Jemini
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I have recently come across an interesting time-loop series called "Mother of Learning" which, in addition to being well written, has a few interesting wrinkles to the usual theme.
This got me thinking. We've had a fair number of time-loop plots out there. I'm sure everyone knows about Groundhog's Day, which is the film everyone references when talking about time-loop plots. And, since Groundhog's Day, we've seen these little mutations to the theme and gradual development of the concept over the various iterations.
I thought it would be interesting to put together a time-line that notes the various significant developments on the theme. This is what I have so far.
Note: For the purpose of this list, I define a time-loop as a plot in which the world-setting is re-set multiple times (bare minimum 3,) and someone remembers these past iterations of the world. Time-travel is regarded as unique and separate from time-loops. If it involves climbing into a time-machine in order to go back in time, it will not count unless the protagonist always and consistently goes back to the exact same point in time, and does so, multiple times living through the same scenario for that minimum 3 iterations mentioned. It also requires the protagonist to live through said time period every time. Going back, making one change, then jumping forward in time to see the outcomes will land it firmly in the realm of time-travel and not time-looping.
EDIT: The Girl who Leapt Through Time (1965)
Easily the earliest entry on this. This one was contributed since posting this list by people who responded to this thread, so I cannot give significant details on how it contributes to the theme beyond the fact that, because it is the earliest entry, it made a MAJOR contribution to the theme of time-loop stories simply by introducing the concept to the world.
Groundhog's Day (1993)
The first introduction of the time-loop concept. It is ultimately a rom-com story, and the loop is only 1 day.
EDIT: Upon further entries mentioned by comments, it looks like Groundhog's Day is, in fact, NOT the first introduction of the time-loop concept.
This is a worthy entry on the timeline specifically because of the fact that it brought the concept into the world, but it had several weaknesses that, if used as is, would not allow for many permutations on the them. In order to continue on with this time-loop theme, future iterations were going to need to evolve on from this.
Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (2000)
The next step in the evolution of time-loop themes actually came in the form of a video game.
In Majora's Mask, we begin the trend of extending the time-loop, now to 3 days instead of just 1. Due to it being a video game, it lacks the deep introspection of other time-loop themes of this sort. It's just the player playing as Link. However, it is really Majora's Mask that takes this theme and solidifies it into something rather closely resembling the modern format of the theme.
The idea is that there is a very large and very complex problem out there. This complex problem threatens something resembling the total destruction of the protagonist's world. Now, I am not talking literal world destruction. I do not think that has ever happened in any time-loop theme I'm aware of. But, the event in question really does threaten to destroy every single thing within the scope of what the protagonist interacts with over the course of the loop.
The protagonist has to find a way to solve this problem against these impossible odds with little more than the power to re-set the time-line, going back to the first day of the loop in order to discover a better way to go about things.
Higurashi no naku koro ni (When the Cicadas Cry) (2002-2006)
Now we move into the literary world... sort of.
Higurashi was a visual novel series released in 2 parts. The first part was released in 2002, and the second part was released in 2006. Also in 2006, right around the same time the second part of the PC version was being released, the first part was being adapted into anime.
In this version, we see the time-loop that our characters are trapped in expanded out to an entire month, bringing the time-frame up to something far closer to something like what we see in modern themes of the time-loop concept. However, there were also several other alterations to the concept that came with this iteration that did not survive into future versions of the time-loop concept.
This series was more of a horror-themed novel/game/anime. Perhaps one of the strangest additions to this series is that, in order to play it as a horror-theme, the protagonist we follow for this series IS NOT the person who remembers the various time-loops. This puts the viewer in a very strange place where it looks like we are just watching 5 different stories with the same setting and characters. It is not until the 4th loop through that we get a strange comment from a supporting character, revealing that she actually has knowledge of the previous events in the series, that we even get a hint that we are even in a time-loop series at all.
