Time Is Money [SciFic, ??????]

[MoonByte]

Had this idea forever, but it kinda disappeared and is now currently resurfacing due to various circumstances (among them me having found a ages-old notebook with sketches and notes about it).

The gist in itself is quite simple:
Time is money.
Literally.
In the future, time is the most valuable asset and the richer you are, the more time you have. If you got money to waste, you will most likely even have a gallery filled with the best times you ever had. Your marriage, the birth of your first child, that prize you won, that contract that made you filthy rich.
Technology makes it possible to extract moments and put them into special devices. Think of that silver-string thingy from Harry Potter.
Now, of course if time is so precious, it is also very easy to do some quite nasty things with it. In fact, it all started when the technology was used for multiple questionable or even downright illegal things. Coorperate spies that stole moments for important contracts to find out the contents, governments that looked into the politics of their enemies, blackmail, theft, you name it. Most kept it at least more or less harmless and just took an imprint of that time to avoid leaving traces.
Some...

Modern pirates don't.
They jump into your time and tear that moment out. Don't believe that whole time travel and time loop bullshit that everyone told you, it isn't true. You can't do any of that, time is fluid and can adjust just fine. But if you tear out a moment, then it still vanishes despite everything before and after continuing. If you tear out the moment of someones birth, then all pictures of that moment turn white. All memories fade. You will exist, but something is missing and you might not even know what, if the time is in the middle of something. If you tear out a person, they might even exist twice at the same time as they get teared out from their original moment and placed into a new one, either a bit later or even centuries after their death.
Blackmail was easy back when it was that simple though. Just steal a random moment and exclaim it to be something of upmost importance and most people will pay you anything to get it back. It is their precious time after all. No one ever even really had any need to kidnap a person from time, threatening that one did rarely do anything other than leave a empty spot in time after all. But no more. Poor people don't have any worthwhile memories and even less money to pay for those they have. And rich people protect their time with everything they have.
A special force, the Time Force, can jump through time and is legally allowed to mess with time in order to protect it. Pay them the right amount and they will protect whatever you find precious.

The story begins with the most unfortunate turn of events.
Back, when time was still nothing but a concept that people like Einstein or H.G. Wells had fun talking about. Today.
A young man is just doing what he does, studying in university, having a part-time job, occassionally meeting up with family or friends. Unknown to him, he and his entire time is absolutely worthless. No one in the future would see anything in this time, it was filled with civil unrest, war, terrorism and petty politicians quarrel over the most basic of human rights after all. But he doesn't know any of that and thinks he is living in one of the most revolutionary times in a long while.
Until a group of weird looking rogues suddenly appear, point a gun at him and...he is literally in the future.

Being ripped out of time, he finds himself so far in the future that his mind is barely even able to grasp it.
And it isn't even that he got kidnapped for any important reason. He just happened to stand next to some random painting in the office where he works which would be worth a fortune centuries later for having been sold a few moments later. Now, instead of some worthwhile painting or at least the moment of it, a group of rogues is stuck with a confused worthless man. And even bringing him back would bring more risks than anything, seeing that the Space Force is most likely hot on their trails.
And so they have no other choice than to decide on the future of a man from the past: shall they train and integrate him into their group of lawless thiefs? Or abandon him in a world that doesn't even need humans for anything other than occassional amusement?


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As you may have noticed, what I have plenty of is setting.
I also have the entire group that the rogues consist of drawn out:

The group has a stoic man and his boisterous wife as the leaders. They have a 11-year old daughter and a baby boy. There is the male cook who is missing a leg (hey, they ARE pirates ), the guys niece who helps him with cooking but is quite timid, the main bruiser (a big woman who also is more or less the 'heart') and her protegee (a mute and heavily scarred man), the trickster (physically weak and useless, but she can easily distract and confuse even experienced soldiers like the Time Force) as well as the 'devilish duo' (one is a amazing shooter, the other a great fighter).
And of course the poor guy that comes from the past and will receive some training from hell in order to be of use unless he tries to obstruct the group.

