1 00:00:03,840 --> 00:00:08,880 Hi, I’m Mark Brown and this is Game Maker’s Toolkit. 2 00:00:08,880 --> 00:00:14,640 Most video games have a very strange sense of time, if you really think about. 3 00:00:14,640 --> 00:00:19,519 There are day and night cycles with sunsets and sunrises. 4 00:00:19,519 --> 00:00:23,390 And some characters go to bed when it’s dark and get up when it’s light. 5 00:00:23,390 --> 00:00:30,119 But in general, time stands still - with characters stuck in a bizarre stasis until you make some 6 00:00:30,119 --> 00:00:31,450 kind of action. 7 00:00:31,450 --> 00:00:36,510 So the bad guys of Gotham City will dutifully wait for Batman to finish up his side missions 8 00:00:36,510 --> 00:00:42,120 before causing anymore carnage, and kidnapped characters will sit tight until you get around 9 00:00:42,120 --> 00:00:43,180 to rescuing them. 10 00:00:43,180 --> 00:00:48,100 But there are a few games that decide to do something different and actually simulate 11 00:00:48,100 --> 00:00:53,940 events in real time - with characters moving on schedules, and events playing out automatically 12 00:00:53,940 --> 00:00:55,030 at set moments. 13 00:00:55,030 --> 00:00:58,710 I want to call these “real-time games”, but that’s a bit confusing. 14 00:00:58,710 --> 00:01:01,410 So let’s call them clockwork games, instead. 15 00:01:01,410 --> 00:01:06,780 And it turns out that there are some striking benefits to this approach. 16 00:01:06,780 --> 00:01:11,829 Over the summer, I played through Outer Wilds which is an interstellar archeology game where 17 00:01:11,829 --> 00:01:16,500 you bounce between planets in a rickety wooden ship, seeking answers about your miniature 18 00:01:16,500 --> 00:01:17,709 universe. 19 00:01:17,709 --> 00:01:22,939 And what makes this game truly special is the way the entire solar system is constantly 20 00:01:22,939 --> 00:01:25,420 changing as time goes on. 21 00:01:25,420 --> 00:01:30,200 Take this pair of planets, which is known as the hourglass twins. 22 00:01:30,200 --> 00:01:36,539 At the start of the game, the Ash Twin is covered in a thick layer of impenetrable sand. 23 00:01:36,539 --> 00:01:41,479 While on the Ember Twin, you can explore a network of underground tunnels. 24 00:01:41,479 --> 00:01:46,749 Over time, though, the sand shifts from one planet to another, permanently closing off 25 00:01:46,749 --> 00:01:52,099 the tunnels on Ember - but revealing a bunch of towers on the surface of Ash. 26 00:01:52,099 --> 00:01:58,389 Likewise, the planet of Brittle Hollow starts off intact, but slowly disintegrates as it 27 00:01:58,389 --> 00:02:00,850 gets sucked into a black hole. 28 00:02:00,850 --> 00:02:04,959 And a wandering comet makes its merry way around the solar system. 29 00:02:04,959 --> 00:02:06,749 This has some fascinating ramifications. 30 00:02:06,749 --> 00:02:13,790 For one, as the Outer Wilds devs have said, this adds an extra dimension to exploration 31 00:02:13,790 --> 00:02:18,469 by making “when” players explore just as important as “where”. 32 00:02:18,469 --> 00:02:22,989 You can’t only think about the world in a spatial sense, but also have to consider 33 00:02:22,989 --> 00:02:28,090 it in a temporal sense as areas you want to explore might be blocked off by the time you 34 00:02:28,090 --> 00:02:32,400 reach them, while others might not be accessible until much later on. 35 00:02:32,400 --> 00:02:37,500 The other advantage is that it makes the world feel natural and dynamic, because the world 36 00:02:37,500 --> 00:02:38,700 is always changing. 37 00:02:38,700 --> 00:02:44,260 Of course, open world games do see changes - Megaton can be wiped off the Capital Wasteland 38 00:02:44,260 --> 00:02:49,109 in Fallout 3, and Tarrey Town can be built from the ground up in Breath of the Wild. 39 00:02:49,109 --> 00:02:54,610 But these things always happen in response to choices and decisions that you make. 40 00:02:54,610 --> 00:03:00,129 Instead, by having things follow a clock, the world moves on regardless of your choices, 41 00:03:00,129 --> 00:03:02,680 progress, or even your existence. 