Time Management Explained

Coen may be stuck in a purgatorial state between mortality and immortality, but time is not on his side, despite his flirtations with the eternal. You have thirty days to gain strength, muster allies and defeat Brencis, and spending your time wisely will go a long way in determining how the endgame unfolds. Since time limits in games invariably foster feelings of stress and doubt, this page will help explain how time passes in The Blood of Dawnwalker.

Page Breakdown¶

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Your time will be tracked on the top right of the screen - each day and night has eight ticks.

Days and Ticks¶

You’ll be introduced to the game’s time mechanic pretty much from the onset - once you’re free to explore Laslea you’ll see a variety of quests demanding your attention, most of which take time to complete. In the prologue you’ll have a single day to spend however you wish, and each day and night cycle consists of eight ticks, marked by a segmented meter on the top right of the screen.

Once the first day ends you’ll be shuffled off to continue the main questline via the quest Sacred Covenant, but after that running out of time will simply cause day to transition to night and night to day. Any excess time used up in one day/night segment will roll over to the next, but the transition itself is a simple binary: For example, if you have one segment left in a day and take an action that uses up three time ticks, once the action is completed it’ll become night and two time ticks will be used up.

What Advances Time (and What Doesn’t)¶

Quests and activities almost always cause time to advance, either before you start them, sometime during the quest/activity, or even just before the end! Sometimes a single quest or activity will have multiple time sinks, some of which may be optional (these are almost always presented as dialog options). We’ll cover this in more detail shortly, but for now it’s more worth noting what doesn’t consume time, including:

• Exploration: You can run around the entire map as much as you please without causing a single time tick to pass… so long as you avoid quests and activities.
• Combat: Combat itself doesn’t cause time to pass. Kill all the wolves, boars and soldiers you want. As long as it’s not associated with a quest or activity, time won’t flow.
• Idling: Put the controller down. Take a nap. The game won’t move on without you.
• Climbing Towers: Oddly enough, climbing towers to survey the area will not consume time. One of the game’s very few activities that has no time commitment.
• Crafting: Make whatever potions and ointments you want - all time free!
• Other: Searching enemies, picking plants, looting chests, buying or selling items does not advance time.

Simply put, most generic gameplay does not advance time whatsoever. You may be on the clock, but the hands on the clock only move when you’re ready for them to. That said, you’re very limited in how you can advance through the game without using time, so this freedom, welcome as it is, may not be as generous as it seems at first glance.

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(1 of 4) Your quest log often informs you of the time cost of quests,

Quests, Activities and Time¶

As mentioned earlier, accomplishing just about anything in The Blood of Dawnwalker will advance time, and some quests and activities are polite enough to inform you of this ahead of time. Many, however, do not, or they conceal just how much time they really consume by hiding it at some point during the quest or activity.

For example, in the prologue the quest Withering Away will tell you that it takes one tick of time before you advance it meaningfully, but you’ve got an option mid-quest to burn two more ticks of time, then actually administering the herbs will require yet another tick of time, meaning this quest can take anywhere from 2-4 units of time to complete. Meanwhile Disturbed initially consumes no time, but to advance the quest past its midpoint you’ll need to use another tick of time and finally at the end you get a dialog option that’ll let you burn two more ticks

Activities can work the same way - you can defeat the bear during Into the Den without wasting any time, but digging up the treasure this quest leads to will consume time. Most activities, however, will inform you ahead of time that they’ll consume time. The Bandit Camp in Laslea will consume a tick of time when you actually confront the bandits, and this is true for most activities. You’ll hear a ticking sound and the time bar will fill with a grey segment, letting you know the time the activity will consume BEFORE you commit.

Time costs in your journal, in dialog options, and on items that have a limited duration will be marked by an hourglass icon, so you’ll almost always be informed when time is going to pass… at least immediately before you commit to the decision. You will not, however, always be informed before embarking on a quest or activity, and in many cases the time-consuming decision will happen at the end of a quest or activity.

Simply put, just assume any quest or activity will take time at some point during the endeavor!

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Spending skill points on most skills will also advance time. It’s a fairly large time cost over the course of the game, so don’t forget about it!

Leveling Up¶

A few skills can be purchased without using time, but advanced skills do have a time cost… and by “advanced” we mean basically everything in a tree aside from the first few ranks of each skill on the top row. This is a massive time cost that can be easy to overlook while you’re pouring over the map looking at all the quests and activities you’ve unlocked. The Swordmastery tree alone has enough skills and abilities to consume over 90 time ticks - the better part of a full week of in-game time! Realistically, you’re probably only going to invest 40~ skill points in a single tree (unlocking each tree’s ultimate skills requires an investment of 35 skill points - your time cost will be somewhat less than this), but even at this somewhat reasonable projected minimum value you’re still looking at over two days and nights per tree, and it’s not unreasonable to assume a player will spend 5-7 days worth of in-game time on leveling alone.

Don’t neglect to spend your skill points, especially if the going gets tough, but just keep in mind that you have less time than you may think just by looking at the map.

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Just because you get the option to waste time, doesn’t mean doing so will pay off in any meaningful way.

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You’ll need to make judgement calls - using your time to help an old lady might make you feel good, but hunting down shards of a silver sword will probably help you defeat Brencis more.

How to Spend Your Time¶

So, how should you spend your time in The Blood of Dawnwalker? Well, the milquetoast answer is however you want - if you want to be a good guy, help the old lady cross the road, repair shrines, and all that rot. As far as gameplay goes, you’ll probably want to obtain something tangible in exchange for your time - skill points are always welcome, unlocking new quests, gaining allies, and generally improving your odds against Brencis in the future are all things to consider. Where things get tricky are when it comes to loot - is it worth saving a captured merchant to get some rare bracers? Probably not. But hunting down a legendary silver sword? Well… yeah, that’ll probably have a more meaningful long-term impact!

Worst case scenario, play through a quest, see what rewards you get, and if you don’t acquire anything that seems immediately worthwhile, reload. Just keep in mind, however, that some allies can only be roused to your cause after multiple quests. Sometimes providing your worth takes a bit of time to yield fruit.