Passage of time in the game

edited February 2013 in The Walking Dead
In the game it starts in the spring (as mentioned by clementines mom on the answering machine) and by episode two, 3 months later, it's October (fall colors of the leaves in Ep2, and from the date mentioned from the tapes in Crawford from Episode 4)? Where did the summer go?

Comments

  • edited December 2012
    staticfl wrote: »
    In the game it starts in the spring (as mentioned by clementines mom on the answering machine) and by episode two, 3 months later, it's October (fall colors of the leaves in Ep2, and from the date mentioned from the tapes in Crawford from Episode 4)? Where did the summer go?

    Shut up and enjoy the Game :)
  • edited December 2012
    owner070 wrote: »
    Shut up and enjoy the Game :)

    I did enjoy the game, I was just curious. geesh.
  • edited December 2012
    staticfl wrote: »
    I did enjoy the game, I was just curious. geesh.

    It was a joke lol
  • edited December 2012
    Global warming did it.
  • edited December 2012
    owner070 wrote: »
    It was a joke lol

    After I posted I noticed your :)

    :cool:
  • edited December 2012
    Global warming did it.

    Globar warming makes the earth hotter, so the summer would be hotter. how could global warming let summer is dissapear ??
  • edited December 2012
    owner070 wrote: »
    Globar warming makes the earth hotter, so the summer would be hotter. how could global warming let summer is dissapear ??

    Because science.
  • edited December 2012
    staticfl wrote: »
    Where did the summer go?

    I don't know but it looks like it was a pretty interesting time. They raided an air base and found Mark and then there was all that army equipment including a crashed helicopter in Macon...
  • edited December 2012
    owner070 wrote: »
    Global warming makes the earth hotter, so the summer would be hotter. how could global warming let summer is disappear ??

    Actually global warming can trigger an ice age and as I am sure your aware, your not going to get many summers during an ice age.
  • edited December 2012
    Actually global warming can trigger an ice age and as I am sure your aware, your not going to get many summers during an ice age.

    Stop with the global warming. Ep1 they mentioned spring break and there were references to Easter at the drug store. 3 months later in Crawford they mentioned the date on the tapes as October 10th. I'll just assume it was just a goof on part of the writers of the game. :rolleyes:
  • edited December 2012
    There are two basic possibilities here. Either the writers messed up and this is a continuity error, or the three months account for the time difference.

    Assuming it's not the first one, let me try to explain the second option. Firstly, “Spring Break” usually coincides with Easter, and depending on the year, Catholic Easter tends to fall between late March and late April. In 2003, the year The Waking Dead comics started coming out on, and the year the game (presumably) takes place in (judging from the boxy “new” TVs on sale in Macon and the lack of smart-phones), Catholic Easter was on April 20th (according to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter#Reform_of_the_date). Let's assume that Sandra's Spring Break was in late April, and that it was about to begin when Clementine's mom made those calls, not long before Lee found Clementine. Fast forward 3 months, and it's late July. Give the writers the benefit of the doubt, and add a couple of weeks so that the time still rounds to 3 months, and it's still mid August.

    There is, however, the possibility that Fall came early that year from all the junk in the air from all the fires that started all over the world in the initial panic (or fires started by lightning that no fire departments were around to put out). Max Brooks talks about this in WWZ to explain the unusually cold winters survivors had to face. Think it's too far fetched? 1816 was known as the “year without a summer” because of a global drop in temperatures caused in part by ash released from the explosion of a volcano in Indonesia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer). I'm not a botanist, and I don't know how the seasons change in Georgia, but my guess is that a drop in global temperatures could cause leaves to turn red and yellow a month before they're supposed to.

    I don't know if the writers thought exactly all of this out, but my point is that the continuity is plausible...

    Except for the fact that that the date on the tapes is October 10th, as staticfl pointed out. And the doctor in Crawford says on one of his tapes that “this is day 82 since the outbreak” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYENrBC0xuk), which on the 2003 calendar, places the day of Lee's car crash (assuming it was on “outbreak day”) on Sunday, July 27th. No school district that I'm aware of schedules spring break in late July. So yes, the writers goofed.

    Telltale Games could use a continuity consultant, who's only job is to nitpick with little things like dates and times, and whether or not Lee still has a gun in his back pocket when Clementine gives him his only one back to shoot a walker (Episode 3, in the station). It's a shame when little things mess up the credibility of such an awesome story. And “yes, but zombies...” isn't an excuse for three months to be five months at the same time.
  • edited December 2012
    Science and things and such.

    I don't know, I really am not concerned enough about the whole affair to label the continuity as "messed up." I just... I really don't care, you know?
  • edited December 2012
    owner070 wrote: »
    Globar warming makes the earth hotter, so the summer would be hotter. how could global warming let summer is dissapear ??

    You can't question this or else you're anti-environmental :D. Just trust Al Gore blindly okay?:)
  • edited December 2012
    staticfl wrote: »
    Stop with the global warming. Ep1 they mentioned spring break and there were references to Easter at the drug store. 3 months later in Crawford they mentioned the date on the tapes as October 10th. I'll just assume it was just a goof on part of the writers of the game. :rolleyes:

    Stop with the global warming? I made one post, which was in reference to someone else's post. Get a grip, lol. You can assume anything you want. I wasn't even talking about the game. I was merely stating that global warming can in fact cause an ice age. Not to mention that global warming speaks to the average global temperature. Its far more complex than simply everything getting hotter. Some places will have no temperature change at all, some places will see the temperature rise far above the average, some places will see increases right on par with the average, and some places will actually get colder.
  • edited December 2012
    Only one thing could explain the existence of such a strange time discrepancy.

