Time loops are a perfect fit for video games. This interactive medium is inherently repetitious, and certain games, such as roguelikes, are intentionally designed to be played over and over. It’s natural to take that further and bring that repetition in play as a clear time loop. Deathloop and The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask are some of the most famous examples of games with time loops, but indies like Twelve Minutes and The Forgotten City are equally as experimental with that idea. Rue Valley is the latest game built around a time loop and it does so by way of Disco Elysium.
Rue Valley Alpha Gameplay Trailer
Disco Elysium showed how an RPG that prioritizes dialogue, internal dialogue, and the emotional well-being of the player character can be just as engaging as one with combat. Emotion Spark Studio and Owlcat Games‘ Rue Valley takes that same idea and applies it to a depressed man stuck in a time loop at a motel in the middle of a desert.
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Embracing the time loop
Rue Valley takes place over 47 minutes. The game begins with the main character in a therapy session at a motel at around 8 p.m. As the sun sets, players can explore the motel and surrounding areas and interact with the different characters there as time passes. The dialogue and the player’s inner monologue are presented similarly to how they are in Disco Elysium, although Rue Valley sports more of a comic book aesthetic.
It does not play out in real time, but is based on the player’s fairly mundane actions. In a preview event attended by Digital Trends, Creative Director Marko Smiljanić explained that one of the main goals of Rue Valley is to “present mundane stuff that we experience every day in real life as something meaningful in a video game way,” like getting out of bed. “If in some RPGs you find a better sword, in this game, the equivalent of that would be getting out of bed,” Smiljanić says.
After 47 minutes worth of time passes, the sky around Rue Valley turns bright red and
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