If Glorified Undo is for games that technically feature time travel but still don’t belong in a list of games about time travel, this page is for games that technically don’t feature time travel but still fit with the general spirit of the blog. That is, games that make the player think about cause and effect, fate and free will, consistency and paradoxes, and the passage of time. Here they are:
400 Years by scriptwelder
Short narrative game about waiting. The player’s superpower is an incredible patience, which allows them to wait for seasons to pass or trees to grow. Well written, recommended.
Velocity Raptor by TestTubeGames
While not actually allowing for time travel (except for Closed Timelike Curves), Special Relativity does wacky things to time. Velocity Raptor explores the strange effects of near-light-speed travel; relevant to this blog, it will have you (de)synchronizing bullets and clocks (from your point of view). The game is too fiddly for my taste, but you can skip levels and even have some sandbox levels to freely explore the model. Another game that explores these effects is A Slower Speed of Light, but that one doesn’t seem to have timing elements.
THE LONGING by Studio Seufz
Unique game about waiting 400 real-world days. Everything revolves around patience and waiting: the player slowly explores a huge cave system, where most obstacles are overcome by waiting. As much as we like thinking about time-travelling shenanigans, this game reminds us that good old linear time is mysterious and deep enough without any jumps.
Z-Rox by Evil-Dog & Z-Time by Cary Huang
The player must discover what a given image (2D for Z-Rox, 3D for Z-Time) represents. The catch is that one of the images’ dimensions has been swapped for time, leaving a scan-like of the image. In some sense, this model is the exact opposite of Multiverse Time Travel, in which time dimensions are treated as spatial dimensions. Seems like a fun exercise in mental image reconstruction. The games were made in now-defunct flash; here’s a gameplay video of both
