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[SBOVIS]

Hi,
     Has anyone done or been abale to do a proper time mechanic in their project.

What I mean is this - The player starts a level and has a specified amount of time to complete te level and escape.

The player should be able to save/load and the TIMER freeze and start respectively.

The TIMER can be set and reset for different levels, harder ones need more time etc etc.


I want to create an animated hour glass as a window that animates in the scene and I want the sprite to reflect the time left by the timer.

So if there is only say 5 mins left the hour glass animates and empties to that point. Like a real hour glass would do if you were timed with it whilst you did a task.


If anyone has any ideas or test scripts in order to do this I would be really grateful.


Cheers

[Mnemonic]

Game.CurrentTime is all you need. It's paused when the game is frozen, it gets saved and restored. To "start a timer", simply remember the starting time in some global variable. And by comparing the starting time with Game.CurrentTime you get the elapsed time.
You'll probably need to create some script which will be periodically checking the elapsed time and updating the hourglass graphics appropriately.

[SBOVIS]

Thanks Mnemonic, have you or anyone got any example cripts on how this can be achieved, I can set the global up but its the peridoic checking and ipdating the windows graphics thats getting me puzzled.


 

[SBOVIS]

I do not think the Game.CurrentTime idea will work, because I only want a timer to be running in certain levels, the Game.CurrentTime command could be at any value when the player starts one of these timed levels. So I cannot specify an exact time that the player needs to finish the level in.

What I need is either a timer that increments and when it gets to a certain number the player has lost - run out of time.

I know this timer would not be frozen when saved and started when a save game is reloaded, but because this is a end of game level I was thinking the player would not be able to save whist playing it.

Can the Save task be stopped for a certain level (number of scenes) so the player cannot save the game??

If so how?

and how would a timer that is set update window graphics to represent, 100% ,75%,50%,25%,0% time left??


This is the last piece of coding I need to sort out on my project but it is crucial to the 7 endings.


Many thanks

[odnorf]

Well, when the puzzle starts put the Game.CurrentTime into a variable. And then just check Game.CurrentTime with a loop and just do something like "Game.CurrentTime - TimePuzzleStarted". (This is NO real code) and you'll get the time the player is actually playing the puzzle.

[odnorf]

Can the Save task be stopped for a certain level (number of scenes) so the player cannot save the game??

If so how?

Disable the "save" button in the scenes you want.

[Mnemonic]

I do not think the Game.CurrentTime idea will work, because I only want a timer to be running in certain levels, the Game.CurrentTime command could be at any value when the player starts one of these timed levels. So I cannot specify an exact time that the player needs to finish the level in.

Of course you can. You'll be using the *elapsed* time since some point in time (the time when the puzzle started; it's absolutely irrelevant what the actual time was).

[SBOVIS]

Thanks for your input but I am not a scripter or programmer I am a Visuals and game designer, I can work out the mechanics and design scenes and any graphics you can think of, 2D and 3D, animate, story line etc etc but I cannot for the life of me script.


If there is anyone out there that can do this and email me or post some test code that would put me out of my misery. 

Many thanks

[SBOVIS]

I have gone down a different route with this now, I am going to stop SAVE in these end sequences and also setup a step design, where the player has only so many steps before the hour glass graphic empties a section.

This way it will be more specific to the level, number of scenes and puzzles.

Many thanks for your input