4.1. The Passage Of Time

| Chapter 4: Time and Plot |

| 4.1. The Passage Of Time

A game that makes heavy use of time may want to give the player a hint that time is important - and an easy way to keep track of how it's going - by adding the current time to the status line, instead of the score. To do this, we would write

> When play begins: change the right hand status line to "[time of day]".

All else being equal, time passes at a rate of one minute per turn. But this need not be so: we can imagine a game where turns take much less time, or much more; or a game in which the passage of time was sometimes suspended, or one in which different actions required different amounts of time to perform.

Situation Room provides a way to print 24-hour time, while Zqlran Era 8 implements a completely new measurement of time, for a game set on an alien world.

Uptempo and The Hang of Thursdays speed up time's passage: turns take fifteen minutes in the former, or a quarter day in the latter.

Timeless makes certain actions instant, so that they don't count against the clock; this is sometimes useful in timed situations where the player needs to review the situation before going on with a tricky puzzle. Endurance systematically extends this idea to allow us to assign different durations to any action in the game. The Big Sainsbury's goes the opposite direction, and meticulously adds a minute to the clock for all implicit take actions, just so that the player isn't allowed to economize on moves.

An alternative approach to time is not to tell the player specifically what hour of the day it is at all, but to move from one general time period to another as it becomes appropriate - when the player has solved enough puzzles, or worked his way through enough of the plot. To this end we might use scenes representing, say, Thursday afternoon and then Thursday evening; then our scene rules, rather than the clock, would determine when Thursday afternoon stopped and Thursday evening began:

> Thursday afternoon is a scene. Thursday evening is a scene.

> Thursday afternoon ends when the player carries the portfolio.

> Thursday evening begins when Thursday afternoon ends.
> When Thursday evening begins:
> say "The great clock over St. Margaret's begins to chime 6.";

Though this gives time a loose relation to the number of turns played, it feels surprisingly realistic: players tend to think of time in a game in terms of the number of significant moves they made, while the random wandering, taking inventory, and looking at room descriptions while stuck don't make as big an impression. So advancing the game clock alongside the player's puzzle solutions or plot progress can work just as well as any stricter calculation.

See Passers-By, Weather and Astronomical Events for cycles of day and night scenes

See Waiting, Sleeping for commands to let the player wait until a specific time or for a specific number of minutes

See Clocks and Scientific Instruments for clocks that can be set to times and that have analog or digital read-outs

See Timed Input for discussion of extensions allowing real-time input

142
| Example Situation Room Printing the time of day in 24-hour time, as in military situations. |
WI

249
| Example Zqlran Era 8 Creating an alternative system of time for our game, using new units. |
WI

391
| Example Uptempo Adjust time advancement so the game clock moves fifteen minutes each turn. |
WI

183
| Example The Hang of Thursdays Turns take a quarter day each, and the game rotates through the days of the week. |
WI

397
| Example Timeless A set of actions which do not take any game time at all. |
WI

In a game with tight timing, it is sometimes friendliest to the player to let him LOOK and EXAMINE as much as necessary without being penalized. "Timeless" Examining something is acting fast. Looking is acting fast. Now we need a rule which, just at the right moment, stops the turn sequence rulebook in the cast of our new fast-acting actions: The take visual actions out of world rule is listed before the every turn stage rule in the turn sequence rules. This is the take visual actions out of world rule: if acting fast, rule succeeds. Thus the rest of the turn sequence rulebook is omitted for looking or examining: in effect, they become out-of-world actions like "saving the game". If we wanted to add, say, taking inventory to the list of instant activities, we would just need to define it as acting fast, too. Now the scenario for testing: When play begins: say "You are cornered by a pack of zombie wolves, armed only with a torch and a pair of pinking shears. This may be your last moment on earth, unless you can think fast!" Cleft is a room. "You're backed into a cleft in the granite: behind you are only steep, high faces of stone, and before you a narrow passage." The plural of zombie wolf is zombie wolves. A zombie wolf is a kind of animal. Four zombie wolves are in Cleft. Rule for writing a paragraph about zombie wolves: say "The good news is that there isn't much space in which for the zombie wolves to attack."; now every zombie wolf is mentioned. A steep high face of stone is scenery in Cleft. Understand "rock" as the stone. The description is "Now that you look more closely, there appear to be pitons driven into the rock." Some pitons are part of the stone. The description of the pitons is "It looks as though someone else has made this ascent before." Instead of climbing the stone, try going up. Instead of climbing the pitons, try going up. Above the Cleft is Clifftop. Every turn when the location is Cleft: say "Alas, your time has run out. The alpha wolf springs--"; end the story. Every turn when the location is Clifftop: say "After a breathless climb, you emerge at last onto the open clifftop."; end the story finally. Test me with "x me / x stone / x pitons / climb pitons".

400
| Example Endurance Giving different actions a range of durations using a time allotment rulebook. |
WI

363
| Example The Big Sainsbury's Making implicit takes add a minute to the clock, just as though the player had typed TAKE THING explicitly. |
WI

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