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Clock Watching For Improved Gameplay?

Posted by simoniker on from the brian-stimpson-suitably-impressed dept.

Thanks to GamerDad for their editorial discussing the use of a PC/console's internal clock to drive gameplay. The article starts by looking at GBA title Boktai, which "...knows what the time of day is and adjusts the onscreen graphics and gameplay to coordinate with the conditions", and also applauds "...a number of notable games that have used the internal clock in a console to either drive gameplay or allow for timed release of features", referencing Nintendo's Animal Crossing in particular. But the author also advocates simpler time-based rewards, as used in titles like Ikaruga: "Instead of having all the goodies that come with repeated play be unlocked through tasks, how about releasing some of those things dependent on how many hours you spend playing a game?"

3 of 50 comments (clear)

  1. Tamagotchi's by glassesmonkey · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Isn't this the same as the Tamagotchi electronic pets that you have to feed at certain times and sleeps based on internal clock. Also those robotic pets (AIBO, etc) that have similar behaviors.

  2. A few games I remember that used the system clock by odellp · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This reminds me of a few games that have used the system clock in ingenious ways.

    In the Curse of Monkey Island On the first Island there is a clock tower that displays the same time as your system clock and if you click on it Threepwood would say the time to you (the time is ... at the beep, BEEP)

    Dungeon Keeper 2 would tell you a funny one liner (can't remember what exactly) if you were playing the game in the early hours of the morning, somewhere around 3am I beleive.

    Warcraft 2 would have christmas lights on the building ons christmas.

    Either No Regret or No Remorse would play christmas music on Christmas day.

  3. Re:Hours Played by Jimmy_Chi · · Score: 2, Interesting

    On a related side note: Metropolis Street Racing was the first game I played that also used the internal clock to adjust gameplay. When you first play the game, you choose your time zone, and from then on that's the time in the game.

    The kicker was that the different cities were in different time zones. So if you lived in NY and its (realtime) noon, but were racing in Japan at the moment, it'd be (gametime) nighttime where you're racing because of the time zone difference. If you were racing on NY though, you might catch an in-game sunset at the same time you catch it out your window at home. ...I got a kick out of it...