Feature Request: Game clock

[Donald Jonker]

This came up a bit in the comp discussion, but I figured I'd make a separate thread so that it didn't slip through the cracks.

The idea is a game clock that tracks how much real time is spent per game. This could work in a couple of ways.

1. Simply map it to your system clock. If your character takes a week or month to die or win, that's what gets recorded on your character dump/display. This is the simplest and could be useful for race-for-the-gold competitions.

2. Actual playtime tracks how long the game is open and the clock stops when you close the program. Also appears in the character dump/display . Could also be used for comps and moreover be useful for honing your game skills. A bonus feature might be a "pause" whenever you minimize the game or open the character screen so you don't accidentally leave the timer running; or maybe an automatic timeout if you spend more than 5 minutes on any one move.

3. A sort of chess timer that forces you to make a move within a user-defined set amount of time. In chess it sounds like not very much fun, but it's pretty exhilarating, and I bet it would be for angband as well. Mangband does this, but I think it could be pretty fun in a singleplayer setting.

Don't know if any of these would be practical or easy to adopt, but I think they'd add some interesting dimensions to the game.

[buzzkill]

Needless to say, I like it. I'm really surprised it didn't get more play in the original thread.

[Pete Mack]

The first is already done in NPP and other variants with the notes patch. The second isn't useful unless there's a timeout that stops the clock after a reasonable idle period (~2min). The third is kiss-of-death. Whatever mangband is, it's not a roguelike.

[andrewdoull]

Originally Posted by Pete Mack

The first is already done in NPP and other variants with the notes patch. The second isn't useful unless there's a timeout that stops the clock after a reasonable idle period (~2min). The third is kiss-of-death. Whatever mangband is, it's not a roguelike.

More useful would be a number of 'game turns' vs. 'player turns' vs. 'active turns'.

Already in Unangband thanks to Bandobras.

Andrew

[Zikke]

I see an ulterior motive behind this thread of making the Competition winner requirements more scientific

[Donald Jonker]

Originally Posted by Zikke

I see an ulterior motive behind this thread of making the Competition winner requirements more scientific

So posting this so soon after asking how to avoid townscumming was a bit obvious, eh?

[Donald Jonker]

Originally Posted by Pete Mack

The first is already done in NPP and other variants with the notes patch.

I hadn't realized this. Since Nick wants to do NPP after the current comp, a realtime framework is already set up... bonus.

The second isn't useful unless there's a timeout that stops the clock after a reasonable idle period (~2min).

I agree. I think it would be a great index of skill development next to turncount if it were developed, though.

The third is kiss-of-death. Whatever mangband is, it's not a roguelike.

Kiss-of-death seems a bit strong, but extra points for using chess terminology. I brought up Mangband for the general picture, but I had something different and more particular in mind. Say you had for each turn 10 seconds. If you only took 2 seconds your time would roll over and you would have 18 seconds for the next move(like a chess timer), and so on. The idea would be for protracted battles you would make a lot of quick decisions anticipating a big decision you would require a little more time to make. This would be a big project, clearly, with a lot of particulars to work out (edit: for instance, the clock shouldn't run unless an enemy was in sight). This would be a variant, in other words. Anyway, just throwing it out there. It seems like it would be a lot of fun to me.

[Nick]

Originally Posted by Pete Mack

The first is already done in NPP and other variants with the notes patch.

This is not quite true. The starting time is recorded, as is the time of defeat of Morgoth, but time the chardump is made is not.