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Timekeeping in games
Timekeeping is relevant to many types of games, including video games, tabletop role-playing games, board games, and sports. The passage of time must be handled in a way that players find fair and easy to understand. In many games, this is done using real-time and/or turn-based timekeeping. In real-time games, time within the game passes continuously. However, in turn-based games, player turns represent a fixed duration within the game, regardless of how much time passes in the real world. Some games use combinations of real-time and turn-based timekeeping systems. Players debate the merits and flaws of these systems. There are also additional timekeeping methods, such as timelines and progress clocks.
In real-time games, time progresses continuously. This may occur at the same or different rates from the passage of time in the real world. For example, in Terraria, one day-night cycle of 24 hours in the game is equal to 24 minutes in the real world.
In a multiplayer real-time game, players perform actions simultaneously as opposed to in sequential units or turns. In competitive games, players must consider that their opponents are working against them in real time and may act at any moment. This introduces additional challenges.
Many sports, such as soccer or basketball, are almost entirely simultaneous in nature, retaining a limited notion of turns in specific instances, such as the free kick in soccer and the free throw and shot clock in basketball. In the card games Nerts and Ligretto, players must compete to discard their cards as quickly as possible and do not take turns.
In turn-based games, game flow is partitioned into defined parts, called turns, moves, or plays. Each player is allowed a period of analysis (sometimes bounded, sometimes unbounded) before committing to a game action.
Turns may represent periods of time, such as hours, days, or years. This is common in 4X video games like the Civilization series and world-building tabletop role-playing games. For example, in Dialect, sets of turns represent eras in a society's development; similarly, in The Quiet Year, each turn represents one week leading up to a community's destruction. This is also common in both video games and tabletop games with dating sim elements. For example, in Persona 5 and Monster Prom, turns represent high school class periods, and in Visigoths vs. Mall Goths, each team's turn represents a specific hour at the mall.
Turn-based games come in two main forms: simultaneous or sequential (also called player-alternated). Diplomacy is an example of a simultaneous turn-based game. There are three types of player-alternated games: ranked, round-robin start, and random. The difference is the order in which players start a turn. In ranked player-alternated games, the first player is the same every time. In round-robin games, the first player selection policy is round-robin. Random player-alternated games randomly select the first player. Some games also decide the order of play using an initiative score based on players' attributes, positions within the game, or dice rolls. Dungeons & Dragons and Wizard101 are examples of this style.
The term turn-based gaming is also used for play-by-mail games and browser-based gaming websites that allow long-term gameplay of board games such as Go and chess.
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Timekeeping in games
Timekeeping is relevant to many types of games, including video games, tabletop role-playing games, board games, and sports. The passage of time must be handled in a way that players find fair and easy to understand. In many games, this is done using real-time and/or turn-based timekeeping. In real-time games, time within the game passes continuously. However, in turn-based games, player turns represent a fixed duration within the game, regardless of how much time passes in the real world. Some games use combinations of real-time and turn-based timekeeping systems. Players debate the merits and flaws of these systems. There are also additional timekeeping methods, such as timelines and progress clocks.
In real-time games, time progresses continuously. This may occur at the same or different rates from the passage of time in the real world. For example, in Terraria, one day-night cycle of 24 hours in the game is equal to 24 minutes in the real world.
In a multiplayer real-time game, players perform actions simultaneously as opposed to in sequential units or turns. In competitive games, players must consider that their opponents are working against them in real time and may act at any moment. This introduces additional challenges.
Many sports, such as soccer or basketball, are almost entirely simultaneous in nature, retaining a limited notion of turns in specific instances, such as the free kick in soccer and the free throw and shot clock in basketball. In the card games Nerts and Ligretto, players must compete to discard their cards as quickly as possible and do not take turns.
In turn-based games, game flow is partitioned into defined parts, called turns, moves, or plays. Each player is allowed a period of analysis (sometimes bounded, sometimes unbounded) before committing to a game action.
Turns may represent periods of time, such as hours, days, or years. This is common in 4X video games like the Civilization series and world-building tabletop role-playing games. For example, in Dialect, sets of turns represent eras in a society's development; similarly, in The Quiet Year, each turn represents one week leading up to a community's destruction. This is also common in both video games and tabletop games with dating sim elements. For example, in Persona 5 and Monster Prom, turns represent high school class periods, and in Visigoths vs. Mall Goths, each team's turn represents a specific hour at the mall.
Turn-based games come in two main forms: simultaneous or sequential (also called player-alternated). Diplomacy is an example of a simultaneous turn-based game. There are three types of player-alternated games: ranked, round-robin start, and random. The difference is the order in which players start a turn. In ranked player-alternated games, the first player is the same every time. In round-robin games, the first player selection policy is round-robin. Random player-alternated games randomly select the first player. Some games also decide the order of play using an initiative score based on players' attributes, positions within the game, or dice rolls. Dungeons & Dragons and Wizard101 are examples of this style.
The term turn-based gaming is also used for play-by-mail games and browser-based gaming websites that allow long-term gameplay of board games such as Go and chess.