So I thought about making a separate thread for this, but I don't think it needs one, partially because it still doesn't quite work and partially because it's got very little practical use.
As mentioned in the WIP Adventures thread on page 5, I've been experimenting with a relatively consistent cross-level day-night cycle system in the Editor.
I don't really have any proper reason for this. I don't have much use for it other than as a matter of curiosity. I'm not sure if anyone else will (at least not as a day-night cycle), either, but whatever.
The player's start point is on one of the buttons to the left. Each button corresponds to a "bookmarked" time of day, i.e. when the light level changes (daytime, dusk, night, sunrise), for the cycle to start at (i.e. cycle 1 is day/dusk/night/sunrise, cycle 2 is dusk/night/sunrise/day, etc). The buttons open the gates nearby, which opens the main gate that starts the time cycle.
The sizable thing I've forgotten to implement at this stage is how to actually stop the currently running cycle. I have an idea on how to put that in, just need to stop being lazy and do it.
Whenever the bridges are activated, the turtles run over a series of CMD41 commands...
... to clone the Star NPCs back to starting position for the cycle. The commands are alternating between CMD6, to change light, and the NPC Move button, to keep them going.
At the end of the hallway is a switch to activate a Pow shooter, to destroy the stars at the end of the hallway so the cycle doesn't get clogged up.
The empty 3 hallways in that picture correspond to the level-exit arrows in this level. Specifically, they (are going to) have a CMD4 command to alter the X/Y positions of the arrows based on the time of day.
This system is (read: will be, because I'm lazy and haven't done it yet) set up in the other levels. What the altered co-ordinates do is change the initial button the player presses, and by extension, where the day/night cycle actually starts.
The obvious problem is that this doesn't account for the exact time between the light level changing, it's only approximate - You could be halfway from one bookmarked time to the next, but a level-change would just reset back to whatever the last bookmarked time was. In theory, you could make progressively more and more accurate timers with this system, but the more "times" there are, the more complicated the system will be (the system is currently 25 horizontal by 35 vertical, for a level with 3 unique exits and four bookmarked times, to give a sense of scale). There are definitely ways to make the system more efficient than what's shown here - For instance, you could effectively cut the space taken up by the main loop hallways in half by having each star with a unique ID instead of duplicating the same star for each hallway.
Ultimately, I don't think there's really any way to use this in an adventure as something other than eye candy. It'd be interesting in a hub (part of the reason I wanted to look into this was because I thought a day-night cycle in HR would be cool), though difficult to set up. I suppose the most interesting thing I can think of for this to be used for would be giving NPCs a "schedule" that they follow, even when you're in a different level.
For instance, in a town made of multiple levels, you could theoretically (it'd be much more complex than this system) use this to have a postman character or some such running around, similar to what Majora's Mask's NPCs do. I dunno, it's something.
Having said that, I
do think that, if this system proves to function as intended (which it does so far), it'll provide a way to "carry" information between levels other than the commands done on an adventure's completion in hubs.
(though knowing the people around here who are better with WA-engine mechanisms than i am, i wouldn't be surprised if someone already figured out a way to do that, but whatever)
