Is this the best idea for a game ever? (or does it exist?)

[Chardok]

So I don't play MP games much - mostly because of douchbaggery, but also because I find it to be stress-inducing - and that's not why I play games. So I thought to myself - what if I were the only douchebag? What sort of MP game has only one person? That was the deal. I challenged myself to figure out what sort of game could accomplish this. This is what I came up with - Lets see what you guys think!


Now - I haven't spent much time hashing out the story or whatever, but I think you will all enjoy the "core" mechanic. I was thinking that this would have to be a third person action game. and what would happen is that there would be a completley randomized map generated with interactive environments (GeoMod?) where you would simply select a "theme" (Urban, jungle, desert, etc.) and then, after the level generates, you are dropped into the level as a dude who has to get from where you are to the "exit" So you do. No weapons. You just navigate the map, get to the end, and that's the end of the level. You play three of these "levels", say.

After completing the third level, you start over. Only this time - you're like a timecop. Or whatever. You're a time guy. you get dropped into the level and the idea is - you're going to chase down the exact recorded playthrough of your first runthrough and try to kill that guy before he gets to the end of "level" 3.

That's the core mechanic - let's try to hash this out from here!

[General Zod]

Sounds a bit like PB Winterbottom's rewind and cloning mechanics. I don't think you could legitimately call it MP if there's no other players involved though.

[Chardok]

Sounds a bit like PB Winterbottom's rewind and cloning mechanics. I don't think you could legitimately call it MP if there's no other players involved though.

I was thinking maybe you could save worlds/playthrough of escapeguy and share it with your friends. Sort of the first ever console asynchronous MP action game. Also - maybe you could team up with other timedudes to try to catch your own escapeguy.

Also - I was thinking that escapeguy could use the environment to his advantage - You know, tossing trashcans, knocking stuff down so it falls behind him, just anything to slow down the time dudes. Also - there's not just one path through the levels - Time guys might fid a compeltely different way to get in front of escapeguy and catch him before he even arrives.

[Sarevok]

Hold on there.

Is the escapeguy AI controlled or is he just replaying your footsteps like a video recording?

[Chardok]

Hold on there.

Is the escapeguy AI controlled or is he just replaying your footsteps like a video recording?

it's like a video recording.

EDIT - Perhaps later you can save up EXP or escape bucks and purchase a timey wimey thing that will infuse your escapeguy replay with limited AI so it can adapt (in a very limited way) to changing situations?

[Lagmonster]

It's too bare to be challenging, since you know what you're going to do and can anticipate the backtracking or whathaveyou that occurred during your first run. You could effectively choose which would win, the 'runner' or the 'timecop' and assure victory damn near 100% of the time.

Perhaps a better addition would be to have randomly generated trap rooms. For example, in your 'runner' mode, you might have to choose two paths; one looks like an easier route, say through a field, where the other involves scrambling over some rougher terrain. Then, you have the game randomly trigger obstacles or traps to be lain depending on which route you take; more deadly traps if the 'runner' chooses harder routes, and less difficult impediments if the 'runner' takes an easier route.

In other words, having the 'runner' consequently and involuntarily setting barriers to the 'timecop', which throws a necessary monkey wrench into the 'timecop' portion to make it challenging. Then you end up with, "Well, I know I opted to climb up that cliff instead of fording the river, but oh shit I caused a landslide and the hand-holds are perilous, so looks like I have to catch up via another route."

[General Zod]

It's too bare to be challenging, since you know what you're going to do and can anticipate the backtracking or whathaveyou that occurred during your first run. You could effectively choose which would win, the 'runner' or the 'timecop' and assure victory damn near 100% of the time.

Perhaps a better addition would be to have randomly generated trap rooms. For example, in your 'runner' mode, you might have to choose two paths; one looks like an easier route, say through a field, where the other involves scrambling over some rougher terrain. Then, you have the game randomly trigger obstacles or traps to be lain depending on which route you take; more deadly traps if the 'runner' chooses harder routes, and less difficult impediments if the 'runner' takes an easier route.

In other words, having the 'runner' consequently and involuntarily setting barriers to the 'timecop', which throws a necessary monkey wrench into the 'timecop' portion. Then you end up with, "Well, I know I opted to climb up that cliff instead of fording the river, but oh shit I caused a landslide and the hand-holds are perilous, so looks like I have to catch up via another route."

With PB Winterbottom there's puzzles you can't solve without using clones. If you made puzzle rooms that couldn't be solved without backtracking it would be more feasible, though it would also ramp up the challenge considerably for anything complicated.

[Chardok]

I see you point but I think I might not be communicating properly - think of the maps as being large - very large. There's multiple ways to get around anywhere. think about a forest - the trees would all look verrry samey after awhile. same with decaying (poat apoc.?) urban environs, right? so, maybe you trigger a landslide, maybe not - but there would be incentive to perform well on both parts. Think about this - do you want to leave as few clues behind as possible to mask your route, or do you want to actively impede your pursuers?

