Level Design
Another major design challenge is creating levels that work well with the time mechanic. Our level design lead – Sergey Larionov – has had to be very creative in crafting gameplay scenarios that incorporate time control. This is more challenging than it sounds.
Let's take another solid game – Call of Duty 2 – for comparison purposes. In COD2, as in most other shooters, battle intensity can be increased by spawning additional opponents in out-of-the-way places. This is why it can sometimes seem that the battles are lengthy, protracted struggles, which indeed they are. Of course it is a cheat (of sorts) that creates the illusion of a massive army, but it is a standard tactic that works well and allows for gameplay that would not be possible were all opponents placed in a level from the start.
In TimeShift, this whole idea of spawning opponents is much more complex. Imagine, for example that we spawned opponents in a neighboring room that then burst into your room and starting firing away. What would happen if I reversed time and followed this opponent back into the room that he spawned from? Well, I would see that he appeared from thin air. What if I stopped time and entered a room where opponents were supposed to spawn before I entered? In this case, they would spawn in front of me. You can see the challenges in crafting intense gameplay are greatly increased and have forced us to come up with creative ways to handle these issues. For example we almost always spawn opponents at a distance greater than you can cover in the maximum amount of reversal time allotted. We have had to apply these principles to the entire game to ensure that the world we have created is as believable as possible.
