RPG Maker Day & Night Cycle Step-by-Step Tutorial

Handles Seconds → Minutes → Hours → Days rollover logic. This is the heart of your clock.

Checks the current hour and applies the correct screen tint (Night, Sunrise, Day, Sunset, Evening).

Sets the starting time (example: 12:00 PM) and applies the correct tint before gameplay begins. Then disables itself using a Self Switch.

Download the demo file and open it in your engine of choice. The key event commands are placed in the top-left corner of the demo map for learning (one Autorun + two Parallel events).

Create the events manually in your own project. A clean way is placing the setup events in the top-left corner of a map first, then moving them into Common Events once you’re happy with everything.

Make a new event and set Trigger to Parallel. This event will run continuously and update your variables.

Go to Control Variables > Single Variable. There we'll create variables for: Seconds, Minutes, Hours, Days, and optionally Months, Years.

In your Parallel event, do:

Control Variables → Seconds → Add Constant 1

Now Seconds will increase by one as the event runs.

Now we need to tell the game how time should progress. Let’s look at the diagram below. We’ll use these numbers to create our Conditional Branches.
The first branch checks whether Seconds are 60 or higher. If they are, we increase Minutes by 1 and reset Seconds to 0. The same pattern is then repeated for Minutes, Hours, and Days using the numbers shown above.

Add a Conditional Branch:
If Seconds ≥ 60
Inside the branch, add 1 to Minutes:
Minutes += 1
Reset Seconds back to 0:
Seconds = 0
Now Minutes will increase every 60 Seconds.

Repeat the same rollover logic for the rest of the branches:
If Minutes ≥ 60, then:
Hours += 1 and Minutes = 0.

If Hours ≥ 24, then:
Days += 1, and Hours = 0.

Place a simple object event (like a sign) and show a message using Show Text command that displays your variables.

\V[1] Seconds | \V[2] Minutes | \V[3] Hours | \V[4] Days | \V[5] Months

Playtest! Click a few times on a signpost. If numbers change, your clock is ticking:

25 Seconds | 17 Minutes | 12 Hours | 1 Days | 0 Months

Use a Dynamic Text Picture plugin (MV users: DTextPicture.js / MZ: TextPicture.js). Turn it ON in Plugin Manager, then: add a Plugin Command that defines your text, and use Show Picture without selecting an image.

Example: Hours is variable 3, Days is variable 4, then write \V[3] (or \V[003] to display it. You can also add color with \C[].

Make a second Parallel event (or Common Event) that checks Hours and applies the correct tint.

Build five branches based on military time, where '0' is midnight and '18' is 6PM. Example: If Hours ≥ 20 then Evening tint, Else If Hours ≥ 18 then Sunset, Else If Hours ≥ 8 then Day, Else If Hours ≥ 5 then Sunrise, Else → Deep Night.

Set the event trigger to Autorun, set Hours/Minutes to what you want. For example, for noon (which is 12:00pm), set Hours to 12 and Minutes to 0.

Control Variables → Hours → Set 12
Control Variables → Minutes → Set 0

Apply a Daylight tint so you don’t start with night colors.

Tint Screen: (0,0,0,0), 120 frames

Add a new page conditioned by Self Switch A, and turn Self Switch A ON at the end, so the Autorun doesn’t freeze the game.

Our system now constantly checks if the ‘Seconds’ variable has hit 60:

If:Seconds ≥ 60 <-- drains resources and can slow gameplay down!

Let’s fix that in two easy steps! First, change the check from 60 to 1 to prevent overloading the system:

Conditional Branch → Seconds → Set 1

Won’t this make the game count seconds way too fast? That's right! If we stop here, the game will think each second equals a full minute. So that’s where a Wait command comes in!

Wait: 60 frames

A simple Wait command at the end of your Parallel event prevents the engine from running checks 60 times per second. It keeps the system smooth without unnecessary processing.

Your tint event is also Parallel, without a wait command, it can keep reapplying tint constantly (multiple times per second!). Add a Wait command at the very end of this event to limit checks and avoid draining resources.

Make house windows open/close, lanterns light at night, fireflies appear, or set shops open between set hours.

Apply time cycles to the world map with ease! Plus, learn how to adjust game time speed (fast-forward effect included as a fun mini-game!)

Set a beautiful custom HUD with 12-hour time display.

Pause Time during dialogue, cutscenes, or emotional moments.

Even more smart optimizations and pro tips to keep your game running smoothly.