How to make game idle while not playing it?

Unity Engine
1

Hey guys, I am making my first game, and its an idle/incremental/clicker game inspired by Adventure Capitalist. I have a lot of the features in now, just not that pretty yet (not an artist lol). I was wondering how to make it run in the background, like shut the game off and still collect cash. I tried using DateTime.Now and storing it to a variable X, and saving it, then loading the X in seconds and subtracting it from the current DateTime.Now.Second, then multiplying it by my cashPerSecond() method. This didnt work. I got the current datetime.now to work, but i could never store the date i shut down the game to a variable and have it load at start.

2

Have you tried using PlayerPrefs? This would allow you to store the int, load it and then calculate the time elapsed between playthroughs.

3

I was using Serialization for better security, but for some reason it wasnt storing the DateTime.Now when the game was destroyed.

4

Storing the time isn’t enough. All they have to do is change the time on their computer. You either need to do your calculations on a server, or at least get the time from one.

1 Like
5

nvm got it.

6

Yeah I plan on doing that in the future. I am working on getting the minimum viable product done, with the core features, adding in some art, expanding more features, a LOT of balance changes and probably work on servers if I want to take this game to market. This is my first game but I think I have a good idea, and a semi-popular genre.

7

Says everyone ever.

Definitely not for your first game.
Honestly, take a little step back and be realistic. Creating a video game is not as simple as waving a wand and unless mummy and daddy are paying for these servers they can be very expensive. Feel free to gather the time from someone elses server but I highly recommend you do most things offline.
Just focus on making an enjoyable game with some VERY simple anti-cheating method. (Time checking, click limiting etc)
Cheaters find a way.

EDIT:
I would like to recommend a simple platform like Kongregate. They have quite a big audience for idle games.