Ok, as some of you know, I''m developing a 3D Adventure game called "Enigma." Now, up until now I was planning on having the whole world be real-time, as in day turning to night constantly regardless of the player''s activities. However, as I am starting to really design the puzzles and tasks of the game, I have come to realize that this may be a bit limiting for the player, and tough for me. For instance: Let''s say I want to do some really cool nighttime chase scene ... well, in the game world night only lasts for about 15 minutes, so I''d have to formulate it to be pretty short. This might be disappointing to the player. Also, I''d have to figure out a solution for things like a character telling you to check out some mysterious occurence at the cemetery but you just decide to blow it off ... then day rolls around and now what? Understand my problem? Now if I were to create day/night cycles based upon the player reaching specific plot points, puzzle design and all would be much better but the game world would be less realistic (but then again, 1 hour day/night cycles isn''t very realistic to begin with...). So what do you guys think? Which would you rather have? Input very much appreciated! Thanks. Alex ------------------------------ Changing the face of adventure gaming... Atypical Interactive

I would like a night day game if it was real time. I mean dark for around 10 hours and then light the rest. The game could take
place over a weekend, like the movie 48hours. I''ve played games that turned dark and light over a time peroid like 15min to a hour and it''s wierd. I don''t really like it too be honest but I''m sure if it was done right could be pretty cool. I would opt for real time or set time. By set time I mean say your event at the graveyard, it would be night for that. When they had accomplished the mini-mission they go back to the hotel,crash, and the next time they can control it it is day again. This is the most common approach I have seen, and I am going to use this style for a game I''m working on, but only because I can get away with it without the down sides. The downs sides to this are you can get stuck for like 5 hours during a sunset and the sun never sets.

Why not both? they did it in the quest for glory games it was like half hour for day another half hour for night unless they had a certain plot element going then it was fixed. like at one point in the first game you had to get a root out of a graveyard and make it back to a garden it was night untill you reached the garden after that it goes back to the switching every half hour

Hmm, that''s interesting. Could you possibly give me a little more detail on how it was done in Quest for Glory? What I mean is, was it weird that suddenly time stopped moving? Did they make it clear in some way?

Thanks for the input, very interesting.

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Changing the face of adventure gaming...
Atypical Interactive

Quest for Glory 3 eximplified this much better. There''s different map levels and time levels associated with it. When you''re zoomed in, up close.. time passes at like 10 hours per every 30 minutes. When you were in the "world map" time passed much quicker, but your guy moved much faster. This was because of the vast distances you needed to travel. I think in this map it was like 10 hours passed in 5 minutes

Now, when you had to do certain plot items "go to graveyard and get thing" time wouldn''t wait for you. if you didn''t go there at night, you didn''t get it. But you could wait until night, and then go there and time changed because you were in a plot item. You could wait there all day and i don''t think time changed. Although this is kinda wierd. You can program it so that time is slowed a bit, like an hour every 5 minutes or so. But the QFG games never made things disappear when it became night. You had to leave the room and return. The rooms were set, it wasn''t full 3d, but 2d isometric. You walked to the edge of the room to go to the next one. I don''t know how you plan on running this, but it''d be nice to see the rooms/area change when night came about. Instead of making people go to another room

QFG had no real "time limit" on things, either. You could walk around all you wanted, nothing happened. Sometimes you had to go from here to there within 3 days or something.. but still.. QFG3 was particularly funny like this. You could run around for however long and nothing happened. There was supposed to be this huge war between a tribe and the city or something.. and it was gonna happen in three months. Well, my friend walked around for three years!!! THREE YEARS!!! and nothing happened.. lol the game seriously said like day 1090 or something. LOL it was a very good game though, great interface on the older ones. I think Sierra has gone down hill since then. Kings Quest 8 really sucked the interface was crappy and the game in general was weak. QFG5 was about the same. It was still good and in the QFG mannor, but the interface changed some and it became harder. They moved it a little more 3d and it was hard to target some of the smaller flying creatures. There was one point where my friend and i had a particularly hard time with it. All i can say is beta test REALLY well. Heck, i''ll volunteer to help. I''ve found all sorts of simple problems in games that people just never bothered to fix. Gauntlet Ledgends is one of these. The camera angles in it make it near impossible to see IN FRONT OF YOU. what the hell? can my character not see a trap in front of him? he walks right into it.. simply because it doesn''t come on screen until it''s too late. Things like this are rather disappointing.
good luck with it.

J

Thanks for all the input. As you can see at my site (atypical-interactive.com), we''ve decided to make it more traditional and go with that time changes based on the player achieving plot points.

In general it makes design easier AND it''s better for the player in a lot of ways (and don''t worry Niphty, the NPC''s move around very realistically...you don''t have to leave an area and return to see them update ).

Thanks again everyone. I encourage you to check out the press release at my site and see what you think of my decision.

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Changing the face of adventure gaming...
Atypical Interactive