Clockwork Games and Time Loops
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- Äas pĆidĂĄn 15. 06. 2024
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Thereâs a handful of games where time is taken very seriously. In this video, I look at the design, challenges, and opportunities of what we might call âclockwork gamesâ.
Sources
Outer Wilds: a game of curiosity-driven space exploration | USC Digital Library
digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/ref...
Learn, reset, repeat: The intricacy of time loop games
www.gamesindustry.biz/article...
Games shown in this episode (in order of appearance)
The Gardens Between (The Voxel Agents, 2018)
Metro Exodus (4A Games, 2019)
Assassin's Creed: Origins (Ubisoft Montreal, 2017)
Far Cry New Dawn (Ubisoft Montreal, 2019)
Batman: Arkham Knight (Rocksteady Studios, 2015)
The Last Express (Smoking Car Productions, 1997)
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (Nintendo, 2000)
StarCraft II (Blizzard Entertainment, 2010)
Outer Wilds (Mobius Digital, 2019)
Fallout 3 (Bethesda Game Studios, 2008)
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Nintendo, 2017)
Dead Rising (Capcom, 2006)
Dead Rising 2 (Capcom Vancouver, 2010)
Dead Rising 3 (Capcom Vancouver, 2013)
The Sexy Brutale (Cavalier Game Studios, 2017)
Elsinore (Golden Glitch, 2019)
Minit (JW, Kitty, Jukio, and Dom, 2018)
Vision Soft Reset (Mark Radocy, 2019)
12 Minutes (Luis Antonio, 2021)
Deathloop (Arkane Studios, 2021)
Hitman 2 (IO Interactive, 2018)
Watch Dogs 2 (Ubisoft Montreal, 2016)
RimWorld (Ludeon Studios, 2013)
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (Kojima Productions, 2015)
Deus Ex: Human Revolution (Eidos Montreal, 2011)
Rage 2 (Avalanche Studios / id Software, 2019)
The Swindle (Size Five Games, 2015)
Persona 5 (Atlus, 2017)
Just Cause 4 (Avalanche Studios, 2018)
Marvelâs Spider-Man (Insomniac Games, 2018)
Music used in this episode
The Gardens Between soundtrack - Tim Shiel (timshiel.bandcamp.com/album/g...)
Outer Wilds soundtrack - Andrew Prahlow ( / outer-wilds-original-s... )
The Sexy Brutale soundtrack - Cris Velasco (store.steampowered.com/app/63...)
Minit soundtrack - Jukio Kallio (jukiokallio.bandcamp.com/albu...)
Deus Ex: Human Revolution soundtrack - Michael McCann ( / deus-ex-human-revoluti... )
The Legend of Zelda: Majoraâs Mask soundtrack - Koji Kondo
Other credits
Groundhog Day © Columbia Pictures
Contribute translated subtitles - amara.org/v/C3BEF/ - Hry
I love that youâre making serious points about dead rising yet always showing the main character dressed as ludicrously as possible.
The amount of people mentioning Pathologic in the comment section over and over is pathological. What is wrong with scrolling and liking the first person to mention it. They all post the same thing hoping to get likes or want to feel important. I think itâs a bot or something. Thereâs just no way that many people are that disconnected with how a comment section works.
Hahaha totally
The Accidental Hipster nice reference
@@rylandjackson227 that's criminal. And did you create an account to answer yourselve?
â@@saladasss2092a t 6 1:05
"If you want to create a coherent story..."
> shows man wearing horse head costume
It's essential to the plot.
Your point?
Yes
dangit i just typed something similar and you beat me to it. đ
I already knew this comment would be taken when I saw the scene. How am I supposed to appease the cruel CZcams algorithm now?
Oh... right. That works.
I'm so glad Outer Wilds is getting more coverage. Its a brilliant game where the worst thing about the game is that you can only experience it once.
The worst thing about the game is that it's an Epic exclusive.
@@armokgodofblood2504 Outer Wilds is on Steam. You're thinking of The Outer Worlds.
@@traxor2135 Outer Wilds is most certainly not on Steam.
@@armokgodofblood2504 imgur.com/a/sagtusN, unfortunately Windows doesn't want me to crop the photo in half.
Outer Wilds currently has a store page with a "TBD" release date. Unless they pull some shady Epic shit (which has been done before) and delete that at the last moment..
I'm from the future and it's on Steam.
God this game is so good. It's Riven for the modern era.
The played " the outer wilds" 2 weeks ago. This game has changed the way I see video games, its creepy, it's exciting, its mysterious, its expansive. It's a game that's all about the journey instead of the destination.
I went into this game completely blind and had no idea about the time loop why anything was happening when they did, I didnt read any walkthroughs or how to videos and spent hours going through the evidence, backtracking, trying to find how to get where I needed to go, that might sound bad to some people, but by the end of it all, its truly e best gaming experiences I've had to date.
you're so damn right
tried it for the very first time last month, going blind except for knowing about that time loop stuff mais i enjoy SO MUCH finding new evidences while falling asleep after work..... i dont want to finish it so im slowly understanding everything..... cant wait to comprehend that quantic moon and everything else omg
HE BROUGHT BACK "HI I'M MARK BROWN AND THIS IS GAMEMAKER'S TOOLKIT"
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
To me, the phrase feels weird without the previous logo animation appearing. I miss it...
@@lrgogo1517 I do also miss the "...a series on video game design" end of it.
