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Comments: 106 +-   Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time Offers New Gameplay Mechanic on Friday September 25, @04:22PM

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday September 25, @04:22PM
from the i've-got-two-guns-one-for-each-of-you dept.
games
technology
Ars Technica has a great look at the latest installment in the Ratchet and Clank series, "A Crack in Time." Along with the great looking graphics and same great gameplay, A Crack in Time offers a brand new game mechanic: "time pads." Time pads allow you to make a copy of yourself and move through a series of action, then shift back to "real time" and interact with your past self. "It's a game mechanic that's hard to describe in words, and wrapping your head around it inside the game isn't much easier when it's first described with an example or two. You have to play with it and bend time to your will before you see just how ingenious the whole thing is. The puzzles begin simply and grow harder as the game moves on. The use of time is done very well and elevates what we've played of the game from another platforming experience to something truly special."
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  • Braid & quick-save/quick-load (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sopssa (1498795) * on Friday September 25, @04:23PM (#29544205)

    I think the indie game Braid [braid-game.com] was the first game to make this approach of time in games great. And if you develop the game good around that, it's great.

    I loved Braid for the fact that even if I made a mistake, I would push the go back in time button instead of repeating quick-save/quick-load all the time when I fail. The levels could be made harder and more unforgiving too because you could always go back in time. And on its philosophy side it made me want to do the same thing for my past relationships, which is part of the story. Great game.

    Actually I would like to see this in more games. Just go back in time instead of the quick-save/load bashing. It's a lot more fun too.

    • Re:Braid & quick-save/quick-load (Score:5, Funny)

      by Red Flayer (890720) on Friday September 25, @04:27PM (#29544271) Journal

      Actually I would like to see this in more games. Just go back in time instead of the quick-save/load bashing. It's a lot more fun too.

      That's weak.

      I play every game in Rogue-mode. Die once, start over from the beginning.

      This tempers a truly superior video-game warrior, one who laughs in the face of adversity and spits in the face of death.

      But man, Oddworld games sure are a bitch.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Evil Shabazz (937088)

        That's weak. I play every game in Rogue-mode. Die once, start over from the beginning. This tempers a truly superior video-game warrior, one who laughs in the face of adversity and spits in the face of death.

        Everyone is entitled to their own way to enjoy games. You may find his style weak, but I find this concept of a "truly superior video-game warior" pretty weak. Let the guy have fun the way he wants, and we won't laugh at the way you want to have fun either. ;)

      • While I probably think you go a bit too far, I think that a lot of games don't quite have enough consequence. For instance, A lot of old driving games I used to play, such as Need For Speed IV, used to actually damage and degrade the driving ability of your car when you crashed. It seems like this has gone away, and that now there isn't really any driving skill in these games, and it's more about trying to run people off the road, rather than try to race without destroying your car as you would have to do
    • I would buy so many more games if they offered instant load-state save-state features like my beloved emulators. That's what immediately drew me to Braid. That game is genius. This post is hype.

    • Re:Braid & quick-save/quick-load (Score:5, Informative)

      by BluePeppers (1596987) on Friday September 25, @04:34PM (#29544349)

      Actually, there have been flash games based on this concept for ages. But apparently they aren't "proper" games...

      See http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/439647 [newgrounds.com] for a good example.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by bruciferofbrm (717584)

        Yes: ChronoTron.

        I loved this game. They even accounted for Paradoxes. But, the concept does get a bit old when you beat you head on a puzzle trying to plan "x" far ahead in order to complete the puzzle. (coolest effect - using "pause time" in one loop, then seeing it get used in a later loop)

        So, yeah. Not so new.

        And so now, two games that might make me want to buy a PS3. Hmmm.. Still not worth it.

        But then, I bought a Xbox 360 for one game: Fable 2. So, what do I know about worthwhile purchases.?

      • Hey you beat me to that! Yes, indeed that was a good game, ars is being and arse claiming this is a brand new concept simply because it is the first large budget game to use it.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by StingRay02 (640085)
        Also of note: Cursor*10 [nekogames.jp]. Less direct interaction, but more planning ahead.
      • In the spirit of bringing up the huge amount of prior art disproving the summary's assertion, I'd just like to mention the interactive fiction title Mobius [tads.org].

    • Cursor*10? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by KingSkippus (799657) on Friday September 25, @04:49PM (#29544473) Homepage Journal

      When I read the description, the first thing I thought was that it was the little Cursor*10 flash game. Very cleverly done, it kept me busy for a while.

      http://www.nekogames.jp/mt/2008/01/cursor10.html [nekogames.jp]

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Prince of Persia Sands of Time was the first game on a mainstream platform to have the go back in time because I made a mistake feature you describe, which is the main gameplay mechanic.

