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[cynicalsandel]

I was listening to the Insert Credit Podcast today, and one of the discussion topics was Games From the 20th Century That Devs Can Learn From. Regardless of the games they discussed, one thing immediately popped into my mind.

This is what I commented to them:

"Harvest Moon (64). Aside from what I think is a need for more non-violent games, what I think games can learn most from HM is the passage of time. While some games have introduced day/night cycles, I don't think that it is as impactful as the changing of seasons that HM has along with the time of day differences. Many games are about the hero's journey. However, they seem a lot less epic when the world doesn't change. Are these quests that your characters go on only taking a few days or weeks? While I can beat games in a few days, I think the changing of seasons can emphasize the supposed difficulty of the stopping of evil and emulate the feeling of a long process regardless of your play time."

Harvest Moon is not the only case. This is also applicable to Animal Crossing. However, it feels strange to me that the changing of seasons of games is not utilized more. The only two that come to mind are simulation games. I'm sure that there are games that I haven't played that also implement this, but I feel it would be highly beneficial for games such as JRPGs and games like Zelda to have seasons pass. Spring, summer, fall/autumn, and winter can be drastically different and give off different feelings. This isn't to downplay the effect day/night cycles alone have. I think it's highly beneficial to games, but I think it could be taken further. I think The Last of Us somewhat does this, but I haven't played it myself.

One could argue that it's not as impactful when your hero already travels to a snowy area, desert area, beach area, forest area, etc. This is partially why I think the Zelda series can get away without it.

Another game that does this in a different way is Mother 3. The character ages years and you can see the change in both the character sprite and the fast forwarded world that you have spent time in before and after. Chrono Trigger also has this, but on a much larger scale, with you traversing the world in many different time periods. This gives the game a grandiosity that I don't think other JRPGs have, even though the actual length of the game is maybe 25 hours, which is on the low end of traditional JRPGs.

Obviously, this isn't the easiest to implement. Especially for independent developers, depending on the artstyle, it involves a lot more work. 4 seasons + day, night, possible dawn, dusk, etc are extra tilesets that need to be made. This might not be feasible. It's possible it wouldn't make enough of an impact. Many players might not notice.

Honestly, I just wanted to type out my thoughts on this. If you want to add anything, feel free. Sorry if a similar topic already exists.

[starsrift]

That was actually one of the reasons I really liked Rockstar's Bully.

I think the passing of seasons has a much more powerful impact than just aging the characters, which IIRC, is how Fable worked.

[oahda]

I think it's really interesting to see seasons done right, but if there's a good explanation or design choice behind avoiding them, I think that's fine too. I'm currently making a game where the setting has a sky full of ashes and has been thrown in to pretty much a practically eternal (as far as the duration of the game goes) winter's night — not to avoid seasons easily, but because this is the specific setting and mood i want for the game.

Another one I'm working on is going to have the character travelling up north throughout the game, with snow slowly creeping up along the way. Not a dynamic change, but a transitional one. It starts in a sort of autumn setting and eventually you're in a full-fledged winter wonderland with snow and northern lights and all. You're not going to be going back to the beginning in this game, so there is no need to double the assets and make an eventual winter version for the starting areas.

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Depends so much on the general setting that is to be conveyed, the type of game, and so on. But in general I think it's very interesting to consider cycles like these and how they can be used to make a game feel more real. I'm very curious as to whether it'd be possible to make a game were every day and night counts and things have to be done at a certain pace, but rather than giving the player the opportunity to relive the same few days over and over like in Majora's Mask, it'd be a more traditional adventure, always progressing forward through time. Perhaps sometimes you need to get something done in two days and sometimes you're stuck in a town for three days and have to wait before you can continue your journey but can use the time to do other stuff, like getting info or supplies. If you misuse your time you fail. Eventually the world is doomed if you just sit around doing nothing.

But this is difficult and by some perhaps even considered bad game design, which is why we don't really see this. And perhaps due to this attitude, perhaps people do not consider and toy with the concept either, hindering all progress. Obvious problems are how new players may get confused and stuck and then fail because they don't know what to do before the time is up, or the three days stuck in that town will be boring if they don't need to do anything. The latter is probably easier to solve by letting the user player have the character sleep to skip a day or something. But the former is trickier. But I think it's really interesting to ponder.

That was actually one of the reasons I really liked Rockstar's Bully.

Oh? How does it work there? My LD game from the first LD this year was about bullying in an abstract way (it wasn't much of a game — I didn't have much time, help or motivation that time around, so it's only a few minutes long), and it moved between four seasons to emphasise the social changes for the bully victim throughout the year. Does Bully do something similar, to show bullying going on for a long time? I guess I've gotten the impression from the game that you actually are a bully in it, bullying people, in an offensive way, considering what the other Rockstar games I know of are like. Did I get that totally wrong?

[ThemsAllTook]

For a system like this, I'd be wary of crating situations of degenerate gameplay, where some aspect of progress is gated based on the current season and the player has no choice but to wait around. This could be addressed with some mechanism of passing time quickly, or by not making anything mechanically significant tied to the current season, but that seems like it removes the impact and defeats the purpose. It's a hard design problem.

It's funny you mention Zelda, because Oracle of Seasons was all about this. It's pretty great. There isn't any passage of time in it, though; you just change from one season to the other with a special item at designated places.

Don't Starve is another one to look at. It's a survival challenge, so although there are unique things to see and do in each season, the notion of "progress" is a lot more nebulous.