I feel like an honorable mention should go out to Ghost Trick for the DS. All of its levels were self-contained puzzles that happened in real-time and never longer than 4 minutes. Plus, it's just a super fun game.
I forgot about that game! Was surprisingly solid
Went to the comment section just to see if someone mentioned it!
This game needs more love. It's easily the most solid time plot in existence. Probably the most solid video game story too.
Duuuude I was about to comment about that, I was sure noone would've known about this awesome game! One of my most memorable experiences on DS as a kid :)
I got it on the playstore years ago, one of the best game I played on mobile great story, cool mechanics
Unfortunately it's not on the playstore anymore (though i believe it's still possible to get the .apk from other website)
Fun fact: There's an easter egg in The Outer Wilds that directly references Elsinore.
One of the artists of Elsinore was the art director for The Outer Wilds.
Where is it?
@@jordanjordan124 in seed in "lonely fish" room at the dark bramble
@@SiberianCosmopolitan Where Fletcher is?
My brother and I accidentally found it once and were so confused haha
Don't put "The". It incorrect and makes it more confusing with The Outer Worlds đ
I played outerwilds and it instantly became one of my favorite games of all time, I think the way it tells a story is super unique and at the same time very heart-touching. Also I loved the idea that you already have all the tools to finish the game, there is no real mechanical upgrades, the only thing that upgrades is your brain with the knowledge of the world.
The concept of âso much crime and we can only respond to 10% of callsâ is exactly why I thought Dredd and itâs Mega City One would be brilliant for a video game
I'd agree with you, though I'would offer the point that it leads to a few obvious playstyles. Not just that, as a weakness, I feel that if you're say, a Judge who is hunting down a set gang, gang member it could be argued the game itself is punishing you, for making the choice.
Not just setting you on a new path, actually punishing you, to the degree it might even be impossible to take on said gang member down the line.
If that's the point of the game, fine. You want my help to design and develop it, pay me.
If it's not and you want to have something which still gives the players agency, the ability to set the tone of their game play experience, then you're getting in their way. In the scope of a hypothetical Judge Dredd game, I can see being a Judge on patrol, case by case, taking the calls as they come in. I can also see a more..... focused Judge, they don't care as long as they hunt down their target, be it a murderer, gang, gang leader. Both are viable, both are reasonable for the world, yet, the player who wants to destroy a single gang shouldn't be punished for their choice, otherwise viable and reasonable for the world.
As unreasonable, ugly and nasty as that world is.
that would be awesome. another amazing game would be Die Hard, done like Metal Gear Solid 1, in that one skyscraper.
that would be a great oportunity to revive the "Cop Game" genre.
as flawed, and as rushed as it was...
"True Crime: New York" is still at the top of that Genre.
You would think so, but all that usually happens is the player replays the game and does all the opposite things they did the first time round. They are no longer as immersed instead they just want to seek all the content that was just locked out of their first playthrough.
It's a neat gimmick for 1 or 2 decisions but you would be running into a lot of issues if you made it a central theme.
IsnÂŽt Judge Dredd just a less cool version of Adam Jensen ?
My thought:
**More people need to play Outer Wilds.**
Loved that game so much!
I think itâs the best game Iâve ever played
Spot on! Such an awesome experience!
@@izan6366 I think, its maybe not the BEST game i ever played, but it ONE of the best games, and THE best Indi game ;)
HyperStorm top 5 for me easily, I think that ocarina of time, hollow knight and maybe super mario odyssey beat it
I finally played and completed Outer Wilds, so now I can watch this video. That was one of the best experiences I've had in gaming. The joy of discovery, putting seemingly disparate pieces of information together to figure out the logic puzzles.... it was so beautifully crafted, especially the ending. I will hype this game up to anyone that listens, especially for the cheap price it is.
This is me a whole year later. I bought it on steam release but never had the time to dig in 'til recently.
Same! This video is the reason I picked up Outer Wilds. And here I am over a year later to watch the rest of the video.
The Outer Wilds Theme gives me a heartache and goosebumps đ
The production quality of these vids man. Really appreciated.
Fragment. Consider revising.
@@NovaPrima Life goals. Consider revising.
Pathologic 2 doesn't just have real-time constraints, it actually fictionalizes the player dying and restarting as a surreal "performance" in a play.
Pathologic (2) also uses this constraint of time to the maximum; to simultaneously make the player feel the pressure and hopelessness of the game and to make it clear that the player CAN NOT do everything. Completion is not something to strive for (and can actually backfire: just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should!), making the right decisions are the goal of the game, and that doesn't mean just choosing the right things to say to someone, it involves moving to the right part of town, not wasting time on lost causes, since just deciding to pay someone a visit might end up putting you too far away from an event you need to be at.
It's probably the best game to use time as a gameplay mechanic, currency AND plot.
Pathologic 2 could be a good example if it weren't such a bad game.
The original Pathologic is a masterpiece, a game that uses time to create a real sense of impotence and dredfulness... Is an unique, artistic and profound game.
It cannot be said loud enough and often enjoy. What Game Maker's Toolkit creates lifts the industry up with each video. This one in particular really spoke to me. You are inspirational to people who want to do this sort of thing and instructive to the rest of us. I hope you become the President of Video Games one day....
Yea he is isnt he
More like the spokesman but yeah i see your point
he the ceo of gaming
"and just make time loop back arount to the start ....
