not a parser game, but the best time-travel concept/plot/story/twist ever done was in: The 7th Saga (SNES), absolutely epicness.
Are you looking for one where you travel to different times???
or one where you cross your own timeline?
Infocom had both back in the early days of PC games...
Hi,
Interested in both, I want to write my own and can already anticipate some of the logical problems so would like to see some good examples.
Thanks.
For different time zones, provided that the time is separate enough, what the player does should have little to no effect 100+ years down the road.
But crossing your own time line will require you (the game) remembering what you did "before" you met yourself, and "after"...
I think it may have been a later Zork that had the "meet yourself" part.
And it was hard to play, because... it will need to play out like this...
You meet a slightly older version of your self, and he wants something from you...
(you do a few things, then he leaves...)
(now comes the paradox)
you enter a room, and the light is on, ...
you go to another room and a cage door is open...
you enter the last room, and a cage trap falls on you and you can't escape...
then the room catches fire and you think you are about to die...
A stranger enters the room, tells you, "Thanks for the rescue" and pushes a button on the wall...
there is a flash and you are in another room.
(time travel as you later find out)
you find a lamp, and take it
you leave and enter a dark room, with your lamp you find a switch and turn on the lights
you find a key.
you find another room and someone locked in a cage, he says "Let me out and I can help you."
You use the key and open the cage, but the man runs off.
you see a desk in the back of the room but fall into a pit that drops you in the room where you meet your younger self...
you watch as your younger self does every thing you did earlier, but for some reason, you must leave, now...
Now, if you did everything correctly before/ or after, the game continues,
but, miss something, and the universe crashes because of the paradox...
You could not have met your older self unless...
you turned on the light, found the key, let the guy out, and, got stuck in the trap...
Thanks! I'm going to avoid crossing your own time line. What were the Infocom games you mentioned?
"Cross your own time line"... Sorcerer...
"Time zones" Adventure in time... from Phoenix Software...
Not text, but in Ultima II, you travel to 4 different time zones to kill the Enchantress in the
Time of Legends"
But in the Time Zone stories, actions in one time do not affect other zones...
Altho, you could make alternative histories if the player were to change historic events...
Have you seen Timeless?
What if the Hindenburg did not blow up and we had airships as mass travel?
What if someone shot Hitler before he came to power?
What if the Roman empire never fell?
What if (Heaven forbid!!!!) hillary clinton won the election?
What if obama lost his first election?
(and so on...)
Someone asks for a time traveling game and no one mentions All Things Devours? (http://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=5e23lnq25gon9tp3)
Shameful, just shameful. :P