Game Mechanics — Games and Time
This text is a part of an ongoing series on game mechanics which have spawned as a result of a course I am giving at the The Faculty of Dramatic Arts at the University of Belgrade.
In the previous installment of this series, we discussed different ways in which space is treated in various games. In this text, we are going to have a look into the notion of time in video games.
Here is a fun fact, that you have probably been overlooking most of your life. We are all time travelers. The problem is that we are all traveling in the same direction and at the same speed. Time is one of the quirkiest concepts in the known universe. We don’t quite know what it is. The science often treats it as just another dimension. This makes sense. Maths describing physical phenomena behave better when we treat time this way. However, as a dimension, it is a very peculiar one. It doesn’t behave quite as the other three. We can’t move in time freely like we can in the other three dimensions. In a way, it is better to treat time as a framework for causes and effects. Imagine a scene. A cat, a broken cup of coffee, and a table stand in a certain relationship. Add time and the whole situation becomes painfully clear.
In this role, time is essential for games. Games are interactive systems. At their core games are interaction loops defined in terms of time and causes and effects. The subject, a player, enters commands. These commands are conveyed as input signals, via game controllers to the computer system running a game. The state of the game changes based on these inputs. Projectiles fly, bad guys die, TNT boxes explode, mushrooms get squished, etc. The new state of the game is conveyed back to the player as output via computer scenes, loudspeakers, and headphones. It is all well and nice and much in accord with how time, causes and effects behave in the real world. But here is a kicker. Games do not have to follow the rules of the normal universe. Virtual time in games does not have to move in only one direction at a steady speed. In games, time can be manipulated in all sorts of ways. It can be sped up, slowed down, made to flow backward, or even chopped into discrete bits.
In what follows we are going to discuss several important ways games play with time as part of gameplay experience.
Real vs. Not-So-Real Time
The first distinction we can notice in the ways various games treat time is the difference between real-time and turn-based games.
Without a doubt, you are familiar with this distinction. Take for example a first-person shooter, like Fortnight or Apex Legend. These games happen in real-time. All actions by the player produce immediate results in the game world. There is no break between player inputs and the effects they cause. These games in general mimic pretty closely how the real world behaves. Hence the name. Time flows (mostly) as it would. The aforementioned interaction loop is executed many times per second, once for each frame rendered and presented to the player. The player in general has control over the game at any moment.
However, not all games behave this way. Тhink about card games such as Hearthstone, or tactical simulators such as XCOM, or strategies such as Civilization. These games do not allow players to issue commands whenever they want. Each participant in the game needs to wait their turn. This is why these games are known as turn-based games. Make no mistake, the state of the game is still refreshed at every frame. New output is generated at every frame but the virtual representation of time in these games is fundamentally different. It is discrete and measured not in seconds and minutes but in discreet turns or moves.
These two distinct ways the time is treated are suited to very different types of gameplay experiences. Real-time games are in general action-oriented, requiring quick decision-making, reflexes, and manual dexterity. The timing in these games creates a sense of urgency and rection and planning time is limited by the pacing of the games.
Turn-based games on the other hand allow players much more time to plan ahead, strategize, and decide on tactics and the next move.
Simply put in real-time games you are a soldier in the trenches or a player on the pitch. In turn-based games you are a general in the army HQ or a coach with the blackboard.
Pausing Time and Speed of Time
Simply pausing time is the most basic method of direct time manipulation that can be employed in a game. It has been present in many video games since the dawn of time. Most games employ this function. It gets triggered whenever the player exits the main gameplay screen and enters, for example, game settings, save and load menu, or help screen.
We already mentioned that real-time games leave less time for planning and reaction than turn-based games. Real-time games put more pressure on quick reactions and split-second decision-making, while turn-based games allow players to better understand the state of the game and plan their best moves. What if we want to have our cake and eat it? What if we want to combine the best of both worlds?
Some games, typically strategies or simulation games push the concept of pausing time even further and allow players to adjust the speed of the time flow to suit their gameplay needs. For example, SimCity franchise from its very beginning has an option to stop the time temporarily or set it at one of three speeds, turtle, llama or cheetah.
