Time in video games is a valuable thing. Unlike in the real world where it proceeds in a linear fashion, in a game it may speed up, slow down or even go backwards. There are some games where controlling time becomes a crucial and fascinating game mechanic. The best of these integrate your time travelling powers with both characters and narrative to create a compelling experience.
This list includes 15 games from the last 25 years, with 112 likes. They come from a range of different genres and play-styles and are all good games if you want to manipulate time to win.
We have other digital stories lists of games:
Penrose
Rating: PEGI 12+, ESRB EVERYONE 10+
Release Date: 01/09/2020
Price: Free
Platforms: Android, Web Browser and iOS
Genres: Adventure, Creative and Narrative
Developer: @DoubleSpeakGame
Players: This is a single player game
Penrose is a text adventure, where you don't only read the story and choose its next step, but can go back into the text to change it in all sorts of mind-bending ways. As the develop describes it, "Penrose is a non-linear narrative adventure game about...
Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time
Release Date: 09/11/1996, updated in 2020
Platforms: GameCube, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Wii, PC, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and iOS
Genres: Action, Adventure and Platform
Developer: @ToysForBob
Players: You can play with 4 players in the same room
Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time is the latest game in the Crash Bandicoot series, where you play a genetically enhanced bandicoot called Crash and run, jump and bash your way through levels while avoiding hazards.
Photographs - Puzzle Stories
Rating: PEGI 18+, ESRB TEEN
Release Date: 03/04/2019
Platforms: Android, Mac, PC and iOS
Genres: Narrative and Puzzle
"Have you ever made a mistake, or hurt people you care about?" Asks the Photographs trailer. It's a puzzle game that aims much higher than to distract you while on the way to work.
To The Moon
Release Date: 10/11/2011, updated in 2020
Platforms: Android, Mac, Nintendo Switch, PC and iOS
Genres: Adventure, Narrative and Puzzle
Developer: @Reives_FreeBird
To the Moon is a story-adventure following two doctors trying to fulfil a dying man's last wish to go to the moon. With only a few ways to interact with the game, you control the doctors, exploring and solving puzzles to reconstruct the dying man's...
Mini Metro
Rating: PEGI 3+, ESRB EVERYONE
Release Date: 06/01/2015
Platforms: Android, Mac, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4 and iOS
Genres: Simulation and Strategy
Developer: @Dinopoloclub
Create an ordered, efficient underground train system. It sounds like hard work, but the simple Tube-map visuals, calm music, and streamlined interactions make this relaxing, like sudoku. Dip your toe in this strategy challenge and keep the system...
Ghost Trick
Rating: PEGI 12+, ESRB TEEN
Release Date: 19/06/2010
Price: Free-to-start
Platforms: Nintendo DS and iOS
Developer: @CapcomUSA_
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective is a game where you play a ghost that can stop time to solve crimes and save lives. You can inhabit and control objects and possess corpses to alter what happens. His ultimate aim is to use his memories to find out how he...
All Of You
Expected Rating: PEGI 7+, ESRB EVERYONE
Release Date: 06/10/2020
Platforms: Mac and iOS
Genres: Platform and Puzzle
Developer: @AlikeStudio
All of You is a platform game where you can pause time and control the levels rather than the character. By rearranging the timing, order and orientation of the world you play in you can help the mother hen get her chicks back.
Life Is Strange
Rating: PEGI 18+, ESRB MATURE 17+
Release Date: 19/01/2016
Platforms: Android, PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and iOS
Genres: Adventure, Narrative, Puzzle and Role-Playing
Developer: @DONTNOD_Ent
This is a click/tap-to-move adventure where you play a student at high school in a sleepy American town. Despite the idyllic setting, you have a foreboding premonition of a disastrous storm. Along with this prophetic vision, you discover the ability to...
Alt-Frequencies
Release Date: 16/05/2019
Developer: @AccidentalQ
Alt-Frequencies is an adventure game played by listen to a series of radio shows. It's a story about people stuck in a time loop without realising it and what you can do to save them.
Little Misfortune
Rating: PEGI 16+, ESRB MATURE 17+
Release Date: 18/11/2019
Developer: @KillMondayGames
Little Misfortune is a dark adventure where you play a small girl called, Misfortune, who, guided by a voice in her head, seeks the prize of eternal happiness for her mother. It's played side-on and unfolds a narrative about the girl's family as you...
Subdefuge
Release Date: 07/03/2017
Platforms: Android and iOS
Genres: Open World, Puzzle, Simulation, Strategy and Turn-Based
Players: You can play with 2 players in the same room and up to 10 players online
Subterfuge is a strategy game played with human opponents. The game is designed to be played over a week or so, to give players time to talk between goes. This encourages players to team up, trick or double-cross other players to get them to make the...
The Gardens Between
Release Date: 20/09/2018
Platforms: Android, Mac, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and iOS
Genres: Adventure and Puzzle
Developer: @TheVoxelAgents
The Gardens Between is a puzzle game set in dreamlike island gardens where you play as best friends Arina and Frendt. You work around the island levels collecting balls of light in your lantern, manipulating time to solve puzzles and removing obstacles....
Framed
Rating: PEGI 16+, ESRB TEEN
Release Date: 12/11/2014, updated in 2018
Platforms: Android, Nintendo Switch, PC and iOS
Genres: Action, Narrative, Platform and Puzzle
Framed is a puzzle adventure where you re-arrange panels of an animated comic book to change the outcome and timeline of the story. With a noir-detective look, the puzzles start simply but soon get complex.
Bring You Home
Release Date: 29/10/2018
Genres: Puzzle
Bring You Home is a running and jumping game with a difference. You play a doddery Polo trying to get your pet back by completing various platform levels. Unusually, though, when you die the game rewinds so you can change the level by swiping the panels...
Zero Escape
Release Date: 10/12/2009, updated in 2016
Platforms: Nintendo 2DS|3DS, Nintendo DS, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita and iOS
Genres: Action, Narrative, Puzzle and Role-Playing
Zero Escape, is a series of adventure games that follows a group of nine individuals, who are kidnapped and held captive by a person who goes by the name "Zero", and are forced to play a game of life and death in order to escape.
YouTube | Facebook | Twitter | Discord | Contact | About