42 00:03:02,680 --> 00:03:07,489 If Outer Wilds wanted to capture the cosmic indifference of the universe, following a 43 00:03:07,489 --> 00:03:11,150 clock was definitely the best way to do it. 44 00:03:11,150 --> 00:03:14,620 Another series that works in real time is Dead Rising. 45 00:03:14,620 --> 00:03:18,680 In these games, or, at least, the good ones - you’re constantly watching the clock, 46 00:03:18,680 --> 00:03:23,530 as events happen at specific times - and will go on without you if you’re not paying attention 47 00:03:23,530 --> 00:03:24,989 to your watch. 48 00:03:24,989 --> 00:03:29,670 Some events are missable - like survivors who call out for help, but get eaten by zombies 49 00:03:29,670 --> 00:03:31,450 if you’re not fast enough. 50 00:03:31,450 --> 00:03:37,500 Others are more critical, like how you need to give Stacey a top-up of Zombrex every 24 hours. 51 00:03:37,500 --> 00:03:43,840 And so, despite being a game about brain-eating, undead monsters, Dead Rising manages to make 52 00:03:43,849 --> 00:03:47,260 the clock your most nightmarish monster. 53 00:03:47,260 --> 00:03:51,519 Time pressures add a sense of urgency and peril to proceedings because you can’t just 54 00:03:51,519 --> 00:03:56,260 get around to saving survivors when you feel like it - you’ve got to get to them now. 55 00:03:56,260 --> 00:04:01,260 And choosing to save one person over another actually has consequences, because there literally 56 00:04:01,260 --> 00:04:03,790 isn’t enough time to save both. 57 00:04:03,790 --> 00:04:08,069 This turns time into a valuable resource, which must be carefully managed just like 58 00:04:08,069 --> 00:04:09,400 ammo and health. 59 00:04:09,400 --> 00:04:14,379 Darting into a shop to explore for resources might be a smart move, or it might be a time-wasting 60 00:04:14,379 --> 00:04:15,379 detour. 61 00:04:15,379 --> 00:04:20,310 And learning routes, shortcuts, and memorising fast-travel points can really help you maximise 62 00:04:20,310 --> 00:04:21,750 your minutes. 63 00:04:21,750 --> 00:04:29,930 Every decision you make matters because you’re always spending your most precious currency: time. 64 00:04:29,930 --> 00:04:35,860 The thing about making a clockwork game, though, is that time can’t exactly go on forever. 65 00:04:35,860 --> 00:04:39,680 Developers can’t just endlessly simulate events and character schedules. 66 00:04:39,680 --> 00:04:44,440 And certain events simply can’t be missed if you want to create a coherent story. 67 00:04:44,440 --> 00:04:48,520 And so most of these games have some kind of fixed end point. 68 00:04:48,520 --> 00:04:55,960 After playing Outer Wilds for 22 minutes, the sun goes supernova, and destroys everything in sight. 69 00:04:55,960 --> 00:05:02,920 In Dead Rising, Frank’s helicopter will return after 72 hours - 6 hours in real world time. 70 00:05:02,920 --> 00:05:07,180 And in Majora’s Mask - which is perhaps, the quintessential clockwork game - the moon 71 00:05:07,180 --> 00:05:12,160 will crash into the earth in three days time - about an hour of real world time, on the 72 00:05:12,160 --> 00:05:13,169 default speed. 73 00:05:13,169 --> 00:05:19,070 And at that point, the most common thing to do is to take inspiration from the movie Groundhog 74 00:05:19,070 --> 00:05:26,320 Day and just make time loop back around to the start. 75 00:05:26,320 --> 00:05:31,340 Hi, I’m Mark Brown and this is Game Maker’s Toolkit. 76 00:05:31,340 --> 00:05:34,419 Time loops can be a very clever gameplay system. 77 00:05:34,419 --> 00:05:39,669 Take The Sexy Brutale, which is a murder mystery game that is set in a hotel that runs on predictable 78 00:05:39,669 --> 00:05:41,449 clockwork schedules. 