In simulation games, players often need to make very complex sets of intricate actions, such as building a network of roads and powerlines, rearranging city blocks, or issuing complex military maneuvers requiring coordination between multiple units. Stopping time is beneficial for this type of task. However, in very complex games, these decisions can have consequences that unfold over very different time scales. Having the ability to control the speed of passage of time allows players to adjust the game dynamics to their play style. The desired user experience here is akin to fast-forwarding the action until the desired outcome is reached.
Similar even more granular game mechanics are used in many real-time grand simulations such as Europa Universalis and Hearts of Iron.
Time Manipulation
Slow-moving simulations and strategy games benefit from speeding up the time, to skip the relatively stagnant parts of gameplay. However, fast-paced action games suffer from the opposite problem. These games often demand very fast reactions from players. The action in such games can easily descend into mayhem and chaos. These games often need a way to tone down their own hectic pacing in order to give players a chance to do more precise actions, such as aiming or ducking from harm’s way.
We can achieve this by slowing down the time enough to give players a chance to grasp the scene, and the state of the game, perhaps to aim better and execute their moves better. The idea of so-called “bullet time” originated in Max Payn, a shooter by Remedy. The action in this game slows down at key moments allowing better clarity of vision and requiring less reaction speed. In the games of this series, it is also used for dramatic effect to highlight the key moments of the narrative. This type of time manipulation has become the hallmark of Remedy as a studio.
Bullet time was later used in all manner of games and has transcended games as a medium, moving into movies such as Matrix. In Red Dead Redemption 2 game this concpet is evolved further. Dead Eye mode in this game combines two bits of time management. Bullet time type of time slowdown with a cooldown timer that prevents player from using this effect constantly.
Rewinding Time
In the real world, we cannot move back in time. If we could that would be great. Or would it? I could jump back and erase all manners of mistakes we made in life. Or we can fantasize of making a pretty penny by moving back in time and betting on a winning team in a particularly important match. Movies and literature are full of such time-traveling plots. Have you watched Back to the Future, a part of GenX canon?
Games allow us to do just that. In games we can rewind time and correct our mistakes freely, You have probably done it yourself whenevery you have used a save game option to restart the game from certain position.
Some games have this as an integral part of their gameplay. The Prince of Persia Sands of Time is one of the most iconic examples of this. This game has time rewinding as part of the gameplay and the central plot of its narrative. Other games utilize time rewinding for different purposes Forza Motorsport uses time rewinding as a tool to enhance players’ performance and abilities. It is meant to improve skill and reduce the frustration with the game. This mechanic essentially rewinds the time to the game state just before the player has made a cardinal mistake such as missing a turn or skidding off the track, allowing players to correct their actions.
Time Loops
The logical consequence of the development of time rewinding is the idea of time loops. If the purpose of rewinding time is to fix past mistakes, what if you could iterate? What if the whole premise of gameplay is to run the same time cycle over and over gradually producing slightly different outcomes until finally the solution to the problem is found and the ultimate game goal is reached?
This is the core of the idea of the time loops. The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask is set in the repeating three day cicle during which the player tries to save the world. The player can reset the time cicle by playing a Song of Time on the famous Ocarina. Each time cicle is restarted player starts over, however retaining the bits of knowledge that help finally solve the puzzle.
Similar premise is used in game Deathloop in which the protagonist relives the same day over and over attempting to eliminate eight targets in order to break free of this accursed cycle of gameplay. The antagonist, time hunter, chases the protagonist trying to thwart his plans.
Outer Wilds treats time loops in a slightly different way. The gameplay is defined by twenty-two minute loops. The player needs to utilize this time to gather as much knowledge as possible before the supernova destroys everything and resets the cycle. Unlike other games, Outer Wilds uses these loops to reflect on larger existential themes: the fragility of life, the inevitability of cosmic events, and the persistence of curiosity in the face of despair. Every loop feels both urgent and contemplative, encouraging players to focus on understanding the universe rather than merely conquering it. The cyclical nature of the gameplay mirrors the narrative’s focus on finding meaning in repetition and discovery.
