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AG Theme of the Week #21 - What time is it?

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There are plenty of games where the story subtly flows through different times of the day (or year) & automatically lead you to items, people, places, events etc appropriate to those particular times possibly without you even noticing.

But there are a handful of games in which revisiting locations at a different time gives access to places previously closed, new events, items that were unavailable, different characters + conversation etc.
In my 1st two examples the story does lead you from day to night without the player having any control but in both games you get to explore a location at night previously visited during the day to carry out actions needed in order to progress.


Jack the Ripper (2004) & The Lost Crown.

In my next example the player can choose for the protagonist to go out at night by changing her clothes at the end of the day rather than her sleep which would end the day. Places inaccessible during the day are now open leading to meetings, conversations & events not possible during daylight hours.


Culpa Innata

The next 2 games I found particularly interesting in that you can change the time at will. In the 1st you can change from day to night to get a completely different perspective of life in the village & in the 2nd you can set an alarm for specific times during the day to either e.g. find people you want to talk to or to snoop when there’s no-one around!


Everlight & Nancy Drew: Treasure in the Royal Tower

My last 2 games are examples of being able to change the seasons which obviously impact on the surrounding environments. In the 1st this leads to e.g. places being open & characters available only in specific seasons & in the 2nd, as with the 1st, only able to perform certain actions according to the season which leads to some interesting game-play juggling between the times of year. 


Fran Bow & The DarkEye: Chains of Satinav

     
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wow, super idea Chrissie.

my fav of those example, which i myself at the moment cant remember anything like those, is Everlight: Of Magic & Power, what an experience, it was like playing two different games at the same place but between night n day tho its at your will crazy things and unimaginable number of adaptation for you to make or create events there causing the changes between, wish to play it again!!

     
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Mind: Path to Thalamus makes rather beautiful use of changing seasons:

     
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Advie - 10 October 2017 09:16 AM

wow, super idea Chrissie.

my fav of those example, which i myself at the moment cant remember anything like those, is Everlight: Of Magic & Power, what an experience, it was like playing two different games at the same place but between night n day tho its at your will crazy things and unimaginable number of adaptation for you to make or create events there causing the changes between, wish to play it again!!

Thanks Advie for your nice comments - for the night & day thing it was probably the best example I could have come across to experience different things in the same locations at different times.

Phlebas - 10 October 2017 09:24 AM

Mind: Path to Thalamus makes rather beautiful use of changing seasons

Thanks Phlebas for the post. I saw in the description of the game that you could change between night & day? - can you do that for the seasons also? Apart from the difference in surroundings can you do or see different things? Do the puzzles vary according to night & day/seasons? Sorry, I don’t know the game so perhaps the experience is just the different thing?  Smile

     
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chrissie - 10 October 2017 11:43 AM
Phlebas - 10 October 2017 09:24 AM

Mind: Path to Thalamus makes rather beautiful use of changing seasons

Thanks Phlebas for the post. I saw in the description of the game that you could change between night & day? - can you do that for the seasons also? Apart from the difference in surroundings can you do or see different things? Do the puzzles vary according to night & day/seasons? Sorry, I don’t know the game so perhaps the experience is just the different thing?  Smile

Various aspects of the environment change according to the season or day/night - that accounts for many of the game’s puzzles. Mechanically it’s just about setting switches in the right order, or working out what you can do with which switches set and how you can manipulate the states of the switches, but It’s beautifully rendered and atmospheric, and a joy to explore.

     
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In Xing: The Land Beyond you control day/night and the weather/seasons in order to solve puzzles and open up new locations.

     

See you around, wolf. Nerissa

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Timetravel games also fit in like Glassrose, TimeHollow, Shadow of memories

     
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Karlok - 10 October 2017 12:52 PM

In Xing: The Land Beyond you control day/night and the weather/seasons in order to solve puzzles and open up new locations.

Thanks for that example Karlok - it certainly seems to fit right in with where my head was going with the theme.  Thumbs Up

nomadsoul - 10 October 2017 02:23 PM

Timetravel games also fit in like Glassrose, TimeHollow, Shadow of memories

I wondered whether anyone would mention time travel but I avoided games that featured that as although they could fit in, for me it’s in a different way worthy of a theme on it’s own. I was more interested in what was available at different times of the day & also how the conditions of different seasons could affect the ‘here & now’ rather than what was in the past & could be in the future if that makes sense?    Smile

     
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In the Mac-only game, The Castle, you can change day to night, mainly to help you find diary pages and other items in and around the maze, and in Starship Titanic, you change seasons in the arboretum to solve certain puzzles.

     

Carpe chocolate.

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Dropsy also have a clever use of the day/time cycle. NPCs change locations, some places are closed at night, others open only then. I never finished the game, so there might be more into this change of the time of day.

     
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chrissie - 10 October 2017 02:43 PM

I was more interested in what was available at different times of the day & also how the conditions of different seasons could affect the ‘here & now’ rather than what was in the past & could be in the future if that makes sense?    Smile

Just remembered Phantasmagoria2, Contradiction and Gk3 had them
Events occur in different time of day at different spots also you need to revisit areas to solve some puzzles at different times

     
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Thanks Lady kestrel, badlemon & nomadsoul for some more great examples. Out of those I have only played Contradiction & GK 3 which I’d forgotton about!  Thumbs Up

     

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