What's The Point of a Day-Night Cycle in Games?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 พ.ย. 2022
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Games have to change as you're playing them to keep players interested, but that change could mean almost anything. Day-night cycles help create a platform on which lots of different kinds of changes can exist, and the idea is flexible enough to help game designers get just the kind of change they need to support the kind of game they want to make. Let's talk about great day-night cycles and how they support an ever-changing game.
Featuring:
Super Mario Sunshine
Mario Kart 64
Final Fantasy IX
Devil May Cry 3
Resident Evil 4
Lots of Zeldas:
Ocarina of Time
Majora's Mask
Wind Waker
Twilight Princess
Moonlighter
Mario Party 6
Don't Starve
Animal Crossing
Shenmue
Pokemon, gens 2 through now
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Did you already do a weather video?
You know, one of my favorite day-night cycles is in Days Gone. You can do anything at anytime, but things change depending on the time. At night, zombies are stronger and more common, but that can be useful if you use zombies to kill human enemies. Meanwhile, in the day, the highly dangerous Hordes hibernate, hiding from the sun, and and more zombies hibernate in nests, making more come out when you burn them. And if a mission has a certain time of day, time is fast-forwarded to the proper time, to avoid inconvenience while keeping continuity. It's not perfect, but it works well, & uses all 4 elements.
Meanwhile, Yoko Taro: "We were too lazy to add a day/night cycle in Nier so we made up that the planet stopped rotating and added that to the lore".
Especially funny because the enemies are weak to sunlight. So instead of nighttime, it is occasionally slightly, unnoticeably cloudy outside.
i swear most games with dn cycles just feel like youre playing the game in the dark 90% of the time
Seriously bro
Dragon's Dogma moment
an only think of The Crew from what I've played. The Crew 2 shortened its night.
that is why i played ark survival with a really long day compared to night
and for a reverse case, V rising i played with 80% of the night being night
dn
To add to the day/evening/night of Don't Starve: it's a lot more than simply a survival test. Some enemies and resources are only available during the night, which forces players to leave the comfort of their base during nighttime.
The current season also affects the amount of light you get during the day; during winter, nighttime lasts almost a third of the entire day cycle. This has some significant consequences, such as greatly impacting your character's sanity. Sanity-restoring honey, fruits and vegetables aren't readily available in winter, forcing you to adapt to find other sources.
It helps that it has its own timed events too. Full Moon nights are a nice reprieve from the darkness, but with its own dangers. You don't need any light sources as the world is lit up, but certain creatures get affected by the lunar magic. Once you figure out when they happen (if my math is right, every 22 days, with the first full moon being on day 11 on account of always starting on a New Moon every game), you can plan around these days to take advantage. Plus, there's a unique event later in Don't Starve Together that completely upends the usual day and night cycle by forcing a permanent full moon, and completely changing the sanity mechanics.
@@somenameidk5278 in dst yes, in ds not at all
Don't Starve, as well as the other two games mentioned alongside it (Minecraft and Terraria) do a pretty good job of making nights worthwhile. Though more dangerous than daytime in both games, Minecraft and Terraria both have enemies spawning that can give you items that can help you progress. Minecraft notably has enemies that drop items required to get to certain bosses. While Terraria notably has several bosses that require you to fight them at night, some of which are required to progress and force you to use said night to fight and progress through the game to the final boss, as well as certain events that are dependent on whether it's day or night that can aid in getting good items for progression.
@@imarandomgamer2 and the fact that certain features in Terraria are affected by the time of day, weather, and the phase of the moon. Some NPCs only sell certain items during certain moon phases, or only at night. Fishing power is also affected, making it more or less likely to catch good things based on the time, moon phase, or weather. And then there's stuff like blood moons that have a large amount of effects on the world.
@@imarandomgamer2 Terraria also had the Constant Seed where it played out like don't starve
Also get used to the Remix Seed
I haven't seen any game doing this, but for a long time I wanted to make a game using a day-night cycle where at night you play as a bedridden character literally fighting their sickness in a tactical combat, while during the day you'd play as an herbalist taking care of that sick person by exploring the map to gather ingredients, crafting a variety of concoctions to help both characters and ultimately searching for a cure.
In both cases, all actions taken would cause time to move forward, but during the night, it would be welcome - as actually winning would be impossible without the cure. At the same time, during the day, the time running out would be something the player dreads - as it means having to survive another night before they can continue working on the cure.
I wanna see this ^-^
My biggest issue with Day/Night cycles is when a game's art style and color palette sticks so closely to realism that even if you can technically see your surroundings at night, the environment has little contrast and everything blends together and feels washed out. This was my biggest issue playing Skyrim and Horizon, while Spider-man gets around it by being set in Manhattan where environmental lighting is prevalent even at night.
Yep. If you want a day-night cycle, you either need to explicitly want nighttime to be limiting to the player (and you'd better make sure it's a good reason or players will HATE it and just jack up the gamma) or find a way to mitigate the darkness.
Ambient lighting works very well for that purpose. Moonlight or city lighting are two very common techniques. You could also just use the "Hollywood glow" method for night and just add a faint blue light everywhere so players can see. Subnautica does bioluminescence, especially on the top level of the safe shallows.
Huh, I guess I never noticed or at least wasn't bothered by that aspect of Skyrim. I was too busy sneaking around at night, breaking into houses and closed shops and stealing everything! Also doesn't hurt that it's easier to hide in the dark, which is a cool thing to have in a day/night system.
@@0Fyrebrand0 Skyrim tends to use Hollywood Blue for their nighttime iirc, so it's not actually that hard to see.
@@dusklunistheumbreon Turning up the gamma? Wow, I never thought people would go that low.
@@undercoversoviet6399 "go that low"?
Fam if you make it so ridiculously dark that I can't even see then you don't get to whine when I make the game bright enough to counteract that nonsense.
"Durr the player shouldn't be able to see" is idiotic.
All the Xenoblade’s day/night drastically changing the OST and environment is by far my favorite. Seeing Valek mountain go from day to night was mind blowing
Yeah, plus the fact that every zone has a variant music during the night really make the areas feel complety different depending on the time of the day
The visuals and music of Satorl Marsh after night draws in are what made me hooked on Xenoblade Chronicles. Such beautifully designed stages.
