Design goals
This game was developed for the 2018 200 Word RPG challenge. Inspired by the masterpiece Stein’s;Gate, my design goals were to recreate the sense of loss from being lost in alternative universes while using a mechanics that was reminiscent of the original. In this variant of the game, each player has a different objective to add a light competitive aspect to the gameplay.
The rules
You accidentally discover a way to send messages to the past – providing an unreliable way to alter the future. Will you build a better future for you and your friends, or fail and end up in a foreign timeline? And what will you sacrifice on the journey?
Roll three dice of different colors. The result indicates your current timeline ‘coordinates’. Each player also rolls secretly to determine their ideal timeline. Taking turns, each player sends a message up to two weeks back in time or can destroy the time-messaging device.
Describe the message. Add 1 to one of the die and subtract 1 from another (adding 1 to a 6 brings you back to 1 and vice versa). Roll the remaining die. This is your new timeline.
The player on your left describes an unintended consequence and the player on your right something unchanged in the new timeline. You describe a positive change. In timelines with identical coordinates (e.g. ‘222’) the device is destroyed. The game ends when the device is destroyed. Each player narrates, based on how far they are to their ideal timeline, their new life, what they gained, and what they lost in parallel timelines.
