testers. Also we would like to thank those other dare teams who have had time to play IsoChronous and have given their thoughts to improve it. Last but not least, the kids from the focus testing day have helped us to see that even without understanding the whole game mechanics, IsoChronous is still funny, we enjoyed a lot watching them play it and making up sounds for hammer master and the rest of the mighty warriors. Thank you .

Regarding the units, the king is finished now. It’s by far, the most polished of all the units, with 6 animations and different textures to change his expression to mirror the state of the battlefield.

Finally, there have been improvements in the GUI, the render of the current unit is more polished and includes its health too and the previous hourglass has been changed by a semicircle.

Another thing that we’ve been working on is in improving the information shown when a round ends as now everything ends static and we believe that useful data could be represented in the map to help people think their strategy easily. A first reasonable approach seemed showing each units path to aid the player in decide where to attack. After implementing this we ended with this:

Which looks like the a metro map. So we have discarded the idea and we will try in next approaches to simplify the information shown: trying with heat maps or a simplified points of interest maps.

Next week we will be working on the version entitled Pandora. It’s name comes from the fact this version will include a new map that will replace the current one since we’ve been given the suggestion to avoid the current environment because it’s claustrophobic. The new map shows us a battlefield in the middle of a floating gorgeous island full of vegetation and a waterfall that separates the two reigns. You have some concepts and the design as a preview:

On Monday it was the induction day were we had to bring our props for the photo shoot. Everyone brought nice props that left us willing to know what the other team games were about (look that awesome big moustache and the gorgeous art from Finnish team):

After that we had lunch provided by the organisation in Albertay Union followed by an ice-breaking activity were everyone had to introduce the team and their game as well as what had been done during the available 40 h of work given before the start of the competition. Everyone seems nice and there are plenty of really interesting ideas out there.

Second day was spent in having everything set up. There were some problems as we didn’t have Unity installed in our PCs and some drivers were needed for the graphic tablets  and gamepads but it was all fixed by the IT crew. We did some work in a new unit for IsoChronous, the crossbowman and also in the playable prototype:

 Finally, yesterday we were working hard all day to have the mentioned playable prototype ready finishing randomly generated environment and record mechanics. Our artists finished the crossbowman so this means we’ve 3 units ready! Now we’ve got something that looks like more like a real game.