Time & speed
Status: Draft. Live in the sandbox campaign. Every number on this page is TEMP: they are first guesses that are still being tuned.
Mafia King runs in real time, one day at a time, like a grand strategy game. You can pause whenever you like and still give orders, then let the days roll at 1× or 2×. Anything that needs a decision from you stops the clock until you've made it.
How you use it
- Use the clock at the right of the top bar: ⏸ pauses, 1× runs at normal speed, 2× runs twice as fast.
- Or use the keys: Space pauses and unpauses, 1 and 2 pick the speed.
- Give orders while paused. You can look around, open cards and set things up with the clock stopped.
- Press F5 to quicksave. Esc closes the top window, and with nothing left to close it opens the pause menu.
How it works
Day length
| Speed | One day takes |
|---|---|
| ⏸ | Stopped |
| 1× | 4 seconds |
| 2× | 2 seconds |
On a busy day the game spreads the day's work over a few frames rather than freezing, so a very full day can run a little longer than this.
What stops the clock
| What | What happens to the clock |
|---|---|
| A scene (a conversation with choices) | Stops until you pick. Then it goes back to how you left it: paused stays paused, running starts again |
| The succession window | Stops until you pick an heir |
| The pause menu | Stops |
| A quick text | Doesn't stop anything |
Space doesn't toggle the pause while a scene is playing (there, Space moves the talk along) or while a window that needs a decision is open.
The calendar
The top bar shows the date as month and day. The game starts on JUN 5. Every person has a birthday and turns a year older on it.
Things measured in days
| Thing | Days |
|---|---|
| Marching one town to the next | 2 |
| A rival outfit rethinks its plans | Every 12 |
| A man in hospital, prison or hiding | Back on the street when his time is up |
| Demands, offers and deals | Each has its own clock (see Journal & quests) |
Old age
From 70, a person can die of old age on any day. The chance is small and climbs as he heads toward 90. This is the one death in the game that nobody chooses.
Numbers (all TEMP)
| Number | Value | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Seconds per day at 1× | 4 | frontier.seconds_per_day (with the slower clock on) |
| Speeds | 1×, 2× | clock buttons |
| Travel per town | 2 days | frontier.travel_days_per_hop |
| Rival planning cycle | 12 days | frontier.ai_plan_days |
| Old age starts | 70 | old_age_start |
| Old age reference top | 90 | max_age |
| Old-age death chance | 0.083% a day × (0.5 + 2 × how far from 70 to 90 he is) | old_age_death_chance_per_day |
See also
- Tabs & HUD: the top bar and the clock
- Events & scenes: what stops the clock
- Journal & quests: clocks on demands and offers
- Succession: when the boss dies
- Characters: ages and statuses
- Mechanics
Locked vs leftover
| Locked (document this) | Leftover / do not claim |
|---|---|
| Pause, 1× and 2× | More speed steps |
| 4 seconds a day at 1× under the slower clock | 0.6 seconds a day (the clock without that rule) |
| Decisions stop the clock; quick texts don't | Quick texts that pause the game |
| Quicksave on F5, no quickload key | A quickload key |
| Family life is paused in the sandbox, so nobody is born and children don't grow up | Births and coming of age as live sandbox events |
Sources
src/autoload/game.gd (clock, day length, calendar), src/ui/main.gd (speed buttons and keys), src/systems/characters.gd (birthdays, old age, status recovery), data/config.json (frontier, old_age_start, max_age, old_age_death_chance_per_day, campaign_start_unix), data/campaigns/sandbox.json