Temporal Consistency
That the sequence of gameplay events that make up game instances match a sequence of diegetic events in the game world in which they are initiated.
The events that take place in games form a temporal sequence that when the games are finished can be seen as stories. While they may not exactly match up to how players played them since they may have taken pauses, these stories may in fact not consist of all play sessions either. This since possibilities of saving, including designed save points, in games let players discard sequences that are not satisfactory for some reason. Games that enforce that not sequences are discarded in this fashion have Temporal Consistency.
Examples
Unless players let their opponents take back moves, traditional Category:Board Games such as Chess and Go have Temporal Consistency and this applies for most modern Category:Board Games as well, e.g. Amun-Re, Ghost Stories, Puerto Rico, and Scrabble. Tabletop Roleplaying Games such as Dungeons & Dragons and the Basic Role-Playing system inherited this feature but has been lost in computer-based versions.
While may Computer Games do not have Temporal Consistency it is not uncommon. Category:Arcade Games such as Asteroids, Gauntlet, Pac-Man, and Space Invaders had Temporal Consistency since gameplay continued without pause (except for short cutscenes) until players had lost all their lives. Many Racing Games, e.g. Outrun, the Sega Rally series, the Need for Speed series, and the Gran Turismo series have it - either from working like Category:Arcade Games or that failures to get good positions do not negatively affect any gameplay statistics and can thereby be incorporated into game sessions without negative effects. Although Computer-based Roleplaying Games typically do not have Temporal Consistency, games with somewhat similar structures such as NetHack and Minecraft do, as does those with games with persistent game worlds such as Eve Online, FarmVille, Ravenwood Fair, and World of Warcraft.
Using the pattern
Although having Dedicated Game Facilitators does not in itself provide Temporal Consistency, it does in contrast to Self-Facilitated Games at make the decision to have it or not up to game designers.
Events Timed to the Real World
Not all Multiplayer Games do have Temporal Consistency, in for example Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory or the Left 4 Dead series the two teams can vote to restart levels and thereby remove part of play sessions from what will become game sessions. However, those Multiplayer Games that have Persistent Game Worlds often enforce Temporal Consistency since avoiding to disrupt players gameplay experience by making some of their efforts wasted would require to synchronize their gameplay, and doing this practically is difficult.
Diegetic Aspects
Interface Aspects
Narrative Aspects
Having Temporal Consistency does not force Predetermined Story Structures to be linear in how time progresses in them. Cutscenes and even gameplay can let some of the gameplay be in the form of flashbacks, but this does not break that there is a constant mapping of gameplay activity (even in it is in the form of Downtime) and development of a narration.
Consequences
Temporal Consistency affects how Predetermined Story Structures in games can be constructed. It can be seen as a necessary but not sufficient component for games to have a Detective Structure since the point of view also needs to be restricted.
Since planned gameplay events can cause Surprises even if a game does not have Temporal Consistency, this pattern does not help create Surprises in games. However, it does modulate it since it can avoid that players easily can negate the Surprises by for example saving regularly and reloading before Surprises that negatively affected their gameplay performance; Temporal Consistency cannot in this way affect cases where players play a game several times but in long games, or those using Randomess, the intended Surprises can still continue to be surprising.
Relations
Can Instantiate
with ...
Can Modulate
Predetermined Story Structures, Surprises
Can Be Instantiated By
Dedicated Game Facilitators, Persistent Game Worlds
Can Be Modulated By
Possible Closure Effects
Potentially Conflicting With
History
New pattern created in this wiki.
References
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