Not An Example, just a pun. We can do much better.: You Have 48 Hours

The image for You Have 48 Hours isn't an example at all; it's just a clock that has "48 hours" written on it. There's nothing to suggest anything about a looming time limit, and the caption itself notes that it's just a pun. There are far better images out there, of stuff that actually is an example.

Just to get things kicked off, a pair of images from The World Ends With You: One with the Timer on Neku's hand, one with just the billboard, and one with both.

And another example: The fairly famous "dawn of the first day" screen from Majoras Mask.

For any of these, I do believe that all that's needed for a caption would be something suitably ominous, like "Tick, tock..."

edited 20th Feb '12 8:59:40 PM by Enlong

Agree about the current picture. As much as I like Majoras Mask, text alone probably isn't the way to go. I kind of like just the hand alone.

"Timer on hand" is weird; it changes? Weirder. I like the "You have 7 days" leader board.

I'm not entirely sure what you're saying, here?

Are you saying that the idea of the timer on the hand changing its numbers to tick down is weird?

well... yeah, I guess it is. It's magic.

Yes.

Also like the "board" for being in units other than hours.

I should note that the billboard denotes how long they must survive to be free from the Game, rather than how long they have to complete some task (the Timer on his hand denotes that)

edited 20th Feb '12 9:16:56 PM by Enlong

Those are both examples I think. The goal to be accomplished is survival.

Right. The form of the time limit is merely a bit different ("perform this act for this amount of time" vs "perform this act before this amount of time runs out").

Either the board or the hand works for me. I also thought about the timers on people's arms in In Time, but I wasn't sure if that counted for this trope.

Yeah, those probably don't quite fit it.

Any other discussion, or suggestions?

The cutscene in the game superimposes the two (being on the DS and all), so I think having them both would work best.

I like the hand picture, alone, more than the others.

"7 days" and "59:48" next to each other? They don't really correspond, though, without context.

Yeah. I thought that might come up. In-context, the two timers are different. You have 7 days to survive, and the timer is counting down 1 hour for him to complete that day's task, or face erasure.

So, I think we can agree that having them both next to each other doesn't help without context. As such, we should go with one or the other.

The "YOU HAVE 7 DAYS" billboard is nce in conjunction with the trope's title, but I think the Timer on his hand works better. It's sinister-looking, obviously supernatural, and really hits that "ticking clock" angle.

I prefer the "7 Days" one myself, more imposing... Now a Ring (urgh, The Ring) reference or Twenty Four...

edited 26th Feb '12 10:46:12 AM by Jicragg

Bumping this because it's fallen out of discussion.

The two together with the caption "Seven days to do seven timed tasks" might work. Alone, the seven days bulletin is the best.

Clock is set.

Locking.