It was on everyboyd's mind. The year 2000 was on its way and people were busy arguing about the merits of the incoming Y2K disaster, the real start date of the millenium and a wave of declarations of the end of days. Behind it all, the ticking continued. It was a new age to come in interactive media, one to be warranted not only by the internet but by small innovations in hardware and software. Time was a major factor in some important titles around the turn of the century. It began to matter not just where you were playing but when, in and outside of the game world.
An early and popular use of time as a mechanic was in the much anticipated sequel to the hit Pokemon series, Pokemon Gold and Silver. Using an clock that tracked real time affected gameplay that made sense with a portable system. Having the Game Boy (and Color) with you at different times of the day conferred the player with different advantages and opportunities. Certain Pokemon would benefit from being trained during the day or night time while others were only available to catch at certain times. While the effect of this was minimal when playing, it had a chance to influence the make up of your party and your personal experience.
The SEGA Dreamcast had some really innovative titles that were making use of its hardware features in interesting ways, but I want to turn your attention to Shenmue. The game is filled with specific and thoughtful interactions with the game world but what really drives the player to act is the in game clock. The game is working with a calendar and an internal time mechanic that dictates where certain characters will be and what they will be doing. You may spend time in your day waiting for sailors to arrive at a bar to ask them questions and find yourself at an arcade playing Super Hang-On. Your morning might be busy following leads to your father’s killer but leave your afternoon free to buy capsule toys and train in the dojo.
By the end of the game, your free time is mostly gone as you will have a job to attend to. You’ll be too busy to meander as your grater goals take precedence over leisure. In a lot of ways, the game is mostly about time management. Depending on your immediate goals and the daily routines of the NPCs, your approach to time and money expenditure may change. But it is this effect that breathes life into the world of Shenmue. Everyone around you seems to have their own schedule. Everyone is either using their time or wasting it. And you can measure the effects of time by adding up your daily allowances, checking on a kitten that will grow up throughout the story and even weather changes. The game was ahead of the curve when it came to immersion. Time was at the core of its design.
Animal Crossing comes into the world in a unique format and with a creative design goal: to be a “communication” game. If you don’t know already, Animal Crossing is essentially a village or neighborhood simulator with a thick coat of charm. But while you may be away, your village and its residents continue to go about their business. In other games you may be a character of major influence, but here you are in a lot of ways always a visitor.
Your very own daily life will determine how you interact with the game. At its inception, one of the first ideas was to have your village in the game shared by the members of your household. Different people would go in at different times and see things others would not, stimulating communication. You could leave letters for one another but your villagers would interact with you as an individual and your actions would leave an impact that others would see.
Depending on when you played, different events would occur either by your villagers or in your village itself. Holidays, birthdays, weather, seasonal changes and more would influence what you did in town. Similarly to Pokemon Gold and Silver, the availability of different bugs and fish are dependent on when in the day and the year you are seeking them out. And your absence shapes the world as well. The other villagers will take notice, your town will be overgrown with weeds and your own home overrun with cockroaches (send help). As I’ve written before, New Leaf on the 3DS brought to full fruition, making not just your time but the spaces you inhabited a unique aspect of your experience.
My hope for the future is that games use time more as a tool for story telling and as a way to share a common experience. My time as Ryo Hazuki was most memorable when I didn’t have much to do at the moment, but spent my allowance at the arcade. My villagers accounting for my absence, sometimes making decisions without me and interacting with each other and their spaces makes an impact on how much time I put into my village. Having a considerable amount of dark type Pokemon gave me an advantage in trades and added value to my time playing. Time doesn't have to play as only a limiting factor to challenge the players but can add a new dimension to storytelling and role playing that we have not fully explored.
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