Time and Motion
By definition motion and rhythm of the game are intertwined. Obviously, the pacing of the game is determined by the flow of time. Pausing, speeding up or slowing down the game, has a direct influence on the pacing of the game.
Some games have the idea of time built into their core gameplay. In Superhot game, time moves only when the player moves. This game is deliberately designed to subvert the conventions of the FPS genre. Instead of relying on fast action and quick reflexes, this game motivates the players to deliberately stop and plan their movements, bringing the gameplay closer to a turn-based tactical simulator or even a puzzle game.
The weapons that the player picks up on the way break down easily. The amount of bullets is very restricted and one shot by the enemy gun will kill the player. The player needs to rely on defensive tactics and intricate planning of movements.
Time Manipulation and Narrative
Many other games put time manipulation at the center of their gameplay. Quantum Break by Remedy, employs several types of time manipulation mechanics as part of its action gameplay. These include basic “Time Dodge” which allows the protagonist to freeze time in order to escape the immediate danger, and “Time Rush” which can be used to quickly dash to the opponents and deal melee damage.
However, the game employs many more sophisticated time manipulation mechanics such as “Time Stop” which creates bubbles of stopped time around particular enemies. If shot at, the enemies will not receive the damage immediately, the damage will be applied only once the time bubble disappears. This allows for the player to deal massive amounts of damage to enemies trapped in time bubbles by shooting them repeatedly, while they cannot escape. However, this damage gets applied only when the effect of the bubble is gone.
Beyond combat, Quantum Break uses time manipulation as a central element of its narrative. “Time Echoes” allow players to witness and rewind fragments of past events, uncovering crucial details and backstory elements. Additionally, one of the game’s protagonists, Paul Serene, has the ability to glimpse potential futures, enabling players to make narrative choices in the present that affect the story’s outcome. These choices ripple through the game’s episodic structure, directly influencing live-action episodes interwoven with gameplay. This fusion of mediums reinforces the role of time as both a gameplay mechanic and a storytelling device, giving players a sense of agency over the unfolding timeline.
Time as a Resource
In addition to time being used as an element of action gameplay and narrative, there are other ways in which games can treat time. Some games treat time as a resource. For example, in simulation games, such as city simulations, building an object can be instantaneous or it can require some time. If this waiting time is employed, the time becomes a resource that needs to be carefully managed.
This mechanic has become very common in free-to-play games. A typical example of this is building mechanics in Clash of Clans by Supercell. This game revolves around building and attacking fortifications. Building or upgrading any of the key buildings in the Palyer’s base, such as Gold Mines or Elixir Pumps takes a certain amount of actual real-time. The player has no direct control over the flow of time. The player can either wait or spend money in the game to skip this waiting time.
These games establish a clear correspondence between time and real money. This direct link between time and money is at the core of the monetization of these games.
Furthermore, so-called crafting games such as Hay Day or SimCity BuildIt, take these mechanics even further. In these games, the player is required to manufacture a series of virtual goods, represented as items such as muffins and pies in Hay Day and nails and bricks in SimCity BuildIt. Producing these items takes time, similar to the upgrading of buildings in Clash of Clans. In addition to this, each of these items requires a set of ingredients that need to be in turn manufactured. Muffins for example require sugar, eggs, and flour. Each of these requires its own manufacturing time. Some of the ingredients might require ingredients of their own. This system creates a series of production chains that need to be constantly monitored and maintained. Different items are produced in different locations in the game. Some of these crafting machines can produce several instances of items in parallel, while others produce items one by one.
The game becomes a time management puzzle in which time is the universal resource that can be converted into any other resource. Again the link between time and real money is at the heart of this business model.