-I'M MARK BROWN AND THIS IS GAMEMAKER'S TOOLKIT..."
Smart !
I cannot believe this video doesn't mention Pathologic 2 as one of the best examples of "time as resource" without the timeloop gimmick.
Pathologic 2 is a recent very unusual and criminally underrated "clockwork" game where you're unable to succeed at everything by design. It's beautiful though and should totally get more coverage.
Agreed!!!
Yes! Pathologic 2 is incredible.
I was waiting for it to be mentioned: Pathologic 2 deserves so much more coverage!
5:23
"Oh, that's it? Interesting video though."
*checks remaining video time*
*intro hits*
"Oh."
Pathologic 2 has a great use of time to put pressure on the player. Very much in the Dead Rising style, except taken to the logical extreme and forcing you to prioritize some things over others.
That reminds me of one of the first quest in Kingdom Come Deliverance. My father give me a very classic quest, go fetch something from a npc and bring it back. Since it was one of the first quest, I took my time exploring the little city and immersing myself into this world. When I finally finish the quest, my father scolded me, asking me why it took so long. I found it very cool and deeply immersing even if it was just a small dialogue !
If the new BotW could be to that game what Majora's Mask was to Oot, man, I would be the happiest.
Same, the "reversed" music in the trailer gives me hope!
really EVERY game should have a "doomfall" mode, where you have three days before some thing crashes into the planet or something, and you get rated at the end by how many cycles you took.
Everyone wanted BotW to have its own MM, and that seems to be what they're doing
But what people meant by that isn't a time loop, it's the reuse of the engine and assets to make a better game in a short time
@@Lazypackmule True, but a clock engine could still be cool to have
During the speculation leading up to BotW, people were hoping that the game would do EVERYTHING every previous game had done, on some scale. I was sure that we'd be able to find a section of the map with large birds that could be ridden instead of horses/bears/deer. I also wanted the game to have a handcrafted loop for most of the NPCs to make the world feel more lived in and real like MM did. A "week" that was maybe 4 days long (three week days and a single weekend) with a "month" that was 2-3 "weeks" and after-3 "months," the season would change. Most of the weeks would be cloned loops for most characters, but maybe in the middle weekday of the third week of summer would be one NPC's birthday, or during one particular week out of the calendar, a town builds a festival, like in MM. Ultimately, while I still feel like that'd lead to some interesting easter egg moments and quests, it's probably a lot of work that wasn't needed, and I'm pretty happy with the game as developed.
4:40 "If you want to create a coherent story"
Sure, a photographer dressed with a horse hat during a zombie invasion was the perfect illustration. :)
The story is fine for it, but I question the character and his motives.
That horse hat stared into my soul
actually 4:41
The first clockwork game I've seen was "I have one day" by Cellar Door Games, it has a similar core idea as the Outer Wilds, but it's a point-and-click game. My favorite moment was when three wizards asked me to solve a logical riddle. When I went through that moment the second time, one of them said something like "Ah, you already know the answer, don't you?"
Also, "Pathologic" by Ice Pick Lodge has some similar idea of changing the world over time, but it's more about politics, economics and plague spread, but the whole loop takes all 12 days of gameplay, which is 24 hours of real-world time, and there's three parallel stories about different doctors.
I was going to mention this one, but looks like you beat me to it!
Cellar Door Games? Like, the Rogue Legacy guys?
â@@CiromBreeze yeah, I actually found this game after I came across an easter egg in rogue legacy. You know, there are paintings with their older games.
Pathologic and Pathologic 2 do everything you mention in this video and more. It helps that they are meant to be stressful games.
Im quite suprised you havent talked about these gems as there are many lessons to learn from them and they are more accessible than ever.
Personally, I've never had much of a problem with "missing" content in a game because I was busy doing my own thing or just couldn't get to it all in time. I think a large-scale open world game with a clockwork system would obviously mean missing quite a bit, but it's going to add soooo much replay value to the game. Plus it'll make the game much more enjoyable to watch a friend play simply because each run is so unique. I think it just makes the world feel much more alive and independent of the player, which to me is the best kind of game to get lost in.
I don't think that's feasible from a development standpoint, not only are you making a large-scale open world but you'd have to spend time, money and resources making content that lots of players will never see.
I want to agree with you, there's a couple of games I play in very set ways. Each time I play them, I aim for a particular result.
Binary Domain is one of them, Deus Ex Human Revolution and Mankind Divided, to a degree, the same.
I also want to point to Homeworld 1 here. More so than the second. While it doesn't have a time stress per say, I think it needs to be said that if you do things, don't do things in some scenarios, it has longer term effects as you progress. So you go and don't harvest one area out, it can hurt.
To a degree, Homeworld Emergence did this wrong. It had the idea in there, but if you were smart and..... well, know the game well, you're not really spending much and you can tech up pretty quickly and early.
@@777Lloyd777 will they never see it though?
In the age of Twitch and CZcams, making a game where not every player sees the same content is actually quite a good idea. Let's Plays have a finite lifespan in most modern games: once a few people finish the game, that's kind of it. But Let's Plays are the easiest kind of content to make, and are the most important kind of content for engaging the interest of new players. Look at games like Europa Universalis IV. There are channels which have been getting content out of that game for years now. Why? because every playthrough is genuinely different. Now that is an emergent property of that game's staggering complexity, it's such a complicated game that most people won't play it (even if it is fun to watch playthroughs). A game where content happens independent of the player would achieve the same effect without the ridiculous complexity of EU.
