Hi, I wanted to tap into the collective knowledge and playing experience of the community here to see if there are any games with these certain features:
a player’s character playing an IF in the game
other interestingly implemented story within a story approaches (where you can perform actions within the sub-story)
actions (other than wait/z) used for traveling through time (i.e. go forward, go backward)
a zoom in and zoom out element to the movement. (e.g., travel between planets, travel between cities on a planet,
travel inside a building in a city, travel inside a room, even microscopic travel)
a player playing multiple characters with ability to switch between them and see different perspectives or offer different actions
quickly changing settings or objects where repeated examination reveals such changes
unreliable sensation, mistrust of self, player character with schizophrenia or multiple personality disorder, etc. (especially gradual onset of these)
significant development of PC resulting in learned (or lost) actions (not based on found objects). (e.g., as an infant you cannot yet open door, as you grow older you can open door)
taking place over an entire life time or even longer periods of time
possession and control of an object or animal, with new set of verbs to then use.
prompts that ask you to input information (e.g., your name) that is then later used in the story text.
use of non-standard letters, alphabets, and maybe cryptography puzzles dealing with them
good use of characters for images or maps (à la ASCII art) that pertain to the story or puzzles somehow.
The more any of these are central to a story the better.
Offer suggestions or alternatively offer ways to find suggestions for these. Thanks.
If you can find a copy, one of my favorite works of IF is Suspended. It has multiple player characters*, a changing setting, unreliable narration** and to some extent PC development*** as central mechanics. It’s also expected that the player will use a map, although that was provided as a “feelie” rather than being shown within the game. It’s not (legally) available for free download, but you can play it through Floyd on the IF MUD.
Technically the player is giving commands to an AFGNCAAP-style player character giving commands to five robotic characters through a computer, but practically the five robots are the PCs being controlled directly by the player.
** Each of the robots has limited sensory capabilities, so you need multiple perspectives to get all the information a human would have about an object, and one tends to obfuscate his information with poetic gibberish.
*** Two of the robots start out without their full capabilities and gain them after being repaired, three things in the game can damage the robots and decrease their capabilities or temporarily incapacitate them.
I’m not quite sure what you mean with your second bullet point, but there are several games with time-manipulation mechanics. Out of these, the one I’d most recommend is All Things Devours (sic).
•a player playing multiple characters with ability to switch between them and see different perspectives or offer different actions
Earth and Sky 2: Another Earth, Another Sky (or others in the series?)
Heroes
a zoom in and zoom out element to the movement. (e.g., travel between planets, travel between cities on a planet,
basically its a gamebook adventure inspired by starship traveller by Steve Jackson. It is still being beta-tested but it is fully playable (would be happy for more feedback actually)