It also has several other wrinkles, somewhat preventing it from acting as a TRUE time-loop series. Several iterations of the loop see major changes that have absolutely nothing to do with our time-loop character's actions, and in several blatant comments from her that state they are traveling to parallel worlds. They do not even all start our looping character on the same date. The loops all END on the same date, and the overwhelming majority start her off around a month before that date, but the start-date is specifically mentioned as never being consistent.
There really are a great deal of messy bits in this version of the time-loop theme. About the most noteworthy thing about all the extreme experimentation with the theme that this version did was that it proved that these wild ideas really do not work well in most cases.
Now, don't get me wrong. Higurashi really did make these very odd variations somehow work, but that was something of a perfect storm scenario. A sort of meticulously controlled chaos of a patch-work creature. Each idea would be terrible on it's own, but somehow when they were all brought together into a Frankenstein mess, it all managed to work out.
Umineko no naku koro ni (When the Seagulls Cry) (2007-2009)
This is the sequel series to Higurashi by the same developers, and also makes several alterations to the previous theme of the Higurashi series.
Although this version of the theme did not actually make any new additions to the general theme of time-loops, it did become even more wild and experimental than Higurashi did, pulling it way off into the weeds and far into the "soft magic" realm of story-writing. Whatever hard rules you thought you could discern in the world which Higurashi presented are all completely out the window with this series.
In addition to the original horror themes of Higurashi, Umineko seemed to branch off into using it's theme of witches, which are the major threat being faced in this world, as being related to extreme and severe childhood abuse and the destruction that wreaks on not only the child's life as they grow up, but also moves on to destroy the entirety of the family in which it occurs. (Including the completely innocent and ignorant members of the far branches of the family that had no way of even knowing such abuse was happening.)
There are 6 witches in the series. 2 of them are from outside the family. However, the 4 who are inside the family each represent a different and uniquely distinct form of child abuse. Physical, sexual, neglect, and abandonment. One of the two outside the family is a protector of the abused and is the only fully non-hostile witch, and the other is left a mystery. (It is implied in the 2nd part (but never outright stated) that the mystery 6th witch is a connection to the Higurashi series, being the witch incarnation of our time-looper from that series.)
In service to this allegory, this series went out of it's way to bend a lot of rules, favoring ideas and rules for the world that served the allegory rather than themes and ideas that brought realism to the scenario. Once again, much like with Higurashi, it was a complete Frankenstein mess of a concept for a time-loop series, and any one item in the theme would completely tank the series taken in isolation. But, when taken together as a whole, it somehow manages to work.
Radiant Historia (2010)
We are now back to the world of video games.
Radiant Historia came out in 2010 for the Nintendo DS. It is a JRPG style game in which your protagonist gains a special power that is the title name of the game. His Radiant Historia power enables him to jump back and forth through the time line to several key events, and the game even breaks off into 2 major paths.
This is a significant development on the theme as it begins to emphasize the idea that making different choices really does give you dramatically different outcomes.
In order to progress with the game, you often find yourself needing to discover various key pieces of information that are only available on one path, and then use this information to progress on the opposite path.
Overall though, the biggest thing this game did was solidify that the time-loop theme was still popular in the cultural subconscious, and people still liked the idea of this time-looping ability.
Re: Zero - Starting Life in Another World From Zero (2012)
And we are finally into the world of web novels.
While I am certain there may have been other web novels that have attempted this theme, Re: Zero was the first one to really make a major splash on the scene.
Re:Zero manages to truly re-solidify the themes of the time-loop themed stories, while also at the same time managing to introduce it's own new wrinkles as well. It takes a model that is a lot closer to the previously laid out Majora's Mask theme of time-loop stories in which the protagonist is going back to a single consistent point in time, and there really are no changes or variations to that scenario. The protagonist, therefore, has to use their knowledge of previous loops in order to manage past a near insurmountable enemy that simply cannot be defeated with their meager power, and the only way they stand a chance at all is the fact that they know the future and can keep trying again in different ways.
