Clockwork Games and Time Loops

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There’s a handful of games where time is taken very seriously. In this video, I look at the design, challenges, and opportunities of what we might call “clockwork games”.

Sources

Outer Wilds: a game of curiosity-driven space exploration | USC Digital Library
http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/ref...

Learn, reset, repeat: The intricacy of time loop games
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...

Games shown in this episode (in order of appearance)

The Gardens Between (The Voxel Agents, 2018)
Metro Exodus (4A Games, 2019)
Assassin's Creed: Origins (Ubisoft Montreal, 2017)
Far Cry New Dawn (Ubisoft Montreal, 2019)
Batman: Arkham Knight (Rocksteady Studios, 2015)
The Last Express (Smoking Car Productions, 1997)
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (Nintendo, 2000)
StarCraft II (Blizzard Entertainment, 2010)
Outer Wilds (Mobius Digital, 2019)
Fallout 3 (Bethesda Game Studios, 2008)
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Nintendo, 2017)
Dead Rising (Capcom, 2006)
Dead Rising 2 (Capcom Vancouver, 2010)
Dead Rising 3 (Capcom Vancouver, 2013)
The Sexy Brutale (Cavalier Game Studios, 2017)
Elsinore (Golden Glitch, 2019)
Minit (JW, Kitty, Jukio, and Dom, 2018)
Vision Soft Reset (Mark Radocy, 2019)
12 Minutes (Luis Antonio, 2021)
Deathloop (Arkane Studios, 2021)
Hitman 2 (IO Interactive, 2018)
Watch Dogs 2 (Ubisoft Montreal, 2016)
RimWorld (Ludeon Studios, 2013)
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (Kojima Productions, 2015)
Deus Ex: Human Revolution (Eidos Montreal, 2011)
Rage 2 (Avalanche Studios / id Software, 2019)
The Swindle (Size Five Games, 2015)
Persona 5 (Atlus, 2017)
Just Cause 4 (Avalanche Studios, 2018)
Marvel’s Spider-Man (Insomniac Games, 2018)

Music used in this episode

The Gardens Between soundtrack - Tim Shiel (https://timshiel.bandcamp.com/album/g...)
Outer Wilds soundtrack - Andrew Prahlow (  / outer-wilds-original-soundtrack  )
The Sexy Brutale soundtrack - Cris Velasco (https://store.steampowered.com/app/63...)
Minit soundtrack - Jukio Kallio (https://jukiokallio.bandcamp.com/albu...)
Deus Ex: Human Revolution soundtrack - Michael McCann (  / deus-ex-human-revolution-soundtrack  )
The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask soundtrack - Koji Kondo

Other credits

Groundhog Day © Columbia Pictures

Contribute translated subtitles - https://amara.org/v/C3BEF/