Time cycle

[Balako]

now i know lots of people have day night cycle with season cycle ....but i wanted to know what others thought of an acceptable day night cycle time in real life to Game


and days to season change time as well!


for example, i find a one hour in real life to 24 hours in game rather too much...an acceptable one would be around 15-30 minutes??


would be nice to have a discussion on this to know everyone's opinions

 

[Hudell]

Depends on how much content you have per day. The longest I have seen was 30 minutes days, with 24 minutes being more commonly used. Some games use way less than that.

 

[Jeysonmcfly]

I think that around 20-30 minutes for a 24 hour period is good. allows you to break the game up into even segments of day and night.

 

[Ghost of Christmas Kloe]

It really really depends on the style of game. I prefer 20-30 mins per day, that way you can have roughly 1sec per min.


Even better though would be a new fancy way of looking at time in your game! A new time system where a day doesn't need 24 hours and a day doesn't need to be called a day. Who says Lunchtime can't be 7 qwertys every 2 wasds.


That sort of inventiveness would make time based systems WAY more interesting!

 

[bgillisp]

I've heard of games doing 1 second real time = 1 minute in game. This works out to about 24 minutes for a full day in game then.


Though, remember Quest for Glory? Anyone? That game did 2 hours = 1 day. But, it also let you rest in 10, 30 and 60 minute intervals, so you could rest to advance the clock. Also, most of those games were meant to be beaten before the game clock hit day 30, so the longer cycle made sense. So, it probably depends on how fast things should happen in your game. If your goal is to stop the bandits before Spring ends, you might need a cycle as long as Quest for Glory did. If you want the game to span years of game time though, then 1 second = 1 minute in game is probably perfect.

 

[Balako]

If your goal is to stop the bandits before Spring ends,

what about seasons? 15 days per one season? 30 days?

 

[bgillisp]

what about seasons? 15 days per one season? 30 days?

The game I know that did this had the entire game in one season, and 1 season = 30 days. So you had to win the game in 30 days.

 

[Azurecyan]

A 30 minute cycle for a 24 hour period is acceptable. Go beyond that and you'll find some players not wanting to wait an hour for nightfall or daylight. If you go beyond 30 minutes or stay at 30 minutes, I suggest if they stay at an inn they are allowed the option to wake up during the night or day, or the following day. If the game revolves around beating the game within a time limit, there'd have to be a few endings to the game.


I know of a game that did a different sort of time system where however many battles you enter you "waste" time, meaning you miss out on some crucial quests, some main story points, and/or some recruitable characters if you grind too much. It was really a big drawback but I never completed the game.


Another game I know of had a time system as well(I forget how long each day was), but progression of the story only happened if you go into your house to rest or just entering your house.

 

[Little Adventurer]

*is nodding at bgillisp* I know exactly what you're talking about! I love QFG!


The second game is what you're thinking of with the 30 day time limit. It's actually the only game that has a time limit, the others (1, 3, 4 and 5) had none and you could take as long you wanted to do stuff.

 

[bgillisp]

*is nodding at bgillisp* I know exactly what you're talking about! I love QFG!


The second game is what you're thinking of with the 30 day time limit. It's actually the only game that has a time limit, the others (1, 3, 4 and 5) had none and you could take as long you wanted to do stuff.

I thought I was the only one on here who remembered that game! That game was responsible for how I spent my summers in '92 and '93 (as '92 was when I discovered that series). Yep, QFG2 has the 30 day time limit, though I thought I heard that in QFG1 that if you didn't finish by day 30 the bandits moved and you lost the game. Or, maybe that was only in the old EGA version? As it is I never tested it, didn't feel like waiting that long just to find out if the rumor is true.


But I think the big takeaway needs to be the time cycle needs to fit the game. Quest for Glory would have been awful on a 1 sec = 1 minute cycle most likely. But, Harvest Moon would have been torture if you did 1 day = 2 hours.

 

[Little Adventurer]

Oooogh... as much as I loved game 5, that was one thing I couldn't STAND was that the clock moves so quickly! That's one big complaint I had.