The Time I Have Left News

We just got back from Gamescom, but we already have a couple of events lined up:

• The Time I Have Left will be featured in this year Fear Fest!!
  
• We will be at the Indie Dev Day in Barcelona! (Come say hi anytime if you are around)

To celebrate the ocassion, we will have a lengthy streaming event during saturday including some live and pre-recorded footage centered around The Time I Have Left!

[h2]Stream Schedule[/h2]
Saturday (All times are CEST, world time available on time links):

12:00h
Stream Starts

12:00-16:00h
Trailer showcase and Silent Demo Run

We will have a cool playlist showing all the trailers we have released so far and a pre-recorded playthrough of our Gamescom demo with no commentary. Check out what's new and prepare your questions for the development team!

16:00 - 18:00h
Main Event: Gamescom Demo Developer Walkthrough (English)

We will play The Time I Have Left's Gamescom demo and comment on it live. We will answer questions from the chat of course, but you can also leave your questions in the comments section (or any other of our channels), and we will tackle as many of them as we can during the stream!

We listen to and read all your comments, so you can take this chance to ask us anything about the development, tell us what you think about the game or give us any kind of direct feedback (even more so if you have played any of our demos).

18:00 - 20:00h
Trailer showcase and Silent Demo Run (Replay)

We will close the stream with a re-run of the morning playlist for those who prefer watching their playthroughs when the sun starts to set.

20:00h
End of Stream

--

This stream will be the perfect recap for this summer of events and announcements, so if you missed how the game's shaping up during the summer this will be an opportunity to see how things have changed.

And, of course, if you want to keep up to date with news, remember to join our Discord channel and follow us on Twitter.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
We have just released our second trailer! This time, it showcases a lot of gameplay, and plenty of new content, and it even has some hints as to where the story might be heading. Be sure to check it out! And we would absolutely love to hear from you!

Also, we have updated our Steam page and website with new images, gifs and info!

You can also join our Discord server and discuss the game with us 👍

Hi everyone!

We are back in Köln, Germany, for Gamescom 2023!



We have an updated demo with lots of changes and expanded features, so if you’re attending Gamescom, please drop by and say hello! (We don’t bite. Mostly.) You can play The Time I Have Left at the Indie Arena Booth, hall 10.2, booth 98.



But if you can’t attend, don’t worry! We’ll be LIVE on the Indie Arena Booth Twitch stream today at 11:25 AM (GMT+1) streaming a playthrough of the demo and discussing its features. If you can’t catch the stream live, don’t worry either, it will be archived.



Also, we have a surprise ready for Gamescom, so stay tuned!

[h3]In 6 hours you will be dead.
It is fated to be.
Even so…
Is there anything you would like to do before the end?[/h3]

We have been repeating this hook non-stop for the past three years. It captures the essence of The Time I Have Left and (most of the time) is received with positive curiosity.

But a question always arises: how does the timer tie into the game?



Hi everyone! Yite here with another development blog, right before the Gamescom season starts (we will have another one soon!).

The time limit is probably the most difficult core concept of TIHL to properly convey — and understandably so, since its uses are mostly associated with acting under pressure and going fast.

• "Isn't it too stressful?"
  
• “How am I supposed to explore thoroughly under a ticking timer?”
  
• "Will I have to repeat the 6 hours if I run out of time?"
  

These are just a few questions that we have heard many times during development.

So today I will discuss them briefly and hopefully not only clarify our design intention when creating a “time-driven narrative escape adventure” but also, in typical Ground style, take a brief look at other narrative games and RPGs from the past that incorporate a sort of time limit into their design.

Let’s dive in!

[h2]Isn't it too stressful?[/h2]

[h3]Short answer:

It’s not! There’s plenty of time to find your way through the main story, time flows slowly in combat and during menu navigation, and there are safe rooms where time completely stops. Take your time to explore and use your remaining time to hunt for secrets.[/h3]

[h3]Long answer:[/h3]

Everyone understands the urgency of time: no matter if you are late for work, you are taking a test, or you have to pay your bills by the end of the month: We all feel the pressure of time in one way or another, so it’s a given that including some type of time mechanic will ramp up the intensity.

Long before video games, tons of competitive activities had included timers in their rules. From chess, all sorts of competitive sports, board games, and racing had already included timers into the mix to push the tension of an encounter.

Many early video games were digital versions of those same board games, sports, and races, so it makes sense the timers were quickly adopted by the medium, even more so in the arcade times when time was money (literally). There are also modern incarnations of these timers such as certain incremental games and other forms of limited free-to-play models.