Here's the wrinkle though. Re: Zero introduces something a little like what Radiant Historia did, in that the "save points" of the time-loop actually progress as the protagonist manages to successfully address each point. The "save points" language is significant there. That is the language many people use to describe this model of time-looping as they really do closely resemble the concept of a save-point in some kind of video game.
EDIT: Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
And now, we have gone full circle. We are now back in the realm of major motion pictures. Edge of Tomorrow is a sci-fi action film in which some random soldier is part of the front-lines a military force that is trying to defend the Earth against a hoard of invading insectoid aliens discovers he has the ability to re-set in a time-loop upon death after he participates in an operation eerily similar to the storming of the beaches of Normandy in WW2.
This particular entry makes 2 major developments in the model.
1st, it places a VERY LARGE emphasis on the development of skill a person gets from repeating the same course of events over and over again. Our protagonist goes from some common foot-soldier with mediocre skills to an absolute combat bad-ass and a one-man army in terms of his ability to absolutely devastate the enemy by his own actions alone. This is all a result of him repeating something nearing a hundred iterations of the same fairly short time-frame.
2nd. It introduces the concept of other people who loop through the time-line, featuring a woman who had and lost this power previously who is, as a consequence, already the combat bad-ass our protagonist is destined to become, and the second is the actual commander of the alien hoard. So, we have a concept of 2 good time-loopers Vs. 1 evil time-looper.
This aspect of having opposing time-loopers adds an extra bit of urgency and tension to what would otherwise be a situation with most of the true stakes removed.
Undertale (2015)
Undertale is quite likely one of the very most popular indie-developed games to ever be created by a single developer. As in, there was only one man who worked on this game. Mr. Toby Fox made the entire game.
The only other notable game to compete for that title is Toho Project, also with a single creator.
Undertale, at first glance, does not really look like a time-loop story. It ignores the major world-destruction theme, and if you are good enough at the game you might not even see any signs of there even being a time-loop.
The only way you ever get exposed to this concept is if one of 2 things happen. 1. You die in the game. 2. You re-set the game without saving it.
When either of these two things happen, the actual time-loop nature of this game becomes apparent. In this game, game-like functions are actually cannon. The game actually remembers your progress, even if you don't save it. You are forced to start over at the last save-point, but there are key characters in the game that remember everything you did even if you didn't save, and they make comments to the effect that you are using time-travel powers.
This is not just something played up for funny laughs. This game also has a theme that every monster you fight stays dead after you kill it. This might not be noticed at first because there are some "random-encounter" monsters that look the same as others of the same race, but it is possible to completely and permanently wipe out the local population.
It is also possible to spare the monsters you fight. And, if you have played through paths in the game where you have spared Vs. killing certain monsters that appear in scripted encounters, you will actually see them showing up again at locations like resteraunts and other locations in town.
In other words, the game has it cannon that you are killing these monsters and taking them out of the world, and you have the power to "go back in time," (back to the last save-point, or even re-starting the entire game) and making a different choice from the one you made before.
Modern web novels (2015-today)
There are many more entries in the web-novel world that have not made gigantic pop-culture splashes like the above listed series. However, most modern day web-novel series that depict time-loops tend to follow one of the 2 major hard-magic paths in terms of the time-loops, with the soft-magic path which Higurashi and Umineko took being discarded for the most part by modern writers.
The 2 major paths are the Re:Zero path in which the protagonist has progressive "save points," and the Majora's Mask path in which the protagonist always returns back to the exact same day and time at the start of very loop with no progression other than what they develop in their own mind. In modern webnovels of the Majora's Mask style, the writers seem to have largely adopted at least 1 aspect of the Higurashi version in that the time-frame is often 1 month now.
There seems to be something of an unspoken agreement that 1 month is about the correct length of time for a time-loop. It provides just enough time for the protagonist to be able to do things, but it is just short enough that the time-loop gets re-set frequently and thus keeps the time-loop nature ever present. It is also just short enough of a time-span that the protagonist can conceivably remember various major events that happen over the course of the loop.
