A couple of years ago, I saw an amazing demonstration of a real-time strategy game that involved time travel.
But there's no time to talk about that now.
The deadline to join a beta tournament for the game expires at 5pm ET. So just go sign up for it, then jump back in time and read why it's worth it, ok?
Done?
Are you back?
Great. The game you just signed up for (in the future—though maybe you're reading this in the past) is called Achron. It's a real-time strategy game that supports time travel. It's got tanks and base-building and troop movement. But it also lets you jump around on the timeline and change stuff, which is the basic, amazing concept that so impressed me when I saw a very early version of the game at a trade show a couple of years ago. One sample tactic: when you see that your enemy has built a huge base, you can go back in time to when it was a single small building and smash it. Another: you can scout into the future to know where your enemy will be.
It means all sorts of things that make my head heart but make a little more sense in this Achron video. The video here explains the game's basic features. The one up top is the newest trailer for the game, that promises all sorts of other mind-benders: Retroactive Pre-emption (!?)... Paradox Manipulation (!!)... Preinforcements (??)
Achron is slated for release later his summer for Windows (Steam), Mac and Linux. The game's developers at Hazardous Software promise they'll show me the game soon, as they finish polishing its 1.0 version and prep it for release. But can't they just come back in time from this coming summer and show it to me now?
Anyway, the beta tournament is open to the first 100 players who sign up. More info is at the Hazardous site.