In-Universe Game Clock: Difference between revisions

A common trope in video games is the passage of time, including day and night cycles. Depending on the game, this can either be an attempt at realism or a way to introduce other features (including a night-based variant of the [[Underground Monkey]]). The result is one or more of the following:

 

# The time of day/week/month/year/whatever affects character statistics.

# Changes the types of monsters that spawn, or which NPCs [[NPC Scheduling|can be encountered]].

 

Contrast [[Take Your Time]]. [[NPC Scheduling]] is a subtrope.

 

== Tied To System Clock ==

** ''[[Quest for Glory II]]'' is one big time-based mission.

* ''[[King's Quest III]]'' doesn't have a day/night cycle, but it does have a clock that starts at 00:00:00 in the status bar, and some game events are tied to it. For example, figuring out when the evil wizard will and won't be home will let you avoid being killed by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

* In the ''Myst'' game ''End of Ages'', the solar system which the world of Laki'ahn belongs to is structured such that there is a solar eclipse every five minutes.

* ''[[Dark Cloud (Video Game)|Dark Cloud]] 2'' also runs an accelerated time-pace. Shops remain open at all times, but various characters can be found in different places at different times. They never actually ''sleep'', though. The time of day is mostly important for catching specific photographs, such as the full moon or the sunrise. There's also the 'Lamb Sword', which transforms into the 'Wolf Sword' at night, with a MAJOR increase in attack power.

* ''Radiata Stories'' has a 24-hour day/night system where the plot advances by doing certain activities at certain times. This unfortunately leads to a lot of instances of the [[Lost Forever]].

* ''[[Harvest Moon|Harvest Moon: Magical Melody]]'' has roughly 120:1 time compression, where 10 minutes of game time pass in 5 seconds.

* Leads to awesome [[Fridge Logic]] in [[Roller Coaster Tycoon]] when you realize that your park guests have been standing in line for ''months'' without eating, sleeping or going to the bathroom.

** Clearly you've never been to [[Disney Theme Parks|Disney World]].

* ''[[Brave Fencer Musashi]]'' uses an in-game clock that marks off an hour a minute (except when paused, sleeping, or fighting bosses) and a seven-day calendar that results in shops being closed one day of the week apiece and {{spoiler|the final level (entirely time-frozen) only being accessible on a Skyday}}.

* In ''[[Hearts of Iron]]'' (1,2 and 3) every in game hour is a turn and you can control the speed at which time passes (and also pause it completely). Fighting at night comes with hefty penalties to both the attacker and defender and night bombings and air battles are also much less effective. Also certain technologies offer bonuses that improve effectiveness at night (such as night vision gear, aircraft radar and special night training).

* ''[[Gaia Online]]'' originally had a 2:1 Day/Night Cycle, though this was sped up so that a full 24 hour cycle takes about two hours. This is fairly important, especially in ''zOMG!''. Certain enemies only appear at night (including one mini boss), you can only talk to the Surfers during their nightly bonfire party. (And even then you only have a portion of the whole night, because even they need to sleep), and certain events are only possible at night. (You can only trick or treat at night, for example.)

* In ''[[Mabinogi]]'', every ingame day lasts 36 real minutes, with more mana regeneration during the night, and Part Time jobs happening at various times in the day. Each real day means an ingame month, which special effects for each of them. Each real week equals an ingame year. And logging in on Saturday after noon (according to the server) ages your character by one year.

* In ''[[Pathologic]]'', one in-game minute is roughly equivalent to five real-time seconds. Due to the fact that your character walks at a snail's pace and the entire game is a brutal [[Timed Mission]], the clock can make things quite difficult for you.

* [[Xenoblade]] has the usual 24-hour clock with one second being usual one minute, and most named NPCs are only available at specific hours and some monsters only spawn at specific time of the day. Considering how many NPCs there are and how many of them have sidequests associated with them, it's a mercy that you can change the ingame time at will. There's also an ingame achievement called "Happy New Year!" for seeing a total of 365 sunrises.

* ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]: 358/2 Days'' is, as the title suggests, constrained to slightly under a year as far as the plot goes. And in story mode, time really does keep on slipping-you can only do one mission per day, and sometimes the game will skip two or three weeks at a time (raising the question of [[Fridge Logic]]: it's mentioned that they get precious few days off, so why don't you get experience and mission rewards for the missions Roxas goes on while you're watching the days counter rise?). But until you've done your mission for the day, time is locked in place-you can faff about in the shop, redo previous missions in the holo-room, or just sit around staring at the wall for hours on end and time will never advance.

** Which adds [[Fridge Logic]] of why the survive for one minute mission takes all day.

** Very strange in ''[[Persona 3]]''. Feel free to take the monorail back and forth across the city as many times as you want while doing [[Fetch Quest|Fetch Quests]]; it takes no time. But leave your dorm on Sunday, realize right outside the door that you forgot to do something, and try to go back in? The act of walking through the door will take all day, and it'll be evening by the time you make it inside.

* In the [[Freeware Game]] Survivor: The Living Dead every single gameplay mode is tied to a clock (except one short area in the story mode), when the timer runs out you get rescued. The final unlockable mode has no rescue, and you must survive until sunrise.

[[Category:Video Game Tropes]]

[[Category:In Universe Game Clock]]