What does that mean? it means your game doesn't lose relevance as quickly. Interest doesn't wane, because the Let's Plays keep coming. You could make a game that didn't have to sell to an enormous audience on it's first day: so, you could skip the ridiculous marketing push. Word of the game would spread slowly but surely, as the Let's Plays started to roll in. It would get more popular over time, not less (if, obviously, it was any good). Some games have already done this: Day Z, DotA, Team Fortress. But that's of course because those games started as mods: their makers weren't originally attempting to monetize them at all. You could, in short, make a completely original game that needed no marketing at all except for the marketing provided by satisfied customers (players).
Sure, you give up the promise of short-term wealth: but you get the guarantee of staying power. Some games have already come close to this: it took years for people to truly experience everything Demon's Souls had to offer, because of how dramatically the numerous items altered the gameplay. From Software had already announced Dark Souls before the Let's Plays stopped coming. Minecraft broke CZcams largely because of how much the procedural generation actually affected the gameplay. In most games that use it, the procedural generation just stops you from memorizing the levels. It doesn't really have a big effect on your experience of playing the game. But in Minecraft, if affects the entire playthrough by determining your starting strategy and the obstacles you'll run into along the way. It became one of the biggest games in the world before it was even out of alpha, simply through Let's Plays on CZcams. Mojang didn't market the game because...well...it was still in alpha. They weren't actually trying to sell it yet, because they didn't consider it finished. By the time they were ready to release the game practically everyone with a computer owned it, Notch was already a billionaire (off the $10 beta), and Microsoft was begging to buy the company. And this was all before Twitch.tv was even a thing. That's what you could get if you made a game that truly felt different every time it was played.
If you make the game with replayability in mind it can work okay. But forcing the player to replay the game will take them out of the experience, they will no longer care about their character and instead they will min/max experiencing things as much as possible so their next playthrough they can complete it properly.
The game stops being about exploration and becomes a rush to get to the main events. Like catching the right train at a station.
I think it's totally unworkable as a central game theme without bringing in more problems than it solves. But if you've got the time and talent to spare by all means.
@@Madhattersinjeans Solution to that is a bit fake randomization
Outer wilds, the best game expérience of my life, in love with this game
I loved how in the Sims 3, the town and its inhabitants were always changing. Sometimes you would visit a house and if you later went back to it perhaps the grandfather had died and they had some new kids. Or someone new moved into your neighbors old house.
Finally a video. Itâs about time!
Literally
@@TandelovAlan If only someone made a joke about that. Oh wait!
I think clockwork mechanics go well with "choices matter" type of game where the story can branch differently based on choices you make, and adding time to the mix is one way to extend it from "choices matter" to "actions matter" as every action you take, not just a scripted choice, will affect things. To satisfy completionists a bit more, you could create a tree of all the critical points where the story could have branched, and after completing their first play trough of the game, players could be offered some tool to go back to a branching point and attempt to go down a different path (if it can be worked into the story/lore of the game that's cool, but could also just be a n unlockable mode in the option menu), which does add a bit of time-loopy stuff, but not so much during gameplay, but more as a reward for finishing and being able to go back and explore alternative endings and end up completing everything if you wish, whilst players who just want to play trough the game a single time don't deal with any 'time travel'
Like others, I'm surprised you made a video about this topic and didn't even touch on Ice Pick Lodge's games. The Void, Knock-Knock, Pathologic, and probably best done in this years Pathologic 2 all tackle the very thing you talk about in this video, with Pathologic 2 in particular going the furthest with it. I honestly highly suggest checking these games out, there's a lot to dissect about them, and Pathologic 2 I honestly think is a currently underlooked masterpiece in experimental game design that's focused heavily on the engaging nature of disempowerment, time management, survival gameplay done right, difficulty serving narrative purpose, death states in a game serving narrative purpose, and many other things.
Gmtk: release new video about day and night cycles
Me: Its about time
nice
I really appreciated this comment, thank you.
nice
No no, he's got a point
Pathologic tries a similar system it uses its time limits as a way to instill dread and enforce the horror of the game, the system interacts well with the story reinforcing the fact that you cant save everyone the way this system stress makes you feel the same as the protagonists overworked and ovestretched in a dying city it in my opinion a lot better than just telling the player that you are supposed to feel a certain way. There is a lot to pathologic apart from this and in my opinion both the original and sequel are little masterpices
The fact that you can miss events and you're not told about many of them is somewhat frustrating but it's a very powerful narrative device in Pathologic. After all, the authors say flat out that the gameplay is "designed to be unbearable," so, it's intentional. It's also very cool that the events aren't necessarily binary: when you miss something, you don't completely lose that part of the story. Instead, the events develop independently from you. You might miss one point in a side story, but that story will go on and you can try and influence it at later stages. Pathologic is very impressive in that regard, but also hard to play.
Absolutely underrated game. I hope he'll make a video about it
@@AgentAsh Exactly, I really like that not being there for one event will not just "fail" that story line but simply make it move on without you. if a character needed your help with something, they won't just fail, they might be working with a different person and getting different results outside of your control, making choices that you might not approve of.
@@AgentAsh Yeah, I genuinely am not sure if I can stand to play Pathologic 2, but I think it's brilliant that it exists and I am quite desperate to _see it played_. There's so much experimental and unusual stuff going on there.