However, there actually IS one more rather interesting development in modern web-novels.
The Re:Zero path to web-novel writing seems to have been mostly played out, as there do not seem to be any significant developments in that world. However, the Majora's Mask path to time-loop models seems to still be getting pushed by web-novel writers today, and they are still adding new wrinkles and developments to the theme.
There are 2 significant new developments.
1. The time-loop is limited to only a certain number of loops.
This manages to maintain the power and mistique of the time-loop, but it defeats the major issue that the time-loop removes the stakes. If the number of loops is somehow limited, then the protagonist is really forced to make the most of their situation where they can. However, the number of times they can go through the loop is often big enough to allow plenty of interesting things to happen.
Two notable entries to this model are Mother of Learning, which has an undefined large number of times the loop will repeat, but the fact it is non-infinite still places some pressure on the protagonists. And, then there is also a series called Mark of Time which gives it's protagonist exactly 10 years worth of re-starts. In loops where she lasts the entire month, she looses 1 month off of her 10 year counter. In loops where she dies early, it only removes the number of days she was alive for in that loop from the counter.
Meanwhile, Mother of Learning also picks up the "Edge of Tomorrow" theme of there being multiple minds in the time-loop. When combined with the limited number of re-sets, this makes for a rather tense combination.
Foot-note inclusions
There are other time-loop stories which, while worth mention, are not major time-loop entries on their own either because the time-loop aspect is really not the main feature of the entry, or because it is too isolated in nature to really have any lessons taken from it for wider writing.
Star Trek TNG: Cause and Effect (1992)
"Cause and Effect" is the 18th episode of the 5th season of Star Trek The Next Generation.
This is before even Groundhog's Day was released, making it rather significant that it came out at this time before the time-loop concept was as well developed as we have it now.
In this episode, we see the enterprise stuck in a time-loop of something just shy of a week, and it goes through this time-loop only 3 times. Another significant point is that there is no one person who remembers everything from previous loops. Instead, there are certain locations on the ship in which the phantom voices of the previous loop can be heard, and certain people in the loop (one of which is Beverly Crusher,) can absorb some phantom memories in their sleep which will give them a strange sense of Deja-vu.
Madoka Magica (2011)
The "Madoka Magica" anime is primarily known for the way in which it completely subverted the Magical Girl genre into something horribly dark by exploring what it actually means for middle and high-school age girls to be fighting life or death battles against eldritch horrors.
While time-loops are not the primary theme of this story, the concept does hold a major point of significance. As a matter of fact, this series gives us the perspective of a non-looper who is on the final iteration of a time-loop cycle in which someone else is going through said time-loop.
With the exception of the fact that we do not see any real re-sets of the loop aside from flash-backs from said time-looping character, this series does technically meet the definition and it takes a very unique perspective on the concept that is pulled off rather well.
Twelve minutes (2021)
Twelve minutes is a point and click indie-game in which you are in a very short 12 minute time loop that takes place inside their small 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom, and 1 main room apartment. It meets all the standard definitions of a time-loop, and due to the extremely short time-span and movement space it enables the player to get a very high level of freedom and agency to affect events within the loop. It is a loop of the Majora's Mask style in which the protagonist is killed at the end of every unsuccessful loop.
Conclusion.
Seeing how this concept of time-loops has been incrementally developing and evolving over all these different iterations is something I really find interesting, and putting it all on a time-line like this really sheds light on how one influenced the next and then the next after that as well. This is the reason I love looking into the literary history of how various themes developed and evolved over time. I definitely think it is a worth-while practice.
So, would anybody like to help me add to this time-line? I know for sure about at least 1 significant entry that I am missing here. (EDIT: And thanks @SailusGebel for giving me the title for "Edge of Tomorrow" which I had previously stated I forgot at this point. Editing the title request here since I already have it and have edited it in now.)
So, it will be interesting to hear what feed-back you all can give as we try to develop this time-line on the theme of time-loops, and maybe shed some insight into the particulars of the theme for anyone wanting to write such a story in the future.
