Line #3 Main/FastForwardMechanic


1	[[quoteright:350:[[Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/749b9f0274e7e05d9febb871f20c38b1.jpg]]]]
2	->''"Did you try to play the Sun's Song? Like I told you before, with that song, you can turn day to night or night to day whenever you want."''
3	-->-- '''Royal Composer Brother''', ''Videogame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime''
4
5	When an InUniverseGameClock forces the player to wait for several minutes in the game to progress to the next task, you're going to have angry gamers. How do you solve this issue? Add a time skip device! One use and the wait time will pass in an instant.
6
7	Frequently a spell or a song, the player needs only to punch in a sequence or click on the designated object and the clock will skip ahead (or sometimes, even backwards) in increments that are convenient to time-oriented missions. Sometimes [=RPGs=] may offer your party a "rest" or "sleep" command which allows you to fast-forward the game clock (and regenerate some HP in the process). This is often a case of GameplayAndStorySegregation, since time usually doesn't pass in any other sense.
8
9	Often accompanied by SpinningClockHands. Compare WarpWhistle, SprintShoes and ZipMode for passing over pointless space. Related to TimePassesMontage. A {{subtrope}} of AntiFrustrationFeatures.
10	----
11	!!Video Game Examples
12
13	[[foldercontrol]]
14
15	[[folder:Action Adventure]]
16	* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'':
17	** The "Sun's Song" in ''Videogame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'' moves time to the next dusk/dawn.
18	** The "Song of Passing" ''Videogame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'' does the same, and is actually the same tune as the Sun's Song, just under a new name.[[note]]And in some translations (like the French one), it keeps the old name.[[/note]]
19	** ''Videogame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask'' is all about time manipulation, so not only is there a song to skip ahead ("Song of Double Time"), but slow it down ("Inverted Song of Time") and reset time ("Song of Time"), which also doubles as the way to save your game. In addition, you can talk to a scarecrow and ask for it to dance. Dancing with the scarecrow turns day into night and vice versa. Useful early in the game, when you don't have the ocarina yet and you need to skip to the night of the final day after you've looked into the telescope at the Astral Observatory.
20	** In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'', you can make Link sleep in a bed either until morning or night. Your hearts regenerate as you sleep. Unlike in most ''Zelda'' games, this is the only way to access nighttime at all.
21	** In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'', Link can progress the time to morning, noon or night by sleeping in a bed or inn, or by resting at a campfire or cooking pot. The latter doesn't restore hearts, however.
22	* ''Videogame/{{Okami}}'' features brush techniques to bring day and night. The technique to call the sun is learned in the first hour of gameplay, the one to call the moon is learned only after about a dozen hours of gameplay.
23	* In ''VideoGame/TrialsOfMana'', if you stop at a TraumaInn during the day, you have the option to be awakened in the evening or next morning, though this is rarely a concern for progressing through the StoryArc.
24	* In ''VideoGame/{{Castlevania 64}}'', the Sun and Moon cards can be used to advance the current time so you can (among other things) have certain timed encounters and battle vampires during the day when they're weaker. [[spoiler: but abusing them isn't recommended because after so many days cycles pass it gives the vampire hunter Vincent time to try and fail to kill the fake Dracula, leading to an optional boss fight and the bad ending.]]
25	[[/folder]]
26
27	[[folder:Action Games]]
28	* In ''VideoGame/TheLastStand3UnionCity'', when your character finds a bed in a building you can sleep for a specific number of hours to increase your Sleep stat.
29	* This is one of Joe's powers in the ''VideoGame/ViewtifulJoe'' series.
30	[[/folder]]
31
32	[[folder:Adventure Games]]
33	* ''VideoGame/QuestForGlory'' allows you to rest your Hero in intervals from 10-60 game minutes, or "until morning" (in the first game, this could easily trigger HaveANiceDeath on the assumption that some monster killed you while you slept if you did so out in the wild).
34	* In ''VideoGame/DeadlyPremonition'', York can smoke cigarettes to make time pass more quickly. Also, any bed will allow him to sleep for three, six, nine, or twelve hours at a time.
35	* In the ''Videogame/EndlessOcean'' games, a location is provided to allow the player to move rapidly to another time of day and forwards in time with regards to things like missions.
36	* ''VideoGame/TheAdventuresOfWillyBeamish'' has the ability to skip ahead an hour at a time. This allows the player to get to events when nothing else is new. However, be careful with this function, as it is possible to fast forward yourself into a HaveANiceDeath.
