Lapse (Game)

Lapse is a political simulator mobile game based on a sci-fi story, written and developed by Cornago Stefano. Similar to the game Reigns, the player must balance the effect of their decisions on four factors: environment, people's happiness/religion, military power, and money.

Gameplay
Each time you play the game, you will have cards. Cards are the way to progress the game. In each card, there is a text above it, the game can be played by swiping the cards to left or right. When swiping a card to a direction, it shows what your response will be. Most of the time, swiping to the right means you agree to the text, and to the left is disagreeing to it.

Each choice you make changes atleast one of the 4 factors: environment/religion, people's happiness, military power, and money. If any of those factors are gone, you die and the game restarts. Also, if any of the factors are too high you also die. You need to balance each and every single factor to live.

Once you play for a certain time there will be new cards, this is called "storyline goals", where you progress the story.

Sometimes, you will be given some items (or you bought them). These items help you in the game: an item that can see the consequences, an item that can revive you, and an item that increases your luck.

Plot
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!

Lapse: A Forgotten Future
The game starts in the year 2075. The player controls President Hall, a leader of an unnamed nation amidst an environmental crisis due to nuclear fallout and continued war. The player doesn’t remember anything of his past, and all he knows is he is now the president of an unnamed country in a post-apocalyptic world. The player is met by an entity known as the Time, who tasks the player with managing the unnamed nation as president, as well as saving the world from something that has disrupted the space-time continuum.

After his first death, the player finds out that he has the power to rewind time. He can't control this power, and it appears to activate itself only when the player dies, bringing him back in a potentially safe situation.

During the game, the player meets Kumiyo, an intelligent and optimistic researcher who has a fascination with time travel. Kumiyo starts collaborating with the player and “K”, the hacker, in order to build a time machine prototype while someone inside the government seems to want to stop her.

During an office move, Director of Intelligence Moore finds a modified version of Kumiyo’s notes about the time machine. These notes seem to be years ahead of the current research and they describe the project of time machines already built. When Kumiyo deciphers the notes, she finally finds out the player’s true identity: the player is not human, but actually a time travelling cyborg sent from the future for unknown reasons. Three endings occur in this chapter:

With the help from "K", Kumiyo activates a device that will help them reveal who is behind all of this. When its activated, the identity of the second time travelling cyborg is the president’s wife, the First Lady. She was created by Kumiyo too and she’s an improved version of the player, the first time machine. However, in the future, she rebelled against their creators (as revealed in the prequel, Lapse 2: Before Zero) and she escaped travelling back in time in the year 2075. Before she did this, she had damaged the player’s memory circuits, well aware that he would follow her. The First Lady reveals that she has hated humans since her creation and wants to destroy them. If the player summons the Time, it will appear and defeat the First Lady. Time will then give thanks to the player and restores the timeline, saving the world.

If the player gives in to the First Lady, she leads mankind to destruction. Alternatively, near the completion of the game, the First Lady will become suspicious and will ask the player about his relationship with Kumiyo. If the player tells her the truth, she will reveal herself as the time-travelling cyborg. She will then kill the player and lead mankind to destruction.

When the Player reaches the year 211x (appears to be random, can be 2118 or 2119), the Time will appear to warn the player that there will be consequences if he doesn‘t save the world by 2150. If the player plays until the year 2150, the Time will appear and will become frustrated by the player's failure to save the world. Uninterested and bored, the Time abandons the player's world, leaving everything frozen in time.

Lapse 2: Before Zero
This chapter is a prequel of the first one. This time the game starts in the year 1750 BC and the player is a Pharaoh from ancient Egypt.

The player awakens, confused, and is greeted by the Dancer. Pretty soon during the game, the player meets Queen Nefertari which will explain to him their origins: they are two cyborgs – a.k.a time machines – created by Kumiyo in the year 2150. Their goal is to enter the Great Pyramid, built by the Pharaoh of that era, and retrieve an unknown item. The player also learns a lot of things about his time-travel ability and its restrictions. The two cyborgs are linked and they can time-travel only together. If one of them activates its time-travel ability, the other one will follow him unconditionally. Also, due to a flaw in the player’s programming, the second time machine (Queen Nefertari) is the only one who can set long-term time travel without compromising her memory data.

In the second part of the game, the player and the Queen's attempt to enter the pyramid are thwarted by a mysterious hooded figure. This figure reveals itself to be a future Kumiyo from another timeline. The player learns that the humans of the future tried to get into the building in their time but the pyramid was impenetrable, protected by an unknown force. That’s why they have funded Kumiyo’s project to create the time machines. Since no life forms can survive a time travel, they entrusted themselves to the cyborgs. In her future, the two cyborgs (the player and Queen Nefertari) had succeeded in their mission and they brought back an artifact capable of making human time travel possible. This in turn made the cyborgs obsolete, resulting in both the player and Nefertari destroyed. The world where future Kumiyo came from is now dominated by the men who control the time. After the cyborgs' destruction, future Kumiyo lead a resistance against her old bosses and fought back. Stealing the artifact, she was able to travel back in time in order to make up for her mistakes.

Once the player solves the mystery of the Great Pyramid, he enters it and meets the Time, who explains that it was captured and locked up by the Pharaoh, who wanted Time's powers to preserve his youth and prevent aging. The Time then gives the player two choices; take the hourglass (that was controlling Time's powers) and deliver it to mankind, or destroy the hourglass and free the Time. Three endings occur depending on the player's choices;

If the player destroys the hourglass, the Time is freed, and thanks the player. Once the Time leaves, the player meets Nefertari outside, who gets infuriated when she learns that she would be destroyed in the future, had the player kept the hourglass and given it to their creators. Nefertari then decides that since both her and the player can time travel, they can revolt against their creators and rule the world. If the player agrees and sides with Nefertari, they lead the world to a "World of Machines", exterminating all humans.

If the player destroys the hourglass, hence freeing the Time, but disagrees with Nefertari's idea of ruling the world, she damages the player's memory circuits and then travels in time to 2075, where she impersonates Alysha Hall – the First Lady of an unknown nation. This ending is connected to the beginning of the first chapter, Lapse: A Forgotten Future.

If the player keeps the hourglass in order to give it to mankind, the Time vanishes. When the player goes outside, he meets Ahmose the dancer, who reveals that she knew the player and Queen Nefertari are machines and not real people. She explains that she was the former lover of the real Pharaoh and that she knew the player was not the real Pharaoh. She further reveals that she knew the player's mission to steal the relic the real Pharaoh has locked up in the Great Pyramid. Ahmose then stabs the player with a dagger. Due to the damage shutting down the player's systems, as well as the ability to time travel, the player permanently dies.