I spent this whole video thinking to myself: "Why hasn't he mentioned games like Harvest Moon, Rune Factory, Story of Seasons, and Animal Crossing?"
Dude people are talking about the best games in this comment section! Rune factory was one of my most touching experiences on ds along with Ghost trick (that's mentionned in another comment)
The nintendo DS definitely holds a unique place in my heart and never fails to make me nostalgic.
Probably because most of the time in those kind of games, the structure of what you can do isnt strictly linked to the WHEN, meaning most of the in-game time doesnt really changes much what you usually do (besides very espesific things like events, or where a character is, etc.) so they don't really factor too much when decisiĂłn making comes into play.
Animal crossing just has a really long 8760 hour loop. You're only going to be able to experience Christmas once a year, but you can do it every year without starting over.
@@Xx2Devexia2xX I saw that comment too. I there are a lot of hidden gems out there! Ghost Trick was one of the last games I played on Ds before the 3DS.
@@TheDuzx I agree, but it's kind of interesting and relevant in that it's not as much an explicit timeloop and it's definitely not short.
Majora's Mask makes the Hero of Time feel like he really is the Hero of Time. Especially if the number of time loops needs to be optimized. Any% TAS was completed in two time loops (one purely to get the Ocarina and Song of Time because Skull Kid had it thanks to the events of the game's opening sequence and Link needed it back, and the second to do all the Temples and awaken the Giants to prepare for the final showdown with Majora on the Moon, and all four Temples were barely possible to fit in one loop, thanks especially to sequence breaks like early hook shot) and 100% could be done in three time loops, at least theoretically (especially with the infamous Kafei Anju side quest, not to mention all the heart pieces, all the masks, and all the songs for the Ocarina and its transformations) since the only things the Hero of Time loses whenever he resets time are the rupees in his wallet (bank account left untouched) and all of his ammo, which he can easily refill anyway.
You know what's really fun, though? Once you get all of the abilities you need: Every mask, every upgrade, every heart container... you can help _almost every character in a single time loop._ The Old lady has to get her bag stolen to let you progress Kafei's quest, but otherwise, effectively everyone else can have their quest completed before you must call the giants to save Termina. The timing is so strict that I don't know if anyone has completed it yet, but it's absolutely possible
I love the sudden time loop you did with doing the intro again, clever
Of all games that mess with time one way or another I would mention: The Void, Pathologic, Deponia Doomsday, Braid and Katana Zero (though only in the story, not so much in gameplay).
Katana Zero is one of my favorite games of this year I think
@@commanderleo actually, no. It's in effect throughout the entire gameplay, in the interrogation scene it merely gets obvious. And there's one more scene where it goes wrong and reminds you of its existence.
@@commanderleo I would say it does. It actually explains in-universe such a mundane mechanic that we no longer notice because of how prevalent it is: level restarts. And then pulls a few twists based on that.
A game I'm really fond of that addresses this as well is Pathologic. You really have to be careful with the choices you make and the actions you do because the time may (and will) affect those that matters to you. Is a game really tied with this "clockwork mechanic" and I can't recommend it enough.
Pathologic is the best game I played of this style. But the presure is constant in that game and can be frustrating sometimes so I understand if not everyone likes it.
Outer Wilds was amazing. The time mechanics were great but it also made me want a more traditional adventure game based on this sort of miniature solar system.
Pathologic 2 is to me, one of the best examples of this sort of thing. Events are missable, there are even some things that turn out BETTER through your inaction. Time literally speeds up as the days go by, so you can accomplish less and less the worse things get. It sells the experience of being the sole person trying to divide your time well enough to help everyone who's suffering, and being the only one who CAN fix things.
I love the Deadrising time system, it really forces you to learn the fastest routes in the map and you feel the pressure when the timer turns red. And saving EVERY SINGLE survivor in the OG Deadrising is a real challenge but it's doable
You need to play pathologic 2 , its so underrated game, and fits perfectly into clockwork games theme
Here i must mention Pathfinder: Kingmaker. This is one of the very few classic-style (D&D) RPGs which actually takes time into account. If you get reports of a problem with trolls that needs to be solved, and you wait for a month before doing anything - well, some characters would be in a great trouble because of you thinking "well, they will just wait".
Time is on real scale, so taking 10 more minutes to clear the dungeon don't impact things on a global scale at all. What actually spends time is travelling and resting. In D&D your characters have limited amount of spells per one rest. Rest takes 8 hours, and spare time you have is usually measured in weeks. If you use spells excessively, yeah, you will stomp every problem... but you also would have to rest after every encounter, taking a lot of time to deal with any adventure. This way, time limits do not punish you for being pedantic and for exploration, but they might punish you for never managing your resources or ignoring common sense.
Surprised there was no mention of Shenmue - it and Dead Rising were the first two games to immediately jump to my mind. Probably one of the first and still one of few games with a real world time system where people and businesses would follow real schedules. Certain events would only happen on certain dates/times, but the game generally did a good job of making sure you knew where you needed to be for main story events.
Cannot BELIEVE you didn't mention pathologic 2! That game has so many side quests you cannot possibly finish all of them in the time limit, and failure to complete them doesn't just result in missed loot, but dead characters, reputation loss, or even your own death. The story actively changes based on which quests you decide to do and which you ignore or fail. It is a brutal game.