Also - There could be perks to winning either way - maybe if your timecop playthrough loses a certain number of times, then your escapeguy gets a radio collar, or you get a speed boost. but also because your escapeguy evaded the last three levels, then your next runner playthrough will get a jetpack or some shit.

Like - the whole "outsmart yourself" thing is just the core of the game - it would of course need to be fleshed out but man! I mean - this doesn't...spark something for you guys? I thought it was damn cool. I might have to sell this shit to Epic.

[Hawkwings]

Why don't you just go to the escape point and camp there?

[Chardok]

Why don't you just go to the escape point and camp there?

Well, inevitably, the time dudes would be placed somewhere else on the map that is far enough away to give the runner a head start, and ideally, we'd be looking at some sort of bottlenecks along the way. I'm trying to think about it and work out in my head how the fine mechanics would work. Certainly a good question....I'll have to mull that over as well.

[Lagmonster]

I know the feeling of coming up with ideas for games - I've written synopsis plans for a dozen or so myself. Invariably most become things that I really want to play, but that's as far as it goes. Google "free MMOs" for example, and it really takes the wind out of my sails when I see how many even partway attempts there have been to produce games. Still, can't give up if you've got a dream.

[Skgoa]

Like - the whole "outsmart yourself" thing is just the core of the game - it would of course need to be fleshed out but man! I mean - this doesn't...spark something for you guys? I thought it was damn cool. I might have to sell this shit to Epic.

The problem is that you simply CAN'T get this to work. Try playing chess against yourself and you will see why: since you know every step of your "opponent" in advance, you will invariably decide which "side" will win. And in this game the runner would be at such a huge disadvantage that the only fun would come from random elements that hinder the time cop's efforts. At that point we can just cut out the running part.
Lets not forget: "fun" in a game comes through challenges posed by a changing and not fully predictable environment.

edit: But I want to point out that I have a huge backlog of game ideas, too. Sometimes I see games that implement those actually made and invariably they tend to suck.

[Chardok]

I FIGURED IT OUT!

Check it out - So for the timecop side - the time-travel tech is not great, see? So - as the timecop in order to travel through time, since there are an infinite number of varables in the timestream, you must pick a point to tether to. So - You can tether to the runner or the runner's world.

So - If you tether to the runner, Then the runner's path will be the same as the run you played through. the PATH will be the same - k? But the WORLD will compeltely randomize around that path. Hell, it might not even be the same TYPE of world. (Your controlled run may have been through a post apocalytpic jungle of concrete, but the timecop may arrive in a world where everything is ACTUAL jungle) And everything in that world is randomized/created (think how when youstart ACII, how the world sort of builds up around you.) EXCEPT it's built around the runner's path. So - the timecop gets dropped into this randomized world that he cannot possibly know (this eliminates the "Oh I totally memorized this level" problem.

If you tether to the world, then the world stays the same, but the game will take your escape time and path, and will apply AI avoidance such that the runner will arrive at the endpoint at the time he should but his path will get all AI'd up in order to avoid you, the timecop.

GENIUS!

So now I need to figure out how to incentivize the player to do well on both sides of the run. Leaderboards for sure - shared runs/worlds will definitely happen. User-created worlds to share.... This is going to be tough MAN I want someone to make this game.

[Bounty]

I see you've reinvented the idea of ghost laps in racing games.

Your revised version fails hard since it's basically the same as playing against an AI except you kinda have an idea where he's going to go since you know the rough path you took yourself.

How about this: you start your run through the level and pass various checkpoints. Each checkpoint gives you a token that you can use when you're caught by the AI. When you use the token, the level resets and "recorded-you" does his run while "future-you" gets to fuck up the AI's route (place obstacles, set up traps, whatever). If "recorded-you" gets caught again, you need to use another token, except this time it's "recorded-you" doing the run and "recorded-future-you-1" plus "future-you-2" who are trying to fuck up the AI. When "recorded-you" reaches the point in the new timeline where you were caught in the original timeline without being caught, "future-you" gets sucked back into "recorded-you" and the game continues. Use up all your tokens, and it ends.

Single-player temporal co-op.

[Chardok]

I see you've reinvented the idea of ghost laps in racing games.

Yeah - that was kind of the idea - It's the only game type I know of where you play yourself. (I like asynchronous MP stuff) so I was trying to think of a way it could be applied to another non-racing genre.

Your revised version fails hard since it's basically the same as playing against an AI except you kinda have an idea where he's going to go since you know the rough path you took yourself.

Ahh, true - but remember the entire map except the immediate are around the runner. and I'm thinking these worlds are going to be preeeeety frickin big!