37	* ''VideoGame/{{Spectacle}}'': The "Saf" spell advances time by six hours, which is used frequently for puzzles that can only be solved during a specific time and the player wouldn't want to walk from place to place 12 times to pass the six hours.
38	[[/folder]]
39
40	[[folder:Eastern [=RPGs=]]]
41	* The ''Franchise/BreathOfFire'' series gives the main character a spell to do this.
42	* ''VideoGame/Disgaea6DefianceOfDestiny'' lets you fast-forward the game with the press of a button. It starts at 2x speed, and you can increase the fast-forward speed by passing some very expensive bills at the Dark Assembly, up to a whopping ''32x speed''.
43	* ''Videogame/DragonQuest'' features time skips in some installments:
44	** ''Videogame/DragonQuestIII'' had the 'lamp of darkness' that instantly turned day to night.
45	** Brey/Borya in ''Videogame/DragonQuestIV'' learns the Day-Night spell (Tick-Tock in the remakes) that turns day to night or vice versa when cast.
46	** In ''Videogame/DragonQuestVIII'' and ''Videogame/DragonQuestIX'', you can stay at an inn until either sunset or sunrise, in case you wish to interact with [=NPCs=] who only appear during the day or night.
47	* ''Videogame/XenobladeChronicles1'' allows the player to skip to any time in-game by an option in the menu. This greatly helps to find the [[NonPlayerCharacter Non-Player Characters]] that show up at specific times for the LoadsAndLoadsOfSidequests as well as giving them an easier time at changing the weather to their liking, which is necessary to get some of the rare monsters to appear.
48	* ''Franchise/{{Persona}}'': Time periods (e.g. Evening, Afternoon) that can be skipped to by entering your home base or going to bed, in the following games in the series:
49	** ''Videogame/Persona3''
50	** ''VideoGame/Persona4''
51	** ''VideoGame/Persona5''. It also lets you "fast forward" through dialogue, and imposes VHS fast forward effects on the screen when doing so.
52	* ''VideoGame/ChronoCross'' gives the player the ability to speed up and slow down the gameplay once they've beaten the game at least once.
53	* ''VideoGame/TheWorldEndsWithYou'': During cutscenes, simply hold L or R.
54	* ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'':
55	** In the international version of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'', there's a "speed up" button that simply causes the game to play at double speed. The remastered HD verizon also adds quadruple speed.
56	** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII2'': Once the player collects all the fragments. This also applies to ingame voices, and despite what the game claims, all non-FMV cutscenes as well.
57	** The Platform/{{Steam}} version of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'' and the HD remaster of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' and ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX2'' has a feature where you can double the game speed.
58	** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXV'':
59	*** There's a lot of driving in the car. After you've been to a parking spot before, you gain the ability to fast travel. However, time still progresses. It's been joked that this mechanic is just Noctis falling asleep in the car while Ignis is driving.
60	*** There's an option to wait until sunset when accepting hunts for creatures that appear at night. A patch added the option to "Wait" at a haven/campsite to skip to sunset or sunrise.
61	* ''VideoGame/PokemonStadium'' and its sequel has the Game Boy Tower where you can play your plugged in ''Pokemon'' Game Boy cartridge to play said game on the TV screen. The Tower has a double and quadruple speed up feature, but they have to be unlocked first.
62	[[/folder]]
63
64	[[folder:Edutainment Games]]
65	* In ''VideoGame/WolfQuest'', you have the option to make your wolf sleep until a different time of day.
66	* In the educational commercial transportation/geography PC game, ''Videogame/CrosscountryUSA'', there was a feature that allowed you to "wait" any number of hours, automatically passing the in-universe clock to a later time.
67	[[/folder]]
68
69	[[folder:First-Person Shooter]]
70	* ''VideoGame/{{STALKER}}: Call of Pripyat'' allows you to sleep on certain beds to pass the time. A few {{Game Mod}}s, such as the ''Complete'' modpacks, add a sleeping bag to the player's inventory in all three games, which allow the player to pass the time anywhere they prefer ([[TooDumbToLive including at places where they can be attacked by mutants or hostile stalkers]]), which is the only way to pass time at all in ''Shadow of Chernobyl'' and ''Clear Sky''.