Pathlogic and The Void from Ice Pick Lodge are some of the best games with limited time I have ever played
rain world is an amazing game where every creature in the game moves about the world in real time, whether offscreen or onscreen, hunting for food and getting into territorial skirmishes based on the creature's AI even when you arent there. it makes the game world feel more alive and i think its a really cool example of a more unscripted clockwork game.
Outer Wilds is definitely my game of the year
I just wanted to say Mark, I've been expecting this video, and it's about damn time.
Hey Mark, awesome video, like always, I am still amazed of how much I learn in your videos.
Your storytelling skills with video are getting better by the day! The mid-point loop back was genius.
Congrats, keep the good work
Glad to see you shout out Outer Wilds. One of the coolest games I've played this year.
5:26 Dude I thought the video ended and was like wtf
yeah me too
Just a time loop!
i love this channel
:O
Me too
That first supernova in Outer Wilds was so cool and unexpected. Very cool game.
I think your videos are beautiful: your content is well researched but you pitch it at a level that can be grasped with relative ease, the sound design makes me feel like I'm transported into a different space (much like viewing a Studio Ghibli film) and your voice (both the tone and delivery) is so easy on the ears - without lacking personality. I love your work.
I remember there's this JRPG for the PS2 called "Ephemeral Fantasia" (I had to look it up) where it also functions in real time. But I didn't really finish that game, so I can't say much.
And then there's "Radiata Stories" (also a PS2 game), where the main story doesn't go on in real time, but the routines of potential party members does. Going to bed at night, going to school, working, researching.
I'm glad that Radiata Stories got mentioned. The moment I saw this video, my mind went to that game.
No Pathologic? Would have fit really well.
Great video. The game mechanic I am really looking for is one where as the player progresses in the time loop, the unlock the ability to start at an earlier point in time, allowing them better understand events as they unlock more of the past.
Mark, all of your videos are amazing, but this one in particular was just the best. You introduced new to so many awesome looking games, with the kind of mechanics I love to see. Thank you!
I'm so happy to see you do a video on this, it is one of my favorite topics in games. You showed Persona 5 on screen briefly, and I think the modern Persona games are another good example, even if they're not real time. You still have to manage your time as a limited resource and strategically plan out how to make the best use of your time. Another game I love that focuses on time management is Pikmin. Pikmin doesn't try to recreate a believable world with NPCs acting out in real time, but it still has you trying to manage your time and efficiently play through things, as some of the games mentioned in this video did. But like you mentioned, time mechanics stress a lot of players out. So they removed the time limit in Pikmin 2, and then added it back into Pikmin 3 because of how important it is to add tension, but they made it adjustable in Pikmin 3 depending on how you play and just generally made it a lot more generous. Similar to later Dead Rising games removing the time limit. I love Dead Rising, but so many people complained about the time limit, even though that is the best and most interesting part of the game. Such a shame.
I think Pikmin really hits this idea home.
It's a time limit that's not really stressing, but you can't just wait around either, as well as being done in a way that's believable for it's setting.
Now realistically, especially in the case of Pikmin 3, you're probably never going to fail to that time limit (I ended the game with ~40 extra canisters of juice), but the fact that it's there makes the world feel more alive, but also still lets you take your time a little and enjoy the scenery
This reminds me I need to play the Pikmin games at some point.
I also think that the idea that...... well, my issues is save scumming on some level. If I feel I burn too much time doing something, I will go back and try to cut down my time doing it.
Some generousity is required, but not to the degree that you don't ever worry about it. I also think it's going to be really answered in the testing phase. Say, you have a scenario you have to complete in an hour, if the mission total length is 45 minutes, I'd argue that would be about right.
If you push it to 50 min, 55 min, you're cutting off that time to do things. If it's more like 30 min, 35 min, then why set the time limit? It's a balancing act.
@@LionofCaliban Yeah, that's a good point. It makes me wonder about that Vision Soft Reset game Mark talked about in the video, where the whole mechanic is rewinding time and trying to do thing better. It sounds like it does it well, but how much wiggle room is there in the game? Especially if you're just starting out and don't know how long the full thing is. Are those 30 seconds worth replaying part of the game for? I have no idea.
As for Pikmin, it is rather generous. Pikmin 1 is all about collecting 30 of the collectibles in 30 days, so as long as you make a point to get one a day you'll be fine. On top of that, you'll likely end up ahead of schedule by getting multiple collectibles in one day and have days to spare. Though it is generally advised for new players to feel free to repeat days. If you didn't get a collectible, go ahead and reset. And when you unlock a new level, maybe spend a day exploring with the plan to reset when the day is over. That's all fine too.
Then Pikmin 2 and Pikmin 3 time isn't that big of a deal. Pikmin 2 still has a day counter but has no limit, so it literally means nothing. Pikmin 3 does have a day limit (99 total), but no player will ever reach that in normal play. I did it in 36 days my first time but I played a lot of Pikmin before then, the average is somewhere around 50. So you don't have to stress out there either.
@@ninto55ssequesterrecording8 The question is more how meaningful you can make the timer.
Save the world in fifteen minutes? Easy, has meaning.
Stop the bomb on 00:07 in a Bond game, get a bonus, makes sense.
Have a day timer for events because you want a timer because it's cool in your head and players will love it, not so much.
It needs a purpose and a function.
