Player controls all.

Since the beginning of this project I have wanted to include time of day and ocean tide cycles in the beach scene. Sometimes it would be day time, otherwise night time, or something in between. And sometimes the sea would be far away and sometimes it would be very close. I wasn’t quite sure how fast these cycles would happen. Usually videogames speed up time so that players can experience different moments. I figured I would do the same.

At some point I thought that it would be interesting if these day to night transitions happened in spurts, rather than gradually. Probably inspired by the way such things are suddenly described in a book. Even though the reader may assume that the transition was happening all along, the fact that the writer suddenly mentions how dark it has become or that the sun is rising, is significant. I want to create moments like that.

But rather than programming a little engine that automatically transitions from stage to stage according to some fixed schedule, I now want to have these transitions influenced by the player’s activity. Perhaps for every 5 items that the player collects from the beach, the time of day will progress to the next stage. This can happen abruptly, without any transition, while their eyes are closed. And perhaps every time the player leaves the café, the tide will be different. Apart from these variations, time will remain the same. It will always be almost summer, and the moon will always be almost full.