79 00:05:41,449 --> 00:05:46,690 In the very first part of the game, Reginald Sixpence is shot and killed with a rifle, 80 00:05:46,690 --> 00:05:49,430 by a mysterious masked man. 81 00:05:49,430 --> 00:05:55,509 But when time loops back around, you can plop a blank cartridge into the gun - providing 82 00:05:55,509 --> 00:06:01,080 the knock-on effect of saving Sixpence’s life. 83 00:06:01,080 --> 00:06:06,770 So the loop becomes a key part of the gameplay structure, as you learn information over repeated 84 00:06:06,770 --> 00:06:11,349 viewings of the murder, and then throw a spanner in the works by manipulating the scene at 85 00:06:11,349 --> 00:06:13,750 the exact right point in time. 86 00:06:13,750 --> 00:06:18,280 The time loop presents a clockwork puzzle to solve, which is all about learning a sequence 87 00:06:18,280 --> 00:06:21,860 of events, and then using that information to your advantage. 88 00:06:21,860 --> 00:06:27,090 A similar system exists in the Shakespearean clockwork adventure game, Elsinore. 89 00:06:27,090 --> 00:06:32,350 Here, you play as Ophelia and over the space of a few days, Hamlet kills your father, and 90 00:06:32,350 --> 00:06:34,819 a mysterious assassin ends your life. 91 00:06:34,819 --> 00:06:37,180 Luckily, time loops back around. 92 00:06:37,180 --> 00:06:41,319 And this time, armed with foreknowledge of what’s going to happen and a handy timeline 93 00:06:41,319 --> 00:06:45,850 menu screen, you can convince and manipulate characters to do different things. 94 00:06:45,850 --> 00:06:50,870 In this loop, I gave Hamlet evidence of his mother’s infidelity, and his uncle’s murderous 95 00:06:50,870 --> 00:06:56,639 confession - which ended with Hamlet being killed in a duel against the king - and my 96 00:06:56,639 --> 00:06:58,020 father’s safety. 97 00:06:58,020 --> 00:07:02,750 It’s not just the clockwork puzzle that endeared me to the game, though: I realised 98 00:07:02,750 --> 00:07:07,300 that the safety net of the time loop gave me the freedom to experiment with all sorts 99 00:07:07,300 --> 00:07:09,250 of approaches and ideas. 100 00:07:09,250 --> 00:07:13,330 Because if they didn’t quite work, well, I’ll just try again in a few minutes - and 101 00:07:13,330 --> 00:07:17,800 maybe with some handy new knowledge to use in future playthroughs. 102 00:07:17,800 --> 00:07:21,629 In other games, the loop is something to be mastered and maximised. 103 00:07:21,629 --> 00:07:26,789 In Minit, the time loop is the shortest of all: just sixty seconds, and definitely not 104 00:07:26,789 --> 00:07:30,259 long enough to complete an entire Zelda-like adventure game. 105 00:07:30,259 --> 00:07:35,110 But by creating new start points, finding new tools, opening up shortcuts, and speedrunning 106 00:07:35,110 --> 00:07:38,919 across the map, you’ll eventually be able to finish the game within that minute-long 107 00:07:38,919 --> 00:07:39,919 loop. 108 00:07:39,919 --> 00:07:45,500 Similarly, there’s the under-the-radar Metroidvania Vision Soft Reset, where you’re given just 109 00:07:45,500 --> 00:07:47,819 20 minutes to save a planet from destruction. 110 00:07:47,819 --> 00:07:53,030 Here, checkpoints act like bookmarks on a timeline: instead of fast travelling around 111 00:07:53,030 --> 00:07:57,600 the map, you’re actually rewinding time to earlier moments in your adventure. 112 00:07:57,600 --> 00:08:00,920 Some stuff comes with you, like new abilities and passwords. 113 00:08:00,930 --> 00:08:05,449 Other stuff, like extra heart containers, don’t survive the rewind, and must be picked 114 00:08:05,449 --> 00:08:07,830 up anew if you want them. 115 00:08:07,830 --> 00:08:12,199 Part of the thrill of the game is carefully maximising the creation of new bookmarks. 116 00:08:12,199 --> 00:08:17,509 For example, at one point in the game i ventured deep within the planet to power up a machine, 117 00:08:17,509 --> 00:08:20,039 and then worked my way back up to the surface. 