Naming time? (how to measure time ingame)

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9 comments, last by Durakken 10 years, 3 months ago

if you want your own time measurement you can call them "clicks" or "cycles"

If it fits in your game you can even have 8 clicks in one cycle

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As a player, I'd feel comfortable with standard time units, completely divorced from the real-time variable game speed and appropriately rounded: "grow cannabis - 9 weeks"; "cannabis ready in 44 days", "cannabis ready tomorrow", etc. Dates would also be good: "cannabis ETA: 30 December". The player learns (roughly) how fast days pass at different speed settings and sees data change on the screen.

In a turn-based game, on the other hand, all durations should be given in turns to allow the player to plan exactly: "grow cannabis - 180 turns", "cannabis ready in 23 turns", etc.

Omae Wa Mou Shindeiru

Dates and such can be in whatever internally consistent time you want, but "time till done" type numbers need to be in units the player can easily recognize and process.

If a day in the game world is 20 minutes for example (which is 2.38% real time) you can display 10 minutes as 12 noon... but you should never label "time till complete" things such as you want to say build a tank and it takes 20 minutes of real time to do..say 20 minutes, not 1 day. Otherwise there is too much to keep in mind and takes the focus off the player doing other things...

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