Real-time progression stores a versioned checkpoint, compares it with an explicit time authority on return, and applies the bounded difference exactly once. The result may change boss availability, phase, hazards, support, or resolution, but the player sees the reconciliation before combat resumes.
At 0.72 seconds, the encounter stores a versioned noon checkpoint. The game closes at 1.02 seconds; the illustrated external clock reaches 19:00 without advancing combat simulation in the background.
Autoplay is disabled by reduced motion. Scrub across 0.40, 0.72, 1.02, 1.40, 1.72, 2.10, 2.35, 2.70, 2.90, 3.15, 3.50, 3.78, 4.20, 4.55, 4.95, and 5.35 seconds.
Define the time authority, checkpoint boundary, saved timestamp, deadline, offline cap, rollback rule, calendar and timezone semantics, reconciliation id, one-shot application, return summary, retry lifetime, server outage fallback, accessibility, and telemetry.
Choose local monotonic time, signed server time, or a scheduled service as the authority. Store its provenance, timezone and calendar version with the checkpoint. Do not mix device time, play time, simulation ticks, and server deadlines without an explicit conversion and fallback.
Compute the difference once on resume, reject backward movement, clamp long absences, quantize only where the design needs tiers, and attach the result to a unique reconciliation id. Apply derived boss phases, hazards, or availability transactionally so a crash or reload cannot award the same interval twice.
Pause combat, show the saved time, current authority, elapsed interval, cap, and resulting changes, then give new geometry a normal telegraph. Keep that applied state through death and retry. Offer predictable behavior for offline devices, maintenance, clock rollback, daylight-saving changes, and expired events.
Players can change it, platforms can report it differently, and daylight-saving rules can repeat or skip local times. Decide whether manipulation is harmless, detectable, or disallowed, and never punish ambiguous clock changes as cheating without a recoverable path.
A boss that advanced while the game was closed can surprise without becoming unreadable. Reconcile before simulation resumes, summarize the change, restore camera and controls, and run the full signal window before collision activates.
Map elapsed time to a few tested states—available, dormant, prepared, empowered, resolved—rather than multiplying health forever. Caps protect returning players, testing scope, save migrations, and the dramatic identity of the boss.
A yearly encounter window asks whether now lies inside a calendar rule; an aging boss asks how much time passed since a save; a world boss schedule asks what the authoritative service is doing now. They may share UI, but their storage and failure modes differ.
Record checkpoint id and version, authority, saved and current values, raw and applied intervals, caps, rollback, timezone, reconciliation id, resulting state, duplicate rejection, return summary, deaths after return, retries, completion, outage fallback, and clock anomalies.
Tavi seals the clock vault at noon. When the trusted bell reports 19:00, the doorway opens on six accepted hours: two floor seals have grown and Kern’s chest rune has reached its second tier. The vault explains the change before its first pulse.
Show exact dates and durations in the player’s locale, name the clock source, expose caps and event expiry, support timezone-safe reminders without requiring them, and provide a grace window or equivalent path for missed schedules. Never require changing the system clock.
A combat timer advances only while its simulation runs. Run-history manifestation maps prior decisions into composition. Real-time progression compares a saved checkpoint with an external clock or schedule after absence; its defining risks are authority, rollback, caps, missed windows, and duplicate application.
Saving during The End’s battle and returning after enough real-world time can replace the sniper duel with his death from old age. The saved encounter is reconciled against elapsed wall time and resolves to a different terminal state.
The Art Club room uses the device calendar to gate So Sorry’s hidden encounter to October 10 at the specified hour on the original versions. This is a calendar predicate, not accumulated play time, and later platform versions deliberately change the hour requirement.
Tequatl is a world-boss event on an authoritative shared schedule. The event clock continues whether a particular client is open or closed, so encounter availability is reconciled from server world state rather than a player-owned local timer.
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