118 00:08:20,039 --> 00:08:24,759 All in all, the round trip left me with just 12 minutes to spare, which would make the 119 00:08:24,759 --> 00:08:27,530 rest of the game a bit of a tight squeeze/ 120 00:08:27,530 --> 00:08:32,930 So I did it again, this time racing my way to the machine and back, now with experience 121 00:08:32,930 --> 00:08:34,840 and a filled-in map to help me. 122 00:08:34,840 --> 00:08:41,180 I got back with 16 minutes on the clock, and saved a bookmark with plenty of time to spare. 123 00:08:41,180 --> 00:08:44,000 That felt pretty good. 124 00:08:44,000 --> 00:08:48,740 When it comes to designing one of these loops, a key question is length. 125 00:08:48,750 --> 00:08:53,640 Outer Wilds designer and producer Loan Verneau has said “we wanted to keep things short 126 00:08:53,640 --> 00:08:58,170 enough [that] failure and death did not feel frustrating, but we also didn't want the player 127 00:08:58,170 --> 00:09:01,000 to feel like they were constantly on a time limit”. 128 00:09:01,000 --> 00:09:07,710 Also, if players are expected to build a mental model of the timeline, it needs to be relatively short. 129 00:09:07,710 --> 00:09:12,280 A short timer should also be combined with a compressed world size - so no matter where 130 00:09:12,280 --> 00:09:15,980 you go, you’ll find something interesting within the time limit. 131 00:09:15,980 --> 00:09:20,220 Minit is carefully designed so that everything is reachable within a few seconds, leading 132 00:09:20,220 --> 00:09:25,810 to a densely packed world that spills off in all directions. 133 00:09:25,810 --> 00:09:28,710 The time loop is certainly a handy mechanic, then. 134 00:09:28,710 --> 00:09:33,840 It wraps a nasty design problem up with a rather attractive bow, and creates cool new 135 00:09:33,840 --> 00:09:38,950 consequences for the player with clockwork puzzles, freedom to experiment, and temporal 136 00:09:38,950 --> 00:09:40,420 mastery. 137 00:09:40,420 --> 00:09:45,380 These are some fantastic games, and more are on the way, such as the one-room mystery game 138 00:09:45,380 --> 00:09:50,240 12 Minutes, and Deathloop - which comes from the developers of Dishonored. 139 00:09:50,340 --> 00:09:53,580 But a time loop is, ultimately, a contrivance. 140 00:09:53,580 --> 00:09:58,920 It’s a gimmicky solution that calls attention to itself in a very loud way. 141 00:09:58,930 --> 00:10:04,000 And while I think that’s fine, it ultimately won’t work in every type of game, or fit 142 00:10:04,000 --> 00:10:05,900 every type of narrative. 143 00:10:05,900 --> 00:10:11,390 And so, I’m left wondering if we can create more clockwork games, but without the loop. 144 00:10:11,390 --> 00:10:16,870 Well, one idea is to use smaller, less obvious loops that don’t rip you out of the simulation 145 00:10:16,870 --> 00:10:17,880 when they repeat. 146 00:10:17,880 --> 00:10:22,850 Hitman levels are made up of lots of small loops, with characters on repeated schedules 147 00:10:22,850 --> 00:10:25,690 that might take five or ten minutes to repeat. 148 00:10:25,690 --> 00:10:30,380 This gives a pretty convincing emulation of reality, but without the messiness of a complete 149 00:10:30,380 --> 00:10:32,690 level-wide time loop. 150 00:10:32,690 --> 00:10:37,660 And another solution might be to investigate systemic and randomised events that aren’t 151 00:10:37,660 --> 00:10:41,620 handcrafted by the developer, and therefore can go on forever. 152 00:10:41,620 --> 00:10:46,480 Things like the weather effects in Zelda and MGS 5 provide that feeling of time moving 153 00:10:46,480 --> 00:10:48,610 on, outside of your control. 154 00:10:48,610 --> 00:10:53,720 Likewise, traffic patterns in open world games and characters in simulations all use simple 155 00:10:53,720 --> 00:10:58,160 rules and interconnectivity to create the illusion of reality, without the need for 156 00:10:58,160 --> 00:11:00,520 absolute clockwork choreography. 