@@eduardodias3707 Yeah, I was going to mention Satorl Marsh when I heard the night theme right at the end of the video, sure its "just an aesthetic change" but it blew me away when I first played it (definitive edition when it launched).
I love how Xenoblade implements its day/night cycle, but I recently found an issue I have in Xenoblade 3 with a very specifc interaction the cycle has with another feature of the game: fast travel.
Basically, whenever you fast travel somewhere, you can also select the time it will be when you go there using the shoulder buttons. Now when I first heard about this it sounded like a great feature.
But in practice, when I use the skip travel feature, I just want to get there. I'm not thinking about what time in the cycle it is, cause usually the time of day doesn't matter unless there's a unique monster that only appears at a certain time or weather. It also doesn't help that in past Xenoblade games, the time of day was continuous between fast traveling.
What this all results in is I don't actually bother selecting a time because I just want to get there and I don't even think about the time, so I get the default selection, which is daytime. So I often don't hear the nighttime themes or see areas at night when I'm skipping around the world. I really only get them when I'm exploring somewhere for the first time, or I'm running around an area long enough for the cycle to actually kick in.
This also kills that feeling of "continuity" of doing things in Xenoblade even if it was logically unrealistic to be able to teleport across the world and the time of the day is the same, but it felt more "real" to watch the time of day pass naturally in the background as I played the game, rather than it immediately becoming daytime again every time I want to go somewhere fast.
So I wish that for the XC3 skip travel UI, the default wasn't set to day, but rather just a "no change" option. But it's probably not that important since I can change the time whenever I want.
Eryth Sea at night, especially during a meteor shower, is probably my favorite location aesthetic of any game ever. And in Xenoblade 2, Tantal's day and night music are both incredible
Closing out with Satorl Marsh's night theme is the perfect way to emphasize how Xenoblade's day/night cycle does a great job of completely shifting the vibe of some zones.
Kinda like in Xenoblade 2, where Tantal's night theme is a kinda chill tune you could probably fall asleep to, while the day theme is moody and aggressive. I freaking love it.
Splatoon’s use of night for only Splatfest really makes the event feel exclusive and special. The sunset before Splatfests also adds to the hype.
Something else to add is the music of the Splatfest really adds to the hype and it compliments the nighttime atmosphere
I like how Omensight did it. It's a time-loop game where you have to prevent the end of the world at the end of the day and it's split in 3 sections; morning, afternoon, evening, with the world ending at the end of the evening section. Most of it circulating around gathering and using information, mostly by running around with various companions and how to navigate them to certain places at the correct time slot. The world also darkens more as the evening (and impending doom) comes closer. It's my favourite time-loop game, I've played it at least 3-4 times.
I only played like one cycle of that one before I got side tracked with other games. I need to give it another shot sometime.
@@DesignDoc It's great. The combat gets tiresome as you progress with way too much level scaling (even turning difficulty down to easy, I do like that combat and investigation elements can be adjusted separately though) but the story and investigation is great fun, even though all the steps for the true ending are somewhat excessive.
I actually own this game as I bought it in a pack with a game called Stories: The Paths of Destiny. I 100%'d Stories, but haven't player Omensight much yet outside of like, the very beginning before you even get to the time loop stuff.
I'm glad they actually went back and finished making the ending
@@Silas_MN I played it after the true ending was added. And yeah, while it's excessive getting there, it is far better than the normal one, which is like everyone gets a raw deal. Yeah, the world is saved, but the reason you want to save the world is because you care about the characters there (since you yourself is just an avatar). The true ending is good though. Rattika's epilogue (my fave character) especially made me smile.
In most games, if an NPC tells you not to go explore at night because it's dangerous, they secretly mean the opposite; That's where the adventure is. In Dragon's Dogma, going out at night is genuinely super dangerous. They really meant that shit.
No it's not
One event I will always remember was towards the end of the absolute worst birthday I've ever had, I loaded up Pokemon Y and went into the Pokemon Center to find a birthday celebration with the people within wishing you happy birthday. The music is different, soft tones tugging at the heartstrings, and it brought me to tears. No idea if it affects the capture rate or anything else.
Trials of Mana had an interesting system with each day of the week being named for one of the Mana Spirits, strengthening that Spirit's power while weakening its opposite. Then you have the Mana Holy Day, where every element is the same but shops offers discounts and the inn is free. Nice bit of detail, that.
That reminds me, I reinstalled Genshin mostly to see the "Cake for Traveler", given to the player on their designated birthday.
Doesn't affect capture rates, but I believe you can see diamond dust in locations where it's usually snowing. This also happens on a few specific days of the year.
Had a similar experience with Animal Crossing: New Horizons. My 30th was in spring 2020. I hadn't seen my friends in months and was definitely not getting the dirty thirty bash we'd talked about before rona. I fortunately kept my job but walked home alone through completely empty streets in a dead city. Even though I thought I had handled the quarantine really well, living alone through it all finally got to me then. However, my village genuinely surprised me with a whole birthday event, and I admit it did make me feel a little less lonely when I really needed it most. Definitely one of my favorite gaming moments now.
Maybe the most extreme example of the priboem you discussed with Shenmue is in Boktai: the Sun is In Your Hand. It was a GBA game with a little solar receptor built into the cartridge. You needed strong sunlight to charge your sun gun and kill vampires. Cool in theory, but it turns out that it's not fun when whether you can play your videogame or not is dictated by the weather XD. Extra bad when you're a kid who saved up their allowance for the game and was only allowed to play at certain times. It's possible I'm speaking from experience
Places like Canada and the UK can go with long stretches of overcast weather, so it's not just time base it's region based
Not to mention, trying to play a handheld system outside on a bright sunny day is the worst. There's so much glare on the screen you can barely see anything.
@@0Fyrebrand0 Totally. It could work nowadays, but back then it was impossible.
speaking of tying the clock to real life, it's been a joy to find out that pokémon scarlet/violet has a much faster clock instead of the traditional time being connected to your system clock. i usually only play at night and it makes it a pain to get pokémon tied to daytime.
