Precognition/time magic gameplay design?

First reaction is that this seems very similar to any other normal rpg, except with quest markers of the exclamation mark kind replaced with red auras and you still get the task to complete just in a slightly more cryptic fashion.

Having said that it does seem like it would beable to work with little or no combat involved, have "quests" that require you to convince people of things, make items etc. This could invlove a "respect" meter with each person and by manipulating this you can get them to do particular things and this can be manipulated by give items, doing tasks, conversation etc.
I think a good thing to have would be multiple ways of solving a "quest" like to get character x to apoligise to character y you can befried x to convince him to apologise or threaten him into doing it.

How about this:

You have NPC characters that go about their daily lives using some good artificial intelligence, they gather wood, go on their own quests, make food to eat for their children etc.

Let's say a woman's children want some cheese but she has no milk and needs to milk the cow, she goes out to the paddock to round up the cow but is attacked by a wolf (and killed), making the children parents less and eventually dying.

Ok, so this is not scripted but random, the wolf and the woman were in the same place at the same time because of mutual needs (needing the cow to eat or milk) determined by the AI (probably need some routines to make sure this does happen often enough to be fun).

So the game killed her, which eventually kills her children.

Maybe the precognition could be... when you meet someone the AI will skip ahead 10-15 minutes of game time and see if any disastrous events happen to that person. If so, it generates goes to game play cut scene of the events leading to the death.

If you met the children:

You see them hungry, walk around town begging, then eventually dying.

If you met the mother:

You see the children wanting cheese, then the woman going outside to the barn, then her walking to the paddock, then lying dead on the ground.

So the player now needs to know... where is this paddock? why did she go there? what time?

If they figured that the children just wanted cheese he could give the children cheese which will stop the event, or he can move the cow to the barn, or he could kill the wolf in the forest or even follow the woman and kill the wolf in her presence (that could set off another quest).

Now, depending on how much skill the player has in precognition determines whether they get lots of information, playback of the precognition or other elements..


Hey... this is starting to sound like a good game concept.

There may be a serious technical limitation here though.

What is being suggested it that the AI run at least a few minutes ahead of the time frame the player is being shown and interacting in.

That means every time the player does something, the AI has to redetermine that extra time for however far forward it goes. There is almost no way of limiting this except for the time period ahead of current time it looks and the geographical region it considers.

The plus side to this is if you pulled it off, the AI for each entity has a solid grasp of the immediate future and consequences of actions so it should end up with some pretty solid behavior.

Its just that this is a hugely challenging AI to write and also to run on the average system.

The time travel and visions of the past though are things which have already been done.


An idea though on how to make the future sight more doable is to force the AI not to put anything in harms way, then to mark specific entities for planned dangers and to script their actions into it happening, then watch the player for his impact on that. That would reduce the number of entities it has to watch to just the player and the scripted entities instead of every wolf in the area.

How about a game where you gain psychic powers through save scumming?
E.g. you play normally and something bad happens, then you have to reload and figure out how to stop it.

I've thought about making a game like that but I couldn't figure out a good way to do it.

Storyyeller - that sounds a lot like the Groundhog Day scenario - gameplay occurs over the same period of 24 hours (or whatever), repeating over and over until you solve some mystery. Actually, the film 12:01 is closer to the concept than Groundhog Day, and although I haven't played Majora's Mask it sounds similar too. The key point here is that you might go off in one direction on your first play-through which uncovers clues which lead you to do something completely different next time, so a large amount of scripted content can be included - removing the need for a massively complicated AI - but the ability to "set right what once went wrong" still exists in a natural form. Instead of "red auras" you would then know something bad was going to happen (unless you interfered) because you'd seen it happen before.

This idea reminds me of one that I had a while back.

In it, the main character had 'second sight', which allowed the player avatar to see the demons plaguing humanity.

For example, your avatar is walking down a city street and you activate the second sight ability while looking at a rather demure but ordinary business man. In that instant his demons appear dancing around him, sitting on his head, poking him with spears, and in general just making him miserable. Each demon is chanting or taunting him in some silly or dark way. One demon is dancing around with a bag of trash in its hands screaming, "Did you take out the trash, did you take out the trash, did you take out the trash?" Another is dressed up in drag dry-humping his leg, and so on.

Maybe these are quests to solve, or perhaps they are indicators of the man's sanity level. It would be clear though that if his demons continue to torment him he will eventually lose it and do some really bad things. The player can't directly destroy these demons, but can solve the problems presented by them. Some NPCs would have small and harmless demons, while others are enslaved by them.