It strikes me that by reputation, Pikmin benefited from that generousity. It allowed you to explore the game and to have a bit of..... well, time to appreciate the sunset, so to speak. It had a very clear visual and thematic style. If you were burning through it, you can't really see it.
Taking the time to see it on the other hand, you need to make the most of it, because it's not there forever.
That to me is a valid function.
Yes! I was waiting for you to talk about Outer Wilds!
I love that you turned you turned your video about time loops into a time loop. So good. Keep it coming!
This is the video which convinced me to play Outer Wilds, along with one of those other comments on a video essay about OW that said "seriously, if you saw the spoiler warning and HAVEN'T played the game, play it without any information." I trusted it and wow, it was crazy.
I am a little sad (even if I get why) that you haven't mentioned my favourite game that use time: Ghost Trick Phantom Detective by **ing Shu Takumi. It's such a masterpiece ^^
A weird but still interesting game that use timed events and schedule is the spin-off DIsgaea Infinite. It's basically a investigation game, where the secondary gimmick is that you can possess various characters.
Almost everything Takumi works on becomes a masterpiece.
YES! When he mentioned and explained Time Loops using "Sexy Brutale" I couldn't stop thinking "Disgaea Infinite did it first!"
RIght??? How could he not mention the best game on the nintendo DS!??
@@lucasgomes6096 I mean Sexy Brutale is much closer to Ghost Trick.
Pathologic 2 is such a great example for this topic, i expected u to get to it any minute, but u totally didn't... if you haven't already you MUST play it
Rainworld is a unique example of a clockwork game. Every one off the 1000 or so of the animals in that perfect and gourgus metroidvania has a mind of its own. Each of them have relationship to the player and each other they fight for territory run from bigger predictors and find the perfect camping spots. This and the 5 to 25 minute cycles of each game make it feel incredibly living. Each time my slug Cat wake up I know i have to check each room I go in fear despite knowing the world like the back of my hands as you never know when a camo lizard is getting ready to snaffle you.
Another beautifully edited video with a clean and clear reasoned perspective. Your my favourite channel on CZcams
The Occupation. A timely little gem of a game that is a really special.
I really want to play it but I keep hearing how buggy it is. Will wait for a sale.
I'm pretty sure the Stalker series has some features like this. As in, if you don't go around completing missions, other characters/factions will complete them before you and you will lose out on them.
I was really hoping you'd cover this game. Love this series so much!
Pretty out of context: Mark I love your work you're my favorite content Creator and even though I don't game as much anymore I still watch your videos. Keep up the great work, I Thoroughly enjoy it!
Thank you for talking about outer wilds, that game is possibly my favourite of the whole year
Majora's Mask is my favorite clockwork game, even after all these years.
I think a game like Virtue's Last Reward or Zero Time Dilemma could technically count as clockwork games, since you need to make the decision to initiate the loop with information gleaned from one timeline to solve a puzzle from another. You even get to pick where you loop to.
River City: Rival Showdown also has a non-looping clockwork system where the ending you get depends on the quests you do during the three days the game takes place over. It's an entirely real option to spend all three in-game days just sleeping or doing nothing of story importance.
I'm a touch disappointed that Superhot didn't show up in this video, since the way it uses time is so unorthodox for its genre.
I haven't actually played Superhot, but does it actually have any time loops present? All I've seen is how the player slows time itself by stopping.
@@infamousdoom6831 it's not about loops, it's more about how the game moves when you don't.
Final Fantasy Lightning Returns did this very well. You should try it. It has just enough time to do everything in the game, even if you miss something on one day, you may have a chance in the next. And that rush to finish the final dungeon as the days tick by is tense as hell.
Thank you! So glad to see someone mentioning it!
"for a coherent story" -- shows screen capture of Dead Rising with main player wearing horse head thing.
*chef's kiss* excellent, I love it, more please
Ludonarrative dissonance.
Elsinore is one of my favorite games! When I clicked on this video, I thought immediately of Elsinore but I was sure he wasn't going to mention it. I was very tickled to see it actually discussed!
Welp. That's it. I've officially watched every single video you've uploaded so far. I've been wanting to make games for years, but never knew where to start. Thanks to you, I have some idea on where to start and what direction to head. I appreciate everything you do hear, Mark. Thank you :)
Hey good luck!
Check out Shadow of Memories (Shadow of Destiny), a time looping adventure game where you try to prevent your own murder.
Thank you so much for introducing Outer Wilds to me via this video. I just recently played through it and it is indeed a wonderfull game, sometimes frustating but also very rewarding with a very interesting bacground story unfolding on your journey. So thanks for giving me yet another great game advise
Your "Hi im Mark Brown, and this is Game Makers toolkit" intros are the best!
I cant believe you teased the last express without actually talking about it once!
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective.
I was about to suggest the exact same game. I loved Ghost Trick. Great game!
Majoras' Mask hit it so hard out of the park. It seemed like almost two decades had to pass before anyone even dared to make a time loop game. These days developers are cranking them out, but, that long silence after MM really told me that at the time the breakthrough was world changing.
I groaned audibly when I realized you time looped for a clever bit in the video. Thank you I love you
Fantastic video! You should definitely check the game "The Occupation". It does a good job as a Clockwork game with no loop
This is actually frightening. I was just looking at the Epic Store and the second I got minit which is free at the moment he said minit in the video.
Thanks for reminding me lol
That was some serious... timing.
Thanks for reminding me!
