Time

Overview

Turbo provides two main APIs for handling time: tick() for deterministic, monotonic time and time::now() for real-world Unix timestamps.

Monotonic time is ideal for game logic. It increases consistently with each game loop frame and is not affected by user system clock changes, time zones, or daylight savings. Use tick to measure elapsed time or schedule time-based events during gameplay. Use time::now when displaying the real-world time or comparing to external timestamps.

API

time::tick()

Returns the number of frames that have elapsed since the game started.

time::tick() -> u32

time::now()

Returns the current system time as a Unix timestamp (seconds since the Unix epoch).

time::now() -> u32

Usage

Doing Something on an Interval

if time::tick() % 60 == 0 {
    // This will be `true` once every 60 frames (~1s)
}
 
if time::tick() % 60 < 30 {
    // This will be `true` for the first 30 frames (~0.5s) of every 60 frames (~1s)
}

Screen Shake for 10 Frames

#[turbo::game]
struct GameState {
    shake_start: Option<u32>,
}

Then in your update method:

if player_took_damage() {
    self.shake_start = Some(time::tick());
}
 
let shake_active = self.shake_start
    .map(|start| time::tick() - start < 10)
    .unwrap_or(false);
 
if shake_active {
    camera::shake(5);
}

Calculating Durations

#[turbo::game]
struct GameState {
    last_tick: usize,
    event_start: u64,
}

Then in your update method:

// Number of frames elapsed
let delta_frames = time::tick() - self.last_tick;
 
// Number of milliseconds elapsed
let millis = time::now() - self.event_start;