This got me thinking. We've had a fair number of time-loop plots out there. I'm sure everyone knows about Groundhog's Day, which is the film everyone references when talking about time-loop plots. And, since Groundhog's Day, we've seen these little mutations to the theme and gradual development of the concept over the various iterations.
I thought it would be interesting to put together a time-line that notes the various significant developments on the theme. This is what I have so far.
Note: For the purpose of this list, I define a time-loop as a plot in which the world-setting is re-set multiple times (bare minimum 3,) and someone remembers these past iterations of the world. Time-travel is regarded as unique and separate from time-loops. If it involves climbing into a time-machine in order to go back in time, it will not count unless the protagonist always and consistently goes back to the exact same point in time, and does so, multiple times living through the same scenario for that minimum 3 iterations mentioned. It also requires the protagonist to live through said time period every time. Going back, making one change, then jumping forward in time to see the outcomes will land it firmly in the realm of time-travel and not time-looping.
EDIT: The Girl who Leapt Through Time (1965)
Easily the earliest entry on this. This one was contributed since posting this list by people who responded to this thread, so I cannot give significant details on how it contributes to the theme beyond the fact that, because it is the earliest entry, it made a MAJOR contribution to the theme of time-loop stories simply by introducing the concept to the world.
Groundhog's Day (1993)
The first introduction of the time-loop concept. It is ultimately a rom-com story, and the loop is only 1 day.
EDIT: Upon further entries mentioned by comments, it looks like Groundhog's Day is, in fact, NOT the first introduction of the time-loop concept.
This is a worthy entry on the timeline specifically because of the fact that it brought the concept into the world, but it had several weaknesses that, if used as is, would not allow for many permutations on the them. In order to continue on with this time-loop theme, future iterations were going to need to evolve on from this.
Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (2000)
The next step in the evolution of time-loop themes actually came in the form of a video game.
In Majora's Mask, we begin the trend of extending the time-loop, now to 3 days instead of just 1. Due to it being a video game, it lacks the deep introspection of other time-loop themes of this sort. It's just the player playing as Link. However, it is really Majora's Mask that takes this theme and solidifies it into something rather closely resembling the modern format of the theme.
The idea is that there is a very large and very complex problem out there. This complex problem threatens something resembling the total destruction of the protagonist's world. Now, I am not talking literal world destruction. I do not think that has ever happened in any time-loop theme I'm aware of. But, the event in question really does threaten to destroy every single thing within the scope of what the protagonist interacts with over the course of the loop.
The protagonist has to find a way to solve this problem against these impossible odds with little more than the power to re-set the time-line, going back to the first day of the loop in order to discover a better way to go about things.
Higurashi no naku koro ni (When the Cicadas Cry) (2002-2006)
Now we move into the literary world... sort of.
Higurashi was a visual novel series released in 2 parts. The first part was released in 2002, and the second part was released in 2006. Also in 2006, right around the same time the second part of the PC version was being released, the first part was being adapted into anime.
In this version, we see the time-loop that our characters are trapped in expanded out to an entire month, bringing the time-frame up to something far closer to something like what we see in modern themes of the time-loop concept. However, there were also several other alterations to the concept that came with this iteration that did not survive into future versions of the time-loop concept.
This series was more of a horror-themed novel/game/anime. Perhaps one of the strangest additions to this series is that, in order to play it as a horror-theme, the protagonist we follow for this series IS NOT the person who remembers the various time-loops. This puts the viewer in a very strange place where it looks like we are just watching 5 different stories with the same setting and characters. It is not until the 4th loop through that we get a strange comment from a supporting character, revealing that she actually has knowledge of the previous events in the series, that we even get a hint that we are even in a time-loop series at all.
