Saving and displaying best time achieved using playerprefs

Questions & Answers
1

Hi, I’m currently working on a small platformer game in which the goal is to complete levels as fast as possible. Hence, I want to display the current time and best time achieved. The current time works fine, the problem is the save and display of the best time.

public class Timer_Best : MonoBehaviour
{
    //VARIABLES
    public static Timer_Best instance;
    
    private bool timerActive = false;
    
    float currentTime;
    float bestTime;

    public TMP_Text currentTimeText;
    public TMP_Text bestTimeText;


    //UPDATES
    private void Awake()
    {
        instance = this;
    }

    private void Start()
    {
        currentTime = 0f;
        
        //Display BestTime
        bestTime = PlayerPrefs.GetFloat("best");
        bestTimeText.text = "Best: " + bestTime.ToString(@"mm\:ss\:ff");
    }

    private void Update()
    {
        //Current Time
        if (Input.anyKey) 
        {
            BeginTimer();
        }

        if (timerActive == true)
        {
            currentTime += Time.deltaTime;
        }
        TimeSpan time = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(currentTime);
        currentTimeText.text = "Current: " + time.ToString(@"mm\:ss\:ff");
        
        if (timerActive == false)
        {
            EndTimer();
        }
    }


    //METHODS
    public void BeginTimer()
    {
        timerActive = true;
    }

    public void EndTimer()
    {
        timerActive = false;

        //BestTime Update
        if (PlayerPrefs.HasKey("best"))
        {
            Debug.Log("Current best" + PlayerPrefs.GetFloat("best"));
            
            if (currentTime < PlayerPrefs.GetFloat("best"))
            {
                Debug.Log("Saved new timer value" + currentTime);

                PlayerPrefs.SetFloat("best", currentTime);
            }
        }
    }
}

I am currently calling the EndTimer method from another script with OnCollision like so:

        if (collision.gameObject.tag == "endTile")
        {
            timer.EndTimer();
        }

The best time achieved is never saved nor displayed (even when trying to debug with a PressKeyDown line). Can somebody point out my mistakes ? Thanks !!!

2

I believe that the issue is that you check if the playerpref “best” variable exists but never actually create and set the variable. Line 71 never gets called because the if statement above it (line 67) is never called as currentTime is always going to be compared with a default value of 0 from “best” as there is no best variable yet. Even before that on line 63, the if statement is always false as “best” isn’t created yet. To fix this you can add an else statement and just set the currentTime to “best” since it’s the first best score.

         //BestTime Update
         if (PlayerPrefs.HasKey("best"))
         {
             Debug.Log("Current best" + PlayerPrefs.GetFloat("best"));
             
             if (currentTime < PlayerPrefs.GetFloat("best"))
             {
                 Debug.Log("Saved new timer value" + currentTime);
 
                 PlayerPrefs.SetFloat("best", currentTime);
             }
         } else {
               PlayerPrefs.SetInt("best", currentTime);
         }

Hope this works.

If it doesn’t, then also check if the timer.EndTimer() function in your collision is called.