I’m a casual gamer so perhaps this has been made hundreds of times and I just ignore it.
So let’s say you play your game, things don’t go well so you go back and reload a save. Now, with your current knowledge you can get things right and that’s usually how it goes with games.
Is there any game that takes this into the plot as something necessary by design (say for example, the main character is supposed to be clairvoyant or something)? You play, your character gets things wrong the first time, but now when you reload your character will obviously do everything right, almost as if they were clairvoyant/psychic/etc because that’s exactly what your character is. The only way to beat the game is to explore a variety of outcomes in order to gather information until you get it right, but instead of this being immersion breaking it’s actually supported by the plot itself.
Not sure if I’m making sense here or maybe I ate the wrong kind of cookies, you tell me…
This game has a game mechanic that is similar to what you describe: https://store.steampowered.com/app/311240/Zero_Escape_Zero_Time_Dilemma/
You are faced with lots of challenging and deadly traps/puzzle that almost always end with your death. But you can jump back to earlier times in the story and with your new knowledge you can make better choices.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1092790/Inscryption/
Don’t read into it too too much. It’s better experienced knowing as little as possible, but things are absolutely not as they seem
This gimmick instantly reminds me of The Stanley Parable. It isn’t really related to saving and loading but it does “reset” you all the time. I find it an absolute gem of a game.
Never heard of it… Will keep in mind!
Undertale.
I now want to make a game that does exactly that.
If you quick save in an area with killable NPCs they would know and some would look at you and back away slowly, others would turn an run like in GTA, maybe one or two go wide eyed and freeze and just stare at you waiting. If you had previously killed any and reloaded then one goes “Oh no, not again.”
I would make puzzles or locked areas that are impossible to open UNTIL you figure out that knowledge, but if you reload after learning that and try to shortcut the process the puzzle would either change so you fail again or even better, you could solve it and like a door opens, but then when you go into the next room there is a scroll or book tome thing that would lecture you about cheating or something funny and then make you do a second different puzzle to proceed, that would be an infinite series of rooms if you reloaded, but if you solved then organically then you could finally escape the loop and the door exits the loop.
If you don’t play for a while and load up an old save, make some characters aware of the passage of time and comment things like “oh I thought you forgot about us.” Or even specifically call out the exact amount “Really? 49 days waiting on you. Did you even think about me?”
I LOVE the idea someone else mentioned of an in-game antagonist being able to corrupt your save file or even transfer themselves to one of your other save files. How freaky would it be if they corrupt your save, so you have to load an old save before you met that antagonist and then they fucking show up and KNOW WHAT YOU DID.
Or if it reads your other saves and the NPCs could make rude or insulting comments about them. “Been playing Mario instead of spending time with us again? Is a plumber really better than us? Ouch.” Or if you played any spicy games one of the characters would look at you and wink and go “I was watching you Friday night, you animal.” And really freak you out.
I really love the 4th wall break idea of an antagonist that becomes self aware and breaks out of the game. There was a Star Trek TNG episode where Data and Geordi do a Sherlock Holmes holodeck thing and create a Moriarty character that could “outsmart data” and he becomes sentient and breaks out of the holodeck and it’s a whole thing and I love that concept for a game.
There are so many amazing possibilities.
Experience 112 reacts to the time between sessions. When you start playing after a few days you get a comment where the main character wonders where you’ve been.
OneShot’s plot focuses on the gamer’s relation to the protagonist, Niko, so try that!
Katana Zero does this. You have precognition and work out how to win an encounter before you actually do it. Later, it explores more interesting concepts like, “what if your opponent also has the same ability”. The story is really good, so i won’t go into it too much, but I highly recommend.
Nice, I haven’t heard about this one either. Thanks!
Note that it’s not an RPG, though.
There’s a game where the best way to experience it is to go blind and discover everything, I think you might enjoy it, it’s called Outer Wilds, and it’s one of the best games I’ve ever played.
Yes the best game I’ve ever played. I wish I could do back and play it again
Alright, exploring, I like that, I take there is something about it that relates to my original question as well, will keep in mind. Thanks for the suggestion!
Gonna second this, judging from your other comments, you will very much like this game (just don’t confuse it with Outer Worlds). Go in as blind as you can, but if you feel like you’re just not “getting” it and at risk of bouncing off, this video might help you: https://youtu.be/msABa06aiT0
It does, it’s not a very large spoiler, so if you want to I can let you know. But without spoiling anything, I can tell you it’s very close to what you’re describing.
I have tried over and over to get into this since everyone says that. I get bored or frustrated long before anything interesting happens and quit.
How do I push through to care enough to keep going?
Just do it, you just push through and the story will drag you kicking and screaming to the end.
The end scene has been my desktop background for years now
Learn patience? :p
Ain’t got time for that.
Try again in 10 years
Obvious spoilers for people who’re still playing, but: Push through what exactly? Have you gotten to the main game loop? Do you know what’s the mechanic I’m hinting at on my original answer? Does 22minutes mean anything to you?