I suppose it isn't truly a vision of the future, but simply more information than a normal person would have in determining what the future could hold. I'm not even sure this response is particularly helpful to you, but since it reignited an idea that I almost forgotten I thought I'd share anyway. heh :)

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Original post by Eric Seiler For example, your avatar is walking down a city street and you activate the second sight ability while looking at a rather demure but ordinary business man. In that instant his demons appear dancing around him, sitting on his head, poking him with spears, and in general just making him miserable. Each demon is chanting or taunting him in some silly or dark way. One demon is dancing around with a bag of trash in its hands screaming, "Did you take out the trash, did you take out the trash, did you take out the trash?" Another is dressed up in drag dry-humping his leg, and so on.

That sounds very much like Butcher Bird, which is a pretty good novel you might want to read.

But in response to the OP, I had an idea for a point and click mystery game where the clues are mostly in the form of ghosts who will relive the past when you activate some trigger, and each time a ghost appears they give you some clue to finding the body/the killer/the stolen jewels/whatever. For example, locking a door might make a woman appear at the door who wishes to have a secret conversation with another woman, or ringing the doorbell might cause her to open the door and let a mysterious guest in.

The latest season of same and max is all about psychic powers including future vision and past vision. They games are a lot of fun and the how the powers work is really well done. For example you use future vision on a character to find out how they’re going to die soon, so that you know how to save their life. And use past vision to go back in time and have your character learn to read hieroglyphics so they can open a locked gate in the present.

There is plenty of scope for game play related to time travel and changing events in the past and future. From changing the character states, creating new items, and alter world. For instance perhaps in there is a lot of problems in the city due to pollution caused by a factory, so the player goes back and buys the land the factory is built on. Returning to the present pollution isn’t a problem anymore but now the city is rife with crime caused by unemployment.

Maybe you could even work in some existential elements where by altering a character’s future you change how they will behave in the present.

the issue with the ai may be delt with a simple mechanic. the same as in MMO quest givers, the issue that happens in the future is already pre planned into the game mechanics, not determined by the AI's actual future actions. so Granny A's destiny is to be ran over by Raindeer B. so she will always have the red ora for danger untill the player changes the situation. then, as witha quest that has been compleated, she no longer has the ora. what do you think?

Sounds interesting but it sounds like the movie Next with Nicolas Cage and also sounds like the movie called Butterfly Effect with Ashton Kutcher.

The amount of positive response this concept has gotten has surprised and pleased me. [smile] I wasn't seriously considering development at first, just thought it was an interesting idea, but now I'm putting it on my to-do list.

I'm gonna beat you to it. See you at E3! (hehe im teasin)

yeah i think this could be pretty rad man, i'd love to play it (:

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Original post by Atrix256 I'm gonna beat you to it. See you at E3! (hehe im teasin) yeah i think this could be pretty rad man, i'd love to play it (:

Actually you're welcome to develop a version if you want, lol. I've always got more ideas than time and motivation to develop them.

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Original post by daveodonoghueHey... this is starting to sound like a good game concept.

I agree. It is very fascinating.
I would consider going for auditive hints first, and enable visual information as the player gathers more acquaintance with the observed subject.

Mm, you could do quite a bit with audio elements actually. Subtle changes in the music as you approach a location or character, faint sounds of screaming, gunshots, screeching tyres or whatever. The final series of the BBC's police drama Ashes to Ashes did this to an extent, with a whistle blowing, ominous laughter, and the voice of a character / music from a previous series.

This sounds like a very interesting concept.... much better than the twitch reflex games that seem to populate todays market:) very interested to see how this pans out...

I've done a little thinking about this and I think the best way to achieve it is to make different levels of AI... or LODofAI (Level Of Detail of Artificial Intelligence)

You have a level of AI like those found in MMO's where it calculates where the position of a character/monster will be.

Then a level of AI that controls the character's current needs.

Then a level another level with more detail and how they react with other.

The character moves through "towns" or "realms" and the detailed AI only runs on characters/monsters that enter that realm or town.

Also, it would definately need to be scripted. I cant remember the game but I remember them using a "event generator" where the AI decides when the player needs to see a major game event and then starts it running.

For this game you would make sure all the people/monsters/etc are dependant on each other like a massive settlers game (the lumberjack chops wood, the hunter hunts food etc) but with politics inserted somewhere. Then when you need to progress the story you take something away that will definately force the AI to determine a character is going to die/get hurt.