    20867-1-1281271307.jpg

    ...or writer goof. But I prefer to blame the Doctor.
  • edited December 2012
    Clem's mom saying they'd be back for spring break was an error on Telltale's part. The apocalypse really started late summer. In the comics, which the game follows, Rick is shot and in a coma for approximately a month. By the time he wakes up, it's already cold enough outside for people to be wearing coats and colder weather clothing, so it's either late September or October by then.

    We'll assume that it starts in late July/early August. That means three months later in Episode 2, it's either late October or early November. Kirkman was extremely vague about the timelines until it starts snowing, and there is then a reference by Andrea when she tells Rick that she's been counting off on a calender and thinks that it's Christmas at one point. That's the only reference to a time table that we are given.

    Either way, that part about spring break was just a goof on Telltale's end.

    I found this:

    In regards to the timeline, Robert Kirkman wrote, "The Walking Dead takes place in our world, as if this stuff had started happening in October 2003 and continued from there. Now, (Issue 38) In the book It's still only like...June 2004 at this point (If you're keeping track)."

    So whether or not he means Rick woke up in October in issue 1, or the apocalypse started in October is vague as well. That means we are looking at Lee in the car going to prison either in September or October, not spring.
  • edited December 2012
    wow, this thread is a rollercoaster, I would have liked to see the zombies in the winter
  • edited December 2012
    Well, I always assumed Ep. 1 happened uring the summer since everyone was wearing summer clothes (Doug was wearing Sandals and Lilly had a sleeveless T-shirt, for example). Fast-forward three months and it's Autumn :D). Plus, counting backwards from the Crawford tape places the start of the apocalypse sometime in July (which I assume is Summer. Sorry, I'm from the southern hemisphere, I don't want to start counting seasons the other way around D: )
  • edited December 2012
    ...Magic.
  • edited December 2012
    The game starts on July 20th.

    Source:
    the medical tapes in ep 4 state October 10th day 83 since the outbreak

    Edit: And it ends on Nov 2nd. Someone did a calculation on it with every event in the game but I can't find it now.
  • edited December 2012
    dubesor wrote: »
    The game starts on July 20th.

    Source:
    the medical tapes in ep 4 state October 10th day 83 since the outbreak

    Edit: And it ends on Nov 2nd. Someone did a calculation on it with every event in the game but I can't find it now.

    **Then why does clementine's mom tell the babysitter she'll be back in time for spring break?
  • edited December 2012
    spring break happens every year. might as well be before the springbreak next time as she was obviously joking while saying that. the tapes are labeled with dates which is pretty accurate information.
  • edited December 2012
    I don't think they reached summer o.o
  • edited January 2013
    1. Mom on Answering Machine mentions getting back before the babysitter's Spring Break.
    2. Carley mentions she was in town to cover the cherry blossom festival (which is held in March)
    3. A flyer on the drugstore had an Easter Bunny w/ Basket.

    Three Months Later (which should be June): Fall leaves and October is mentioned on the tapes in Crawford.

    I guess the telltale wasn't too worried about minor details. I don't think this is the only detail they messed up on.
  • edited January 2013
    I don't think the writers were being very strict on the timings, and it's probably one of those things they don't expect us to think to much about.

    But if we do want to try to account for some time...

    If there's a start time to the game's story, I would say it's sometime in March. This is based on Carley saying she was visiting Macon to do a report on the International Cherry Blossom Festival, which takes place in mid to late March.

    I always assumed the Easter poster at the pharmacy was advertising for an upcoming event, which would still fit the beginning of the outbreak around March.

    Three months later, episode 2 starts so that puts it at around June. However, the weather appears like autumn. So it's around here the game's chronology starts to be wonky.
  • edited January 2013
    dubesor wrote: »
    spring break happens every year. might as well be before the springbreak next time as she was obviously joking while saying that. the tapes are labeled with dates which is pretty accurate information.

    That is a good point. We don't know what context Clementine's mum used to Sandra in the machine message.

    Could be an inside joke, Clem's mum did chuckle at the end. Eg a previous time Sandra did miss or almost missed spring break because Clementine's parents were late or something like that.
  • edited January 2013
    Also it looks to me that ALL the events in the Walking Dead Game happen BEFORE Rick wakes up in Hospital.

    Rick wakes up to bare trees, at the end of the Walking Dead Game, the leaves are still there albeit in autumn colours (red, yellow, gold).
  • edited January 2013
    That is a good point. We don't know what context Clementine's mum used to Sandra in the machine message.

    Could be an inside joke, Clem's mum did chuckle at the end. Eg a previous time Sandra did miss or almost missed spring break because Clementine's parents were late or something like that.

    This is a plausible explanation. Maybe Sandra missed her actual spring break because she was watching Clem and it could have been an inside joke between them, or perhaps Sandra was getting ready to go on vacation when Clem's parents returned and referred to it as her 'late' spring break. For me, that's a good enough explanation to keep the continuity intact.
  • edited January 2013
    Kind of confused about the passage of time at the end of episode 4. After the group returns from Crawford, it seems to be early morning. Lee takes a nap on the couch, and when he wakes up and goes outside to find Clem, it seems to be the afternoon.

    It should be assumed that Lee arrived at the morgue at nightfall, but it was plain as day in episode 5. I'm pretty sure that the end of episode 4 was in the afternoon...
  • edited February 2013
    I wonder, why Lee was transferred to jail 2 days after the zombie-apocalypse starts? Game intro looks like it just the beginning of it.
    Sandra (Clem's babysitter) was screaming 2 days before Lee meets Clem. Or was Sandra screaming not because of zombie had got her?
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