      However Braid DOES have the "new gameplay mechanic", it's when you create a shadow of yourself to help you get through a level, not the feature of rewinding and fast forwarding.

      And if you want to get into a pissing match of "xy did it first!" then yes, the shadow mechanic has been in flash games long before anything else.

      • The next part of that post can be found 3 weeks back - or is it in 3 weeks time?

      • The rest of this comment may be found attached to an article about iPods, which was published 8 years ago yesterday.

      • Further on in Braid you also start to interact with yourself in parallel time lines.

        You perform certain actions, rewind, and then start time moving forwards and play alongside your shadow self...

      • Re:Braid & quick-save/quick-load (Score:4, Interesting)

        by interkin3tic (1469267) on Friday September 25, @04:54PM (#29544533)

        Where... where what? Oh. He went back in time to finish the post.

        Anyway, GP I think was referring to different mechanics that braid had that were not in POP. The "rewind time from death" was in Prince of persia before Braid. But Braid had pads on which you could stand and be outside of time or the rewind/forward time controls. In a seperate mechanic, Braid had worlds where you would do one thing, say jump down to a lower platform and hit a switch to open the door on the upper level. You then rewound time, door goes back closed, but when you let time go forward, a shadow form of you would redo the action you just did, you'd see the shadow jump down and open the door. You could then move through the door.

        I never played prince of persia, but I was under the impression neither mechanic was seen in it.

        The new rachet and clank sounds like it has a more complicated combination of both of those mechanics seen in braid

        Even better are the time pads. You stand on one and "record" your actions in time. Then you stand on the other and interact with your past self going through its actions. In the simplest puzzles you stand on a pressure-sensitive switch for yourself so you can walk through a door. In the more intricate puzzles you have to record sections of your performances multiple times in a type of choreographed dance to get to where you're going, often using the time explosives in multiple ways.

      • Re:Braid & quick-save/quick-load (Score:5, Informative)

        by MaineCoon (12585) on Friday September 25, @05:11PM (#29544681) Homepage

        You fail at reading comprehension.

        Braid did far more than just rewind - which was one of its constant mechanics. Other features include:

        Some levels the direction of time of everything else in the world depends on the direction you walk.
        Some levels featured entities that were 'immune' to time rewind
        Some levels featured the interactive 'shadow'
        Some levels combined multiple of the above

        SPOILER:
        An example of this is one level where you actually let an enemy fall onto you, so that you 'die' and the enemy bounces off your head, then you rewind and play it forwards, again, this time jumping on the head of the enemy as it bounces off your 'shadow' previous self, to reach a high platform.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by pushing-robot (1037830)

        MaineCoon beat me to it, but here's a video [youtube.com] of Braid's World 5 in action.

  • Braid (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sqrt(2) (786011) on Friday September 25, @04:23PM (#29544215) Journal

    I'm pretty sure this has already been done. It's the entire point of the game Braid, and was probably done even before that.

    • I can think of 3 other games besides Braid to have done this Mechanic!
      Chronotron
      A top down game very similar to Chronotron (you were a robot, I remember)
      Some Oriental Mouse-click game where you simply try to get to the last level before the time runs out - and if time Does run out, you are sent back to level 1, but then a ghost of your last round would preform your same actions.

      Ars Technica obviously isn't into Flash games.

      • Chronotron was the game that came to my mind when I read this. The entire point of the game was based around time travel. Each level contained puzzles that could only be solved by being in several places at once, so you had to go and be in one place, then go back in time and be in another place while your earlier self was in the first place and so on. Given that it's a free online flash game, it's a very easy place to steal ideas from.

        If you're counting having your ghost present, then pretty much ever

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by BlueKitties (1541613)
      It's a well known fact that the first *popular* game to do something is the *first to have done it ever.* I can't count the number of popular games touted as the "first to have done something" when in fact it had been done ages prior.

      • The ghost was present in the last mention because it was an integral part of the gameplay because while you yourself didn't have to interact with it, it still did interact with the environment. And everytime the timer ran out a new ghost was created. The objective was to reach the end in the quickest time possible.

        For example, one level would only let you reach the next level once All the boxes in the room are destroyed, which is done by clicking on them. Remember you are trying to do it as fast as possible

      • Like how Halo invented regenerating shield, and the FPS genre.

    • Well yeah, sure, WE know that, but this reviewer is actually a time traveller from the past! A friend gave him Braid, he "couldn't wrap his head around it", and accidentally transported himself several months into the future. This is all new to him.

