[ANN] Spelos' Development Challenge

[Spelos]

Challenge #1

The Time is Ticking

I believe that a mod creator or a developer in general can only get better by completing new and interesting projects. While there is value in practicing the same formula over and over, doing things that are new and interesting gives overall much more experience. That's why I decided to start with these challenges.

Yes, we all have our large and amazing projects, but it's very important to take a break and try something very new. Hell, you might even get inspiration for your main project.

So... enjoy yourself, do the things that matter, cause there isn't time or space to do it all. Go ahead... Try it... Show a little grace if you should fall. There's someone else that you're supposed to be.

What is the challenge about?

I coded a nice base for you to work off of.
The whole thing revolves around time. I added TIME into Amnesia.
There is a 24 hours system.
Amnesia keeps track of the following:

22:35 - MONDAY - WEEKS PLAYING: 0

You, however, are not allowed to edit the time code. You just need to build on it. For this purpose I prepared some new functions for you:

• OnTimeTick() function that runs every time-tick
  
• Get current day as string = returns "Monday" etc.
  
• Change Time (adding as well as setting)
  
• Starting & Stopping the time progression
  
• Display current time as a Message on screen
  
• Edit the time scale (how many real seconds are one minute in-game?)
  
• Get time as string = returns "22:45" (padded, meaning you will get 01:07 instead of 1:7)
  

All functions are in the .hps file I prepared and have examples included.

What am I supposed to do?

Your task is to create a new and interesting gameplay-mechanic using the time.
INSPIRATION:
[EASY] - Player needs to do something till the end of the week
[ADVANCED] - Player can alter the speed of time
[EXPERT] - A shop with opening hours and work-shifts

(!) I recommend having the whole mod in one map, otherwise you will have to set and update a GlobalVariable OnTimeTick() and set it when the map changes. It is possible, but I don't support it currently. (maybe next time)

Sounds cool, how do I join? / What's the deadline?

If you are interested, there are multiple difficulties of this challenge:

[I JUST STARTED AMNESIA] - Deadline: August 31st - Try something very simple... Don't overshoot, use Amnesia's assets and make a simple one map level.

[LONE WOLF] - Deadline August 18th - I believe in you! Just keep it simple and good luck.

[MUDBILL] - Deadline August 11th - Who am I to give you advice?

[COMMUNITY] - Deadline August 7th - Grab a friend or twelve... We're in this together. (Feel free to look for people to cooperate with in the comments of this thread)

[FRICTIONAL GAMES] - Deadline August 1st - You better start working.

Got it, how do I submit my work?

When done, feel free to upload your creation on ModDB as a normal mod (you deserve the full credit) Just state that it's for this Challenge somewhere on the page.

And of course, send me the link at:
petr.spelos@gmail.com

Subject: SCH1 - [YOUR MOD'S NAME]
Content: (link to your mod on moddb) - (difficulty you chose eg. [COMMUNITY]) - (any comment you'd like to add)

I will create a video going through the entries and actually giving you feedback as a reward. (The main reward, however, is the mod you create)

.ZIP containing a custom story folder with the extra_english.lang (containing time values) and TheTimeChallenge.hps (with the main code)
DOWNLAOD (Dropbox)

.ZIP containing just the Extra_english.lang and TheTimeChallenge.hps
DOWNLAOD (Dropbox)


-- Feel free to ask any questions or report any problems, It's possible I made a mistake somewhere --

[Daemian]

I'm in. Could be fun.

[AGP]

Intrigued! Not sure if I could really get around to doing this right now, but I'd definitely be up for something like this!

[Mudbill]

Oh wow you made me into a rank. I don't think I'll have the time, but I will take a look and perhaps think of something.

PS: If you edit the Dropbox link to either be dl=1 at the end or http://dl.dropbox instead of http://www.dropbox. then the link will turn into a direct download... instead of a downlaod.

[Spelos]

Thanks for the tip, that's actually really neat. See? You've earned your rank. =D

[Mudbill]

I'll have you know that I've been trying to think of some time-related puzzles to implement, but I couldn't come up with enough that I thought would be interesting. I definitely had some ideas I could use for a "Challenge" type CS including the time, but I wanted to integrate the time itself a lot more into what I would potentially make, which I was unable to.

Had I been able, I probably would've made something for this. This is just to blame on my lack of creativity probably.
</FYI>

[DanielRand47]

This is super legit man!! This can be very useful for modders who want to simulate a night/day cycle in there mods. Unfortunatly I do not have the time to take you up on your challenge.

Would there be a way to get the time off of the system clock and use the current real day time in game?

[Romulator]

This is super legit man!! This can be very useful for modders who want to simulate a night/day cycle in there mods. Unfortunatly I do not have the time to take you up on your challenge.

Would there be a way to get the time off of the system clock and use the current real day time in game?

I wouldn't get your hopes up because of a thing called scope on Amnesia's side of things, and that seems to be what Spelos is trying to do.

Butttt, if there's a way to edit variables on the fly externally when you load the mod, you could run the game via a batch which patches the last loaded save in the background so that the game time is updated via a batch. I just don't know if the values can be changed as simply as necessary.

Might even look into that at a later date.

[Mudbill]

The only possibly fatal obstable I see is to update the lang file on runtime. Is that possible? Does the game only load the lang file once upon boot? If so, editing it live wouldn't do anything.

So if that's the case, then all digits would need to be added beforehand, which I guess is an alternative and shouldn't be too hard, just a little messy.

But yeah, using an external program from Amnesia should make it fairly simple to fetch the computer's time and day.

[Daemian]

Here is mine: TheTimeChallenge_Daemian.zip

I used the time system to simulate light/night in a 24hrs cycle.
I included a little map with a skybox to show you how it looks.