It also has several other wrinkles, somewhat preventing it from acting as a TRUE time-loop series. Several iterations of the loop see major changes that have absolutely nothing to do with our time-loop character's actions, and in several blatant comments from her that state they are traveling to parallel worlds. They do not even all start our looping character on the same date. The loops all END on the same date, and the overwhelming majority start her off around a month before that date, but the start-date is specifically mentioned as never being consistent.
There really are a great deal of messy bits in this version of the time-loop theme. About the most noteworthy thing about all the extreme experimentation with the theme that this version did was that it proved that these wild ideas really do not work well in most cases.
Now, don't get me wrong. Higurashi really did make these very odd variations somehow work, but that was something of a perfect storm scenario. A sort of meticulously controlled chaos of a patch-work creature. Each idea would be terrible on it's own, but somehow when they were all brought together into a Frankenstein mess, it all managed to work out.
Umineko no naku koro ni (When the Seagulls Cry) (2007-2009)
This is the sequel series to Higurashi by the same developers, and also makes several alterations to the previous theme of the Higurashi series.
Although this version of the theme did not actually make any new additions to the general theme of time-loops, it did become even more wild and experimental than Higurashi did, pulling it way off into the weeds and far into the "soft magic" realm of story-writing. Whatever hard rules you thought you could discern in the world which Higurashi presented are all completely out the window with this series.
In addition to the original horror themes of Higurashi, Umineko seemed to branch off into using it's theme of witches, which are the major threat being faced in this world, as being related to extreme and severe childhood abuse and the destruction that wreaks on not only the child's life as they grow up, but also moves on to destroy the entirety of the family in which it occurs. (Including the completely innocent and ignorant members of the far branches of the family that had no way of even knowing such abuse was happening.)
There are 6 witches in the series. 2 of them are from outside the family. However, the 4 who are inside the family each represent a different and uniquely distinct form of child abuse. Physical, sexual, neglect, and abandonment. One of the two outside the family is a protector of the abused and is the only fully non-hostile witch, and the other is left a mystery. (It is implied in the 2nd part (but never outright stated) that the mystery 6th witch is a connection to the Higurashi series, being the witch incarnation of our time-looper from that series.)
In service to this allegory, this series went out of it's way to bend a lot of rules, favoring ideas and rules for the world that served the allegory rather than themes and ideas that brought realism to the scenario. Once again, much like with Higurashi, it was a complete Frankenstein mess of a concept for a time-loop series, and any one item in the theme would completely tank the series taken in isolation. But, when taken together as a whole, it somehow manages to work.
Radiant Historia (2010)
We are now back to the world of video games.
Radiant Historia came out in 2010 for the Nintendo DS. It is a JRPG style game in which your protagonist gains a special power that is the title name of the game. His Radiant Historia power enables him to jump back and forth through the time line to several key events, and the game even breaks off into 2 major paths.
This is a significant development on the theme as it begins to emphasize the idea that making different choices really does give you dramatically different outcomes.
In order to progress with the game, you often find yourself needing to discover various key pieces of information that are only available on one path, and then use this information to progress on the opposite path.
Overall though, the biggest thing this game did was solidify that the time-loop theme was still popular in the cultural subconscious, and people still liked the idea of this time-looping ability.
Re: Zero - Starting Life in Another World From Zero (2012)
And we are finally into the world of web novels.
While I am certain there may have been other web novels that have attempted this theme, Re: Zero was the first one to really make a major splash on the scene.
Re:Zero manages to truly re-solidify the themes of the time-loop themed stories, while also at the same time managing to introduce it's own new wrinkles as well. It takes a model that is a lot closer to the previously laid out Majora's Mask theme of time-loop stories in which the protagonist is going back to a single consistent point in time, and there really are no changes or variations to that scenario. The protagonist, therefore, has to use their knowledge of previous loops in order to manage past a near insurmountable enemy that simply cannot be defeated with their meager power, and the only way they stand a chance at all is the fact that they know the future and can keep trying again in different ways.
