There should be more games with time limits

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I just watched this video by Razbuten, and it kinda struck me how much they talked about ideas and mechanics being popular, safer for a wider audience, as a virtue.

AAA explicitly means lowest risk, not highest quality. I think over here we know that people are not all supposed to like whatever AAA studios produce. We should celebrate creations that convey meaning and emotion, that present unique perspectives, that do things differently and do them well, not ones that remove emotion and uniqueness in favour of bigger sales.

I think there should be more games meant for smaller audiences, enjoyed by fewer players, especially when those few players get more entertainment and/or emotional connection than they otherwise would from broadly appealing stuff.

Many indie devs are already making those games, but I feel that others (myself included) often get unnecessarily stuck on the quest to make something more broadly appealing. Sadly, a lot of it is strongly incentivised by the system we live under - in order to really commit to making good games, we have to succeed financially, and in order to succeed financially, we have to make things that reach a large audience; it’s a catch 22.

Nonetheless, I think video game journalists should put more emphasis on game quality and enjoyability given individual preferences, and less on broad marketability. Of course, they, too, are bound by the same system, having to write content that will appeal to a wide audience, but they should find new, interesting games to talk about, and encourage giving risky mechanics a try.

Speaking of risky mechanics, I think overarching time limits can be a good enhancement to an experience when it narratively makes sense. I liked how panic levels forced some prioritising in XCOM Enemy Unknown, and it even felt like there wasn’t enough strategic pressure from the invasion. The time limit doesn’t have to be explicitly visible, and failure to complete objectives within it doesn’t have to be total or binary - the uncalculated threat of our outcome worsening if we don’t move is often a better motivator and narrative device than a literal ticking clock, in my opinion.

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I think another reason global time limits are not often seen is because the longer your game is, the more punishing a time limit is. If you want to try to see all of the content you want to, you might fail in some way and find yourself necessarily needing to start over. So, the safest option is to prefer “safe” choices that let you finish the game without having to start over.

This is especially true for first time players. Since you haven’t played the game before, you don’t know how to evaluate whether or not you might fail. (see: Being Kind to Beginners by Masahiro Sakurai)

Another reason that Razbuten alludes to is that a global timer adds stress without any kind of relief. Since there’s no way for the player to experience a break or release (the timer is always counting down, after all), it’s hard for the player to feel rewarded. (see: Squeeze and Release by Masahiro Sakurai)

I think this is why time limit mechanics tend to pop up more in roguelike games. Not only do roguelike games tend to embrace failure, but they also tend to be “shorter” games because each individual run is not too long and they tend to “reward” you (or at lease release the stress on you) whenever you fail.

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I liked that XCOM 2 had mechanisms for reducing the timer, but over time it always trended up. Provided that ebb and flow

(will talk about that game at any opportunity, tho!)

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I am glad that the video touched on Unsighted because that is the kind of way I appreciate time limits being added, as a mechanic to engage with and a narrative element that affects the characters. It’s not just an overarching inescapable time limit in a world of things to do where eventually you just have to stop doing what you’re enjoying doing and engage with something else the games forces you to because, while potentially realistic, it just isn’t as interesting nor fun necessarily. It could also be done well but in a lot of games it wouldn’t/isn’t.

And the opposite of no limit is definitely some wild cognitive dissonance… story about the imminent end of the world and your character is off taking pictures and hanging out at baths and stuff.

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I definitely see these points, yeah, although I do believe there are better ways to deal with “failing” at the timer than starting from scratch.

XCOM Enemy Unknown demonstrates one such way - you don’t just “fail” the game when some arbitrary time runs out, but instead, with each failure along the way, you get incrementally closer to a “bad” ending, one that can still very much be rewarding, if done right.

Time rewinds also come to mind - with the experience of failing to accomplish a goal, and the knowledge of what might have caused it, the player can now rewind to a point of their choosing, and replay that part of the game differently. This I feel would work best when the impact of each decision, success and failure increases towards the end of the story arc, so that, most of the time, players would only be rewinding a small portion the total time.

Which brings up another possibility - story arcs. They would probably sit somewhere in between a campaign-length timer and a quick encounter timer, and keep the sense of urgency up while on a mission, but resolve the outcome (not necessarily in an immediately punishing way) and relieve the stress in between.

Thanks for the links, I’ll check out the videos in some free time!

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Yeah, that’s fair. I think the point I want to make is that the mechanic is difficult for reasons other than “gaming culture shuns it”.

The videos are short, promise! Sakurai doesn’t like to waste any time ^^

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Just to add onto this point here, roguelikes also inherently ease some of stress of getting timed out because it provides the guarantee that your status quo can only improve. In other words, in roguelikes you only either start back in the same status as you were before the previous run or in an improved status which better buffs, better tools, or unlocked progression.

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I think Prey: Mooncrash is a great case study into this mechanic. This was Arkane’s first crack at a time-loop game before Deathloop. It’s better in some ways, not quite as good in others. It implements a time limit through a “Corruption Meter” which both gives you a time stress in that it kills you when it’s reached its max level and behaves as a difficulty scale. GMTK did an interesting breakdown of it. Sorry to add another video to the stack of links here haha