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Problem Machine

[Release] Eight Seconds: Manipulated Through Time

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Edit: Released!

MtT-SS001.thumb.jpg.eabdf060f30126571a7e400a9d559d56.jpg

There's still some bugs left to iron out, but overall I'm pretty happy with how this turned out -- even though I don't think it really works as a refined puzzle solver, the experience of repeatedly having a crate snatched out of your hands by yourself from 8 seconds ago is really dumb and good.

https://problemmachine.itch.io/eight-seconds-manipulated-through-time

 

I should have made this post a few days ago but it slipped my mind. My project for the final Wizard Jam is going to be a surreal first-person puzzle game based around time manipulation. Every eight seconds, a duplicate of you is created and plays the last eight seconds of your actions back in reverse. I have a few ideas for how to iterate on this mechanic, but at this moment relatively few for how to create interesting gameplay, ie puzzles, out of it. I'm hoping to have all the mechanical components complete within the next few days, though, so I should have a solid week or so to get the actual puzzles and levels made.

 

Here's an earlier version of the time reversal mechanic, along with a demonstration of picking up the time reflection and letting it go: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9xvt3e36lf9949f/MtT0002.mp4?dl=0

 

Working right now on a more physically robust version where the reflection actually interacts with the environment in a meaningful way, which is a bit trickier. I think it's very achievable, though.

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image.thumb.png.1aeeb97e46a30e0346ab3af228dd8aaf.png

Got doors and switches working and constructed a simple adaptive music system, which was surprisingly easy to do (though getting everything to sync up correctly at the start was a bit trickier).

https://www.dropbox.com/s/00ovcxba2bgwuq8/MtT0003.mkv

Physics are still not quite there, as you can see from the red (forward) reflection failing to make the jump I made. I'm a bit tempted to just get rid of jumping instead of fixing the issue.

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Trying to get a portal system, as in the game Portal, and I'm having issues getting it to draw correctly. Anyone know how a render texture applied to a 4-point plane could end up with this bend in the middle?

image.thumb.png.2136b8e014fe153c0cfde4334782f9e1.png

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Cool idea! Do you record inputs and let the physics play itself out again? Or do you record transform information and move the character that way?

 

Oh god, portals are such a pain in the ass. The only thing that comes to mind is that it looks like what happens when the renderering engine doesn't like how you've triangulated a mesh. If it's a custom mesh, try triangulating it the other way and or remake your UV's. If you're using a Unity quad, I don't know, try a custom mesh?

 

Good luck!

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Ahh good thought, I did make it make the mesh in code using the dimensions of a box collider, I'll fiddle with the triangulation and see what that does.

For the reversal I end up recording the rotation and velocity relative to the character facing at each point in time, and then whenever it lands from falling I record the vertical velocity at the moment of impact and play that back like a jump in reverse. This means that if you pick up your reflection and move them around, their movement will continue relative to the new offset to their position. Unfortunately the backwards jumps don't always work -- if you walk off a platform, when your reflection goes to 'jump' back onto it it usually won't make it. I may just remove jumping as a mechanic.

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Alright got portals working perfectly! Still not entirely sure what was going wrong with my approach, but I found an alternate approach which fits the rendertexture to its destination using shader logic rather than trying to match the UVs which was what I was trying to do. Honestly couldn't be happier with how they look now, though I also had to spend some time getting everything rendering in the right order -- it turned out using separate cameras to handle drawing different layers was key.

MtT-Portals.thumb.jpg.f76e636fdf03dd39c0a025df0f5d05ed.jpg

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This is really stylish, and a very cool puzzle conceit. I wasn't able to figure out the exact rules and parameters so I only ever managed to get through the first roof door, but I'd definitely be interested in playing this with more Valve style tutorialisation!

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Basically the rules are:

Level 1 - no reflection/echo

Level 2 - 1 echo which repeats what you did 8 seconds ago

Level 3 - 1 reflection which does everything you just did backwards every 8 seconds

Level 4 - 2 and 3 combined. I think there may be some issues with this one, though.

If something was in your hands at the start point of the reflection/echo, a copy of it is made for them to hold

 

Unfortunately I don't think it really works as a puzzle game since it ends up being so difficult to wrap ones brain around and the easiest solution to the puzzles is usually just to wait for long enough that your reflections/echoes are static and can be used like blocks. I also wrote up some further thoughts on what I was trying to do with this project, and the ways it worked and failed to work, and posted them on my blog:

https://problemmachine.wordpress.com/2020/02/01/eight-seconds-manipulated-through-time/

Thanks for playing!

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