Day-night cycle

[Supermarine]

Sometimes I visit the forest and it is noon. Sometimes it's night. Also, the cloud cover seems to change.

Anyone noticed this? I realized it has nothing to do with actual time in RL, nor depends on the number of visits to that area.

Is there a special "clock" inside the game that determines the cycle?

Anyway, I love it. It is this kind of details that make a game truly great. Even if most people will never notice (especially the haters).

[Galleoth]

Yes, I like that too, but not really sure what causes this, maybe you go back after you make progress in the story?

[Cookie Eater]

I've noticed this but never paid attention to it, thanks for pointing it out.

Now I wonder, would certain areas after you've finished the game behave differently then?

[Supermarine]

Originally posted by Cookie Eater:

I've noticed this but never paid attention to it, thanks for pointing it out.

Now I wonder, would certain areas after you've finished the game behave differently then?

Not really sure. I played the game for the first time by taking my time, exploring and enjoying the scenery. I clocked the last battle at 47 hours---counting some 4-5 MP maybe---at 95% completion. Progressed through the story at a slow pace, and never looked back or returned to previous areas.

Only when the last enemy was defeated I was sent back to the forest and then I looked for the missing items and challenges. The first time the sun was in a position close to 6.00 PM. My local time was 12.25 AM.

Next day I loaded that very same gamefile and it was midnight with moon some 15 degrees from the zenith. My local time was perhaps 4.50 PM. It was hard to find the missing skull totems in the dark, so I traveled to shantytown. It was noon with moderate cloud cover.

The third day I loaded the same game slot and shantytown was in full daylight. The sun was nowhere to be seen; I assumed it was early in the morning from the yellowish light. I visited the mountain base and it was midnight, and then went to shipwreck beach and it was like 7.00 PM and not a single cloud.

I believe the story has some specific times to be played (like the great fire at nighttime) but after you finish the game it behaves either randomly or following a set cycle, different from the BIOS time.

This makes it easier or difficult to spot some secrets depending on the time. Again, I think it's a great idea.

[fenke]

Interesting, never matched it to the local time, but then Inever played much after completion. I thought the sun was always more or less in the south somewhere, suggesting around noon. The lighting however always appeared to be dawn or sunset, with a low sun. Combined with the postion of the sun this suggest it's winter, december/januari and given the lack of typical winter weather, the island has a (sub)tropical climate. That or the weather is ruled by a Sunqueen. Oh wait.

[Supermarine]

Sometimes the sun cannot be seen, but the extremely long shadows and lighting indicate a sunset

The weather queen is quite busy lately. Last time I visited the same old coastal forest, it was raining!

[R2015]

I apologise for the thread-necro-mancing, but I'm currently going through camps to collect everything I missed on my first play and I was looking to get the rationale behind this day-night cycle.

When I first returned to Coastal Beach it was dark, but on my 3rd play in that area (I usually play no more than half an hour) it was day and that helped a lot in finding the last totems.

Now I'm at Shantytown and it's pitch black, whereas when I played it in the campaign it was day. It's being quite difficult to find anything in this stage as I can barely see.

Anyone has any idea how this day-night cycle works exactly?

[Commander Makara]

From my experience it seems that when you play through the game following the storyline, there are set day/night conditions.
Travelling to previous regions (i.e. fast camp) not according to the storyline (i.e. back tracking to complete a <100% area) results in randomised day/night and even weather settings to allude to a flow of time or the Sun Queen's command of phsyical reality lcoally.

[R2015]

Yesterday I returned to Shantytown and it was still dark but not as much as before (you can see my screencaps).

I feel this adds some interesting dynamics to the game, and realism as well. Yet night stages are so much harder to look around...