I mean if it wasnt you can always just move the clock of the console to the preffered time. This works for animal crossing too as some creatures there are also tied to certain times of day
@@jismeraiverhoeven Yeah but maybe you want to do different things with different games
@@jismeraiverhoeven you shouldnt have to fuck with your systems date time setting for basic gameplay features, that just proves the design aspect of it sucks
@@sarahmcglasson3064 Just because something doesn't work for everyone doesn't mean it's bad. The appeal of animal crossing is the slow pace. Changing the pace and time of the game would completely mess that up
@Dan Nguyen or let the Player decide. Having the same time in game as well as irl is a great appeal of it, however I do get your point. A way to time travel in game or speed up the time by a bit would be good for those players. Maybe you could decide at the beginning how they want it idk
I think the persona series does day/night really well by having certain characters only available at specific times of day. On top of that you only have a few days to get to the next plot point which makes you have to plan out when to spend time with your friends, and when to adventure the dungeon
Then there is Persona 3 which is kind of all about the day and night cycle.
I love what Spyro Year of the dragon did. The 4 hub worlds are like 4 phases of the day: morning, midday, evening, midnight. And it was so cool, because it enhanced the overarching progression on top of showing some awesome vistas.
ooh yes!! I love Spyro!!
Okami's day and night system was cool. It's empowering, as _you_ are the head deity of the land as the Goddess Amaterasu. The day and night cycles moves for _you_ , and they are more incidental to your power over the sun and moon, with the NPCs and the world only able to react to your needs and whim.
You start with the ability to draw the sun in the sky, 'resetting' the clock to the start of the day phase. Kinda forcing you to manually wait until night for certain events, but at that point most events are at day and it focuses you to engage with what you can at day. But it didn't take long for you gain the Moon God's power, and can move to the start of night phase as well. It shows how you're regaining your powers, more than any of the other techniques if you ask me.
At the same time, the presence of the sun and the moon are important as well. It's an important symbolism and ties that plays a big role at the game's finale and certain areas of the games. When your powers are messed, it's a _big_ deal, and you have to work with not being able to control the time of day, as well as the symbolic fact that the sun no longer rises and sets under your command as the Goddess of the Sun.
One of my personal most cherished moments in video gaming is getting to Hyrule Field for the first time in Ocarina of Time, and seeing the sky slowly change color as the sun was about to set. I''ve loved this mechanic ever since. The Xenoblade games are especially good at setting different moods in different areas depending on if it's day or night.
Yeah. In Ocarina of Time, I would be like run all day, fight all night.
In Unsighted, the day night cycle is purely aesthetuc but it also help add to the tension by reminding you of the real time passing, and how you're running out of time. It's just one of many ways the game contantly reminds you of time passing, but it was one of the most effective for me. The hours left that appears every time you enter a new screen was easily blocked out of my mind, and I rarely looked at it, but when the whole color palette changes, that's kind of hard to ignore. Also the different color palettes were beautiful, so that's a plus as well
This game is so underrated. It's so good. 😁
I like when games have music for every time of the day.
Genshin Impact really does this well with some places having tracks for morning, day, evening and night. Really helps with the atmosphere
Shenmue & Shenmue II also do that well.
And the title screen having it's own day-night cycle that follows the real world one separate from the game, because if I had to hear the main theme every time I have to update with no way to mute it I would go insane. But there seems to be no morning track for some reason.
I feel like this isn't that unique
you would love animal crossing, every hour has different music. 1pm will have a unique track to 8pm, to 3am, ect ect
Meanwhile, I’m over here thinking about how the Day and Night cycles in Mario Party 6 help to freshen up what was becoming an increasingly duller experience with time. You know Horror Land is good when it’s entire gimmick becomes the basis for another game in the franchise.
Mario Party 6 is my favorite in the series because of that. I think my favorite board on that was the Clockwork Tower or whatever. That board constantly had you on your toes whenever a star was purchased or stolen. I liked the Faire Square, too, just because of the presentation. It's a little festival.
@@avereynakama9854 same, I miss so much the gamecube era of Mario Party. Also the orb system was so much better, fun and strategic than the item one. Sadly now Mario Party is too much casual with nearly nothing new/experimental.
I love the day night from Harvest Moon A Wounderfull Life. The first time I played and my character wake up 4AM, and I see the morning sun was breathtaking at the time. The sky gently changing colors, the sun casting shadows on characters and threes. omg.... what a view.
Again, it was impressive at the time... today is just basic hehe.
I was particularly impressed by the dynamic weather. Usually in farming games there'll be a weather prediction the day before and that'll be the weather all day. In Wonderful Life the weather changes twice a day and I didn't even need to check the tv to predict it. I could look up at the clouds and make a mostly accurate decision on whether I needed to water crops or bring the animals in.
And considering the graphical limitations the weather and lighting look great. First time I saw the proposal cutscene it was during a sunshower at dusk. Absolutely gorgeous, really set the mood.
SR.SR.WILSON?
VOCÊ FALA INGLÊS?
SE TAMBÉM GOSTA DESTE CANAL?
Here are a few cool ones that come to mind for me!
-To add onto the Sun and Moon thing, in the postgame you can enter a mirrored version of your world, where the clock is offset another 12 hours. This can help solve the real-time issue by allowing you to quickly change the world from day to night as needed. On top of that, all the towns in those games have unique music depending on whether it's day or night, which is something other Pokemon games don't do.
In Axial Disc 1, there's no day night "cycle", but each of the four regions are tied to a time of day: you start in Stardust City at night time, Bluewood Forest is locked in a perpetual sunrise, the Mirror Dunes are a sunny and bright afternoon, and the Cliffs of Fate are basked in an orange sunset, so as you progress in the game the locales feel like they're progressing through the day.
This one is kinda goofy, but Robopon on the Game Boy Color has a special cartridge that beeps out loud at certain real times of day to inform you of specific clock events in-game. Those clock events are pretty poorly designed, but having a cartridge that reminds you when something cool is available even when the game is turned off is a neat idea that would have been awesome in a lot of Pokemon games that have better executed events.
