[Fusion]

Well i came up with the idea of a big game where things run off the system clock, and as such has a night and day system.

• Morning = 5 AM Till noon
  
• Evening = Noon till 6 PM
  
• Night = 6 PM untill 5 AM

And it also has things happening at some times
like on monday night there might be an influx of bad guys around the city square that will attack on sight and by morning they will be asleap and easy picking..stuff like that.

is it a good idea or a bad one?

[Val]

...shouldn't this be in the journals section?

[Terryn]

Not really, guy. This doesn't look like anything close to dedicated work on a game.

However, it sure doesn't belong here, and in that respect you're right.

MZX General for now.

[Dr Lancer-X]

Rename 'Evening' to 'Afternoon' and you're set. The hours seem pretty right..

[hob nado]

Could be really interesting, or it could be really not. Since you're running off the system clock, it WILL be cool that whatever time you play the game at will be the same time in the game, but is that really cool when you have to stay up late or get up early just to get through a certain part? Essentially, the game has the potential to control your playing schedule. Depends on how you script events, I guess.

[Razerboy]

Is it even possible to run a game using the system clock? If so, I'm definitely going to use it to maximum potential.

[Koji]

Have you been reading the post?

Anyway, I think it'd be cool if certain aspects of the game would change depending on what time you play, but scripting events to only happen at such and such a time slot isn't such a great idea. You'd exclude people from the game experience who's schedules conflict with the plot development.

Take me for example, I work night shift, so if something very important to the plot happens in the afternoon, I'll miss it. To make the player conform to the games schedule is unfair.

Most games that are real time oriented are VERY OPEN ended games, and usually don't have an actual plot to follow.

I was going to make some secret events and the passing of days (with some palette effects) real time in chronostodian. the players and the enemies would react differently in battle and dialogue depending on what time of day it was, BUT it wouldn't effect the plot. Meaning that no matter what time it is that you play the plot can still progress.

There?s nothing I'd hate more than to play a video game that would TELL me to wait until tomorrow to continue my quest.

[RoSS]

Well... all you'd have to do is change your Windows clock =P

[Micah]

I don't really think you can construct a quality game with just a day & night engine. Is there anything else besides a day and night engine that would make me want to play it? These are the kinds of things you have to look out for. The only games that get by with one engine are minigames. Good luck and everything, also.

[Dr Lancer-X]

I say that, used correctly, a day + night engine would add value to a well-made game, but as Micah said, a game can't stand entirely on that one engine.

[Pyro1588]

a well-done day/night engine can add to a game, but the game still needs good gameplay.

[Zenith Nadir]

The time scale I'd go by in such an engine would be like this;

0:00-6:00; Night
6:00-12:00; Morning
12:00-18:00;Afternoon
18:00-00:00; Evening

Just a suggestion. Personally I like games with that sort of day/night thing (though the only one I've actually played was the SNES game Seiken Densetsu 3, which only really paid attention to earth rotation rather than npcs' routines, eg. little kids hanging around at 4am)

[zombieguy]

I think I'd rather play a game thats days last 24 minutes.

edit: (THE SIMS MZX,, LOL)

This post has been edited by ZoMbIeGuY: 02 July 2004 - 12:16 PM

[Koji]

I don't think 24 minute long days would have the same effect on the player as a real time Cercidium cycle engine.

Days aren't 24 minutes long therefore the game will just seem that much MORE like a game and actually take away from the depth of the games pull on the player. If you want the player to feel like he is PART of the game you have to utilize things that are OF the player, such as the players sense of time, wealth, importance, haste, or whatever. Anything that taps into the player themselves draws the player in. A real time clock might do this, but a 24 minute day wouldn't.

And as I am notorious in saying it, it's mandatary that I say this is just my opinion.

[zombieguy]

Well, if you've played Morrowind, I guess you could kinda know what I'm talking about.
Besides, these are MegaZeux games... I usually have better things to do than to play an mzx game for more than a few hours. Unless it's pulled off really well (loads of stuff constantly happening, craploads of work put into the game - a 50 meg .mzx file :P) I doubt it'd keep my interest.