(© Garou: Mark of the Wolves - SNK CORPORATION, 1999)
(© Time Crisis - BANDAI NAMCO, 1997)

Limiting game time in old-time arcades would add some extra pressure and also bring in more precious quarters (or pesetas here in Spain. Yeah, the same ones you use to buy rocket launchers in Resident Evil 4).

We are already stressed enough in our daily lives, so, understandably, some people are against an additional restriction that adds urgency to their gaming time, especially when playing adventure games, which are usually methodic, slow, and narrative-driven.

We set ourselves to do something different though, because we know that there is also another way to understand time: if you are in control of your actions and spend it on the things you want to do, no time is wasted even if under a limit.

In TIHL, the timer is always there and rarely stops. There is a sense of urgency pushing you forward, and there are also actions that will require you to spend some time, like resting to recover Willpower (your other main resource). It is an important core mechanic and as such it needs weight and consequence in the game, but that does not mean that it’s there to make your life harder.


You will have plenty of time to find your way out, to explore even more than what is right in your path even. When in combat or navigating the menus, time will go ten times slower than normal, and inside a Waiting Room time stops completely giving you plenty of space to plan ahead.

We could have named the game ‘I don’t have time’ but went with ‘The Time I Have Left’ for a reason!

[h2]How am I supposed to explore thoroughly under a ticking timer?[/h2]

[h3]Short answer:

The time is yours to use. All the time that is not used is lost at the end of a chapter, so once you locate the exit of the level you can decide what to do with it. There are plenty of secrets worthy of getting out of the main path, and even if it does not seem like much at first, Aline still has 6 hours left.[/h3]

[h3]Long answer:[/h3]

In TIHL you have to find your way by gathering clues in Colony 7. You can find clues in both third and first-person exploration, and those same clues will act as unlocking conditions to get new story fragments.

Unlocking and reading story fragments will give you hints to reach the end of the chapter and also point to secret areas that hold even more clues. And with every few unlocked fragments, you will get new combat skills that might help you overcome difficult enemies down the road.

Once you locate the exit of the level you can decide when you want to leave. The most important thing to note is that all the time that is not used will be lost. You won’t gain anything for finishing a chapter with 30 minutes remaining in your timer, in fact, that time will be gone by the start of the next.

In TIHL, time is meant to be spent. To be pushed as much as you want on the things that matter most. And of course, you will have a big part in deciding what that is.

[h2]Will I have to repeat the 6 hours if I run out of time?[/h2]

[h3]Short answer:

You won’t! The game is divided into separate chapters that follow the main narrative. As long as you beat a chapter in time you can keep up with the game’s story. You can also save your game in multiple slots (just in case!).[/h3]

[h3]Long answer: [/h3]

When creating TIHL, we looked at tons of examples and explored many ways that timers can be used in games, specifically in adventure games and RPGs: from the story time limits of Valkyrie Profile and Lightning Returns to the calendar deadlines of Shenmue and Persona.

Jordan Mechner was one of the pioneers in creating experiences that present their stories under a timer. Games like the original Prince of Persia and The Last Express were built around the timer.

WARP’s D also pops up in discussions about narrative adventure games on a timer.


(© D: The Game - WARP, Nightdive Studios, Throwback Entertainment, 1995)
(© Prince of Persia - Brøderbund, 1989)

D was a unique first-person cinematic adventure game at the time, built entirely on pre-rendered video sequences that force the player to solve the mystery in 2 real-time hours. The original Prince of Persia also had a 1-hour time limit to beat the game. Both games had timers that were not always present on the UI.

These games highlight both the great and the not-so-great aspects of a starting point that is similar to ours. The premise to beat the game in a set time limit is enthralling, and repeating over and over sections until you manage the “perfect run” is a challenge that can hook you for hours. But it can also get tedious after a short while, hurting the narrative nature of the game.

Another drawback of many games with timers is their length. You can’t make a 30-hour game set on a timer that blocks people from reaching the end unless they master it (can you?) so most are short, running on 1-hour or 2-hour time limits.

To expand their length but keep the time limit aspect, some games break their structure into loops of some kind. Like the 3-day cycle of The Legend of Zelda Majora’s Mask or another game that has appeared in the past in our developer blog: Breath of Fire Dragon Quarter (Which could be argued that it does not technically run on a timer, but still works similarly, limiting your playtime and encouraging repetition).


(© Breath of Fire Dragon Quarter - Capcom, 2002)

The time limit in BofDQ is not measured in minutes or seconds, but it’s still a ticking bomb that signals the end of the game. The D-counter on the top-right of the screen fills naturally just by moving around and fills faster when using certain actions, if it reaches 100% the game is over.

TIHL is also designed with replayability in mind and it will be very difficult to get everything in one go, but it does not mandate you to repeat the whole game every time your time runs out.