71	[[/folder]]
72
73	[[folder:Other]]
74	* In ''VideoGame/{{Chulip}}'', sleeping would automatically put you at 8:00 in the morning the next day until your alarm clock is fixed; then you can awaken yourself at some other time. Reading comics also fast forwards time.
75	* ''VideoGame/MortalKombatDeception'''s Konquest mode has an option that lets Shujinko meditate to pass time much more quickly. Useful because certain goodies only appear at certain times of the day.
76	* In ''VideoGame/AngryBirds2'', once you complete a stage or use your last bird, you can fast-forward to the next stage or the "failure" screen, complete with VHS-era screen distortion.
77	* ''VideoGame/SouthParkTheFracturedButWhole'' has a fast forward mechanic through the New Kid's farting powers, though it is only used a few times. In order for the kids to get access to Mephisto's lab, where he offers a tour, they have to go there at night. The game doesn't have a passage of time mechanic (and the kids opt to just wait six hours until the appointed time), so the New Kid uses his farts to speed up time and advance it to night. Later on, there's a boss fight where you have to the farting time skip power to force the boss to waste his turns, allowing you to freely attack him, and then using your fart powers to make time advance so rapidly that it kills him. [[spoiler: This causes time mto advance by ''one week'', which allows Cartman to become Mayor of South Park.]]
78	* ''VideoGame/TwelveMinutes'' allows you to skip to certain points in the loop by falling asleep on the bed. You can also skip directly to the cop's arrival by picking the right dialogue options with the Wife or [[spoiler:hiding in the bathroom closet]].
79	* Most IdleGames (where the "cash" resource flows in every second) have a mechanic that lets you gain X amounts of production instantly. Sometimes this is in exchange for in-game currency or watching an ad, and sometimes requires actual money.
80	[[/folder]]
81
82	[[folder:Platformer]]
83	* In ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong64'', the level Fungi Forest can be played at day as well as night. At the start there is a clockwork with two buttons. The one currently pressed tells the current time. Whenever the other button is pressed, the time of day moves 12 hours forward. This is important because there are places that can only be accessed at certain hours.
84	[[/folder]]
85
86	[[folder:Puzzle]]
87	* ''VideoGame/TheTalosPrinciple'' has a button for doubling the game's speed, which is incredibly useful as some puzzles require ''a lot'' of waiting, whether for slowly moving mines to get where you want them to be or standing in one place during a recording to give yourself some breathing space during playback, or just getting from point A to point B.
88	[[/folder]]
89
90	[[folder:Roguelike]]
91	* ''VideoGame/CastleOfTheWinds'' has two different rest commands: a 'light rest' automatically ends when your HitPoints are full or a monster comes into view, and a 'heavy rest' automatically ends when your {{Mana}} is full or a monster attacks you. Hit points and mana naturally regenerate over time (though at different rates), so these commands are mostly for accelerating turns.
92	[[/folder]]
93
94	[[folder:Simulation Games]]
95	* In ''VideoGame/{{APICO}}'', you can sleep on benches or beds to speed up time, making plants grow faster and ending the current weather. However, it doesn't speed up production time of your beehives.
96	* In ''VideoGame/BlackAndWhite 2'', AGodIsYou, and you can adjust the in-universe day/night cycle at will, but that ability doesn't actually cause events on Earth to fast-forward; NPCScheduling just picks up at the new time of day.
97	* Frontier versions of ''VideoGame/{{Elite}}'' has time scale buttons. Aside of long interplanetary travel, you may use them to check Newtonian mechanics of the game -- if your ship is on a proper elliptical orbit, it's quite visible under high time rate.
98	* ''VideoGame/KerbalSpaceProgram'': Time can be sped up anywhere from 2 to 100,000 times, although it's not possible to control a ship or use engines if the time acceleration is greater than 4x. Very much justified, as the realistic spaceflight model means that ships can take real-world ''years'' to reach their destinations.
99	* ''VideoGame/{{Orbiter}}'' features buttons for accelerating and decelerating time by a factor of 10, which is going to be necessary unless you want to spend hours performing orbital maneuvers or days on interplanetary transits.
100	* In ''VideoGame/ProjectHospital'', you can fast forward time by 4x or 10x to make procedures go faster.
