Game Timer Tutorial by Stephen Armstrong.
If you have played Final Fantasy 7, Chrono Trigger or any other leading RPG, you may have noticed on the menu screen it shows you how long you have been playing for.
This to some people making RPG Maker 2000 games is impossible, or something that they would never have attempted to do before.
But it is a very neat technique to put in your game, especially if you want to see how long your demo, or full game lasts for. Whether it is a 15-minute masterpiece or a 5-hour classic, this technique will tell you how to calculate how long your creation lasts for.
Now on to the dirty work:
1: On your opening scene, make a switch called Timer.
2: Now go to the database, Common Events and make a Parallel Process event that is activated by this Switch Timer.
3: In the event commands, you have to tell it to wait for a second, then put in a new variable-called Timer Seconds and set it at +1.
That means that every second it is adding 1 to this variable. Now onto the second part of this technique.
4: Make a Fork Condition, make it activate when the variable Timer Seconds reaches 60. Inside the Fork set the Variable Timer Seconds to 0, and make a new Variable called Timer Minutes and set it to +1.
That means that when Timer Seconds reaches 60, much like real seconds, it makes a minute! Now the third and final part hours!
5: Make a Fork Condition, make it activate when the variable Timer Minutes reaches 60. Inside the Fork set the Variable Timer Minutes to 0, and make a new Variable called Timer Hours and set it to +1.
Now, thats not hard! (Is it?)
To help people, heres what it SHOULD look like:
Wait 1.0s
Variable Ch: [0001:Timer Seconds]+,1
FORK Optn: Varbl[0001:Timer Seconds] 60
Variable Ch: [0001:Timer Seconds]Set, 0
Variable Ch: [0002:Timer Minutes]+,1
FORK Optn: Varbl[0002:Timer Minutes] 60
Variable Ch: [0002:Timer Minutes]Set, 0
Variable Ch: [0003:Timer Hours]+,1
The number of the variables is important. I used 1, 2, and 3 in this event.
To get the timer displayed on the screen just put in a message You have been playing this game for \v[3] hours, \v[2] minutes and \v[1] seconds!
You could make an item like a watch that brings up this message by, making an item that triggers a switch that (in common events) brings up this message.
If there are any bugs with this tutorial, just e-mail or ICQ me:
Stephen Armstrong
E-Mail: stephen.a@scotland.com
ICQ: 89384266
Web Page: http://wne.cjb.net