Day and Night - Automatic or Event-Dependent?

I'm starting my first project today, and I'm trying to think through all the bells and whistles I might want for it. I've considered using one of Vlue's game time scripts to cause automatic transitions between day and night, but I'm not sure if I want to do that. I do think it's important that there be a sense that time is passing, but I'm thinking it might be more desirable to switch between day and night at specific points in the game and its story.

How do you handle day/night in your games, and what considerations do you make before deciding which method (if either) to use?

Right now day/night is handled by switches which I turn on/off as needed in the story. This way I can also set it up so that certain stores are closed when the night switch is on (or the store is open at night, if that is desired).

Oddly enough, a day night cycle can actually destroy the illusion that time is realistically passing.

When there isn't a day night cycle the player's brain automatically fills in time-related gaps. “I've been playing this game for a while and a lot has happened so a lot of time must have passed for the heroes...”

But when you have a day night cycle the player can just count the days as they go by, which can lead to immersion breaking realizations like: “I walked across the entire continent twice in the same day?” or “I've been doing side-quests for three weeks and the villain still hasn't gotten any closer to finishing that evil ritual he was supposedly mere hours away from completing?”

To avoid this you can either:

1) Keep the plot open ended enough that the player can waste several weeks of fake time without the world having to put itself on hold. An evil king living in a big castle or a dragon hiding in its lair will realistically still be there even if the player ignores them for a month.

2) Have day and night change based on story events in order to keep the flow of time consistent with the flow of the story. The wizard's will summon his demon at the end of three days, but the days don't pass until the player hits major plot points. This can create an unrealistically long day if the player ignores the plot, but it at least gives you the power to ensure the game takes exactly three in-game days.

So a lot depends on the story you want to tell. If time is an important part of the story, I would make it event based. If it's just a cool world feature you want to add, I'd make it automatic and then double check that none of my plot points start to feel silly when the player decides to blow off his quest for a dozen in-game days.

Those are all points to keep in mind, true. In my game I mainly use the day/night cycle in plot points only, and it usually goes like this: "We have to wait until night to do that.", and then the party waits until nightfall, and they proceed with the part of the plot that they must do at night. Once that is done, they sleep and it goes back to day.

Except for in those instances, I keep the game at daytime. Seems to work so far in my opinion.

Ask yourself what the main reason is for having Day and Night.

If it's a gameplay feature (Pokemon Gold/Silver, Harvest Moon, Rune Factory) where things happen differently based on the time of day, you'll probably want to do it with an automatic cycle.

If it's a feature to make plot more realistic or evocative (Star Ocean 2, Final Fantasy 3), definitely do it manually using events when certain plot points occur or certain locations are reached.

If it's a purely aesthetic feature, then you can go either way (Tales of Xillia did it using events/locations; Sim City 4 and Dark Cloud 2 used automatic cycles), though automatic cycles would be the way to go unless you want to specifically point out how certain areas are bright or dark.  Of course, if it's just aesthetic, you should heavily consider whether using the system is smart at all, since you'll need to do some extra work to reconcile the fact that it's "nighttime" with what buildings look like and what NPCs are doing.

I had one game which had a natural day/night cycle.  It used a simple time script and tints.  There were a few times in the game when the time was forced --- inn stays got you up at 8 AM for example. 

I think it really depends on what time means in your game.  If you just want a "Time passes even if you're doing nothing" feeling, day and night should be automatic.

If you are using it for major plot reasons, for example Chapter 1 takes place during the day, Chapter 2 takes place at night, etc, then it should be event dependent.

But, if you are using day and night, I think it's crucial they make actual differences in the game, rather than just cosmetic.  This could be certain NPCs aren't available in day (or at night), perhaps some shops are closed (or open) at night.  If there are no gameplay differences, day and night don't mean much in the game and I think they shouldn't be included.

In my game, the players turn into vampires for awhile, and if they do AND are wandering around in the day, well, they start taking a LOT of damage for obvious reasons.  And I have some NPCs and shops not available at night, etc. 

But, when you are adding bells and whistles, make sure they make good, solid gameplay sense in-universe.  Ideally they should add depth to the game world and not feel "tacked on."  There are literally thousands of amazing scripts out there, so you could easily add a ridiculous amount of features. 

But that would overwhelm players, slow the game down and in the end your game would be a LOT worse than if it only had a few, well-chosen features that were well blended into the game universe and into gameplay itself.  So choose carefully, always with an eye towards what makes the game fun to play and what makes sense.