I’m going to assume yes (if not, push through until this makes sense). Now you have a whole solar system to explore. One thing that I didn’t noticed at the beginning and made me frustrated, there’s a computer on your ship, you have log entries there, sometimes reading those logs might give you a push onto what to explore next. That being said, this game is all about exploration, every planet has interesting things to explore, I’m not going to spoil too much, but it’s all about exploring and figuring out stuff, if you’re getting bored you don’t know what to do, if you’re getting frustrated you might be trying to solve a problem without all of the puzzle pieces, go out, explotó other places and you might find something that helps you.
I get bored and annoyed long before the ship. I think I made it there once.
Then there’s nothing I can tell you. You haven’t even finished the game tutorial. I just found a video on YouTube of someone playing, the tutorial is around 20 minutes, after that you get into the game proper, once you get to the ship that’s when the game starts.
Sorry I replied earlier but to the wrong person.
I did want to thank you for the response. Yeah the tutorial drove me nuts wandering around and then tying to get where I needed to go, and finding the places on the map just bored me.
But I will save your response, and when I give it a go again if I need to go with the spoiler I will.
Thanks.
Man you really gotta get on the ship, once you’re on that the world is your oyster.
Except for the place with the fish don’t go there
idk if this is on topic but I remember playing jak3 as a kid and after i constantly died, that stupid fkin rat pops up and said something like “You suck”. I think i cried for a bit lmao
Animal Crossing O o O
Resetti has always been one of my favorite parts of the series.
This reminds me of the book “Only you can save mankind” by Terry Pratchett. The aliens surrender once they realise the player is apparently immortal!
Maybe check out deathloop?
Isn’t that just Undertale and Deltarune?
I don’t know, you tell me. Never played either
Yes.
Yep, narratively Undertale uses the exact concept you’re talking about.
It’s not much of a mechanic for most parts of the game though.
Yes, IIRC Undertale it will only taunt you a bit at first, you have to play almost to the end before you really notice. But then it masterfully beats you against the 4th wall, hard, several times. (Speaking about eating the wrong cookies, yes it does feel like that.)
And then, when you start a second play-through, the 4th wall stays broken. (Personally I didn’t care enough for the game for a second play-through, but if you read it up it’s a whole thing, the game will not simply reset.)
Thanks for providing some context! I’m definitely intrigued now, I’ll keep this one for my wishlist
This.
Most rougelites kind of do this.
For “big” FPS games Deathloop kind of does it. You and the main villain are aware of a reset that happens when you die or the two day timer runs out.
Every loop you gain more knowledge, and every miniboss gives more power.
But to actually beat the game, you need to do a bunch of tasks in the right order in the right timeslots.
I don’t think I ever finished it, but it was a fun concept
You should finish Deathloop. I have two major issues with it, and the first is that it’s too short. By the time you really get going you’re about done. My second issue is there’s only one correct solution. There’s a lot of alternative solutions that allow you to accomplish different goals, but, for completing the game, there’s only one path.
It’s sad that Arkane made Prey (which is one of the best games ever made) and then Deathloop (which is a very good concept, if flawed), and then we’re forced to make Redfall. I think they lost most of their talent over that, so I don’t suspect we’ll ever get anything like those again from that studio.
I would have never thought of a roguelike… Are we talking about stuff like shattered pixel dungeon? Hardly enough depth of plot and definitely a different run every time so repeating is nearly impossible.
As for Deathloop, that sounds really cool! That would fit the bill, cheers!
Hades is a great example of this. You start out as the son of Hades, lord of the underworld. You want to escape his realm, so you try to fight your way out. Along the way, you will die and fail, and you just get sent back down to your father’s house, and he gives you a bit of a hard time about how weak and ineffectual you are.
The plot unfolds as you interact with various gods and other figures in the underworld, over the course of your many attempts. Saving and reloading isn’t really a thing, as such, but the plot continues to unfold, even as you die over and over over and over.
Edit:
This is a great time for me to rave about how much I love the storytelling in Hades. In a book or in a totally linear game, the story looks like this:
You start at the beginning, you proceed directly to the end. You have no choices in how the plot progresses. This is fine in a book, and I’m sure there are some games where it works okay, too.
Most games with “choices” go like this:
You might make a few choices, but a lot of them either end in a false ending or take you right back to the ending that the writers planned all along. It can give the illusion of meaningful choice, but it can also start to feel hollow once you see where the railroad tracks are.
Hades works like this:
All of the characters in the game (and there are a lot of them) have their own linear plot that is unfolding as you play the game, and you are learning about any one of them at any given time. You don’t have many meaningful choices to make, but it still reads as a very compelling plot because all of your interactions deepen your relationship with each character in turn. It saves us all from the fake choices that a lot of games stick us with. It’s genius.
Not an RPG, but the ancient civ-like Output would have a “news” article pop up whenever you loaded a save game. “Entire colony plunged back in time - scientists baffled” or something like that.