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I am missing an actual plot though. The gameplay would half be about the player having to infiltrate and steal time (or actively going against it, I could imagine there being 2-3 endings) and half about interacting with the group (befriending everyone, trying to make them bring him back, antagonizing them, whatevs). But while the initial idea had some dating sim-like stuff, I am not 100% sure, if that would fit the story (especially since I often feel like 80% of VNs are that anyway [not complaining, I am guilty as well, but still]).
Have a few events in mind like at one point the Time Force getting their hands on the MC and 'taking his time', aka wiping his memory. The game would 'simulate' a total restart with deleted saves and everything, but the player would soon notice that things differ from the actual start until the rogues come in and steal his time back to restore everything and stuff.
Like, there would be so many cool things that could be done. But I am missing a proper story to follow and where and how to end the story.

And until I have a clear idea, I guess I leave this here to get back to.

[gekiganwing]

Time is money.
Literally.
In the future, time is the most valuable asset and the richer you are, the more time you have... Technology makes it possible to extract moments and put them into special devices.

I believe you'll benefit by reading "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman. It's an influential science fiction story about a universe where time is a commodity.

I am missing an actual plot though. The gameplay would half be about the player having to infiltrate and steal time (or actively going against it, I could imagine there being 2-3 endings) and half about interacting with the group (befriending everyone, trying to make them bring him back, antagonizing them, whatevs).

First, is there a point-of-view character? It seems logical to give the POV to the guy from the past. After all, he's a strange in your fictional world. He will find the future world to be baffling.

Second, if the guy from the past is the main character, then he will not start the story being connected to any group. Maybe he will choose to join the Time Force. Or perhaps he will join the rogues. Is there any other group that he could side with? Is there an organization which does not represent law or chaos?

Third, I have heard the term plot described as "main character wants something badly, and has a difficult time getting it." What does your main character want to achieve? What's keeping the person from reaching their goal?

But while the initial idea had some dating sim-like stuff, I am not 100% sure, if that would fit the story (especially since I often feel like 80% of VNs are that anyway [not complaining, I am guilty as well, but still]).

In almost every story, the main character interacts with other sentient beings. They can include friends, family, rivals, foes, mentors, students, and more. Your story might not benefit by including a love interest.

Perhaps the main character will benefit by interacting with people. If he grows to trust others in the future world, then good things might result. By allying with individuals in a group, he could help them succeed.

In my opinion...

There are many visual novels which focus on characters' romantic relationships. However, there are not many which use statistics and time management gameplay.

[MoonByte]

I believe you'll benefit by reading "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman. It's an influential science fiction story about a universe where time is a commodity.

Thanks! I was quite certain that I am not first with the idea, but I couldn't really find many media that actually use time as something literally instead of the usual "if you have money, you have more free time".
I will definitely look into that.

[Pretty much everything you talk about xD]

As mentioned, I had mostly a storyline with the Rogues in mind. Reason is especially since I had initially planned it out for a novel which is of course non-interactive and I thus could have fully concentrated on however I want it to go. Which never satisfied me though (as might be obvious by how I literally have almost nothing xD). I find the idea interesting of possibly having the MC decide between joining the Rogues or the Time Force, it makes me think of the decision in Skyrim. Though I kind of think that the goal of the MC to get back home would be solved very quickly, if the Time Force gets their hands on him (unless I build a plot around him having potential knowledge of the Rogues that they want).
Thinking of a third party feels kind of off, the Rogues are already somewhat a third group. The middle is the working class that accepts their fate to be poor and worthless. But maybe I go with it in a way like The Secret World (Time Force definitely is like Illuminati and the Rogues might be similar to the Templars) with a party that has entirely different interests than the others. Maybe they're not interested in stealing/protecting the past, but the present or future? Would have to think about that...

In my opinion...

There are many visual novels which focus on characters' romantic relationships. However, there are not many which use statistics and time management gameplay.

............I actually really like that idea. Played a bit of "Prison Architect" and "This is the Police", I could see a gameplay along those lines. Organizing the raids of the Rogues, then navigating it in real time to evade Time Force and successfully steal time while slowly unveiling a story around everything. I would only have to figure out how/why the player controls that, if the character he controls is an outsider. And how to best make the story work out :'D
But maybe I could simply look into various "collection" animes like Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne, Card Captor Sakura and stuff, they somehow squeeze story progression into their "collect these 50 thingies".

Either way, thanks for the input, will definitely look into the matter.