I am making a 2d platformer where the player can press a button, and restart the level, only their previous character will also run the level at the same time, like they are traveling back in time.

I know other games have done this before, and the way I have thought of doing it is to make the game character have a set of actions (Idle, Jumping, Walking Left etc.) and then detect changes in those actions and log them into a list along with the game time. So then when I need the character to run the level again on its own, I can just go through the list changing its actions at the right time.

Is this the best way to do it? Does anyone have any experience in this?

Thanks.