Games treat time as a resource even beyond the free-to-play monetization model. Cooldown mechanics are an example of this. Cooldown mechanics also treat time as a resource but on a shorter scale. In many games, cooldowns regulate the use of abilities or actions, ensuring that players cannot overuse them without considering the recovery period. For instance, in RPGs like World of Warcraft, spell and ability cooldowns create a rhythm to combat, balancing power with resource management. These mechanics add depth by making time a critical factor in moment-to-moment decision-making, blending strategy with pacing in ways that enhance both challenge and immersion.
Time Away from the Game
Free-to-play games have another interesting property when it comes to their treatment of time. The waiting times in these games, such as building upgrade times in Clash of Clans or production times in Hay Day, can range from a few seconds to several days. Naturally, these games do not expect the player to stick around looking at the screen for three days in one sitting. These games expect the player to go away from the game and come back at a later moment to see the results of the upgrades or production.
In other words, these games are designed so that the action will take place in several distinct gameplay sessions separated by periods that the player spends away from the game. This is a key difference between standard games and this type of game. These games try to model and modulate a player’s time away from the game.
Consider the following concept. Production time for items in Hay Day can theoretically take any value from a few seconds to several hours or even days. In practice, however, these times fall into three distinct categories. Any timer that requires waiting for less than about ten minutes is something that a player can wait out during one play session. Times longer than that but shorter than about five hours are something that a player will start in one play session and come back to check during the next session. Finally, waiting times longer than five hours are something that players will typically trigger over in the evening and let run overnight.
Timeboxes and Live Events
We already mentioned that free-to-play games have the correspondence between time and money at the core of their business model. The live operation of these games is built around creating a sense of urgency in players.
Games that operate on a service model need to retain players for as long as possible, ideally indefinitely. To do so these games need to remain fresh to players for months and even years. Typically, in order to do so games combine their core gameplay with a system of limited-time events. As the game implies these events are designed to run only for a certain duration of time, a month, a week, or a couple of days. These events consist of a set of goals that players try to achieve in a limited amount of time. These goals are sometimes combined with a twist on the core gameplay mechanic to keep things new even for seasoned players.
More importantly, these events include a certain number of unique rewards that can be obtained only by completing the goals in a given amount of time. This timebox is a crucial element of the design of live events. The limit of time imposed on the player creates urgency and adds another layer of difficulty to the time puzzle. The artificial scarcity of rewards contributes to the feeling of fear of missing out. The combination acts as a significant motivator for players to engage with the game or eventually spend money to circumvent the time limitations of the event.
Time as a Goal
Time can also be a goal in itself in a game. A variety of gameplay genres employ mechanics which require a player to survive for a certain amount of time. This is common in tower defense games such as Plants vs. Zombies in which certain levels require a player to withstand attacks of zombies for a specified number of minutes vs. a specific number of attack waves as in normal levels.
Shooter games such as Call of Duty’s and Gears of War’s employ similar survival missions. In Call of Duty’s zombie mode, and Gears of War’s Horde Mode the objective is to survive increasingly difficult waves of undead, where each round intensifies the challenge. Success is measured by how long players can hold out. In Halo: Reach’s final mission, “Lone Wolf,” the player’s only objective is to survive as long as possible. The inevitable outcome ties time to the narrative, creating a poignant, emotional experience.
Finally, the whole genre of survival games has this as a central premise. In Don’t Starve, time manifests through day-night cycles. Players must gather food and resources during the day to survive the dangers of the night. The Long Dark uses the passage of days to amplify the challenge. Surviving longer introduces harsher weather, dwindling resources, and increasing difficulty, making time a constant adversary. Minecraft’s survival mode requires players to survive night cycles while managing hunger, crafting tools, and fortifying shelter, making time management key to progression.
Conclusions and Key Takeaways
- Real-Time vs. Turn-Based Mechanics: Games handle time differently based on their design. Real-time games, like Apex Legends, emphasize immediate reactions and reflexes, while turn-based games, such as Civilization, allow players to strategize and plan without the pressure of constant action.
- Pausing and Speeding Time: Pausing or adjusting the speed of time, as seen in SimCity or Europa Universalis, offers players control over pacing, enabling strategic planning or fast-forwarding through less engaging moments.
