Time Travel in Games

Time travel is one of those things that can make a great story…or be completely stupid. For the most part is is over used and not done well (see most examples of time travel in Star Trek). Usually the consequences and implications, or the mechanics and science of it are not very well thought out. Sometimes this doesn’t matter and the story is still fun (Back to the Future).

You’ll this in movies, TV and books do these things to various degrees of success. But what I’ve not seen in this used in games. That I think is a missed opportunity. Computer gaming, at least single player, lends itself very well to a time travel element.

The simplest way it could work would be in a game like Civilization. Because the game is turn based, and you can save the game very turn if you want, you already can attempt to use one trope of time travel, going back to an earlier turn and trying something different. In point of fact, that is kind of what happens anytime you load a saved game.

But what if that were worked into the mechanics of the game instead? Where as instead of reloading an old saved game and trying a different strategy, you could rewrite history? In Civilization, there could be an advanced technology you could develop, “Time Travel”. Once you you discovered the tech, you could then change one think about the past. Maybe win a battle that you lost, or wipe out a city that you spared, etc. The game would then extrapolate what would have happened as a result, based on what you originally did, and change the current world as a result.

This would be a real interesting mechanic for a losing civilization. Especially if the computer players could do it too. The game would suddenly change and you’d have a new situation to try and contend with. Alternatively, the game could make use of this mechanic as an event. Extrapolate a civilization, that is currently losing, that might achieve the tech in the future, and have a modern armor unit show up to try and kick your ass when you still have riflemen.

While that might make for an interesting extra dynamic to a late stage Civ game, it’s really not the best use of the concept of time travel. For that you’d need a RPG style game.

Imagine starting a game, playing for awhile, and your side loses. So you get sent back in time, to before the game started. Now you have to try and make your side win, without getting your present time self killed (this assumes a time travel world without multiple universes).

This kind of thing could get really complicated, very quickly. Just like time travel. So on second thought, maybe it’s good games don’t center around time travel.