Here's the wrinkle though. Re: Zero introduces something a little like what Radiant Historia did, in that the "save points" of the time-loop actually progress as the protagonist manages to successfully address each point. The "save points" language is significant there. That is the language many people use to describe this model of time-looping as they really do closely resemble the concept of a save-point in some kind of video game.
EDIT: Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
And now, we have gone full circle. We are now back in the realm of major motion pictures. Edge of Tomorrow is a sci-fi action film in which some random soldier is part of the front-lines a military force that is trying to defend the Earth against a hoard of invading insectoid aliens discovers he has the ability to re-set in a time-loop upon death after he participates in an operation eerily similar to the storming of the beaches of Normandy in WW2.
This particular entry makes 2 major developments in the model.
1st, it places a VERY LARGE emphasis on the development of skill a person gets from repeating the same course of events over and over again. Our protagonist goes from some common foot-soldier with mediocre skills to an absolute combat bad-ass and a one-man army in terms of his ability to absolutely devastate the enemy by his own actions alone. This is all a result of him repeating something nearing a hundred iterations of the same fairly short time-frame.
2nd. It introduces the concept of other people who loop through the time-line, featuring a woman who had and lost this power previously who is, as a consequence, already the combat bad-ass our protagonist is destined to become, and the second is the actual commander of the alien hoard. So, we have a concept of 2 good time-loopers Vs. 1 evil time-looper.
This aspect of having opposing time-loopers adds an extra bit of urgency and tension to what would otherwise be a situation with most of the true stakes removed.
Undertale (2015)
Undertale is quite likely one of the very most popular indie-developed games to ever be created by a single developer. As in, there was only one man who worked on this game. Mr. Toby Fox made the entire game.
The only other notable game to compete for that title is Toho Project, also with a single creator.
Undertale, at first glance, does not really look like a time-loop story. It ignores the major world-destruction theme, and if you are good enough at the game you might not even see any signs of there even being a time-loop.
The only way you ever get exposed to this concept is if one of 2 things happen. 1. You die in the game. 2. You re-set the game without saving it.
When either of these two things happen, the actual time-loop nature of this game becomes apparent. In this game, game-like functions are actually cannon. The game actually remembers your progress, even if you don't save it. You are forced to start over at the last save-point, but there are key characters in the game that remember everything you did even if you didn't save, and they make comments to the effect that you are using time-travel powers.
This is not just something played up for funny laughs. This game also has a theme that every monster you fight stays dead after you kill it. This might not be noticed at first because there are some "random-encounter" monsters that look the same as others of the same race, but it is possible to completely and permanently wipe out the local population.
It is also possible to spare the monsters you fight. And, if you have played through paths in the game where you have spared Vs. killing certain monsters that appear in scripted encounters, you will actually see them showing up again at locations like resteraunts and other locations in town.
In other words, the game has it cannon that you are killing these monsters and taking them out of the world, and you have the power to "go back in time," (back to the last save-point, or even re-starting the entire game) and making a different choice from the one you made before.
Modern web novels (2015-today)
There are many more entries in the web-novel world that have not made gigantic pop-culture splashes like the above listed series. However, most modern day web-novel series that depict time-loops tend to follow one of the 2 major hard-magic paths in terms of the time-loops, with the soft-magic path which Higurashi and Umineko took being discarded for the most part by modern writers.
The 2 major paths are the Re:Zero path in which the protagonist has progressive "save points," and the Majora's Mask path in which the protagonist always returns back to the exact same day and time at the start of very loop with no progression other than what they develop in their own mind. In modern webnovels of the Majora's Mask style, the writers seem to have largely adopted at least 1 aspect of the Higurashi version in that the time-frame is often 1 month now.
There seems to be something of an unspoken agreement that 1 month is about the correct length of time for a time-loop. It provides just enough time for the protagonist to be able to do things, but it is just short enough that the time-loop gets re-set frequently and thus keeps the time-loop nature ever present. It is also just short enough of a time-span that the protagonist can conceivably remember various major events that happen over the course of the loop.
However, there actually IS one more rather interesting development in modern web-novels.
