Hi,

I'm making a simple 2D platformer game applet in java, in which the player needs to complete the level before sunset.
So I want to create a function that gets the time till sunset, and draw the background and the sun.
I thought to draw a circle and change its color, and maybe use a gradient for the bckground which will also change its color,
But I want to know if you have a better idea. (I don't think you can possibly have a much worse idea... :-)

Your idea sounds good. If you are good at drawing, or have an artist that makes your graphics, you could perhaps use an image with a changing color-table and blend a sun-image on top. Maybe if you add some animated birds or clouds it would look more realistic.

I once saw a game involving a virtual pop-up book where you had to flip pieces on one side to make them mirror the other side. They used a timer based on an old-fashioned clock sort of like this:

There was one hand on the clock, representing nightfall. It started all the way to the left, and the picture on the right side of the clock represented dawn. Then as the hand swept from the left to the right, the dawn image want under the horizon and more and more night image was exposed on the right.