Day/Night Cycles?

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DaHeckIzDat
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Day/Night Cycles?

Postby DaHeckIzDat » June 12th, 2015, 5:25 pm

Do you like your games to cycle from day to night? I've been playing Dragon's Dogma, and I actually find them kind of annoying. The nights last so long, you can barely see, and the monsters get a lot tougher- especially to my low level character. And you can only skip them if you're in a town and find an inn. So yeah, in this case I don't like them.

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Rev
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Re: Day/Night Cycles?

Postby Rev » June 12th, 2015, 6:14 pm

Depending on the game I can actually like it... If you take into consideration Castlevania II: Simon's Quest- the transitions were terrible, but when done correctly, it was a cool effect on older games. I really like day/'night cycles in fighting games. Has anyone seen the Fatal Fury (Neo Geo/billion of other ports) transitions in between rounds? I thought that was really cool back then. For more modern games, I think they're typically handled well and can be a cool effect. Things definitely get harder to see though...

DaHeckIzDat
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Re: Day/Night Cycles?

Postby DaHeckIzDat » June 12th, 2015, 8:12 pm

I didn't mind them in Twilight Princess. Been a few years since I played that game, but I think it was because they didn't last very long. And the skeleton monsters that came out weren't that tough.

Sut
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Re: Day/Night Cycles?

Postby Sut » June 13th, 2015, 4:10 am

Agreed I often wait for daytime before attempting GTA missions because I can't see a damned thing otherwise.
Although I do like when games go from dawn to dusk. When the sun is going down GTAV does look amazing.
So overall I'm a little in the middle. I do like it when implemented well, I hate it when it reduces my vision.

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Oltobaz
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Re: Day/Night Cycles?

Postby Oltobaz » June 13th, 2015, 4:12 am

I like that. It makes games more atmospheric, be they Simon's Quest or Dragon's Dogma, and anything in between.

tortimer
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Re: Day/Night Cycles?

Postby tortimer » September 9th, 2016, 12:07 pm

I find that I do like day/night cycles as they add atmosphere and interesting gameplay elements. Before posting I was trying to think of the first game where I experienced this but just couldn't recall (it will probably turn out to be some obscure arcade game from the late 80s or 90s). As for those I can think of...

Harvest moon has always implemented this fantastically with not only day/night but (in many of the games) you get morning, afternoon, evening and nighttime, where the NPCs are on schedules so you find yourself planning your activities around them. You don't have to sleep if you don't want to but pay the price for it the following day. Nice added depth.

Morrowind would have to be my favorite example only because the game is already teeming with atmosphere and the day/night cycles add further to it in the best possible way. I have to wonder if this wasn't the game that inspired that aspect of Minecraft.

A recent example would be Euro Truck Sim 2, which probably had to have it for the sense of time and travel distance. But it's more than aesthetic in that you can continue on through the night to make delivery deadline but suffer fatique as a penalty... not to mention that it's more difficult to drive at night (especially when it's raining heavily in cab view). Very atmospheric and tons of fun.

May post a few more as I think of them.

Overall, no examples come to mind yet where this was misused or entirely unnecessary.

Sut
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Re: Day/Night Cycles?

Postby Sut » September 9th, 2016, 1:46 pm

Most of you will probably never have heard of this game or the obscure system it's on.

Burnin' Rubber on the Amstrad GX4000. I believe it's a renamed port of Konami's WEC Le Mans. You have four laps and the sky darkens with every lap until your racing at night. Pretty beautiful graphics for a somewhat limited 8-bit system.

https://youtu.be/Z1XruHymzkU

Herschie
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Re: Day/Night Cycles?

Postby Herschie » September 9th, 2016, 8:54 pm

Sort of along these lines, I love progressive lighting in sports games. Madden needs to fix it though, they need to make the games look much later in the day than they do. If I'm playing a 4:00 game in November, it really ought to be pitch black by halftime.

The Show has this down to the minute, and it's cool playing a 3:05 game and watching the shadows progress as the game goes on. Or a 7:05 game and watch the sky turn orange, then purple, then black.

So being a sports guy, I love day/night cycles.

twilighthotel
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Re: Day/Night Cycles?

Postby twilighthotel » September 10th, 2016, 11:03 am

DaHeckIzDat wrote:Do you like your games to cycle from day to night? I've been playing Dragon's Dogma, and I actually find them kind of annoying. The nights last so long, you can barely see, and the monsters get a lot tougher- especially to my low level character. And you can only skip them if you're in a town and find an inn. So yeah, in this case I don't like them.


That sounds exactly like Castlevania II's day/night. Tougher enemies, nights last too long and you can only find refuge in a town.

Only bad thing about the day/night in the typical game for me is being forced to kill time to advance from one to the other. Put Simon somewhere safe and take a bathroom or snack break while you need to pass the time until the sun comes up and you can buy a nicer whip in town.

Herschie
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Re: Day/Night Cycles?

Postby Herschie » September 12th, 2016, 4:32 pm

Got my first taste of Castlevania's day/night cycle. Ugh!


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