Hello everyone.

I am currently developing a game by myself called Legends of Mythology. It is a 2D pixel art platformer, with elements of action-RPG(items, inventory system, actions affecting game) and rogue-like(you have the option of playing with permadeath). It is currently in the tech-demo phase, but there stuff available about it on a few sites. Just search for "Legends of Mythology game" ;)

The game will put an emphasis on completing it within a certain time frame(for better endings) and has a visible timer which counts the time, down to the milliseconds, where the player is able to control the character. So the output time should only be affected by the players skill and not load times/cut scenes/NPC dialogue and so on.

My question is, is this approach to my games design desirable to the speedrunning community? Having only the time counted when you are able to actually input controls?

Thank you for any thoughts, any feedback is appreciated!

Indeed, what you're suggesting is a loadless IGT timer. Many games implement it different ways, if you want a good example, look at Celeste's implementation.

I will say that most games which do this have skip cutscene buttons and pro-text mashing features, but I don't think pausing the timer there would be received negatively, if it works for your game better.

Having a highly accurate timer would be fantastic for calculating IGT and preventing assumed hardware advantages! It would also allow players to directly reference the time in-game rather than a third-party application.

However, I'd like to stress the emphasis on ensuring that your mechanics with movement is spectacular. I believe that top notch movement mechanics help make an awesome platforming speedgame.

I have not played your demo yet, but if you already have movement as a high priority, then the timer is definitely a good bonus.

Thank you for the replies, I really appreciate it! As a solo developer, this feedback is extremely valuable.

I will definitely check out Celeste, it seems like a cool game too. I watched their GDC talk.

I'm relieved that it's actually something that would be recieved well, as my gut feeling had it. I'm just checking my bases and where better to do it than where people are the most passionate about this stuff ;)

Cutscenes will be very limited in my game, but when they do happen the timer will be stopped, they will be short and only shown once per playthrough(think simple boss fight initiation animations and an end animation/credits, where the final completion time also will be displayed).

For dialogue, the timer will be stopped, but you can still buttonmash through it.

Movement is of course a high priority and it is constantly being tweaked and improved, I'm trying to get it to a good spot before expanding the world too much as character movement and level design has to go hand-in-hand. I think they are in a decent spot in my current build(which is not out yet!) but it's still not entirely perfect. I've got a couple things to address.

I'm also on the fence in terms of pausing the game when opening the menu(to access inventory and such). I just disabled the pause in my current build and I kind of like the idea of menu management playing a part of the timer as well as not easily being able to switch out items in battle. Allow switching items, but make it risky(since you will be blind to your surroundings while doing it). Having to be efficient in equipping new items and such.

What do you guys think? Do you prefer menu management to be a part of the timer or would you prefer to keep the timer active solely when you are moving around?

I can't speak for others, but to my mind menu management should be done on the clock. It just adds another layer of complexity/strategy/skill to manage. Knowing when to switch items and being able to do it quickly and efficiently is presumably part of the skill of playing the game well, so it should be part of the speedrun too.

I fully agree with you and this is the implementation I am going with. Thanks for the responses, it's highly appreciated!

I'm not quite at something playable yet, I am currently implementing and refining features. But once I get it to a playable state I will return here and ask for critical feedback, as this community is among my target audience and I'd like to involve anyone interested.

In the meantime you can find the game through search engines if you are interested, I value feedback greatly! My discord is definitely the best place to send me feedback. (I'm not sure if it's okay to post links and I don't want to break any forum rules.)