Achron: A Sci Fi Strategy, with Time Travel

[Jahkaivah]

Right, get ready to Hide Key's in Bushes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_and_Ted%27s_Excellent_Adventure) and Bribe Architects (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who_and_the_Curse_of_Fatal_Death).

http://achrongame.com/ (http://achrongame.com/)

Basically, its a Sci Fi RTS, only instead of Real-time, your given a time-line slider whereby you can visit any point in the current game's history and give orders to your troops to alter the past.

Then there's a feature that actually lets you send units through time. Have units in the past aided by themselves from the future.

So It's possible to do stuff like call back attacks you know in advance will fail or blow up the factory which was going to produce the army that blew your base to smithereens.

Changes in the past propagate to the future which should prevent potential irritations and makes things paradox-free, and it costs more "chrono-energy" to give orders the further in the past you give them so you have to be strategic in what parts of history you alter.

I reckon this could actually work.

Plus it has multiplayer.

[Victor Thorian]

Sounds promising, but I think it's rather hard to implement.

[Hylleddin]

I just looked through the site, and that game looks cool. The interface demonstrated in the videos is simpler than I would have thought necessary. The paradox stuff looks confusing to work with in an ongoing game, but it isn't supposed to happen very often. I'd have never thought you could make a multiplayer time travel game without actual time travel technology.

It looks like micro won't be too important, which is good for me, since I suck at micro. They seem to like the phrase "Gimmick free time travel", but time travel in and of it self seems kind of gimmicky to me, albeit a very interesting gimmick.

[Om]

I predict that the plot will be horribly convoluted

[Artanis]

I just looked through the site, and that game looks cool. The interface demonstrated in the videos is simpler than I would have thought necessary. The paradox stuff looks confusing to work with in an ongoing game, but it isn't supposed to happen very often. I'd have never thought you could make a multiplayer time travel game without actual time travel technology.

It looks like micro won't be too important, which is good for me, since I suck at micro. They seem to like the phrase "Gimmick free time travel", but time travel in and of it self seems kind of gimmicky to me, albeit a very interesting gimmick.
Making micro less important will help me as well. I can be very, VERY deadly when I have time to give orders (just ask the Massive Assault community :smallbiggrin: ), but in an RTS, I don't have that time. In an RTS, even if my opponent has a single-digit IQ and the tactical capabilities of a house plant, I'll lose anyways because they have the click speed of an 8-year-old on a sugar rush.

[SolkaTruesilver]

Making micro less important will help me as well. I can be very, VERY deadly when I have time to give orders (just ask the Massive Assault community :smallbiggrin: ), but in an RTS, I don't have that time. In an RTS, even if my opponent has a single-digit IQ and the tactical capabilities of a house plant, I'll lose anyways because they have the click speed of an 8-year-old on a sugar rush.

I am sure that, once the metagame of Achron will be properly developped, single-digit IQ commanders won't stand a chance. You've seen as well as I: strategy in this game is going to be... alien to many players, and you will HAVE to be clever about the timeshifts...

[Comet]

Nice concept and all, but boy is the multiplayer going to get confusing fast.

You're just happily manouvering your units to face the enemy army when *BAM* the whole playing field changes because the enemy sent troops to the past to destroy building X, which in turn collapsed your entire troop production line.
Not saying that's a bad thing, but I bet there are going to be a lot of "lolwhut?" moments.

[SolkaTruesilver]

Nice concept and all, but boy is the multiplayer going to get confusing fast.

You're just happily manouvering your units to face the enemy army when *BAM* the whole playing field changes because the enemy sent troops to the past to destroy building X, which in turn collapsed your entire troop production line.
Not saying that's a bad thing, but I bet there are going to be a lot of "lolwhut?" moments.

That's because you haven't noticed the attack in your temporal sensor. The time-wave still hasn't changed the past, so you still have time to set up your forces in auto-build, go in the future, collect them, send them in the past, and save the factory.

You will have to react BEFORE the time-wave hits your present, otherwhise the change in timeline will hit you.

[742]

that game looks... well its not going to be a commercial success, under any conditions, at all, ever, but it sure looks like its going to be fun.

[toasty]

That's because you haven't noticed the attack in your temporal sensor. The time-wave still hasn't changed the past, so you still have time to set up your forces in auto-build, go in the future, collect them, send them in the past, and save the factory.

You will have to react BEFORE the time-wave hits your present, otherwhise the change in timeline will hit you.

...
My head just exploded. :smallbiggrin:

[chiasaur11]

Heh, I can see some fun tactical possibilities already.

I wonder if you can pull a by his bootstraps.

An all you zombies would be unthinkable, of course.

[SolkaTruesilver]

...
My head just exploded. :smallbiggrin:

As I said, the metagame is going to be... complex to grasp. When you will *get* the mechanics, and time-travel strategies will be actually second nature, that's gonna be quite an intensive game. I would be planning a silmutaneous attack both in the past and the present with the same units that I diverge between two time wave.. hehe...