Another game that does the "certain areas are just set to a specific time for the aesthetic" is Octopath Traveler-- the first time I got to the area around Orewell, where battles are set to a fiery sunset that silhouettes the characters, I was blown away. Same goes for Everhold which also uses sunset. Northreach is set at nighttime iirc, which is fitting given Therion has a story there.
OutRun and Grand Theft Auto:
OutRun usually starts in a bright palm-lined beach. You drive against the clock choosing left or right at the end of each stage, and many of the final stage options are set in a city at night.
GTA games from III onward all have day/night cycles. For real city gaming it's a huge part of making them feel real. The amount of traffic and types of pedestrians change for the time of day, such as its infamous sex workers standing on street corners in certain parts of the city after dusk.
pokemon scarlet and violet really opened my eyes to how much a game needs to have time-speeding mechanics when the day-night cycle isn't tied to the system clock or it'll feel uncomfortably long if you're trying to wait for a certain time of day
I agree! Trying to get Eevee to evolve into Espeon is torture since you can’t risk evolving them until the day
One of the many things a prior game did better (Legends let you skip to certain times by sleeping).
@@strawdeath263
It's surprising they didn't add a similar nap feature to the picnics. The Pokemon take naps during them all the time. They still serve as a more visually interesting way to sit around but it's not nearly as efficient as the rest option in PLA.
Yup, especially if you're only able to play at certain times
@@arandomthought9001 I mean... the B button is your friend.
Something I learned the hard way recently: Night time in GSC is extremely hard to see on original hardware, where you don't have a backlight lmao. It feels like you're punished for having an accurate clock by needing to try even harder to get a perfect light source at night.
You opened the narrative up with a clip from mine: Final Fantasy XV has an interesting day-night cycle. Not only is it a change in the gameplay, bringing out much more difficult monsters, but it's also tied into the narrative, with the lengthening nights. It also pushes players towards one of the game's main mechanics, camping with your bros.
Sadly, it makes no sense to ever camp.
One of the things I dislike about the day-night cycle of FFXV is that the rate of decrease in the amount of daylight hours seems to ramp up as the game progresses. I know it has a in-game reason, but it makes it kinda annoying to explore locations and side-quests as the world opens up since, in later chapters, by the time you get there, its basically night-time again
To add another Mario Kart track in addition to Toad's Turnpike: In Super Circuit on the GBA you've got Sunset Wilds, where the entire track is themed around the setting sun. It's relatively high in the sky in the first loop, just on the horizon on the second, and in the final loop it's gone down completely and the track is lit by the night sky. One of my favorite tracks from that game.
The Persona series finds a nice balance between believable but sped up cycles and avoiding player frustration. The game cycles through day and night periods, but time only passes when you commit to a particular activity for the afternoon or evening. Other activities, like shopping, exploring the overworld, or talking with NPCs don't actually take out of your scheduling, and each dungeon dive only consumes one time slot, whether you spend 20 minutes or 20 hours running around. But most activities are only available at certain times, or certain days of the week based on store hours or your party member's schedule, or whatever. It's all the mechanical benefits of a time based day/night cycle, including the scheduling, but without the pressure of actually being on the clock.
The sat irl marsh music at the end ahh. I think my personal favourite thing about day/night cycles is the opportunity for more music. Like the night time music in the Pokémon center of Gen 4, or any song from the Xenoblade series. The way the environment changes in satorl marsh, and the music sets such a beautiful mood is so powerful.
"What's more natural than a day-night cycle? Every morning is a new beginning, and has been for all of time. Every one of you, everyone you've ever know, and all who will ever be- we're all locked into the rhythm of the cosmos. No matter what comes to pass, the sun arrives tomorrow all the same."
Did not expect such a deep quote from a TH-cam vid about game design. But I'm totally here for it
When I think of day night cycles I always think of Majora’s mask
I can't believe you closed with Satorl Marsh night music without any visuals. I absolutely love watching how places in Xenoblade games change aesthetically with the day-evening-night cycle, not to mention the music. Being able to watch an area go from day to night for the first time is a really special moment for some areas. Hell, it's the defining feature of the title screen in the first game, with the gorgeous title music synced up to that.
One thing I'll toss out is Shadowbringers (FF14). The world is trapped in endless day and you fight to bring back the night. Something so ordinary suddenly feels really special. And then you go back to the Crystarium and hear the night theme for the first time
Even though it's mostly tied to story, I liked how the time of day would change in Sonic Adventure's Station Square.
That combined with the NPC's having different dialogue depending on the character and event made for an engaging distraction between levels
I actually just picked up a game from the Steam sale a few days ago, Sun Haven, that lets you adjust how long you want each in-game day to last on a slider, from 15-40 minutes! I love Stardew a lot, but sometimes I felt like the days were just a little too short. Giving the player the option to choose how long each day is can be both very personable and adaptive! Now you don't have to spend whole days doing just one of the many activities the game offers you, now you can farm in the morning, talk to NPCs and shop for a couple hours, clean up your farm for a few hours, do a little fishing in between, _and_ spend the rest of the day mining until bed time! It was a nice surprise to see in the Options menu!
I've noticed a lot of stardew-like games coming out that have quality of life features that people made mods for for stardew. It's a good idea learning from what people wanted changed.
it looks exactly my kind of game, thanks for mentioning it. i'll give it a go.
My favorite day-and-night mechanics were found in Ultima V. Not only did the inhabitants of towns move around and open and close their shops based on the time, but the Moon Gates, portals that allowed you to travel about, were only open and night, and the phases of the two moons dictated where the gates teleported you to. This was pretty important in a game without fast travel.
Shout out to Dragon's Dogma for making night time really feel like night. Its dark as hell even with lanterns, fights become chaotic and its easy to get ambushed. I wish more games made night time as intimidating and urge the player to work around it when travelling.
I was thinking exactly this, in dragon's dogma you actually need a light source most nights cos everything is pitch black
It sometimes becomes a straight up horror game especially if you accidentally venture near a dragon or chimera spawn spot.
Oh wow I forgot about that!