The game is divided into chapters, each one with its time limit, area to explore, and objectives. The timer is always rebalanced when changing chapters, so the best approach is to leave the area with as little time remaining as possible.


You can save your game resting at any Waiting Room, including one right before leaving the area (just in case you change your mind after leaving!). But remember that your save slots are limited, so your decisions matter in the long run.

We *may* have something in the works for those that want to get everything in the game…but those are news for another day!



I hope that after reading today’s post you have a more solid idea of how the game works and some of your doubts about the timer have cleared. The team will keep doing their best to take you and Aline through a unique time-driven adventure.

And, as always, please share with us your comments and suggestions in the comments or join our join our Discord server!

We will have another post soon detailing our summer plans. Stay tuned!

Hey everyone! Nitro here.

Game development is an iterative process. As ideas get explored and features implemented, they are refined, remixed, replaced, or even completely discarded. Like the Ship of Theseus, the change is continuous enough that it can be hard to distinguish when one iteration of the game’s design ends and another begins.

While different in its implementation, the current design for The Time I Have Left retains most of what we originally envisioned: A game built upon exploration, narrative, time limits, and accessible gameplay.

In this article, I’ll cover some of the original ideas and how they grew into their current form through iterative development.


[h2]A time-driven affair[/h2]



The Time I Have Left (© Ground Game Atelier, 2023)

The timer was a much more punishing mechanic in the first iteration of our design. Time would start the moment you begin the adventure and would not stop until you beat the game, pausing and loading saved games notwithstanding. The six hours Aline had left to live would happen in more or less real-time, not even slowing down when you were checking out the menu!

There were downsides to this approach: Levels would need to account for the varying amount of time remaining you could enter them with, and mistakes early on could have consequences later on. To make matters worse, it detracted from one of the core themes of our game, which is to make the most of your time. This design encouraged rushing through levels as fast as possible to have more time available for future stages. It was anathema to our intentions, so we had to rework things.

To fix this, we made it so each level has a unique time limit, and your remaining time is discarded after you finish the stage. If you finish the level with half an hour to spare, that half an hour will be lost! This encourages players to go back and explore some more, to think about what they would like to do with the time they have left.

Additionally, we decided to slow down or even stop the timer in certain circumstances to encourage immersing yourself in the story. This way, you can read story entries without fearing the pressure of the clock.


[h2]An escape adventure[/h2]

Originally, there were several ways to escape Colony 7 and each route would take you through different sets of areas, similar to how paths branch and combine in OutRun. While the genres and overall experience greatly differs, the core concept has plenty of overlap: A race against time through a heavily branching path.



OutRun (© Sega, 1986)

This approach required a great amount of work, resulting in zones being smaller than we wanted, and making it likely that most players would never see much of what The Time I Have Left has to offer. It also made balancing the experience much more difficult, so in the end we decided to condense the multiple escape routes into a single adventure.

The current, more straightforward design lets us tune the experience much better: We can focus on making each level have a different feel or focus on different gameplay aspects, thus ensuring the experience never feels stale or repetitive!

There are still lots of secret areas, but they are now contained within larger stages instead of being smaller levels locked behind secret alternative routes.


[h2]A near-death experience[/h2]



The Time I Have Left (© Ground Game Atelier, 2023)

We planned to make the experience evocative of RPGs whilst maintaining the focus on narrative and adventure. To that end, we put in small, simple action sequences, somewhat reminiscent of random encounters. These were meant to break up the pacing, add gameplay variety, and expand on the narrative.

Our first approach didn't quite have the desired effect but it was nevertheless positively received. With each iteration, we slowly converged towards a more or less full-fledged combat system.

The core concept remains the same: Aline is defenseless in a strange, otherworldly place, and her only option is to endure an onslaught of threats until she wakes up. While the original implementation was closer to a QTE in spirit, our current iteration is closer to a traditional turn-based RPG with an active twist.

During the enemy turn, the player has to properly read what action the enemy is performing, and the player is tasked with evading those attacks. Good timing is rewarded with extra resources to use during your turn. Over time, we leaned further into these nascent RPG mechanics, adding skills for the player to unlock, a rating system that grants XP points for good performance, and more.



While the ideas we left behind were interesting, iterating and being open to change helped us to find the fun in The Time I Have Left, and we are looking forward to seeing what you all think of the final product once it’s ready!

Of course, things in the cutting room floor are never truly lost: Sometimes, previously discarded concepts return when the environment is right for them, be it this game or the next.

I hope this article has given you an insight into how games change while in development. As per usual, I cordially invite you all to join our Discord server or drop a question below if you have any questions!