ACHRON
So Achron is an RTS that is out...today! You can buy it from the
developer or suckle at
Steam's teet. Regardless, the price is $29.95.
The game features a campaign, which seems to be pretty standard Sci-Fi plot. Colonies on other planets are going all Raleigh, and you have to find out why. But this is an RTS, so we don't care about that, now do we? No, we want hot multiplayer action, and Achron comes through with three-faction multiplayer gameplay.
"Boy, a sci-fi RTS with three unique factions? THAT SOUNDS FAMILIAR." Well, Achron's claim to fame is time travel. No, this isn't a flavor gimmick like a snare effect on units or increasing build time. This is goddamn time travel, and all the headaches that come with it.
Grandfather paradoxes are a thing. I'm not going to try and explain. Here's some videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR9E5apzw-U&annotation_id=annotation_496795&feature=ivhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTVsXbWQXp0&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvKF9R4EO40&feature=channel_video_title
As you see, you can't go too willy-nilly in time, as you manipulations of time are restricted by the chrono-resource. It's still a lot to take in, and it'll be interesting to see how this plays out when the greater public gets a hold of it.
Oh, I should probably throw out the launch trailer!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMleXiAoLro
Posts
The idea of events 'falling off' the time stream is still giving me issues though. How am I supposed to make sure that the events I want are the ones that end up being permanent? Does anyone else understand this?
Damn you causality!
Seriously though this is a really interesting concept, but I'm not sure if I can handle it - starcraft 2 online games make me feel like a big fat stupid head, god knows what will happen after you add time travel to the mix.
Edit: older thread still kicking.
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/86509/achron-real-time-strategy-with-real-time-travel/p1
You can buy it here, but still: http://www.achrongame.com/site/buy-and-download.php
I'd rather just purchase it through Steam.
I wonder how long it'll take for the Internet to make a Dr. Who mod for it.
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I wonder if you can still save units by hopping them over a time wave that is about to eliminate them.
Its sort of mind blowing, but it works.
Just thinking about it is nutty. Id imagine the biggest fights would end up occuring at the earliest point in the timeline as folks send units back to get an advantage in the current time wave, to send MORE units back to get a bigger advantage etc.
You could easily do some nice damage sending a small group back, destroying an entire base, then utlizing that one time wave where the enemy is weak to send your whole army back to a more devisive point.
I hate zerg rushes, imagine a "rush" done 15 minutes into the game with an entire army taking out your starter base...
This wouldn't be such a problem, except the command structure always runs my commander in first, while the rest of my units watch him run to his death.
Units spread out really far as well, letting my enemies pick them off one at a time.
How are people dealing with these problems?
How does causality work? Once a unit is sent into the past does it become permanent, or will killing it before it is sent into the past make all future time waves that pass its point of arrival not have it arrive? Does a failed send order flag the timeline to stop executing arrive orders until the send order starts working again (if ever), or is there a more complex system for that?
How much micro is necessary when attacking a base? If heavy micro is needed from an attacker while less is needed from a defender, the defender would be able to almost always draw reinforcements from their future undestroyed base. If attackers can get away with simply attack-moving into a base and destroying it (assuming the defender does nothing to stop them), then the defender will have to work with the units that they have, since their future base will be gone until they actively save it.
How far ahead can you look in time, and how much does it cost you to do so? I assume you're somewhat limited by the fact that orders don't apply until they've been hit by a time wave, so if you want to look X seconds in the future, you'll only get information on the results of orders that were performed at least X seconds in the past. And that's only if a time wave hit exactly when the order is given, if it was mid-wave you'd have to wait even longer.
I assume that all players are playing on the same present, but does the same hold for the past? If both players jump to a minute in the past and start issuing orders, will they actually see the immediate results of enemy orders, or will they effectively be playing in different temporal dimensions that are re-synched every time a time wave passes them? Also, what happens if you're playing a small interval after your opponent, do you get near-immediate feedback on his actions when a time wave passes while he has to wait for the next time wave to see what you're doing?
How far apart are the time waves?
But then again, being able to actually send units through time does screw with that, since the time waves can't take the order timeline at its word that a unit will arrive in the past. As I mentioned in the last post, treating an arrival order as inactive until its send order succeeds in a wave could handle that.
Are replays even possible for this? The obvious way of handling the order timeline would be destructive, with a saved replay only showing the orders as they stood at the end of the way.
I'm going to need a demo for this before I buy it.
The time travel mechanics take some getting used to, but they're awesome once you do. Nothing quite like failing a mission, and then going back in time so that you never show up at the battle you lost.
The voice acting I've seen so far isn't particularly good, but it doesn't bother me.
All in all, it's certainly worth the money. I think that once I get to multiplayer it'll be even better.
I will get this, soon enough.
He talked a bit about a graduate student who actually used his game as evidence in his paper about time travel.
It was fascinating. I think I'd like to give this game a try, just because it's so completely different from anything I've ever played before.
Have a look at http://www.youtube.com/user/Shadowfury333 to have your mind blown.
Same, found the TMA interview interesting enough to maybe look into it. But I'm hoping some of those community initiatives can kick off and iron out some of the game's larger bumps.