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Comment by Natsu | Hacker News Reader

That just gave me a crazy idea for a game, based on some similar books I've read online. Make a game where, say, you revive every time and your goal is to survive some set period of time but it's a mystery how to do so as many things are out to kill you. Say you have X hours before a large bomb will wipe out your city or whatever and several folks are waiting to kill you in the mean time or such and the goal is basically a rather large escape room with survival as the prize.

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Edge of Tomorrow builds on a similar premise (Tom Cruise explores a decision tree): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1631867/

>Tom Cruise explores a decision tree

This is the most HN comment I've read all year!

Reminds me a bit of the famous "Wizard of Oz" description:

> Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she meets and then teams up with three strangers to kill again.

Palm Springs tackles this subject matter as well, but as a comedy:

https://imdb.com/title/tt9484998/

And of course, Groundhog Day:

https://imdb.com/title/tt0107048/

Part of the Groundhog Day genre of movies. https://filmbabble.blogspot.com/2020/08/groundhog-day-is-gen...

Which is based on the short novel All You Need is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka. Worth reading if you liked the movie.

> Tom Cruise explores a decision tree

I want to see Netflix use that in their film description.

Also the recent Chinese drama "Reset" about two people stuck on a bus with a bomber and apparently no way to prevent the explosion, waking up each time only a few minutes before.

The plot of one of my favourite games, Outer Wilds (not to be confused with Outer Worlds), is about being stuck in a solar system where you die (avoiding spoilers intentionally) every 20 minutes and you have to figure out why.

One of my favourite games, the sense of mystery and the high stakes of the plot made it very intriguing to me.

Yep, it's the basis of Outer Wilds, one of the best video games of the last decade, but also others like:

-Sexy Brutale

-Life is Strange

-The Forgotten City (still playing this one)

-Twelve Minutes

There's also Return of the Obra Djinn which is a reverse-mystery thriller, in which you piece together what happened to a ship in reverse murder order.

You might like the game Twelve Minutes, your comment reminds me of it: https://twelveminutesgame.com/

You might find the Sexy Brutale an interesting game, since it is also centered around a time loop: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sexy_Brutale

Thats sort of the opposite of the game just released - Deathloop

And Deathloop is from Arkane Studios, who make very good games (Dishonoured in particular).

Havent had a chance to play that but I thought Prey was extremely underrated. Also hard as fuck on the harder difficulties however. Reminded me of a modern remake of the original Half Life on crack

Very good game, indeed. Clearly in the same tradition as System/Bio Shock.

It reminds me of "428: Shibuya Scramble", a FMV-based visual novel that literally involves a bomb that will blow up in a very busy part of the city of Shibuya. At least that's the initial premise.

You have to make choices for different characters, and unless you get everything perfectly right, you die. There is often no way to know at first, but it is possible to go back in time and fix things up once you reach a bad ending.

This game is notable for having a perfect 40/40 score from Famitsu, a rare score usually only attributed to famous titles like some Zelda games. And yet, it is mostly unknown outside of Japan and it only got translated 10 years after it came out, in 2018.

The “Wandering” scenario from the Super Famicom RPG Live A Live[1] has a similar premise. You have a fixed amount of time before the final boss shows up, and you must find out ways to get and set traps that will affect that battle.

[1]: Which, by the way, is getting a Switch remake: https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/live-a-live-switch/

You might like the (very old) game Countdown. Although it's a bit broader than just a locked room at the start.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countdown_(video_game)

You wake up with amnesia locked in a room in an asylum, and have to figure it out from there.

Not exactly the same but similar Zelda: Majora's Mask

You must complete your missions before the Moon collides with earth in 3 days or restart from the beginning.

Raging Loop on Steam will scratch that itch for you. Every time you die, you learn something new and new choices open up.

I’ve done an escape room puzzle that had precisely this kind of premise.

Try reading Mother of Learning.

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