Idle system when off computer

I have done game in the same vein as Clicker Heroes, it is an idle game, but I have not figured out how to make the game idle when offline like Clicker Heroes does. That is if you shut down the computer and come back a day later you will have earned coins in the game while gone. I assume this is done by comparing the time when you leave with some online clock or something?
Could it be done with Fusion? Anyone know how?

Also I need to do this on mobile. But I have noticed that every idle game I have tried on mobile with an earning system when you are not playing are actually dependent on the clock on the device. Anyone know how to do that? Or is it possible to also compare to an online clock on mobile? The problem when comparing it to the device clock is that it is very easy to cheat by just adjust the clock forward in time..

Save a server timestamp to a local array. Then compare it with the same server timestamp when they load the app again by subtracting the old timestamp from the new timestamp (will give you seconds passed since the app was last opened.)

The PHP script is really simple as well

Code:

---

<?php

echo time();

?>

---

Save that as a .php file and upload to a server with PHP enabled. Then use the GET object to grab the values each time you need them. If the user isn't online you won't be able to use this method obviously...

Is there an example on how to do this?
I have used PHP once before with highscore, but I don't remember how to do it :/

You should also know that using a server timestamp check will require the player to use either their network data or have access to wifi... which means if the player has no data/wifi the check won't work.. so you need a backup plan.

DaveC - On Flash that is not such a problem though since you actually need to be connected to play flash games?

that's correct, not a problem for flash, it could just cause issues for some phone users (also people who have an ipad with no sim card)

Yes that is true, maybe that is why they use the internal clock on mobile from what I have seen so far. How do you compare to that?

When the game starts the 1st time.. (Date and Time) Save the values from the phone.
Then use that for your program.
If people are messing with the time and date, you can give them a warning (Like going back an hour or changing the date in order to get something)
If you think people are going forward in time. Just save the value, and compare it with past times. (not sure how I did it, since I didn't do that in Fusion at that time)

But how do I save the values from the phone of the time and date? I have looked at the iOS object but I can't find any such actions.. :/

There is a Timestamp object for iOS, search the forum.

here is some info : http://community.clickteam.com/threads/87887-Tracking-Time?highlight=time

There is a command to pull the time.. (can't think of it, from the top of my head... I used it in 1 of my games)
Think you needed to use the clock object... that shows the current time/date
and then grab the values from it.

^ Please don't do it this way, it's very convoluted and confusing. Trust me. For example, grabbing the minute from the Date and Time object would result in incorrect results if the player has spent more than an hour away from the game. Old minute - new minute could essentially end up as a nil value because of how much time is passed.

Use this extension which grabs the system time in an easy to use value - http://community.clickteam.com/threads/72647-iOS-Unix-Timestamp?highlight=ios+timestamp The value it returns is a long value, which takes into account years, months, days, hours, minutes and seconds. All you need to do is store the old timestamp when they exit, then load it again when they open the app and compare it to the new timestamp. It will return a period in seconds, so converting it is as simple as dividing it by 60 for a minute etc.

Will look into these methods, but how about on Android?