[Koji]

Oh ye of little faith.

Just because a game's in mzx doesn't mean it cannot be just as good as another game. But then I guess it depends on what makes a game good for you individually.

I'm sure we've been through that conversation before...

[asgromo]

Haven't any of you people ever even heard of "Animal Crossing"? Seriously, d00ds.

[Koji]

Well Animal Crossing didn't have a plot. So the time thing didn't much affect that aspect.

Animal Crossing was just a life simulator, you had no set goals that would lead to an end of the game... Sure if you finally pay off the racoon you get a statue.... Woo hoo, you got it, now keep playing because there are like a bazillion things to collect, and we all know how much some gamers like to show off their collection of items in a game.

That was the drive in Animal Crossing... Collect collect collect. Nothing else really.

So there wasn't anything that a real time clock would screw up.

[Micah]

I just thought about it...and wouldn't the player eventually need sleep? I mean, if the player is walking around from 9pm to 9am trying to find nighttime items...they would get all sleepy and stuff.

[Razerboy]

Micah, if Pokemon did it, so can MZX.

All these ideas are great, but how on earth do you code such an engine? has anyone thought of that yet?

[Revvy]

... By using the built-in time counters if you actually read the thread or the text files with mzx =(

[Koji]

Peh... DUH!

Micah, read the post, man! We've referenced to these time counters maybe half a dozen times (not included repeated uses in code). A day/night graphic engine has already been created more than enough times (weather it be palette manipulation or fade outs) and the rest is simple if statements.

if "hours_time" = 3 "3am"

These aren't new counters either, they've been around since mzxak I believe. I figured you knew about these.

[Micah]

That's not what I am talking about. I mean, realistically, wouldn't a person get tired if they never slept? I am talking about the player in the game....not an actual human who is playing the game. I know about those counters...I just thought the player would need sleep after a while.

[Koji]

Well Reasonably it could be concluded that the playable character sleeps when the human character type person is sleeping.

So unless two people are double teaming the game at once in 12 hour shifts.... Then you people spend too much time and energy playing mzx games!

[Razerboy]

Will somebody *please* give an example of how to code such a day/night engine that runs from the system clock? I made one ages ago but is it possible for MZX to actually communicate with the system clock?

[Torte]

Yup, although I can't remember the counters used for it right now... oh well.

[Koji]

"Time_hour" "Time_minute" "Time_second"

Will give you the times.

"Day_day" "Date_month" "Date_year"

If I'm unmistaken, also will give you the date.

There is no counter that gives you the day of the week, although you can figure it out remembering that Jan 1, 2000 was a saturday.
"(((date_year/4)*1461) + ((date_year%4) * 365) + "days_up_to_month(month)" + date_day) % 7)"

Day_up_to_month# is the total ammount of days leading up to that month (no including the days in the actual month) for instance january would be 0 while febuary would be 31 etc.

This would return 0 to 6. 0 being saturday and 6 being friday.

There isn't much you can do with these counters, but get this type of information, what one does with the information is there own innovation.

This real time engine isn't hard to create, especially since it's already in easy to read and understand counters. The only challenge is to have your events scripted so that they happen on certain moments. However, These events have to be crafted so that they'd make sense if the player misses an event or enters the game on that event.

Now this will limit the type of game you can use this with, any heavily plot driven game is completely out of the question. Unless ofcourse that plot is independant of these events. which sounds odd but I'm sure it's possible in some way yet unknown to me.

[Nytar]

I can think of a few things that could use the dates and wouldn't interfere with plot. Making a game switch to super-hard difficulty on every Friday the 13th might work, or showing special messages on certain holidays.

[Razerboy]

Koji, on Jul 9 2004, 11:21 PM, said:

"Time_hour" "Time_minute" "Time_second"

Will give you the times.

"Day_day" "Date_month" "Date_year"

If I'm unmistaken, also will give you the date.

The "Date_Day", "Date_Month" and "Date_Year" counters work, but I need to correct you on the time counters. They are actually "Time_Seconds", "Time Minutes" and "Time Hours". Just so people don't get confused

[Koji]

Oops.

Oh well, RTFM!