  • Chronotron. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pushing-robot (1037830) on Friday September 25, @04:26PM (#29544251)

    It's a game mechanic that's hard to describe in words, and wrapping your head around it inside the game isn't much easier when it's first described with an example or two.

    Well, here's a handy tutorial [kongregate.com] then.

    • Nicely done! Chronotron was exactly the game I was trying to think of when I read the summary.

      I was hooked on that one for a while.

    • Thanks for posting. When I saw the headline my first thought was "Yes, if by 'new gameplay mechanic' you mean one that an entire game was built around in last year's PAX 10 [cheapassgamer.com]."

  • A brand new mechanic? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by JustinRLynn (831164) on Friday September 25, @04:26PM (#29544259)
    Does anyone remember Blinx: the timesweeper for XBox that was released at the beginning of the decade? If you're familiar with that game then this game mechanic seems not so new and maybe even a bit more limited (because of the pad requirement, if it is one). I hope it's well implemented because then it has the potential to make for some really awesome puzzles. I'm glad to see they're experimenting with higher dimensional puzzles again.

    • Yes, I picked up a copy of Blinx and it was what I thought about when I first read this article. However, R&C games are very well done (having played all of them) and very fun. I'm totally looking forward to this one.

      • Yes, you guys beat me to the Blinx the Timesweeper reference.
        The point is, it's not a "brand new game mechanic", it's been done before.

    • Re:A brand new mechanic? (Score:4, Informative)

      by mrbene (1380531) on Friday September 25, @04:53PM (#29544525)
      Blinx had several different ways of interacting with time (FF, REW, and so on) that could be used on demand. It's Achron [wikipedia.org] that's really looking cool in the time-front.

  • Familiar (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MorderVonAllem (931645) on Friday September 25, @04:27PM (#29544265)
    Sounds like the movie "Next".

  • I love when the marketing department takes off to promote gimmicks like these. Who cares if there's a new gizmo in the transponder that makes the electrofuzz rain golden teardrops on your soul?

    What matters in a game is if it's fun to play. Previous Ratchet & Clank games were fun, and I have reasonable hopes for this one as well. As for the gimmicks, I could care less (unless they start to detract from gameplay).

    • Well, the gimmicky gadgets are part of what makes R&C so fun. They've had quite a few clever ones over the years, but they support game play, not detract from it.

  • We've been working on this gameplay mechanic for more than a year now with our UT3 mod Prometheus. Here's a link to one of the completed levels to check it out. It's nice to see that others also see this as a new gametype that has a lot of potential. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRjU2IcJ1BM [youtube.com] We've been making this mod for the latest MakeSomethingUnreal contest and have placed 1st for Phase 2 and 2nd for Phase 3, Phase 4 just closed a month ago and our fingers are crossed.
  • That doesn't sound so puzzling but I might be thinking four-dimensionally like Doc Brown told me to... no actually I think I understand it because I can imagine how it is programmed: it makes a savegame, then it records a demo of you playing, then it loads the savegame and plays the demo but lets you play while the demo is running...

    so it might be like this: go and push the button that opens the door across the room (which closes when you leave the button) then you shift back, the recording of your actio

  • The underlying mechanism here is a way to record actions for later playback. Combine that with multithreading and it provides side-by-side scripting. Various shell environments provide different levels of keystroke recording for playback, for instance in a kiosk mode for demos. As somebody said, this is by no means new - I think there were teletype games with similar features.

    How many levels of replication are possible? It would be pretty cool to clone an army of yourself through a few levels of binary

  • Uh guys, you mention Braid all the time and it's time-reversal schtick... What about Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time [wikipedia.org]? It's not as prevalent in the game but it was released many years beforehand.

    Just putting that out there.

  • Cursor 10 (Score:3, Informative)

    by Monkeedude1212 (1560403) on Friday September 25, @05:42PM (#29544929)

    It's not exactly Interacting with yourself in the past, but its the first game I can recall that had this type of gameplay. It came out long before Chronotron, features the same puzzle elements as Chronotron, and was originally in Japanese.

  • WOW (Score:3, Insightful)

    by JMZero (449047) on Friday September 25, @06:32PM (#29545265) Homepage

    Will this be as big a hit as Blinx: The Time Sweeper [wikipedia.org], which had pretty much the same mechanic in a high profile 3d platformer 7 years ago?

  • Creative types tend to be connected to some kind of "thought-wave" generator which spits out whole-cloth ideas at the same time and broadcasts them to the world. If the "thought-wave" is strong enough and enough people are affected by it, they squirrel away and work on some version of the idea and then birth it into the public a couple of years after the wave front hit. Then the whole planet is affected. High-level culture engineering.

    This one I felt strongly a few years ago. I suddenly woke up one morn

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