The Re:Zero path to web-novel writing seems to have been mostly played out, as there do not seem to be any significant developments in that world. However, the Majora's Mask path to time-loop models seems to still be getting pushed by web-novel writers today, and they are still adding new wrinkles and developments to the theme.
There are 2 significant new developments.
1. The time-loop is limited to only a certain number of loops.
This manages to maintain the power and mistique of the time-loop, but it defeats the major issue that the time-loop removes the stakes. If the number of loops is somehow limited, then the protagonist is really forced to make the most of their situation where they can. However, the number of times they can go through the loop is often big enough to allow plenty of interesting things to happen.
Two notable entries to this model are Mother of Learning, which has an undefined large number of times the loop will repeat, but the fact it is non-infinite still places some pressure on the protagonists. And, then there is also a series called Mark of Time which gives it's protagonist exactly 10 years worth of re-starts. In loops where she lasts the entire month, she looses 1 month off of her 10 year counter. In loops where she dies early, it only removes the number of days she was alive for in that loop from the counter.
Meanwhile, Mother of Learning also picks up the "Edge of Tomorrow" theme of there being multiple minds in the time-loop. When combined with the limited number of re-sets, this makes for a rather tense combination.
Foot-note inclusions
There are other time-loop stories which, while worth mention, are not major time-loop entries on their own either because the time-loop aspect is really not the main feature of the entry, or because it is too isolated in nature to really have any lessons taken from it for wider writing.
Star Trek TNG: Cause and Effect (1992)
"Cause and Effect" is the 18th episode of the 5th season of Star Trek The Next Generation.
This is before even Groundhog's Day was released, making it rather significant that it came out at this time before the time-loop concept was as well developed as we have it now.
In this episode, we see the enterprise stuck in a time-loop of something just shy of a week, and it goes through this time-loop only 3 times. Another significant point is that there is no one person who remembers everything from previous loops. Instead, there are certain locations on the ship in which the phantom voices of the previous loop can be heard, and certain people in the loop (one of which is Beverly Crusher,) can absorb some phantom memories in their sleep which will give them a strange sense of Deja-vu.
Madoka Magica (2011)
The "Madoka Magica" anime is primarily known for the way in which it completely subverted the Magical Girl genre into something horribly dark by exploring what it actually means for middle and high-school age girls to be fighting life or death battles against eldritch horrors.
While time-loops are not the primary theme of this story, the concept does hold a major point of significance. As a matter of fact, this series gives us the perspective of a non-looper who is on the final iteration of a time-loop cycle in which someone else is going through said time-loop.
With the exception of the fact that we do not see any real re-sets of the loop aside from flash-backs from said time-looping character, this series does technically meet the definition and it takes a very unique perspective on the concept that is pulled off rather well.
Twelve minutes (2021)
Twelve minutes is a point and click indie-game in which you are in a very short 12 minute time loop that takes place inside their small 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom, and 1 main room apartment. It meets all the standard definitions of a time-loop, and due to the extremely short time-span and movement space it enables the player to get a very high level of freedom and agency to affect events within the loop. It is a loop of the Majora's Mask style in which the protagonist is killed at the end of every unsuccessful loop.
Conclusion.
Seeing how this concept of time-loops has been incrementally developing and evolving over all these different iterations is something I really find interesting, and putting it all on a time-line like this really sheds light on how one influenced the next and then the next after that as well. This is the reason I love looking into the literary history of how various themes developed and evolved over time. I definitely think it is a worth-while practice.
So, would anybody like to help me add to this time-line? I know for sure about at least 1 significant entry that I am missing here. (EDIT: And thanks @SailusGebel for giving me the title for "Edge of Tomorrow" which I had previously stated I forgot at this point. Editing the title request here since I already have it and have edited it in now.)
So, it will be interesting to hear what feed-back you all can give as we try to develop this time-line on the theme of time-loops, and maybe shed some insight into the particulars of the theme for anyone wanting to write such a story in the future.
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