How about this: you start your run through the level and pass various checkpoints. Each checkpoint gives you a token that you can use when you're caught by the AI. When you use the token, the level resets and "recorded-you" does his run while "future-you" gets to fuck up the AI's route (place obstacles, set up traps, whatever). If "recorded-you" gets caught again, you need to use another token, except this time it's "recorded-you" doing the run and "recorded-future-you-1" plus "future-you-2" who are trying to fuck up the AI. When "recorded-you" reaches the point in the new timeline where you were caught in the original timeline without being caught, "future-you" gets sucked back into "recorded-you" and the game continues. Use up all your tokens, and it ends.

Single-player temporal co-op.

I like the idea - I can see what you're going for there, but I think it might be a little complicated. it sounds very...japanese.

[Purple]

The problem is that you simply CAN'T get this to work. Try playing chess against yourself and you will see why: since you know every step of your "opponent" in advance, you will invariably decide which "side" will win. And in this game the runner would be at such a huge disadvantage that the only fun would come from random elements that hinder the time cop's efforts. At that point we can just cut out the running part.
Lets not forget: "fun" in a game comes through challenges posed by a changing and not fully predictable environment.

edit: But I want to point out that I have a huge backlog of game ideas, too. Sometimes I see games that implement those actually made and invariably they tend to suck.

What do you mean you can't play chess against your self without cheating? I do that all the time.
The trick is to stay in character for both sides and not use out of character knowledge.

It's called roleplaying.

[Bounty]

The problem is that you simply CAN'T get this to work. Try playing chess against yourself and you will see why: since you know every step of your "opponent" in advance, you will invariably decide which "side" will win. And in this game the runner would be at such a huge disadvantage that the only fun would come from random elements that hinder the time cop's efforts. At that point we can just cut out the running part.
Lets not forget: "fun" in a game comes through challenges posed by a changing and not fully predictable environment.

edit: But I want to point out that I have a huge backlog of game ideas, too. Sometimes I see games that implement those actually made and invariably they tend to suck.

What do you mean you can't play chess against your self without cheating? I do that all the time.
The trick is to stay in character for both sides and not use out of character knowledge.

It's called roleplaying.

It's not a challenge when you just pretend to be challenging yourself. And unless you're for some bizarre reason committed to making the match seem interesting to your non-existent public and derive satisfaction from that, it won't be much fun either.

"Not using out-of-character knowledge" when you're playing for yourself against yourself is just too ridiculous for words.

[Akhlut]

What do you mean you can't play chess against your self without cheating? I do that all the time.
The trick is to stay in character for both sides and not use out of character knowledge.

It's called roleplaying.

Unless you're capable of actually creating distinct personalities that don't have access to the knowledge of the other personalities inside your head, then you're still going to know which side is doing what and choosing which side is going to win. Generally, out of character knowledge only applies to your half-orc barbarian being ignorant of, say, elven deities even if you've read Deities and Demigods about 80 times; I don't see how it can be applied to not knowing chess moves you're making unless you can spontaneously cause yourself to experience multiple personality disorder.

[Purple]

Unless you're capable of actually creating distinct personalities that don't have access to the knowledge of the other personalities inside your head, then you're still going to know which side is doing what and choosing which side is going to win. Generally, out of character knowledge only applies to your half-orc barbarian being ignorant of, say, elven deities even if you've read Deities and Demigods about 80 times; I don't see how it can be applied to not knowing chess moves you're making unless you can spontaneously cause yourself to experience multiple personality disorder.

Well, roleplaying is pretty much just that. You make up a new personality for your self and do what that person would do, not what you would. And it is not really a big leap from that to playing multiple characters at once.

It takes some practice but over years of roleplaying one learns to make decision in such a way that things he should know do not effect the decision making process. The trick is to adopt a personality for both players so its not you vs imaginary character but IC1 vs IC2.


I actually find this more challenging than playing against real human players because I have to both plan ahead for two people and keep track of the plans to make sure I am not cheating by accident.

[Bounty]

I actually find this more challenging than playing against real human players

You must not play many real human players then.

[Purple]

Not more challenging as in a greater challenge but as in a different kind of challenge that is more fun.

[Agent Sorchus]

What could work is if you played the runner multiple times, and when you start chasing the runner instead of always loading the most recent runner playthrough it loads a random one from the recent list of plays.

[Bounty]

What could work is if you played the runner multiple times, and when you start chasing the runner instead of always loading the most recent runner playthrough it loads a random one from the recent list of plays.

Congratulations, you've just added 300% boring repetitive work to the game. Hope you enjoy the soup kitchen when it bombs.

[weemadando]

Why not just download a random "runner" from the interwebs?

[Vendetta]

The asynchronous multiplayer concept is what's really more interesting here.

Stopping your own runner runs into problems of predictability as already discussed, but stopping someone else's, or setting your own run to challenge others to stop it, has potential. It would essentially be like Tower Defence but with one really crafty opponent, assuming the levels are sufficiently varied and malleable to allow unpredictability in the path any given run takes.