How Super Time Force developers redefined metaphysics
One of the best things about video games is creating impossible realities, but common notions of reality became a nuisance when Capy was making Super Time Force. It’s a side-scrolling action shooter in which you can gang up on enemies on the fly by creating multiple timelines. However, we personally experience only one timeline, so temporal paradoxes don’t come to mind until someone makes them into an interactive system. We have talked a little bit about this before, but at GDC, Capy Technical Director Kenneth Yeung disclosed to Gamasutra a few more details about the challenges and solutions devised throughout the evolution of Super Time Force.
Joking, Yeung said, “I got 99 problems and time is 100 of them.”
“We wanted to make something simple, easy, a fun action game,” Yeung continued. “But in reality, when you’re dealing with time, you’re dealing with something that’s complex and paradox-filled.”
As a result, Capy needed to create a new system of metaphysics to avoid messy paradoxes and keep the game fair and fun. “You can have a solid engine and idea,” Yeung explained, “but without these solid systems in place, your game will for sure break down.” As it turns out, those systems push a little further than your high school physics class curriculum.
11 years ago
The Xbox Games of 2014: Part I
We’re late, and it seems that’s become somewhat of a trend for us lately. Our Game of the Year awards weren’t doled out until January, and now our look forward at the XBLA and Xbox One XBLA-type games of 2014 is just making its way to you in February. You were on your own when it came to planning out January’s releases, but now it’s time for our annual look ahead at the top downloadable games likely to arrive on an Xbox platform during the (remainder of) the year ahead. Read on to find out what you can expect out of Xbox over the next (not quite) 365.
Below
Developer: Capy Games
Developer Capy Games is hard at work on two games for this year, including the Xbox One exclusive Below. Announced during Microsoft’s E3 2013 press conference, the game centers on a adventurer who lands on the shore of a mysterious island. The game’s major focus is exploration; your character is but a tiny portion of the screen to show the full scale of the island. There’s plenty of island to see, and the randomly generated environment will ensure every adventure will be unique. Making it through the island will not be a walk in the park: the “roguelike-like” combat and permanent death will make survival difficult, but Capy promises to play fair. Only those who can brave the game’s toughest challenges will find the game’s hidden secrets and discover what lies below.
Super Time Force coming in 2014, also on Xbox One
Super Time Force has unfortunately been slightly delayed, but the reason is so that developer Capybara Games can make a version for your shiny new Xbox One via the …
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11 years ago
Learn the basics with Super Time Force 101
What is Super Time Force? If you’re having trouble coming up with an answer, then Capy Games has the perfect trailer for you. Just watch the educational video above, and …
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Super Time Force ‘definitely’ coming in 2013
In a recent interview with Polygon, Capy president Nathan Vella said that Super Time Force is “definitely” coming this year, first, to Xbox Live Arcade. The game is currently …
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12 years ago
Figure out Super Time Force in this new gameplay trailer
You may have heard about Super Time Force. Something about how it’s a retro-looking side-scroller game with arcade-y Contra-type action, but with some time-traveling twist. They say that when you die, you can reverse the clock and jump in as a different hero throughout the same moments while your previous run continues exactly how you played it out. These re-runs can stack up to having several heroes carrying out their recorded destruction in tandem.
Confused? That’s okay, because you now can finally see it in action. This new gameplay trailer from Capy Games demonstrates exactly how the time travel smashes a classic formula into a mind-twisting puzzle. It also shows off the different heroes, their weapons, and how you will pause time to cycle to new heroes and zip through the level with as many extra seconds as possible. You can even use the time travel to save your life by intervening where you died. What are you waiting for?
12 years ago
Below is a “roguelike-like” with focus on exploration
http://youtu.be/ZmwiC3xDx4A
Announced at the Microsoft’s E3 press conference on Monday, Below is a new game from Capy Games, the creators of the award-winning Superbrothers Sword and Sworcery and the upcoming …
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12 years ago
Capy Games’ Below announced for Xbox One
Capy Games, the studio behind XBLA’s in-development Super Time Force, is developing a new game called Below for the Xbox One, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Studios Phil …
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12 years ago
XBLAFans’ most anticipated 2013 XBLA games: Part V
Here we are once again at the start of what’s sure to be another fantastic year of XBLA releases. Each day this week XBLAFans will be rolling out a list of eight of our most anticipated Xbox Live Arcade releases of 2013. While we can’t possibly cover every single XBLA game planned for this year, we’ll be giving you a varied list of 40 of the most promising titles we expect to release on XBLA in 2013. Once it’s all done, be sure to check back in next Monday when each staff member makes his/her picks for the game he/she is most looking forward to.
Special Forces: Team X
Developer: Zombie Studios
No stranger to downloadable shooters, Zombie Studios’ upcoming Special Forces: Team X capitalizes on its expertise honed crafting Blacklight: Tango Down and Black: Retribution. Don’t be fooled by the colorful cel-shaded visuals; Special Forces targets frenetic third-person team-centric combat with brutal executions and an arsenal of real world weapons. Its dynamic map tile system puts players in control of generating the environment in a pre-round vote, with over a hundred possible combinations of individual tiles to choose. All this coupled with a healthy rank progression and customization system means Special Forces: Team X stands to deliver quite the bang for your buck when it hits XBLA on February 6 for 1200 MSP.
12 years ago
How Super Time Force avoids temporal paradoxes
If we’ve learned anything from Back to the Future, it’s that when messing around you need to avoid causing a paradox at all cost. Developer Capy Games has been experiencing this problem first-hand while designing Super Time Force, a side-scrolling shooter where death sends you back in time. Since multiple past version of yourself are on screen at the same time, what if your present actions accidentally change your past’s fate? “It’s not really an issue you can solve,” lead programmer Kenneth Yeung told The Verge, “it’s just something you have to design around.”
One way they worked around the problem is by giving the enemies have preset behavior. This way, enemies will act the same way every time, preventing their behavior from changing and possibly causing a paradox. All moving and interactive objects function in ways as to avoid paradoxes as well.
“Maybe the next time you play you get there a bit sooner and the enemy will aim its gun at you and shoot bullets there. The problem with that is if you got there sooner there will be enemy bullets that exist in the timeline at a different time than they existed in all the previous timelines, which could result in guys dying.”