Uptempo

Example 394

★

Adjust time advancement so the game clock moves fifteen minutes each turn.

Suppose a game in which all actions take a very long time. Here's a simple implementation:

Play/modify in Borogove

Play in Quixe

"Uptempo"

The fast time rule is listed instead of the advance time rule in the turn sequence rules.

This is the fast time rule:

increment the turn count;

increase the time of day by 15 minutes.

When play begins: now the right hand status line is "[time of day]".

The Temporal Hot Spot is a room.

Test me with "z / z".

Temporal Hot Spot

>(Testing.)

>[1] z
Time passes.

>[2] z
Time passes.

This works fine as it stands, but we may run into some difficulty with it if we add scheduled events:

At 9:30 AM:

say "Two turtles run by, almost too fast to see."

At 9:37 AM:

say "A snail blitzes past."

At 9:42 AM:

say "The grass grows."

At 9:50 AM:

say "Several flowers burst open."

Time is counted forward after the schedule has already been consulted, so that only the 9:30 AM event happens between 9:30 and 9:45; the next two appear to occur between 9:45 and 10:00 AM, and the 9:50 AM event is not reported until the 10:00 AM to 10:15 wait. To get around this, we might schedule events only on the fifteen-minute mark when we want them to occur. Alternatively, we might try instead

Play/modify in Borogove

Play in Quixe

"Uptempo"

The fast time rule is listed before the timed events rule in the turn sequence rules.

The advance time rule is not listed in the turn sequence rules.

This is the fast time rule:

increment the turn count;

increase the time of day by 15 minutes.

When play begins: now the right hand status line is "[time of day]".

The Temporal Hot Spot is a room.

At 9:30 AM:

say "Two turtles run by, almost too fast to see."

At 9:37 AM:

say "A snail blitzes past."

At 9:42 AM:

say "The grass grows."

At 9:50 AM:

say "Several flowers burst open."

Test me with "z / z / z / z".

Temporal Hot Spot

>(Testing.)

>[1] z
Time passes.

>[2] z
Time passes.

Two turtles run by, almost too fast to see.

>[3] z
Time passes.

A snail blitzes past.

The grass grows.

>[4] z
Time passes.

Several flowers burst open.

This time our revised time-advancing rule is listed just before the event scheduler, not just afterwards.