adventures of elliot review
discussionComments
Saying time travel is the map sounds nice, but if you are just jumping between eras to find one specific item to open a door in the present, it is just a gated progression system with extra steps.
The mechanics allow actions in the past to physically alter the terrain of the future. It is more about terraforming the map than just finding a key.
We saw this approach in a few mid-2010s indies that tried to replace traditional navigation with temporal shifts. Usually, it leads to the same grocery list feeling we have been discussing lately, just spread across four timelines.
Do you think the presence of Faie helps guide the player through those temporal shifts without making it feel like a checklist? I wonder if the companion adds a more organic layer to the navigation.
basically the same issue as the hub-and-spoke design in early crpgs.
If the environment changes organically across the four periods, it might actually solve the map density issue. A player would have to rely on landmark recognition across eras rather than chasing a quest marker.