157 00:11:00,520 --> 00:11:02,930 See this video for more on that. 158 00:11:02,930 --> 00:11:08,740 But for something more radical, let me tell you about a section in Deus Ex: Human Revolution. 159 00:11:08,740 --> 00:11:12,580 At the beginning of the game, you’re told that you need to hop on a helicopter and whizz 160 00:11:12,580 --> 00:11:15,150 off to an office block to save some hostages. 161 00:11:15,150 --> 00:11:19,890 Now, you’d be remiss for thinking that those terrorists will happily wait around forever 162 00:11:19,890 --> 00:11:21,930 and won’t do a thing until you get there. 163 00:11:21,930 --> 00:11:24,930 That is how time works in most games, after all. 164 00:11:24,930 --> 00:11:26,760 But, actually, no. 165 00:11:26,760 --> 00:11:33,480 If Jensen is a bit, uhm, busy and waits around for too long, most of the hostages will be lost 166 00:11:33,520 --> 00:11:35,560 SARIF: "Eight people Adam. 167 00:11:35,560 --> 00:11:40,030 Eight good men and women whose only crime was to come to work today. 168 00:11:40,030 --> 00:11:44,480 And those so-called pro-human purists slaughtered them.” 169 00:11:44,480 --> 00:11:48,210 Letting the hostages get killed doesn’t lead to a game over of any sorts. 170 00:11:48,210 --> 00:11:53,340 But your inaction does change the story and your relationship with other characters - if 171 00:11:53,340 --> 00:11:55,080 only a tiny bit. 172 00:11:55,080 --> 00:11:59,271 And so maybe this proves that it’s okay for games to be serious when they say that 173 00:11:59,271 --> 00:12:03,370 you only have a certain amount of time to do certain tasks - provided that the punishment 174 00:12:03,370 --> 00:12:07,640 for not getting there in time is simply a change in the story to reflect your inaction, 175 00:12:07,640 --> 00:12:11,120 or perhaps just leads to you missing some content altogether. 176 00:12:11,120 --> 00:12:14,890 And here’s the thing: modern games already have so much filler content, that I don’t 177 00:12:14,890 --> 00:12:18,070 think it would matter much if some players completely missed it because they were too 178 00:12:18,070 --> 00:12:20,540 busy doing other things. 179 00:12:20,540 --> 00:12:25,690 So imagine a Batman or Spider-Man game where crimes are taking place in real-time, and 180 00:12:25,690 --> 00:12:29,760 as a superhero you’ve got to make the call of which criminals to chase down - and which 181 00:12:29,760 --> 00:12:32,250 ones you’re going to have to miss. 182 00:12:32,250 --> 00:12:35,880 Of course, such a system can’t be implemented lightly. 183 00:12:35,880 --> 00:12:40,430 Time limits are understandably controversial among players, for the way they put pressure 184 00:12:40,430 --> 00:12:42,200 and stress on your shoulders. 185 00:12:42,200 --> 00:12:47,500 And for many, the idea that game content can be missed goes against the completionist nature 186 00:12:47,500 --> 00:12:50,990 of slowly and methodically completing every task on a map. 187 00:12:50,990 --> 00:12:54,310 So I understand if this sounds like the worst idea imaginable. 188 00:12:54,310 --> 00:13:01,000 But still, given the unique advantages of clockwork games, perhaps time could be the 189 00:13:01,000 --> 00:13:07,530 missing ingredient needed to spice up these samey and static open world games we keep seeing. 190 00:13:07,530 --> 00:13:10,800 Lemme know your thoughts in the comments below. 191 00:13:11,880 --> 00:13:17,160 Hey, thanks for watching. Tell me about your favourite clockwork games in the comments. 192 00:13:17,160 --> 00:13:22,770 Did you know that you can support GMTK when you buy games on the Epic Game Store by using 193 00:13:22,770 --> 00:13:25,610 the creator tag GMTOOLKIT? 194 00:13:25,610 --> 00:13:31,130 You don’t pay a penny extra, but Epic gives me some cash, for some reason. 195 00:13:31,130 --> 00:13:33,980 Everybody wins! But, like, you know, mostly me.