From the Black Notebook: Alternative Save Mechanisms

The black notebook is my private game design idea book I carry around with me.  Occasionally, I'll pull an out an idea from the book I think is worth sharing.

This game is called The Time Traveler's Reunion.  You are an unfortunate time traveler tasked by your bitter, mad scientist father with traveling back to that ill-fated family reunion where you were (mostly) orphaned.  Now you must save everyone in your family tree from their certain demise.  The game is completed (and you are allowed to return to the present) when everyone is rescued.

There's a catch!  You rescue them by sending them into the future and when you do, the events of the family reunion change.  If one of your family members discovers another is missing, it complicates the rescue mission entirely.  The order you save your family in is important, but you are given sparse clues as to what you need to do.  To assist with this troublesome chronology, the game features a helpful save mechanic. 

You can return back in time to any point before you rescued a family member.  Instead of a linear save system, there is a branching alternate universe chronology built from your choices.  This hierarchy makes it easy to test alternative timelines, gather clues, and save different family members until you get things correct.

 As an interesting side effect, the save games menu starts to look disturbingly like a family tree.