It really isn't that dark or scary.
@@LedZaid no you don't
9:34 i’d like to add for those unaware that the boy is actually an adult man who was cursed into becoming a kid by the same thing that cursed the moon to fall
so don’t worry, Nintendo didn’t go there
I personally love how the Persona games tackle this. You have to constantly schedule what your doing depending on what time it is. In Persona 3 you can choose between going to a dungeon at night or going to the town to do some other stuff and it also relies on a calendar system. The end of every in game month usually has the next big boss.
i haven't gotten to play 3, but i absolutely adore 4. i enjoy the limits of what things you can do based on time. like you can go to the dungeon after school, BUT if you do youre too tired to leave the house that night and must rest. and of course the social links being available in different places at different times on different days requiring you to be available some nights, locking you out of the dungeon (unless you dont care about that character lmao)
I remember reading magazine articles about Pokemon Gen 2, and the devs discussed possibility of a day/night cycle, and Pokemon that were nocturnal or diurnal.
I remember mornings being the worst in Gen 2 because its only from 6 am to 9 am or something like that and some pokemon are morning only
My favourite implementation of this was Bully. The Day/Night cycle were integral to the game's structure. Jimmy is a student, so he has to attend classes in the morning and afternoon, with lunchtime in-between, after the class ends, you're free to do whatever you want during late afternoon and night, but you have to avoid curfew at 11PM and go to sleep before 2AM, so you don't pass out.
It's a very simple implementation but works very well in the game's setting.
The splatoon take of Day/Night
Normal gameplay that happens in Daytime, until the special event arrives with build up weeks prior.
The entire splatfest duration is in nighttime, special effects like party music, on topic community posts in the hub and a special neon type of ink that goes really well in the maps at night.
One thing FFXV did well was make me feel like each day was the start of a new adventure. Wake up, eat, tear down camp, then go out and do things. As the sun started to set, had to find a new place to camp/sleep.
Here's a lesson of what not to do with a day/night cycle. Dark Cloud is a great game, but the day/night cycle that progresses in the towns can be a little annoying. Whenever it shifts to a new time of day or night, the game stops you for a second and pans the camera up as it shifts into the new time. It then shifts back down and you regain control in the new time frame.
This wouldn't be as annoying if time didn't zip by so super fast in the game, meaning that this small interruption happens _all_ the time when you're walking around. Obviously they do this to load all the people in their new locations, which is fine, but it happens way too often. It makes you wonder why they have time speed by anyways when it doesn't do much of anything mechanically besides have people hang out in new spots. It doesn't affect when you can go to stores or do anything in dungeons. The only idea I have is that it maybe affects what fish are around for fishing, but I'm not sure.
The shift is quick, so it isn't a huge deal, but it adds a bit of annoyance that shouldn't be there for a day/night cycle that isn't doing much mechanically and is mainly for aesthetics and immersion.
Bringing up RE4 as the premiere example of a horror-themed game whose plot is tied to the progression of a single day reminded me of how much I loved Until Dawn's story. I mean, it's right there in the title.
One thing I love about the Truck Simulator games' day-night cycle is, ever since they added in the improved lighting system (I think it was in the 1.37 patch a few years back), driving at night is a lot like it is IRL, especially on country roads away from street lighting. It's legitimately hard to see what's in front of you without putting your brights on, and while there's technically no real consequence for blinding oncoming drivers, if you're letting yourself get deep into the simulation, you'll naturally switch the brights off and have to adjust when the oncoming traffic goes by on the other side.
I tend to have my character keep a natural diurnal cycle even though I turned off the game-enforced sleep/fatigue system because it's too clunky and off-cycle to line up with a proper day-night cycle. Driving in daylight is just so much easier and safer than driving at night...just like in real life.
I think its very important to note that changing console time in animal crossing allows everyone to play at whatever time fits them
In Dying Light, nighttime is terrifying.
And FFXV
I love it when a game has different music depending on the time of day, usually with the night-time songs being more relaxed than their day-time equivalents. Pokémon Sun and Moon, Sonic Unleashed, and Zelda BotW are some of my favorite examples of this!
There is dragon quest 8 who has a day and night cycle, it influence the monster on the field and the villagers.
Boktai The Sun is in Your Hand makes good use of a day-night cycle by changing the enemy placement and behavior (there's even a dungeon that is impossible at night). Also, since the game uses a solar sensor, most world interactions can only be seen when the sun is out.
The best day & night system is Bully's imo, theres nothing better then swimming like a mad man around the lake just to pass out in the water at 3 am👌🏻😖
Normally, the day-night cycle in FFXIV doesn't mean much, especially since it's sped up compared to IRL time and the time for the server. and the actual status is locked for aesthetics and atmosphere in dungeons. However, it does have a cool implementation in Shadowbringer's story, namely in conjunction with the weather system, which is itself also mostly used for atmospheric purposes. In Shadowbringers, the Sin Eaters are taking over, and one sign of that as soon as you begin is the endless light. To be exact, the influence of the strongest Sin Eaters, the Lightwardens, causes the weather to be everlasting light, which removes the normal day-night cycle and locks you to an endless yellow daytime. Only when a Lightwarden is slain for good (which only you can do, of course), the zone that Lightwarden was in when killed is freed from the endless light, restoring the day-night cycle and normal weather, which is a mark of story progress.
SPOILERS BELOW
Of course, when it returns to every zone after slaying the last Lightwrarden, Innocence, you know something's wrong, and wouldn't you know, you're at risk of becoming the ultimate Lightwarden, pressuring you to deal with the issue and continue the MSQ. Once you defeat Shadowbringer's Final Boss and complete the inital MSQ of it, this is dealt with and you finally are able to have the day-night cycle and normal weather in every ShB zone. This is good for storytelling,.
I was looking if someone allready mentioned Shadowbringers in the comments and here you are. I also liked in Shadowbringers that in opposition to expectations or usual storytelling tropes the daylight actually was the thread and night was painted as calm and beautiful. Something I as a night owl can absolutely get behind.
