BLANK: TIME STOPPERS

Platform: PC

Engine: Unity

Team Size: 3

Role: Game Designer

Overview

Blank: Time Stoppers is a prototype for a first-person game where the player needs to use time-travel in order to find a way to stop a murder from happening. To do this, the player has to manipulate the space around them and find ways of making objects interact with each other in different ways.

Responsibilities

Designed the interactable objects and all interactions between them.
Designed the game’s current Victory Conditions.
Conducted two sessions of formal Playtesting.
Wrote the Game Design Document and the Testing Document.

Inspiration and Design Goals

Blank: Time Stoppers was mainly inspired by 12 Minutes, where the player has the opportunity to relive the events multiple times and has the power to change how things unfold. The primary design goal for Blank: Time Stoppers was to encourage players to experiment and use logic to solve the problems at hand. After each trip to the past, the player can learn the outcome caused by their actions during their trip, and the goal was for the player to think about what may have caused that outcome, and use the knowledge they gain over time to better understand what each action might do. As a team, we also wanted to support different ways of solving the problem, so I designed the game with that in mind, and so there are three different Victory Conditions, all of them following a logical and credible chain of events that work with the game's rules, allowing for different approaches to be viable.

Designing the interactable objects

I knew the game was meant to take place in the victim's bedroom, so when coming up with objects I could use in the game, I looked at everyday objects that I thought could come together in interesting and sometimes unpredictable ways. The goal was to create interactions that would feel natural for each object and to think of ways of combining those interactions to alter the events that would unfold. Each of these objects had a specific starting point, and all of them could be moved between two points: their starting point plus another one at a different designated part of the room. On top of that, some objects had two extra states they could be in: the lamp could be plugged in or unplugged, and the mobile phone could have the sound on or off. Both the location of the objects and their states had a meaningful impact on the outcome of a trip to the Past.

Picking up and moving an object

Unplugging the lamp, thus changing its current state

Designing the Feedback System

To encourage experimentation and thoughtful decision-making, it was essential for us to provide the player with valuable feedback based on their actions. To do that, I designed a system that essentially checks for certain information regarding the location and state (in the case of the phone and the lamp) of the objects and assigns a piece of text after each check, depending on what the player did. These pieces of text were created in a way that, when combined, always form a whole scenario for the player to know what happened based on their choices. This happens after every trip to the Past that the player makes, and it is meant to help the player on future trips if they interpret the text and try to figure out what could be changed to have a better outcome.

Information given to the Player at the start of the game. Alongside this information, the Player is free to look around and assess the starting scenario.

Example of the Feedback given to the Player after they return to the Present.

Designing the Instability Meter

Lastly, I want to briefly highlight the instability meter, which serves as an action limiter for the player. Its purpose is to encourage thoughtful experimentation rather than random trial-and-error. By introducing a resource that adds weight to every action—and tying it thematically to the stability of the timeline—the experience becomes more deliberate and aligned with the game’s focus on time travel.

Here’s how it works:

The meter begins at 0 at the start of every trip and maxes out at 100.
Each time the player moves an object or changes its state, it counts as an action and adds 20 points to the instability meter—giving the player a maximum of five actions per trip..
The player is allowed to hit this five-action limit only three times throughout the entire game; reaching it for the third time ends the game, regardless of success.
As long as the player does not trigger this limit, they can make as many trips as they wish.

DIOGO GUERREIRO

GAME DESIGNER