We should be able to timebox a game for students. 30 minutes seems like a good start.
From a 30 minute timer, we can calculate the advancement of time per second.
30 minutes * 60 seconds means 1800 ticks. 1800 ticks will currently be 5 game years if 1 second = 1 tick = 1 day.
The scale should then change: we should go from 2020 => 2050 as that's a major environmental tipping point depending on player strategy. So, the new math is 2050 - 2020 = 30 years. 30 years * 365 days / 1800 ticks (seconds) ~= 6 days / tick. Could make sense to just do a week at a time. Or, we could make a tick = 4 seconds and do a month at a time... whatever feels better for the player.
In the end, it's clear a tick should not equal a day. let's increase it to 6/7 and add a game over at 30 minutes.
We should be able to timebox a game for students. 30 minutes seems like a good start.
From a 30 minute timer, we can calculate the advancement of time per second.
30 minutes * 60 seconds means 1800 ticks. 1800 ticks will currently be 5 game years if
1 second = 1 tick = 1 day.The scale should then change: we should go from 2020 => 2050 as that's a major environmental tipping point depending on player strategy. So, the new math is 2050 - 2020 = 30 years. 30 years * 365 days / 1800 ticks (seconds) ~= 6 days / tick. Could make sense to just do a week at a time. Or, we could make a tick = 4 seconds and do a month at a time... whatever feels better for the player.
In the end, it's clear a tick should not equal a day. let's increase it to 6/7 and add a game over at 30 minutes.