Night and fog: designing danger that comes and goes

A day and night cycle only matters if night changes what you do. If night is only darker, players ignore it, and if it's a hard deadline, they spend every evening watching the clock. In Mytheria, our pixel-art co-op game, night brings two kinds of danger: a moon that makes every creature fierce, and once a night, a fog that rolls in after a warning and leaves again before dawn.

The clips below were filmed in the game: one night, with the warning, the fog and the walk to safety.

How do you make night dangerous in a game?

Make the world more dangerous as well as darker, and let players choose how to respond. Stronger creatures at night push players home or underground without forcing them. A short, unpredictable event with a clear warning creates real tension, and safe places nearby turn the danger into a decision about whether to push on or head for the light. The danger should also pass on its own, so the night feels like a phase of the day.

The short answer

How night works in Mytheria:

• When the moon rises at 22:00, creatures on the surface get 2.6 times their health and 3.9 times their damage, and attack twice as fast.
• Fighting at night gives no extra reward, so staying out is a choice.
• Once a night, at a different moment every night, a fog comes after a 22 to 30 second warning.
• The fog lasts 60 to 180 seconds, slows you, hurts you every second and sends creatures after you.
• The meadow, the mines, lantern shrines and restored settlements keep it out.
• It always passes well before dawn, and never takes anything from your bag.

The moon: night as a choice

From 22:00 to 06:00, the moon empowers every creature on the surface: 2.6 times the health, 3.9 times the damage, about ten times as strong overall, and twice as quick to attack. A creature you handle easily by day becomes a real threat, and there's no extra loot for fighting it, on purpose. Night is a reason to do something else: head home, go mining underground where the moon doesn't reach, or finish a quick errand carefully.

To keep that fair, quicker attacks still give a warning: no telegraph is shortened below 0.35 seconds unless it was already designed shorter, so night asks for no faster reactions than the day. How the day around it works is in day and night cycle in games.

Make the fog an event

Once a night the fog comes. When exactly is drawn from the world and the night, so it's different every night and the same for everyone in the world. It always starts with a warning: a horn, haze gathering at the edge of the screen, the moon paling, and a line telling you how far the nearest shelter is.

Then the fog rolls in. Outside shelter you walk at 80 % speed, lose 3.5 % of your health every second, take 1.3 times the damage from every blow, and the creatures around you have 1.4 times their health. After 10 seconds, fog creatures rise near you, two at a time, every 40 seconds.

Try a few nights. Each roll draws a night by the game's rules:

Roll a few nights, then pick a stage

Roll another night

Moonlit Warning Fog Clearing

Shelter turns danger into decisions

The fog doesn't hurt you in a shelter: the home meadow, anywhere underground, a lit lantern shrine by the road, or a restored settlement. Shelters also heal you, 3.5 % of your health a second while you rest. So when the fog comes, you choose between running for the shrine now, finishing what you're doing first, or diving into the nearest mine.

How the fog itself is drawn, the haze, the wall at the edge of the unexplored map and the clear pockets around light, is in how to make fog look good in a pixel art game.

Danger that comes and goes

The fog rolls out over 9 seconds, its creatures fade with it, and it's always gone at least 34 seconds before dawn. If it catches you, you lose health and keep your bag. Because it passes, the rest of the night is yours again, and because it's a different moment every night, you're never quite sure when it's coming.

In co-op, everyone sees the same fog at the same moment, and a shrine shelters whoever stands in it, so splitting up at night is a real decision.

A checklist for night danger

• Make night more dangerous as well as darker.
• Don't reward fighting at night, so staying out is a choice.
• Keep warnings fair even when attacks speed up.
• Add one event a night, at an unpredictable moment.
• Always warn first, and point to safety.
• Put shelters where players are likely to be.
• Let the danger pass on its own, well before morning.
• Never take players' items for being caught.