The games critic to be wrong with
Tragedy Looper, Bakafire’s game of time travel, is getting new editions this year. This is great news as it’s an excellent game with a unique premise. However, the German publisher, Frosted Games, will not maintain the original setting. According to their podcast, they’ll move away from the anime artstyle and replace it with a Western one.
I believe this is a serious mistake. To westernize Tragedy Looper is to deny its whole identity.
Like many deduction games, Tragedy Looper is enhanced by placing restrictions on communication. The manual recommends limiting the Protagonists’ ability to talk with each other to the small frame between time loops, forcing them to play without the full knowledge of each other’s actions.
This optional rule, thematically called the “Table Talk Off” setting, makes the already great Tragedy Looper even better. In this article, I’ll explain how it improves the player’s experience and why implement it in your game.
You have the power to travel through time.
How you got this power doesn’t matter. It could be the strange pocket watch you found at a mysterious antique shop or a magical diary or even the high-tech phone application your mad scientist father created. However it might be, what matters is that you’ve been using it; travelling back in time to prevent the tragedies that are increasingly involved with your life.
Because this time, someone, somewhere, is behind them. And they keep happening.
