Time

Time starts counting down in the game as soon as you start playing. Time can run faster, slower, in reverse, or even stop entirely depending on the Shade's activity and location.

## Gameplay

The only external factor in gameplay is time; the Shade has been given the task of waiting 400 days in real time and then waking the King. Time passes in the game's world even when the game is not being played.

## Manipulating time

Choices the Shade makes can make time pass more quickly, more slowly, in reverse, or not at all.

### Speeding up time

* Time jumps ahead by one minute for every page the Shade reads in a new book. Re-reading a book after already having read it once does not advance time.
* Time jumps ahead by 10 minutes when you play music on your instrument with notes in order (4 (top)-3 (upper left or right)-2 (left or right)-1 (lower left or right). On switch you can use (right left down up) on the dpad. Works with blue fire as well to reverse time (see below.)
* Time jumps ahead one hour every time the Shade has a dream. (Removed in latest update to prevent lock-ins in the secret door.)

#### Home Sweet Home

Time spent inside the Shade's home speeds up permanently as you make improvements to the home. This is the main way of making time go by more quickly for the Shade.

Possible home improvements:

* Make a Fire - lighting a coal fire ("regular fire") in the Shade's fireplace lasts for four in-game hours, and makes time pass more quickly.
* Make drawings - every drawing the shade makes and decorates his home with makes time go by more quickly and about 3-5 paintings makes time pass half a second per second inside his home.
* Obtain decorative items like Carpets, Crystals, Curtains, the Horse Head, etc. Each decoration makes time go by more quickly.
* Enable running Water.
* Carve out all the available extra space with a Mattock to make home as big as possible. This includes both lower levels with the full bedroom area, the cave for Mushrooms on the lower right, and the bathroom beneath the bedroom area.
* Build a bed in the bedroom.
* Grow mushrooms in the mushroom cave to the right of the bedroom.

When you've decorated and improved the Shade's home enough that time passes by 10 or more in-game seconds per real-world second, you will get the achievement **Home Sweet Home.** At this point the Shade will smile when at home, and randomly express pride in their surroundings.

When the Shade inspects the hourglass at home, the Shade will express feelings about how slowly or quickly time is passing.

Making sure the Shade is back at home before exiting the game ensures that time will keep passing at the faster rate while you aren't playing; when you log back into the game you'll find days have gone by much more quickly than the real-time rate which happens if you leave the Shade anywhere else.

### Slowing down time

The rate time goes by in your cave after making it more roomy can be slowed back down to real time with the Hourglass found in your cave. Spam clicking it, slowly, 10 or so times will open up a dialog that will allow you to disable the multipliers.

### Freezing time

Time freezes when you are in the Halls of Eternity. If you exit the game while in the Halls, time will be at the same point whenever you start the game up again.

### Reversing time

Time is reversed with a blue fire. Other time-altering activities work in reverse while a blue fire is burning, and the time is after 36D 00H 00M 00S:

* Time jumps back 10 minutes when you make a blue fire and then play music on your instrument with notes in order (4 (top)-3 (upper left or right)-2 (left or right)-1 (lower left or right) or for switch (right left down up) on the dpad. Works without blue fire to accelerate time (see above.)
* Reading a book backward during a blue fire reverses time significantly; start at the last page of a book and flip pages backward to reverse time by one hour per page. Book pages "unread" in this fashion no longer count as read, and after the blue fire is over they can be read again to advance time just as they did when the Shade read them for the first time. Reading the book “The Time Machine” backwards will reverse time by 10 hours per page rather than the usual one.

### Cheating

If you try to change the in-game time by using a hack (like a cheat engine) or falsely adjusting the time on your computer's clock the Shade will be taken to a dungeon and given a stern warning, and the player must click 400 times to be forgiven before having to undo the cheat and start the game again.

## What if time runs out?

Don't worry. When your clock reaches 000D00H00M00S, you can continue playing to reach a game ending. *[Unknown: Will moss or mushrooms continue to grow?]*