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There is a new game coming out sometime in the next year or two (still being developed) that is going to employ some very interesting elements. So far, from what I've read about it, it seems like it will be like a combination of Sid Meier's Civilization and Empire Earth, with one very big difference... the focus of the game is time travel o.o
It's definitely a unique concept, and not one that I have seen attempted in a game before (though I'm sure most people have heard the concept at least discussed at some point or another). The basic idea is that you have a window of time, about eight minutes if I remember correctly, during which you can go back and alter past events. If your enemy attacks one of your undefended buildings and destroys it, for example, you can just go back thirty seconds and send all your troops to that spot. You can play not just with the AI, but also with another person (or people), so the sequence of undoing events can probably get fairly complex. You have a limited amount of juice you use up to go back in time, and the further you go back the more juice you use up. Your meter slowly fills up again as you play. You can give orders to units back in time, and can send units and even buildings back in time, but all that uses up your energy as well.
Of course, being able to send units back in time gives rise to some valid questions - like, can't you just send your whole army back in time and double the army you had a minute ago? The Achron website does address this, pointing out that you only have so many resources and so much energy, so things you spend on one area are going to leave you vulnerable in another area, and you just may kill yourself twice as fast by pulling something like that.
The reason I compare the game to Civilization is that it is turn-based, though in a bit of a different way. In order to resolve certain paradoxes that arise from allowing time travel (i.e. sending a unit back in time 20 secs to destroy the factory that created it, thereby not allowing for the creation of the unit in the first place, etc), the game revolves around what they call "time waves" - basically, a turn. If you send a unit back to destroy the factory that made it, until the end of your turn/timewave, the paradox will continue to carry itself out, fluctuating between the unit being ultimately destroyed or the factory. At the end of your timewave, whichever one happens to be not destroyed at the moment remains in existence. I'm sure their page on paradoxes does a better job of explaining it, but that's the gist of it.
Anyway, the game won't even be a finished product for a while yet, but I saw a news article on it at slashdot.org a few weeks back, and was very intrigued by the idea. Let me know what you guys think
It's definitely a unique concept, and not one that I have seen attempted in a game before (though I'm sure most people have heard the concept at least discussed at some point or another). The basic idea is that you have a window of time, about eight minutes if I remember correctly, during which you can go back and alter past events. If your enemy attacks one of your undefended buildings and destroys it, for example, you can just go back thirty seconds and send all your troops to that spot. You can play not just with the AI, but also with another person (or people), so the sequence of undoing events can probably get fairly complex. You have a limited amount of juice you use up to go back in time, and the further you go back the more juice you use up. Your meter slowly fills up again as you play. You can give orders to units back in time, and can send units and even buildings back in time, but all that uses up your energy as well.
Of course, being able to send units back in time gives rise to some valid questions - like, can't you just send your whole army back in time and double the army you had a minute ago? The Achron website does address this, pointing out that you only have so many resources and so much energy, so things you spend on one area are going to leave you vulnerable in another area, and you just may kill yourself twice as fast by pulling something like that.
The reason I compare the game to Civilization is that it is turn-based, though in a bit of a different way. In order to resolve certain paradoxes that arise from allowing time travel (i.e. sending a unit back in time 20 secs to destroy the factory that created it, thereby not allowing for the creation of the unit in the first place, etc), the game revolves around what they call "time waves" - basically, a turn. If you send a unit back to destroy the factory that made it, until the end of your turn/timewave, the paradox will continue to carry itself out, fluctuating between the unit being ultimately destroyed or the factory. At the end of your timewave, whichever one happens to be not destroyed at the moment remains in existence. I'm sure their page on paradoxes does a better job of explaining it, but that's the gist of it.
Anyway, the game won't even be a finished product for a while yet, but I saw a news article on it at slashdot.org a few weeks back, and was very intrigued by the idea. Let me know what you guys think