Topic: Achron (time travel RTS)

[Sub]

http://achrongame.com/

Taken from the site:
"Chris used a neat strategy against me in a memorable free-for-all game between him, Konrad, and myself. I launched a massive surprise attack on Chris's mining base, so he traveled back in time, prepared a large fleet to counter my attack and succeeded. However, in the present I acquired nukes and sent a nuke back to the end of the battle that destroyed his remaining fleet. Before it was over, he jumped back further in time, moved his mining base and undid his counter attack. Since his fleet had left the area and my army had conquered it, my nuclear blast from the future decimated my own forces! Right at that time, Konrad came at me with his forces, so I didn't have time to undo my nuclear blast."

Thoughts?

[Celdur]

ok...wow

awesome concept

its hard to tackle time travel in a multiplayer game

[munchkin5]

that is very confusing, but it looks like they're doing a good job, it'll be intressting to follow this.

[Veraal]

Awesome.

[Yokto]

Will be fun to see how this evolves. Gimmick RTS normally do not make it however but thumbs up for all those who are trying to find new concepts for RTS games

[Daxx]

DO WANT

It might be gimmicky, but this is an insta-buy for me if they make sure the interface is usable and the game bug-free.

[Raz]

Well... It would be an unending game...

[Andrew Ryan]

Seams cool, from what I've read this should add some very interesting situations to battles. I wonder how they'll deal with time paradoxes in the game.

[Mr. Wizard]

Well... It would be an unending game...

Not unending, you just play until there is absolutely nothing the other player could have done to prevent their total and utter annihilation.

My god, that brings entirely new levels of "pwn" to the table. <_<

[Gauphastus]

This is the kind of nutty stuff I've wanted to see come out of gaming for a long damn time.
Very cool.

[Raz]

I seriously doubt they could pull it off.

[Uroboros]

I seriously doubt they could pull it off.

They could pull it off. I mean, its not like there are many RTS games that don't just amount to throwing walls of churned out units against one another. A novelty just changes the flow a bit, like how Dawn of War used those resource node thingies. This is another novelty, adding another layer to the throwing-mountains-of-units-at-each-other gameplay. I'm no real fan of RTS games, but I hope they up the actual game itself beyond the demo video standards. Right there it looks like it could barely challenge the original Total Annihiliation.

[Raz]

'Since his fleet had left the area and my army had conquered it, my nuclear blast from the future'

This worries me, deciding for you what your troops do just because of 'time travel'. Really it just doesn't work. The game would need to keep track of far too many variables and possibilities, or just decide so much for you, that you yourself are reduced to little more than starting the game.

[Mr. Wizard]

What? Of course they can pull it off. Hell, I could pull it off. It is just data manipulation. Most RTS's already keep track of this stuff in order to record replays, it makes sense that they take it one step further and allow for real time manipulation of those replays. After that it is handling all the edge cases (time paradoxes).

Seriously, technology wise, its nothing revolutionary. The only thing revolutionary is the application.

Strategy wise, it comes down to out thinking your opponent. So what if the nuke lands just move your units in the past. But your Opponent may have anticipated this and already set in motion another set of changes. The trick isn't simply to beat every enemy unit but to trap all those units in an unwinnable situation. Its more like chess in a way. Besides, its not unlimited time travel. There is a set cost, and if you are in a situation where the only way to rectify it is to go far back in time, you just may not have enough


CHRONOTONS


... to get the job done.

[Raz]

Current foolish human knowledge dictates the existence of paradoxes, which I do think will often pop up in this game. The only way to avoid paradoxes is to go to the correct ideal of timelines, but then the game's entire point would be null.