| Overview

In the ‘Time’ project, my key responsibilities have included crafting the game design, overseeing documentation and planning, and seamlessly connecting the art and programming aspects. I’ve also been hands-on in designing and scripting core game frameworks, such as the movement and health/damage systems.

Working alongside Ben and Oussama, we’re developing this title as the very first game of our studio. Our vision is to create a 3D puzzle-platformer that is physics based and the main mechanic is time manipulation. This mechanic gives the player the power to pause, unpause and reverse singular objects in time and space.

Set in a universe where excessive time manipulation has fractured the time continuum, the game unfolds in these rifts where new dimensions and time-broken entities exist. This setting creates an absurd and fragmented reality, offering players a unique and surreal gameplay experience.

Currently this project is in concept phase and we’ve applied for VAF prototype funding.

| Gameplay

The gameplay mechanics encourage creativity through powerful abilities. Manipulating time and interacting with physics play a central role, enhancing interactivity and enjoyment in a physics-based world with time manipulation and telekinetic powers.

These mechanics provoke curiosity and experimentation among players, leading to questions like “What happens if I stand on this platform and reverse time?” or “What if I hold an object, walk around, and then activate reverse time?” Such inquiries and experiments are pivotal to the game’s puzzle-solving, challenging players to think in new and creative ways.

All illustrations are made by Oussama.

Time Manipulation

We defined 3 time states: Realtime, Reversetime and Pausetime. Players have the power to apply these states to objects. Realtime is the standard flow of time as experienced in everyday life. Reversetime is time played backward.
And Pausetime is when time is paused.

These mechanics are scripted by Ben Gladine, co-creator of Time.

Telekinetic Powers

Players can manipulate objects within a certain distance without physical contact, but this ability depends on the object’s mass. For example, lifting a 10-ton concrete block is impossible. Once an object is grabbed, it can be thrown, with the throw distance affected by the object’s weight. This mechanism is crucial for positioning objects to solve puzzles.

Puzzles

The combination of telekinetic powers and time manipulation enables players to solve challenging platform puzzles. By creatively using these unique powers, players can utilize the environment and objects to overcome obstacles and progress in the game.

| Story

These are solely ideas and the first steps towards getting an interesting story, theme, mood and aecstatics.

The player awakens in a mysterious world that seems normal at first but soon reveals an unusual atmosphere. The protagonist, created at the game’s start, has no memory of their identity or purpose, only intense emotions. The game is set in a fragmented world, a dimension formed from time continuum rifts due to excessive time manipulation, leading to illogical spaces and objects intersecting strangely. The protagonist is also a result of a fragmented timeline and discovers its powers throughout the game. This backstory is never explicitly revealed, adding to the game’s mystery and prompting the player to think.

Theme

It all takes place in a dimension where time is broken, and with this theme in mind, we designed the aesthetics. The players find themselves in familiar places but still feel there’s something just not right. Room structures that are nonsensical and long pathways that lead to nothing. An eerie mood is always present in this dimension, situated between dimensions.