The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time famously takes place over two time periods set seven years apart.You can even dawdle around after Midna gets hit with Lanayru's light, but there's little reason to, as you can't leave the map in a direction that doesn't take you to Castle Town, or she'll plead with you to hurry to Zelda and you'll automatically turn around. Of course, it doesn't matter to her if you delay, because she just wants the MacGuffins, and would actually be happy enough to see your world end at first. Lampshade hung (along with quite a few other things) by Midna in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.Lampshaded when Linebeck calls Link on it after you return to the ship after playing a minigame. While the Big Bad is holding Tetra hostage. The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass lets you wander off halfway through the final boss battle if you get a Game Over.Fortunately, that particular night doesn't end until Link does what he has to do (because there was a curse that made night eternal). Tetra gives Link a head start, and tells him that she'll stall the pirates until morning. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker: At one point, Link has to get somewhere before the pirates do.But regardless how much you go on to do extra exploration to gain orbs, metal gems, and mini-missions, it only gets closer when progress is made during the story. In Jak 3, the Daystar is said to be approaching the planet with each passing day.You may sleep as much as you want in Cave Story, but the Doctor will not prepare Mimigas for experiment until your final sleep in Plantation.This means that you can spend as long as you want inside the shops and mansions without affecting either the day/night cycle or the game's runtime, giving you all the time you need to Money Grind. The clock runs and cycles through day and night when outdoors, and pauses when indoors. All three endings in Castlevania II: Simon's Quest are determined by how many in-game days it takes you to complete it.Even worse is if the timer keeps going when the player is doing things like pausing, having a menu open, watching a cutscene, or in the most extreme cases, not even playing the game at all. If there's an In-Universe Game Clock, even an offhand mention of something that won't happen for several days may be a good thing for players to worry about. Periodic reminders that time is running out should be taken as warnings that, unlike with Magic Countdown, you can actually fail if you dawdle too much. Players who assume this trope is in effect when told to hurry up may be shocked to find that the game really does mean it this time. Since this trope is widely recognized, this is occasionally subverted in more recent games by a mission being time-sensitive even if there's no explicit onscreen timer. Very few players would enjoy the entire game being a tight Timed Mission, or constantly being railroaded into advancing the plot, or quests and missions frequently becoming permanently missable by time advancing. This is a classic Acceptable Break from Reality. In effect, nothing happens unless the player causes it to happen. Of course, the accompanying cutscene might still depict you arriving just barely in time (or only moments too late), and you can expect NPCs to nag you constantly to establish a false sense of urgency.
On a smaller scale, even the most pressing, immediate tasks, such as, say, rescuing a fellow character who is dangling off a ledge at five hundred feet in the air, can be done at one's leisure, provided there isn't a number countdown ticking away on screen. However, in order to progress the story or quest at hand, the player has to trigger an event by going somewhere or doing something specific, and until they do, time will effectively stand still. This is because in the vast majority of games, time only passes meaningfully in the gameworld as the player advances through the story. A near-ubiquitous video game trope: no matter how urgent the hero's quest is said to be, he can almost always take as much time as desired before confronting the Big Bad (or otherwise advancing to the next plot point) to finish sidequests, collect items, repeatedly stay overnight at the Trauma Inn, unlock the hidden superpowers of his teammates (including any useless ones), waste time on minigames, or even stand around doing nothing.
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