@@LuriTV Plus, it adds to the subversion of Dark = Evil and Light = good, and in a game that already had those be very prominent pre-ShB even with the exception of Dark Knight and, to a lesser extent, Black Mage.
Excellent example! That was such a cool atmospheric effect throughout the expansion, and you can really feel the impact you're having on the world as you restore the night to each area.
I was going to say, one thing I don't really like about the day/night cycle in FFXIV, is how you have those special gathering nodes that only spawn at certain times of day and then quickly disappear. It makes a certain amount of sense for fishing, as in real life fish may only bite at certain times of day. But there is no reason a plant or a rock would only "appear" at 8:00 or whatever. Not only that, but for some of them the game won't even tell you what time they spawn -- you have to guess -- or, more realistically, you just look it up online. I'm fine with limiting how often you can gather the rare materials, but having to set a schedule or alarm for it is not fun at all.
@@0Fyrebrand0 Only harvesting plants during specific times of day is/was a real thing, mainly for aesthetic value in flowers or enhancing mystical powers.
Another interesting Day and Night cycle I remember of was in Wario Land 3
In that game, The Music box that Wario is trapped in switches from the two times after exploring a level, this can open up paths to different treasures to find. One treasure even allows you to switch between day and night.
I got the most fond memories of a day and night cycle with Persona 3 funny enough. The songs, the colors and the whole mood of each morning/evening and specially the nights were fun to pass by over and over
Lightning Returns dealt with very well and simply: dont earn enough extra time, game over, start again with all your earned stat increases and gear.
Pokemon Gold, Silver and Crystal had this, real life time effected certain pokemon spawns, early morning ones where a pain for me, i dont sleep till late.
I like fallout and skyrims grounded approach of giving buffs and debuffs depending on what time it was in the day night cycle. It simply helped freshen up the game.
Simple, fresh, good.
It was quite nice in Pokemon Legends: Arceus when the day night cycle changed to an in-game timer rather than tying it to your system clock, and it's something I'm glad carried over into Scarlet and Violet. It just lets people take advantage of both day and night much easier and doesn't require anyone to play at a specific time.
I love games with hidden little mechanics, ambient time and weather can be a part of that but it also just helps the world feel like it's in motion. A lot of the time it might just be easier to divide time up and manually change the lighting rather than trying to have a progressive real time day cycle. I guess it also helps with more casual games to feel like time is passing so everything doesn't look stale while you're working literally all day, or just more depth to when you find certain collectables (assuming it's not made inconvenient).
Mario Sunshine is a good example of the same stages but showing different times of day, but people still love when the sun rises in Zelda and know it's not scripted (or, script certain events to make it cinematic). Cycles aren't required but if a game depends on atmosphere it can be a great addition. But like a lot of stuff that gets shoved into open world rpg like games, it's not always needed or done correctly and could just as easily be left static or manipulated as you want it.
I really like how Radiata Stories's day/night cycle ties itself to character recruitment. Every single NPC in the game has a day/night schedule they follow whether it be waking up at 6am every morning, to training with monks at 12pm, to going to bed at 8pm. You go around solve their issues based around their schedule in order to recruit them. There's a character in there that changes form depending on the time of day, and to recruit them you have to catch them in the act of transforming into their other form at a certain time. It's amazing! The only downside is that you cannot change the time to a certain hour, so you're left having to wait often, and most shops close at night.
Night time is as much of a place itself as the underwater realm. It becomes an entirely new ecosystem at night when you think about it!
Here's a type of game that you don't expect to have a Day/Night cycle: a Visual Novel. This is very simple, but in Robotics;Notes Elite, the art in the main menu of the game will be different depending on the time of day you're playing. It shows a clear blue sky in the morning, an orange sky during the evening, and a starry night sky with an aurora during the night. Along with the piano music playing in the background, it makes for a very relaxing main menu, which sets the mood for the story you're about to read.
Not an elaborate cycle and doesn't change all that much but I never expected to see one in a visual novel to begin with.
My favorite pseudo-day/night cycle are the Persona games, particularly 4 and 5. The day only progress by how you spend your time, and with a multitude of options ranging from doing activities to build stats and relationships to grinding dungeons, it makes you feel like you're accomplishing something in each segment of the day.
I liked how Bloodborne progressed the time whenever you killed a boss. It fit really well thematically.
It wasn't "whenever" you killed a boss. The sky and lighting in Yharnam only changes twice in the whole game. Once when you beat Vicar Amelia and touch Lawrence's skull, and again when you beat Rom the Vacuous Spider.
It may have only been for aesthetics, and it wasn't a cycle per se, but the original Super Mario Bros had levels (worlds 3 & 6) where you ran through an above-ground course under a night sky.
I have to say, now that I think about it, Dead Rising did a lot of interesting things with its day/night cycle. Time and time management is very important in that game. Not only do the zombies become more aggressive and threatening at night, but also, specific events will happen at specific times of day, and you can miss out if you're not careful and managing your time wisely. It adds another level of decision-making in a playthrough, and provides an interesting challenge if you were going to try going for 100% completion. It also factors in to survival mode, where instead of rushing towards deadlines to make sure you don't miss anything, you're trying to run out the clock without dying.
I think that the time-related aspects is a very recognizable part of Dead Rising's identity, and made it stand out from other games at the time. I honestly can't think of a game off the top of my head that uses the in-game time quite the same way that Dead Rising does it.
SimTower. The day-night cycle lasts a few minutes. There's a morning rush as office workers commute in and can generate long queues at the elevators, depending on how many offices and elevators you've built. There are similar rushes at lunchtime as workers commute out and back in, and late afternoon as they go home for the day. Hotel rooms, restaurants, and other units generate foot or elevator traffic in their own way. I find it more interesting than just having units generate a constant level of foot traffic.
Arguably, it's just a wave system where your tower's transport network comes under periodic, not constant, stresses.
For mechanic I like the Dillon Rolling Western cycle were in day is exploration and management of resources, while in night is combat, also Fungi Forest in DK64 changes completely by day and night, for just aesthetic I like Sunset Wilds in Mario Kart Super Circuit with the sun setting in each lap with the sun at the from the finishing line
Barely missing for a timed spot gathering in FFXIV and then waiting one real life hour for a new window the next in-game day.