- Time Manipulation for Clarity: Slowing time, popularized by Max Payne’s bullet time, enhances precision and reduces chaos in fast-paced action games, while also adding cinematic flair, as in Red Dead Redemption 2’s Dead Eye mode.
- Rewinding Time to Correct Mistakes: Rewinding mechanics, central to games like Prince of Persia: Sands of Time and Forza Motorsport, allow players to undo mistakes, improving performance and reducing frustration.
- Time Loops for Iterative Problem-Solving: Time loops, as in Majora’s Mask and Outer Wilds, challenge players to refine their strategies or gather information through repeated cycles, blending narrative and gameplay into a cohesive experience.
- Time and Motion: The relationship between time and motion shapes a game’s rhythm and pacing. Games like Superhot creatively slow time to turn chaotic FPS action into methodical, puzzle-like gameplay.
- Narrative Integration of Time Manipulation: In Quantum Break, time manipulation mechanics like freezing and rewinding are integrated into both combat and storytelling, allowing players to influence the narrative and gameplay simultaneously.
- Time as a Resource: Time is a resource to be managed in crafting systems and cooldown mechanics, as in Clash of Clans and World of Warcraft, often tying time directly to monetization strategies in free-to-play games.
- Time Away from the Game: Games like Hay Day and Clash of Clans encourage players to leave and return by utilizing long production or upgrade times, modeling time outside the game as part of the experience.
- Timeboxes and Live Events: Time-limited events in games create urgency and foster engagement through exclusive rewards and artificial scarcity, often motivating players to spend money to avoid missing out.
- Time as a Goal: In survival games and modes, such as Don’t Starve, Plants vs. Zombies, or Gears of War’s Horde Mode, time itself becomes the objective, testing players’ endurance against escalating challenges.
Links
- Apex Legends: A free-to-play battle royale game emphasizing real-time combat and team-based strategies.
- Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: A turn-based strategy game where players build and expand empires through strategic planning.
- SimCity: A city-building simulation game that allows players to design and manage a city.
- Europa Universalis IV: A grand strategy game focusing on empire building and management across centuries.
- Max Payne: A third-person shooter known for its bullet time mechanic, allowing players to slow down time during combat.
- Red Dead Redemption 2: An action-adventure game set in the Wild West, featuring the Dead Eye mechanic for slow-motion targeting.
- Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time: An action-adventure game that allows players to rewind time to correct mistakes.
- Forza Motorsport: A racing game series offering realistic driving experiences, including the ability to rewind time during races.
- The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask: An action-adventure game featuring a three-day time loop that players must navigate to save the world.
- Outer Wilds: An exploration game set in a solar system trapped in a 22-minute time loop, encouraging discovery and problem-solving.
- Superhot: A first-person shooter where time moves only when the player moves, creating a unique strategic experience.
- Quantum Break: An action-adventure game that blends gameplay with live-action episodes, focusing on time manipulation mechanics.
- Clash of Clans: A mobile strategy game where players build bases and attack others, with time-based mechanics for building and upgrades.
- Hay Day: A farming simulation game that incorporates real-time growth and production cycles.
- Don’t Starve: A survival game where players must manage resources and time to withstand various environmental challenges.
- Call of Duty: Zombies: A game mode in the Call of Duty series where players survive against endless waves of zombies.
- Gears of War: Horde Mode: A cooperative mode where players defend against successive waves of enemies.
- Plants vs. Zombies: A tower defense game where players use plants to defend against waves of zombies.
- XCOM 2: A turn-based strategy game where players lead a resistance force against alien occupation, focusing on tactical combat and base management.
- Hearts of Iron IV: A grand strategy game that allows players to lead a nation through World War II, managing military, political, and economic aspects.
- Family Island: A mobile farming game set in the Stone Age, where players help a family build and manage their farm on a deserted island.
- DEATHLOOP: A first-person action game where two rival assassins are trapped in a time loop, with players seeking to break the cycle by eliminating key targets.