101	* The ''VideoGame/{{X}}-Universe'' games through ''X3: Albion Prelude'' have a ship add-on called the Singularity Engine Time Accelerator, which increases the speed at which time passes in-game. It also exaggerates [[ArtificialStupidity ship guidance stupidity]]. This is mostly for travel purposes and is removed in ''VideoGame/XRebirth'', which uses HyperspaceLanes called "highways" between planets instead.
102	[[/folder]]
103
104	[[folder:Western [=RPGs=]]]
105	* ''{{VideoGame/Arcanum}}'': Like Fallout before it, the game lets you wait/sleep (but not in dungeons) to regain health and stamina or for townsfolk to go to/get out of bed/refresh their inventory. The adventure modules are particularly difficult simply because they lack this mechanic, not only preventing free healing but also ensuring merchants won't restock health potions/run out of cash for VendorTrash.
106	* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' series has the act of waiting, which allows the player to skip up to 24 in-game hours at one time. You can also choose to rest or sleep in a bed/bedroll/hammock/etc., which has the same effect but also allows you to level up (throughout the series through ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]'') or gain temporary bonus perks (''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'').
107	* The ''Videogame/{{Fallout}}'' series has a "Wait" command that can pass time, including a "Rest until healed" option that can last several days if used at a bad time since most character builds have single digit HP regeneration per hour.
108	* ''Videogame/{{Fable}}'' has the Golden Carrot and the Moonfish. Eating these will move the game time forward to morning and evening respectively.
109	* ''VideoGame/{{Wizardry}}'' makes time run fast when the party rests, with visibly accelerated day and night cycle. Since the faster ticks are correctly applied to all effects and random encounters alike, regenerating {{mana}} you need to heal poison or disease can be tricky.
110	* In ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'', there is no time pressure, but some quest locations are only accessible during day or night, so the game allows you to switch between those.
111	* ''VideoGame/KingdomComeDeliverance'' has the standard sleep and wait mechanics for passing time. Waiting simply passes time but also causes Henry's energy to decrease considerably. If it deplete fully, he'll pass out. Sleeping on the other hand restores Energy and (for certain beds) allows you to save your game without having to consume [[SaveToken Savior Schnapps]].
112	[[/folder]]
113
114	[[folder:Wide Open Sandbox]]
115	* ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'' has an enchanted sundial that allows you to skip to the next dawn, but can only be used again after seven in game days.
116	* ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'''s beds can be slept on to set your spawn point and skip the nighttime, but only nighttime and when there are no monsters around. Also, you can't use them in the Nether – [[MadeOfExplodium they blow up as soon as you use them]].
117	* In ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'' games, starting with ''[[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIII III]]'', saving skips the clock six hours ahead.
118	* ''VideoGame/HorizonForbiddenWest'' lets you shift to a preset time of day at the new Campsites (the ones with a Stash and Crafting Bench). This can make machine hunting a lot easier during the day with improved visibility, or help you pursue Apex machines that are far more common at night.
119	* ''{{VideoGame/Valheim}}'': Sleeping skips time until morning and advances progress for things like growing crops, smelting ore and making coal. It also lets you avoid [[NiceDayDeadlyNight deadly nighttime]]. However, it's only possible to go to sleep in the latter half of the day, and there's no in-game clock to tell when it's possible.
120	[[/folder]]
121
122	!!Non-Video Game Examples
123
124	[[AC:LiveActionTelevision]]
125	* An episode of ''Series/ElChapulinColorado'' has the titular hero against a guy who thinks he's a vampire. At the end, Chapulin remembers that vampires are weak to light, but there's still a couple hours before dawn, so he spins the clock's hands forward to speed up time. It ''works''.
126
127	[[AC:{{Webcomics}}]]
128	* A webcomic example occurs in ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'', as seen [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0155.html here.]]
129	* Near the end of ''Webcomic/EightBitTheater'', as the heroes are trying to perform a task within a time limit, Fighter meanwhile [[http://www.nuklearpower.com/2010/01/07/episode-1208-what-fighter-did/ goes to the inn to rest, advancing the clock several hours forward.]] Then he [[http://www.nuklearpower.com/2010/01/14/episode-1210-early-mourning/ does it one more time,]] obviously sapping his teammates out of their meager time remaining.
130	* In ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'', during the ''VideoGame/BlackAndWhite'' parody storyline, "Grace the Goddess", Grace [[https://www.egscomics.com/egsnp/2004-03-16 stumbles]] across this mechanic accidentally which results in 12 years passing in a matter of seconds.

Context Main / FastForwardMechanic