I don't have the working- and short- term memory to finish this project, so please steal it and show it off to me..
The idea is to impress players by making an interactive experience where they can individually time travel away from each other, and ideally interact with each other at disparate points in time.
Basically the experience is a simulation that can predict its state at different points in time, based on known state at other points in time.
Ideas to open options up:
- keeping interaction simpler or players somewhat distant
- having statistical forces that unite timelines, or having only one [mutable?] timeline and having forces that influence player behavior
- simulating players [likely as if npcs to simplify things]
- overlaying nearby timelines on top of each other visually, where maybe even the player did something different, and letting players shift to neighboring timelines if they are similar or if they are capable of performing a radical timespace shift. maybe giving them an indication of how to get nearer to neighboring timelines, or how "strong" their timeline is compared to others (e.g. is this person real or simulated?), or overlaying where other timelines are relative to them.
- limiting the use of time travel (based on player-understood rules that still give them freedom) -- such as only to distant points, or having effects of temporal instability
I don't work on this project enough to retain my work from session to session, so here it is online so that something might develop. I usually find it relatively noncontroversial to work on, but don't consider it productive for anything useful. Properties that relate to my cognitive struggles.
On that topic of cognitive strugglesn my goal here is just an incredibly basic simulation, whatever is the bare essentials to demonstrate the concept.
Further ideas:
- reverse causality: it seems there'd be a cool eery feeling if players end up causing results they previously experienced in a future timeline, or that are simultaneously experienced by other players in the future. this 'cool feeling' possibly raises value for a single timeline, rather than frequently-splitting timelines, but could reduce the sense of freedom if overused.
- the concept of there being arbitrary scales: that a player could shift larger or smaller to be a group or a member of that group, possibly without bound if conditions are right. Simplified if all scales use the same mechanics.
Part of the inspiration here may be based on experiences of people with dissociative amnesia, where experiences can shift as if there are separate realities one fits into when near.