I'm going to call this a "design document," but it's really not. This is me jotting down some notes about a game idea I had in a rough style, so a.) I don't loose them, and b.) so I can get some opinions.
And yes, I do realize the similarity to "The Butterfly Effect." I've never actually seen that film, but numerous people have pointed out the similarities to me. I don't particularly care.
This is not a PTT article or anything, though I am working om something. This is just an idea I had, and I needed somewhere to put it, and I figured this was probably the best place.
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Carry That Weight - A Game About Time Travel
In Carry That Weight, you play as Santiago Jones (name is 100% subject to change).
The game opens with a short introduction, detailing Santiago's life, and then you are presented with a choice. Let's say this choice is that someone leaves their laptop in a Starbucks. Santiago can take this laptop for himself, or he can return it to the person. This choice sets up what type of person Santiago is. If you keep it, Santiago will strive for wealth. If you return it, then Santiago will strive to be a good person.
This decision will change the entire game. Effectively, Carry That Weight has two completely separate storylines that branch off from this choice - which I will refer to as the "Past" Branch and the "Future" Branch. If your Santiago is a good person, he will take the "Past" Branch. If your Santiago strives to be rich and powerful, he will take the "Future" Branch.
Shortly after the incident at the coffee shop, Santiago will gain the ability to time travel, though I'm not entirely sure how yet. Santiago will travel one day back/forward to test this out, which leads to the first "quest" of sorts. In the Past, Santiago will attempt to make his sister or love interest happy by making sure their cat doesn't die. In the future, Santiago will see the outcome of a sporting event and, when he returns, bet 100 dollars on this event, and win. As such, this gives Santiago - and the player - a taste of things to come.
After this, Santiago, seeing the opportunity, will decide to do something larger. Much larger. In the Past Branch, Santiago, a huge Beatles fan, will go back and save John Lennon's life. When he returns to his own time, Santiago sees that not only is John Lennon alive, so is George Harrison, and that in the early nineties, the Beatles reunited for three more albums. Santiago does not notice any negative effects to this.
In the Future Branch, Santiago does something analogous to this. I'm not entirely sure what.
At this point, a third era is opened up, and Santiago can choose to go to that new era OR to revisit the first or second era, though there's not a whole lot to do there.
In the third era, things start to go...sour. This is also where the branches begin to split further. So, first, I'll detail the Past Branch.
The Past Branch revolves around a simple idea: What if you could permanently change history? What if every action had an immediate reaction in the present? What if this reaction always affected the protagonist? And what if it was generally a negative reaction.
In the Past Branch, Santiago's missions attempt to make the world a better place, and he succeeds at that, however, he always ends up worse off. Some examples of missions....
-Santiago goes back in time to kill Hitler before the Holocaust. This results in a present very similar to the present Santiago is used to, only, well, the Nazi party never emerged as the maniacal superpower it was, and World War II never happened. However, a descendant of one of the Jews that would've been killed murders Santiago's parents when he was young during a botched robbery.
-Santiago kills Charles Manson. The Manson murders never occur, however, Sharon Tate gets into an accident with Santiago. She comes out without a scratch, but Santiago permanently looses the use of his legs, and spends the remainder of the game in a wheelchair.
Etc. These are just concepts to show what I mean - there's nothing solid there yet.
By the end of the game, Santiago is battered physically and psychologically, while the world around him gets more and more perfect. This isn't actually true, of course, not everything is perfect, but Santiago's ruined psyche makes it seem that way to him, and, to be honest, it's closer to perfection than it was before Santiago embarked on his quest. In the end, he goes back in time and kills himself. This causes the game's only paradox - which, in turn, ends the universe. As such, despite Santiago making the world a much, much better place, in the end, he ruins it for everyone else - showing the character's selfishness.
The Past Branch is used to illustrate the whole "Every action has an immediate, negative reaction on the player" concept, as well as to go in depth into a psyche that slowly becomes more and more deranged as the game progresses.
In the Future Branch, Santiago strives to become as wealthy as possible. He goes into the future, brings back technology, sells it to governments, gets rich so he continues that. Eventually, his technologies cause nuclear winter.
I'll be honest - I don't have the future branch planned out as well as I have the past branch planned. However, the themes would be reversed - Santiago would get richer and more prosperous as the world slipped further and further into ruin, until, eventually, it ends. This still shows how selfish Santiago is, and, well, it provides a counterpoint to the Past branch.
Right now, this is all concept. And it's rough concept at that. But I really like the idea.
Will anything happen with this? I dunno. I'm not a coder or a spritist - if I was going to do this, I would need people who could fill those roles (I already have a musician). Do I want to do this? Yes. But it needs more work.