I really appreciate how you find examples in so many different genres.
adore this vid as usual! Great job :)
any plan to do a vid on UIs?
One I've always liked is modern Persona's take with the calendar system & how it ties into the overall time management. Some social links, stores, or events in each game are only available at night, but in 3, that is also when you can do the treks into the central dungeon where you can earn money, Personas, & xp before the plot hits each full moon while in 4 & 5, if you went in a dungeon during the day, you'll be too tired to do anything outside of what you'd be able to do in your house (you can unlock a bypass for that in 5 but it requires maxing out one of the social links so you have to work for it). So it adds to the big balancing act of when you wanna do dungeon crawling vs the social life stuff.
Yep. I like Star Fox Adventures overall, but there is one NPC that you have to talk to twice during the day to progress. Get there just barely too late? Guess you're waiting one full night! Good thing there's only that one example of an NPC that you HAVE to talk to during a certain portion of the cycle.
Other effects: There's a kind of item that you have to collect, then feed to your companion, Tricky, in order for him to be able to do anything for you. During the day, this item jumps around, making it a little harder to collect, but at night, it sleeps.
Also, in a late portion of the game, you have to have Tricky breathe fire into timed-doored furnaces at the ends of two separate paths of a Central American-inspired pyramid. There are two stone blocks of the pyramid that are in or out depending on whether it's day or night; being out blocks a path, while being in allows a path to be used. This means the time of day is important to which furnace you should be going for, as going for the wrong one makes you take more time. (Still doable, but the time is tighter.)
At least villagers don't yell at you or scold you for not talking to them until the afternoon like in the first game. I guess somewhere along the way, they realized that some portion of their player base has school and jobs in real life, and won't appreciate being called lazy for attending them.
FNAF 6/ Pizzeria simulator has a great day/ night cycle. The day is a fun and bubbly tycoon game that also gives you tokens to play games for extra money, but as you slowly go through your tokens and run out things to do, you start dreading the night shift where you're forced to leave yourself vulnerable to progress. Then there's the salvage mode that peaks the tension by making you listen to scary sounds and avoid getting jumpscared to make money and get the canonical ending. Best FNAF game imo
One of my favorites other than BotW is Dying Light. That blaring alarm warning that night was coming and the tension of being in the dark among more deadly monsters was incredible.
genshin's day and night cycle is mostly aesthetic. the cycle is a bit sped up (so you only need to play for about a few hours/minutes to see the changes in the time), but you can still change the in game time. some quests requires players to be in a time range, which might explain why you can easily change time in game. but a neat thing is that the npc's and some other interactive stuffs also change depending on the time.
and an added bonus:
before you start the game, you are first greeted by a log in screen, where you see a sky and a door. depending on your current time, the sky changes to day, dusk, night or dawn, with an added difference in music too (though i believe there's only two versions, a day and night music)
I'm kind of annoyed that Genshin has a nice-looking night sky, but seemingly no first-person camera to just stare at it without the character model in the way.
@@takatamiyagawa5688 you can actually remove the character in camera, it's where you also see different poses and other options
In Pokemon Gen 2 there was NO SYSTEM CLOCK. The game cart had it's own clock that it kept time with. Which really makes it even crazier.
I simply love this content. Thanks for making my life less boring.
It was really fitting finding this video now, as my pokedex completion is currently held hostage by the Pokemon scarlet/violet day/night cycle. Every in game day takes 72 minutes, and to get the metal coat I need to get a Scizor I have to buy it at a place with randomized stock that refreshes every ingame morning (or getting lucky and finding it I a raid that refreshes every real world day, which can be manipulated by changing the system clock, but doing that over and over and travelling all across the map is also a hassle)
I personally hold Digimon World as a very dear game to me, and it's in great part to the way the d/n cycle is implemented. Music changes, the atmosphere completely changes to a more calm and soothing one, the enemies that spawn are different and of course the quests you have to complete have intricate ties with it too!
I remember following news about Mario Super Sluggers as a kid, and hearing about the day and night mechanics, thinking it was so cool that you could get different gimmicks or hazards based on when you were playing. I was so disappointed finding out it was just a toggle.
The first day/night cycle I came across in a video game was Dragon Warrior 3 on the NES. There were some different monsters at night, most shops were closed at night (although at least one was only open at night. Some items could only be obtained in either the day or night.
It added a depth to video games I had never seen before.
I love animal crossing, but it gives me so much stress about missing out on the cool furniture items or events and with the prices of everything in the shops I feel like I need to be on every day for those nook miles bonuses and bells but it's unsustainable for me. I forget to do things all the time and end up missing out a day and losing my streak or what have you and that ruins my motivation to continue with the game or service. I haven't played animal crossing in 6 months because I wasn't able to play it for about a week and then the anxiety of having missed a bunch of items and an event and the urge to time travel the switch's clock and experience all the days I missed except now I had to do it in a shorter period of time. I'm sure it's fine for most people but it really messed me up and I wish I could get over it but I can't. Having to wait an entire year again just to have another go at experiencing that one event is exhausting mentally for me. I'm in a similar state of mind with things like duolingo or games where you get rewarded for accessing the service every single day, despite there not necessarily being a punishment for not doing so. Every time I lose my streak on duolingo (sometimes I literally cannot help it, for example I had over 70 days streak and lost it because I wasn't able to access Internet or mobile data for a week and streak freezes only stack for 2 days) I completely lose motivation cause the app makes me feel bad for losing that streak and feel bad for not devoting my life to duolingo. Stardew valley I enjoy as it has events throughout the year and crops and fish change with the seasons too, but its not tied to real time. I can finish the rest of the year comfortably knowing that in about 9 hours of playing I'll be able to try my hand at catching the legendary fish again etc. Its still stress inducing as the farm gets larger and there's so much you need to do each day and the days are so much shorter than animal crossing, to the point that I'm now trying to make sure I do what is absolutely best with my time instead of enjoying the little things and just doing what I want to
I have been playing Yu-Gi-Oh! GX Spirit Caller and it has one of the more unique day/night cycles due to some of its mechanics. In particular, there is an interesting mechanic during main story quests called Endless Night where the day doesn’t end and you can venture out, grind duels and spirits, get packs, etc. Certain events as well for certain days of the week due to the Duel Academy schedule, Mondays are exams, the weekends you can spend all day roaming and a sub or ship might appear so special packs and duelists will appear. It really brings you into that Duel Academy feel, while also being an interesting way to offer opportunities to grind and explore.
