🎮 The Impossible Game Design Challenge 🎲
Can we create a multiplayer game where time doesn't matter?
We're looking for innovative game designers to tackle an "impossible" challenge: designing a multiplayer board game with an unprecedented save/load mechanism that defies the conventional limits of time and player presence.
The Core Challenge: Create a game where: - A player can leave mid-game, save their progress, and return days later - Other players continue playing normally in their absence - Upon return, the departed player resumes exactly where they left off - The returning player experiences the game as if no time has passed - The game maintains perfect consistency for all players
Key Design Constraints: 1. The game must be deterministic yet feel dynamic 2. Player decisions must be meaningful but not create temporal paradoxes 3. The mechanism should be seamless and natural, not feeling like a "patch"
Theoretical Considerations: - How do we handle information revelation? - Can we create meaningful player interaction across different timeframes? - What mechanics would allow for both autonomy and interconnected gameplay?
Think of it as designing a game that treats time as a game resource rather than a limitation. Like playing chess where one player exists in Monday while another plays on Friday, yet the game remains coherent.
Are you up for this seemingly impossible challenge? Share your design concepts, no matter how wild or experimental they might seem!
[!info] Note: This is a theoretical exercise that pushes the boundaries of game design thinking. While a perfect solution might not exist, the journey of exploring this problem could lead to fascinating new game mechanics.
The game result $Y$ is a function of $\Sigma = {\sigma_1, \ldots, \sigma_n}$, the actions taken by all $n$ players.
Where each $\sigma_i$ is a sequence of actions $\sigma_i^{(1)}, \sigma_i^{(2)}, \ldots$
Simple Case: For player 1, he's agnostic of all other players' actions in the game.
Example: mine sweeping (the only interaction is the final score comparison)
direction 1 extrapolation for player 1's behavior after his absence.
direction 2 let game saving be part of the game mechanism
Two players choose a "proposition" at the beginning of the game.
Then the game is launched.
One want to hold the proposition true, another wants to hold the negative proposition true.
In each one's perspective, himself plays as $\exists$ , while the other plays as $\forall$ .
When one player quits, the game "diverges" with each player's opponent replaced by an "optimal" bot.
The "bot" is only an imagined entity (for illustrative purpose) but what actually carried out is:
For both players now, if a "proof" of his version(positive or not) of the proposition doesn't exist, he automatically loses the game. Otherwise, he needs to provide a proof for the proposition. He wins the game if the proof passes the check.
Consider the proposition "For any positive integer n, there exists m where m>n."
Player 1 wants to prove this true, while Player 2 wants to prove it false.
If Player 1/2 leaves, the game diverges into two scenarios: For Player 1: They need to give a proof that such m exists. For Player 2: Automatically loses the game.