The Basics of Time Travel

It's probably about time we discussed the mechanics of our game in detail. First, a few definitions to make it easier to talk about the gameplay:

• Dan Guymore: Our protagonist, and the character you'll be controlling. A greedy chronological criminal who exploits time travel technology for his own profit.
• Timetanium: Dan Guymore's (and the player's) objective; the goal of every level is to get as much Timetanium as possible. Timetanium is the extremely rare element that makes time travel possible, and as such is worth a lot of money.
• Time clones: What they sound like: past versions of Dan Guymore produced by his time-related escapades. Due to the nature of time travel, they're stuck repeating Dan's previous actions. Because of this, they get in Dan's way as he tries to repeatedly steal the Timetanium.
• Hop: A single pass-through the game area, in which the player gets the item and goes through the exit portal (or fails to do so).
• Time portal: Dan Guymore's entrance to/exit from the lab containing his precious quarry, the Timetanium. This is where the player must bring the Timetanium to successfully advance to the next hop.

With these definitions in mind, here's how an average hop will play out:

Dan Guymore enters the lab through the time portal. On the first hop, there are no time clones. One will be created for each successful subsequent hop. Dan then steals the Timetanium from its container and escapes through the time portal. The player will have to be careful to weave their way around time clones in the lab, but also think ahead to keep from interfering with their own future hops.

But it's not so easy as it sounds. The time clones can also steal the Timetanium, and if they get it to the time portal first, Dan Guymore is left with nothing, and the player is sent back one hop to try again. If, at any time, the player wants to start the level from the beginning, they just need to enter the time portal without the Timetanium.

There will be many levels throughout the game, with varying environments, Timetanium and portal placements, and a few other surprises. A player completes a level when they've accumulated a certain number of successful hops.

That just about covers the basics. Now that we've established this fundamental information, we're ready to delve into the nitty-gritty of the game in future posts.

The Artful Dodger

Hey everyone, let's look at some art:

Here is our new draft of the basic environment that the game takes place in, what we like to call a stage:

Cement floors, rusty drains, kind of looks lit by flourecents? And it's in perspective. We're on our way with this.

Let's look at the stuff we're going to put in the room.

Tesla Coils:

Security Doors:

An atomic clock:

Roman columns:

An office desk:

A dinosuar skull



Some pipes for the walls

Now the important stuff, meet our main main, Dan Guymore:

His objective, the Timetanium:

And his means on egress: The time portal:

Finally our new game logo:

Thanks

Welcome To Isochronal Panic!

Hello everybody! We're the IsoChronal Panic! Design Team. In total, there are three of us, Edward Golden, Jonathan Saunders, and Ethan White. We are Interactive Media and Game Design students at WPI, and IsoChronal Panic! is to be our Major Qualifying Project.

Now that you know who we are, let's talk a little about what it is we do around here. We are designing a game, as you can probably guess from our team name, the game is called IsoChronal Panic! (just to let you know, the exclamation mark is part of the name, although that doesn't mean we're not excited about that last sentence). While we're still slaving away at the game in an attempt to make it the best game it can be; we thought we would start a blog to keep you in the loop with the games development. Over the next few months of development, we'll all post here from time to time to let you know all the cool stuff about our game. Each of the designers will post about the work they're doing, and how that work will make the game fun for you to play.

Okay, perhaps you'd like a few more details besides that we're making a game and have a blog, hmm? The game itself is a simple game for web and mobile devices, playable with mouse or touch screen. In the game, your only objective in each level is to go into a room, grab an item and leave within a time limit. See, didn't we say it was simple?

"Well then," you say, "what keeps this game interesting? A tight time limit? Switches to puzzles to solve? Moving walls? Shifting control schemes? Fearsome obstacles and enemies?" Well, we're sorry to tell you that such is not the case. The only things in each level are the objective, which is always in the same place; the static environment, and the player;  the challenge is that you have to run each level several times over to advance to the next one.

"Well now, you're just dragging this whole thing out, aren't you?" you say, "Making us run the same level over and over again and nothing changes? I can just do the same thing I did last time and still win. There, I've beaten your little game and I haven't even played it." Well played dear reader, but something does change. Back there, we only said that there is only one kind of environment per level, and a level consists of the environment, the item and you. Same environment and item, different you. Or rather, different "yous."

IsoChronal Panic! is a game of time travel. It's all about thinking ahead, and behind. Yes the point is to steal the same object over and over, but can you trust yourself not to steal it before you do? Of course you can't, otherwise there would be a time paradox.

We'll get deeper into the particulars later, but for now stay on the look out for our next update.