A day/night cycle that I really like is from one of my childhood favourites: Viva Pinata. The different pinata species the player needs to collect have their own active times which give the player different goals to work towards during the night and day, as well as well as requiring the player to plan and prepare for goals at different times.
Even though the player is mostly in the same area during the game, the atmosphere also changes a lot during day and night because both have their own soundtrack and different active species.
After many years of playing games with day/night cycles, there’s a lot of things I love about them, like different enemies, different atmosphere, music, etc.. but please don’t mess with the lighting. I hate when I spend half the time in a game squinting through the darkness.
But that’s just a personal preference, I understand why games, especially survival games, implement limited vision during the night
Final fantasy 15 has more dangerous enemies attack you at night which is a cool idea, but they completely rectified it by allowing you to upgrade your car with lights that prevent enemies from attacking you while driving at night, if you can do this then there is no point in having more dangerous enemies at night. Also Cities or settlements are never attacked by daemons at night, if they would get attacked it would be better for the world building. Back 4 blood doesn't have a day night cycle, but it has a corruption card called the dark, which causes the level you play to be at night, I swear it almost feels like a horror game. because it is much more difficult to spot enemies and some special enemies that call horde on you spawn more abundantly in dark.
Quickly adding onto Terraria, the day/night cycle has a pretty big effect on bosses and events.
There are some bosses which can only be fought at night, and if they aren't defeated by morning they'll either despawn or be given the power to oneshot the player. A lot of events and invasions are also time-based, either spawning in the morning or lasting the entire day/night. NPCs move into houses during the day when their spawn conditions are met, and when they can't reach their house they'll teleport into it at night. Traveling Merchants have a random chance to spawn between 4:30 AM-12:00 PM, many NPCs sell different items depending on the time and moon phase, critter and enemy spawns change, etc.
But then, there's the Empress of Light. EoL is meant to be fought at night, but can be spawned at any time. However, spawning her during the day or failing to kill her by morning will cause the Empress to become enraged, oneshotting the player and increasing her aggressiveness. Daytime EoL is probably the hardest fight in the game, but if all damage is dealt to her during the daytime she'll drop the most powerful summon weapon when killed. Though, uh, that's not exactly an easy task lol.
The first game I remember noticing a good use of day and night was Unreal. As you progress through the levels, time slowly progresses as well. Usually when you enter an indoor area, it will be noticeably later when you leave. So you start the game in bright day, then go through sunset and nighttime in later levels. And the expansion, Return to Na-Pali, even has you go through one level twice. First its during the day, then you spend some time in a temple, and when you leave, its night and there are new enemies.
That progression of day and night is a big part of what makes that whole game feel like one long contiguous journey, instead of a series of unrelated maps the way most FPS were back then.
Ending a video about day-night cycles with the Satorl Marsh theme was perfect
We were talking about diegetic UI in my game mechanics class recently and watching this made me realize that for games like don’t starve a day/night cycle is essentially a diegetic timer
My first intro to a day night cycle was in the gen 2 Pokemon games, and honestly there was nothing cooler than staying up under the covers with a Gameboy light attachment and having the game world match via the the real time clock as you deal with the spooky Pokemon that only come out at night
Legend of Grimrock II has a day/night cycle, which is actually tied to how many steps the player takes. Health and magic regeneration, hunger, and herbs growing in your inventory are tied to this time mechanic, as well as a puzzle or two. This can be used in custom dungeons as well. In the dungeon I'm making, I have four teleporters that turn on, one at a time, in 6-hour intervals, in a circular/clocklike pattern.
The best day/night cycle system is of course in the game Gridland, which is a free browser game that's amazing. It's a match 3 game, but the way everything works is really interesting. By day, you match materials that you collect to build stuff, but at night, all the tiles switch to monsters, swords, and shields, and you have to defeat a number of monsters and survive to the next day.
Edit: Also the music in Gridland is awesome and the developer also made a game called A Dark Room, which doesn't really have a day/night cycle, but is also a great game.
My favorite implementation of this is in the original x-com. During the day, all units have a vision radius of 20. At night, this is reduced to 9 for your units, while the aliens retain the full 20. This makes missions at night extremely perilous; identifying where the threats are so you can get into cover/deploy a smokescreen correctly becomes much more challenging. Additionally, it also made the game much more creepy; when you did see the aliens, oftentimes they would be at the edge of your vision and nearly shrouded in darkness.
It's not out yet, so jury's still out on the quality, but Octopath Traveler 2 will have it so that the day night cycle affects the characters' path actions- their unique ways to interact with NPCs. During the day, the Warrior can duel people, but at night, he can bribe them for information. We haven't seen much yet, but I think that has the potential to be really cool
I do wonder how many path actions will be the same between characters because 16 different path actions seems a bit much. I hope Agnea's entreat path actions isn't like Octopath Traveler's COTC where the chance of success never reaches over 90%
I love visiting the Caravan or Zoah at night in Panzer Dragoon Saga. Something happens with the colors that give me a feeling that no other game does. Also, Seiken Densetsu 3 how the shading isn't just shades of black.
Moreso for story reasons, but Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers main motif of breaking an endless day with night is a really cool use of its implementation. You're pretty much restoring the day and night cycles in Norvrandt, the setting of the expansion.
In ogrebattle: March of the black queen, which is a tactical sim, the day night cycle affects how strong your characters can hit, move and stay active. Low alignment characters hit harder at night while high do more damage in the day. Done units, like werewolf and vampire, are not effective at night and change how they move. The vampire is in a coffin at night. Plus all units can be active for so long before getting tired and having to camp
Damn it, I wasn't expecting outer wilds music here, I wasn't ready for tears.
Great video as always!