[oahda]

Oh, I never played the Oracle games.

Maybe it'd work better for more of a sandbox adventure game like Skyrim where if you miss one opportunity there's still lots of other stuff to do.

[cynicalsandel]

For a system like this, I'd be wary of crating situations of degenerate gameplay, where some aspect of progress is gated based on the current season and the player has no choice but to wait around. This could be addressed with some mechanism of passing time quickly, or by not making anything mechanically significant tied to the current season, but that seems like it removes the impact and defeats the purpose. It's a hard design problem.

I'm not a programmer, but in my mind the seasons were more of an aesthetic change that gradually happens without really impacting the game, but gives the illusion of time passing. Either it would happen on its own, or it would be tied to a certain amount of progress in the game. In my mind, it wouldn't actually affect players' ability to progress. Just once you got 1/4 way through the game the season would switch or something.

It might not seem like it's very important to add when it has little impact on the game overall, but aesthetic features like this in games make me happy. It's just a small thing to add to possibly differentiate a game, and I think some players will go smile at the transition to fall, winter, and back to spring.

It's funny you mention Zelda, because Oracle of Seasons was all about this. It's pretty great. There isn't any passage of time in it, though; you just change from one season to the other with a special item at designated places.

This is sort of why I avoided mentioning the Oracle Games. Ages also has drastic time differences you can switch between, and it's interesting, but ultimately it's completely within your own control. To me, it doesn't really feel the same when it's something you switch between constantly and doesn't happen on it's own naturally like actually seasons/time. Also puzzles are tied to the mechanic. (To be honest, I own Seasons, but haven't played it much. I had to choose between Ages and Seasons as a kid and chose Ages because the box art was blue.)

I think it's really interesting to see seasons done right, but if there's a good explanation or design choice behind avoiding them, I think that's fine too. I'm currently making a game where the setting has a sky full of ashes and has been thrown in to pretty much a practically eternal (as far as the duration of the game goes) winter's night — not to avoid seasons easily, but because this is the specific setting and mood i want for the game.

That's the thing. I don't think players will really notice until it's actually there. So many games have gotten away without doing it, so I doubt many players care about seasons.

Another one I'm working on is going to have the character travelling up north throughout the game, with snow slowly creeping up along the way. Not a dynamic change, but a transitional one. It starts in a sort of autumn setting and eventually you're in a full-fledged winter wonderland with snow and northern lights and all. You're not going to be going back to the beginning in this game, so there is no need to double the assets and make an eventual winter version for the starting areas.

Awesome! Tying the seasons to individual areas of progression is a good idea, especially if there is no backtracking. I'll have to write that down.

[starsrift]

That was actually one of the reasons I really liked Rockstar's Bully.

Oh? How does it work there? My LD game from the first LD this year was about bullying in an abstract way (it wasn't much of a game — I didn't have much time, help or motivation that time around, so it's only a few minutes long), and it moved between four seasons to emphasise the social changes for the bully victim throughout the year. Does Bully do something similar, to show bullying going on for a long time? I guess I've gotten the impression from the game that you actually are a bully in it, bullying people, in an offensive way, considering what the other Rockstar games I know of are like. Did I get that totally wrong?

Bully's a game that uses one of the GTA engines, but you're kind of a bully and kind of not; it's more of a 3rd person character action game than anything too deep about the subject of bullying. As far as the seasons go, basically the game is broken up into chapters over the course of a school year and with each chapter, the season changes, and certain other (NPC) character developments are also locked into the chapter progression.

It was a really nice way to create an open world game and make it feel alive, because unlike in, say, Bethesda games, the world did move on around your character when you passed the chapter logic gates.

[s0]

actually bully is only tangentially about bullying. it's basically a typical highschool drama in videogame form. i mainly like bully bc it shows that rockstar can come up with relateable characters and stuff when theyre not trying to be a bunch of south park edgelords. it's less cynical than their other games.

ON TOPIC: many simulation and management games have a seasons cycle. dwarf fortress is one obvious example where winter limits your access to food and water (all outdoors water sources get frozen) and makes you more likely to be attacked by goblins. that is, if you're in a place with temperate climate. if you built your fort in a hot biome, things are going to go from unbearable heat (which comes with its own set of problems) in summer and somewhat more bearable heat in winter. i really wish more gams would do sth like that. the "classic" heat in summer, snow in winter thing does not apply to the whole world.

[Devr0s]

For a system like this, I'd be wary of crating situations of degenerate gameplay, where some aspect of progress is gated based on the current season and the player has no choice but to wait around. This could be addressed with some mechanism of passing time quickly, or by not making anything mechanically significant tied to the current season, but that seems like it removes the impact and defeats the purpose. It's a hard design problem.

It's funny you mention Zelda, because Oracle of Seasons was all about this. It's pretty great. There isn't any passage of time in it, though; you just change from one season to the other with a special item at designated places.

Don't Starve is another one to look at. It's a survival challenge, so although there are unique things to see and do in each season, the notion of "progress" is a lot more nebulous.

Great call. I think Don't Starve is the perfect example using the notion of seasons not only as a passage of time, but also an incredible emotional experience and mechanically a core part of the gameplay. Progress in it is essentially how long you can survive, depending on game mode, so early on your progress is determined by the seasons -- did you make it to fall? etc. As you get better at the game you make it further and the seasons become an aspect of the game that guides your strategy on how play during a specific season and leading up to the next one. For me its a must have game as an example of fantastic game design and art (sound as well).