How to exit a Game After a Time Out

Demonstrates how to exit a game after a period of time (such as inactivity) has passed.

Overview

Games are meant to be played, but some users had a tendency to walk away from their controllers or go and do something IRL, when this happens, especially if your game is very dynamic, it is good practice to monitor for a lack of interactivity and pause the game (unless you want the player to die horribly for not paying attention).

To make a game time out

Create a class that derives from Game.

Determine the desired time-out limit in milliseconds.

// Time out limit in ms.
static private int TimeOutLimit = 4000; // 4 seconds

Add a variable for tracking the elapsed time since the most recent user activity.
```
// Amount of time that has passed.
private double timeoutCount = 0;
```

When user input is checked, set a flag indicating whether any user activity has taken place.

GamePadState blankGamePadState = new GamePadState(
    new GamePadThumbSticks(), new GamePadTriggers(), new GamePadButtons(),
    new GamePadDPad());

In Update, if there has not been any user activity, increment the tracking variable by the elapsed time since the last call to Update.

If there has been some user activity, set the tracking variable to zero.

// Check to see if there has been any activity
if (checkActivity(keyboardState, gamePadState) == false)
{
    timeoutCount += gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.Milliseconds;
}
else
    timeoutCount = 0;

Check whether the value of the tracking variable is greater than the time-out limit.
If the variable is greater than the limit, perform some time-out logic such as playing an idle animation or, in this case, exit the game.
```
// Timeout if idle long enough
if (timeoutCount > TimeOutLimit)
{
    Exit();
    base.Update(gameTime);
    return;
}
```

Table of Contents

How to exit a Game After a Time Out

Overview

To make a game time out

See Also

Reference