I think this is the only channel on CZcams I'm excited for new videos for lol
I totally agree that adding time to open world games would really raise the bar. I loved the new Spider-Man game and wouldn't want to change it at all but I would be really interested to see one with clockwork mechanics built in. This might be my favorite of your videos so much because it made me realize how clockwork time and time loops might be one of my favorite mechanics. I can't believe how I haven't noticed it before as I frequently will say Majora's Mask is my favorite game of all time.
Perfect timing, that is the exact game idea I have in my head right now.
Pun intended?
I can't believe you made a video on this subject without mentioning Pathologic 2. :(
My favorites: Majora's Mask for the epic version, Last Express for the small personal drama version, Pathologic and Facade for doing the radical missable content thing you mention in closing.
Thank you for formally coining a term for these that is so obvious, that I've been hearing people use it informally for years. Those are always the best new concepts.
Also these adaptive clockwork games make most of those prescripted endgame timeloop tropes in indie games feel disingenuous to me. Like the game (Journey, for example) just resets and undoes all your efforts without giving you a chance to learn or do anything about it.
Pathologic! Itâs hard to recommend a game this old and so broken in many ways, but still anyone who loves games and wants something unique shuold experience this. Its whole (huge!) storyline lives on different loops and timelines. Time here is a resource you have to manage among other resources, and it sucks you in like nothing else. It really makes you live in it.
It has a sequel if you would be interested.... It's from Haruspex's perspective.
The DXHR hostage 'twist' just felt like wank in practice, though. The first mission in the game goes 'these are the rules by which the world runs', makes a big show of it - and then never follows those rules again.
It kinda does, if you take too long in some areas, it has obvious effects.
It's been a while since I played it, but if you take too long in defending the crashed chopper, Farida Malik will die. End of statement.
They certainly could have used it more, that part I won't argue.
Hi, I'm Mark Brown and this is Game Maker's Toolkit
I havenât played a game in years, my launchday PS3 sits under the Tv gathering dust. I love this channel.
Pathologic 2 is the best recent example of this: it all ends in 12 days. Days pass at a consistent rate, with quests and triggers only being available at certain times. Do you go oit to do your job, or run an errand for a friend? Will you still jave tine to scrape together enough barter for a heel of bread to get through the day wothout starving? You can miss things entirely, but the narrative is built around that idea, so you're never really 'lost'. You just soldier on. Makes it incredibly replayable too.
"Shortest of all - just 60 seconds", so you have not played Half-Minute Hero then :D
Good vid as usual, of course. Though, surprised you didn't talk more about The Last Express (and haven't mentioned Consortium or the old The Colonel's Bequest), since those rely less on a loop as a feature and are more of a "time just never stops and if you missed some stuff, you have to replay the game/checkpoint, but you might still be able to complete it well".
Two other games in which time plays an extraordinarily deep role are The Long Dark and Pathologic 2.
The Long Dark is all about time management, as you struggle against the elements and nature to accumulate the knowledge and resources needed to make that struggle last as long as possible.
Pathologic 2 gives the player just a limited amount of time to save as many people in town as possible, or not, while racing against the rising tide of fear and pandemic, again forcing players to make difficult choices to optimize all possible outcomes.
Interestingly, both of these games, and others like Don't Starve, are survival games, with the clock steadily ticking and life becoming more difficult if players don't learn fast enough or work hard enough or, manage their time well enough!
Really appreciate you illustrating time loops by doing a second introduction half way through the episode. Lovely touch.
The first clockwork game with a timeloop I remember playing was Gregory Horror Show for the PS2. Following the game's tutorial each night is a 12 hour (I think) cycle of overlapping scripted events each character engaged with lasting between 1 and I think 4 hours, maybe more, with later nights having some happening on alternate cycles so a character might be doing either x or y in a given slot. When you collect all the three lost souls per night the next night starts, more guests are added to proceedings, the traversable area of the hotel expands in size, and the whole clockwork system gets more complicated as a result of both of these, since not only are there now more characters who's schedules you need to keep track of (and can log), but the older characters schedules change accordingly.
I think the reason I never finished the game is that at some point the enjoyment of completing the journal logging each character's schedule became more engaging to me than and I didn't want to advance to the next night until I'd finished I think it was night 3's schedule final pieces of that night. I might have just been stuck on a specific puzzle when I started filling up the schedule since sometimes filling it up will give you hints, but I'm sure I stopped trying to solve it at some point because I wanted to colour in every block in the journal first. So that's something that can go sideways with these systems. They can, if tracked correctly/incorrectly depending on the experience you want the player to have, bring out the completion desire even in people who don't usually get into that mindset.
Tone wise, for that game, the loop both works as feeling believable without necessarially being stuck in a time loop similar to your Hitman example - these characters exist in a situation where they could conceivably decide to do similar things on a day in day out basis - and on a thematic sense, with the hotel being a weird not quite purgatory but not dissimilar from that, and the literal time loop the game exists within helps emphasize that.
Came out a few months in Europe before Animal Crossing which probably also counts as a clockwork timeloop. Just an incredibly slow one, taking place over an in game year which happens to also be a real world year (and with enough progress happening within the game - villagers moving in and out of town, shops developing, and so on, that there might be some changes from one cycle to the next), so unless we count games I vaguely remember playing when I was 6 on the c64, I think GHS might be the first clockwork or timeloop game I played.
Brilliant episode! Thank you for posting!