Time Keeping in non-Earth worlds

[Argentdragon]

I'm just curious about how people go about with time keeping in games that are set in worlds that are not Earth (past, present, or future). This can include fantasy worlds, alternate Earths, or even things like an alien world, etc.

Do you invent your own time system that mimics Earth's (keeping the pattern similar but changing the names of say the days or months)? Do you use the exact same one? Or do you do something completely different for time keeping?

I'd love to hear some input about what people do since I'm not too sure about how I want to do mine yet. Also as a side note, how many of you like having a time keeping system of sorts? Or do you prefer no time keeping of any kind?

Thanks!

 

[Kes]

Thus isn't (yet) a design question, so I'll move it to General Discussion. If it becomes one I'll have to move it back.

 

[Ceres-Eris]

I made my own fantasy calendar. This link was real helpful. It was kinda necessary for my game since it's story driven and has a calendar system. Months are all named after different in-universe Gods and the weekdays are named after different important elements of the world and start with the same letter as our IRL weekdays.

Spoiler: My made up weekdays

Sunday, Moonday, Talesday, Waterday, Thunderday, Fireday, Saintsday

Also, my months are only 15 days long since 30 is too long for what I'm trying to do.

Time system is something I can do without. Even if it is an understandable Gameplay-Story Segregation, having ingame hours pass in minutes is a bit immersion breaking. I much prefer time to change because of story triggers. But I guess this is the sort of thing that can only really be done in linear story games I guess. And in some games it's a bit of an inconvience having to wait for a specific time to do something specific or something. If there is a time system, I want to have a convenient way to change the time to whenever I want. Like Xenoblade.

 

[rue669]

I have not done this myself and you don't really see it much in fantasy and science fiction novels. I mean, the author probably knows but since it's not a big part of the story, it's probably not discussed that much.

It's not a bad idea--I just wouldn't put so much emphasis on it unless there's like...a day/night system in your game and quests are taken based on times and days. But mentioning the made-up times and days every once in awhile in lore and whatnot is a cool idea to help with immersion.

 

[Davox]

Oooohh, this is really interesting! Well, in my project, at some point, the protagonists must go to a dimension that it's something like a purgatory, where lost souls live and all that stuff. Time doesn't exists there, if for some reason you end up there before dying, you only have a couple of earth's days (if you can keep track of time) before getting stucked in there.

~Davox

 

[Tai_MT]

Honestly, I think you don't have to create your own months/days naming convention. Or minutes/seconds/hours. At least... not unless you're doing something sci fi, where the lengths of things matter.

The problem you'll run into is that there's little way to know what is or is not the "beginning of the week", nor will you really care what the month is.

Final Fantasy XIV tried to do this with "picking a birthday". Without living in that world as a real person, the months and days didn't mean anything to me. In the context of a video game, you're going to have the same issue. Does "Sunday" mean anything to a video game player? Not really. Not unless you have some kind of event or something the player cares about every Sunday. So, changing the names of these days isn't going to have much context either.

The last game I played where the Calendar mattered was Stardew Valley. Let me show you how much that actually mattered:
1. On Sunday, I can begin giving gifts to people if I'd given them two gifts last week. I only bother remembering this after I've completed most of the game and have begun giving gifts to get the last of the recipes.
2. Pierre's is closed on Wednesdays, which I have never remembered in the 400 hours I've played the game until I just happened to need seeds on a Wednesday and he was closed so I couldn't get them.
3. On Tuesday, many of the women of the town go to Pierre's to exercise, so their businesses are closed. I forgot this as often as I forgot about Pierre's.
4. On Friday and Sunday, there's a trader in the forest who sells random stuff. I always forget about this unless I happen to walk by them.
5. On Sunday and Wednesday, "The Queen of Sauce" airs for recipes. I remembered this as I didn't want to wait to try to get recipes I've missed. I also did not want to miss any recipes.

See, unless we live in the world we're interacting with... the names for days, weeks, months, seconds, minutes, and hours... don't really mean anything to us.

"What month is it?" "Oh, it's Cynbalarium." "Okay. Is it any different from Querislaus last month?" "In terms of the game? Nope. Just flavor text." "Okay, then I'll continue to not remember what the month is since it doesn't matter."

Meanwhile, in the real world... "It's October" "Oh, Halloween is this month, and the leaves start turning colors and falling from trees... it's starting to get a bit colder... my kids are gonna want costumes... candy will go on sale for cheap..." "Next month is November." "Yep, gonna go visit relatives on my wife's side of the family for Thanksgiving. I hope we don't get early snow. I wonder who's going to win the big game."

Do you see the difference?

Unless you give some pretty good context for a player, they really don't care what you call these things, as these things honestly don't matter anyway. It's like if you renamed grass to "Slish". I mean... nice you came up with a name... but... it's grass. I don't care.

 

[k_mckenzie]

I loved the calendar system in Legend of Mana. I've always wanted to design a similar one. I think my favorite part of that game's calendar was the ease in learning it; when it isn't immediately accessible, I feel like it gets in the way of the player's immersion—but if it's intuitive, and I can pick it up as I go, it's a winner.

This link was real helpful.

Thank you for sharing this! It has so much more than calendars, too!

 

[RachelTheSeeker]

Truth be told, I've attempted these in the past to a degree. But it's to the point where I'm maybe good to handwave it all, even including month and day names? It does help that one of my settings is a post-apocalyptic Earth, but I'm debating on how to handle this for my main RPG Maker setting, a fantasy one. In the past, I've kept fantasy months and times simple; numbered months and military time (i.e. 0945 hours, 12th of Secondmonth), but those ideas seem vapid these days.

My fantasy setting may or may not be set on another planet within the same universe as Earth, even if Earth is never discovered in its canon. As such it's a goal to hint that not only are its gods aspects or avatars of Egyptian deities, but that the planet is one in orbit around the star Arcturus (of whom there may be evidence of a planetary star system, IIRC; I just love the star's name). Of course none of these facts really come up in setting, just being Word of God(dess) ideas that come to mind. I've had a bucket list concept of a crossover between my post-apoc and fantasy worlds though, and this thread does give me food for thought.

Looking at modern names for months and days, they do fall into classical and mythical naming conventions (as well as just Roman words for numbers, lawl). It does help too that my fantasy setting is flavored toward places like Greece, Egypt, and Persia; if I wanted to I could name the weekdays after the five main deities of my setting, in addition to the sun and moon? Thinking on this, the Egyptian calendar is different than the Gregorian one of today, with its own various holidays and such. Its New Year's Day is July 19th, and it has a trio of four-month seasons as opposed to our four seasons of three months each. Though there is no Nile River expy right now that reflects the Egyptian's calendar conventions, it seems a starting point.

Holy cow, this thread have been an eye of the (brain)storm for relevant setting lore. Kudos, Argentdragon. o_o

 

[Redeye]

Unless your world has a culture that speaks Latin and another that worships the Norse gods, you probably shouldn't use the gregorian calendar in a fantasy world. While renaming your fantasy calendar is far from imperative when building your world, you should at least change the names if you're planning on mentioning them in text.

 

[Black Pagan]

I would love a game with a Night and a Day system any day and maybe 2 kinds of weather - Sunny or Stormy weather. That's it. Something as simple as this can be pretty fun and make the Player feel the world is more interactive, Regardless of the size of the Game.

I normally don't like games with a Time system. I hate Timed Challenges and the game constantly reminding me how much time has passed. Makes me think of time in the real world and distracts me from the game. Also, I like my game relaxed and casual.

If any game would ask me to complete any challenge within a time limit, I would just click the exit button and be done with the game. That's just me