Cheat Engine

[zerooneping]

I’m struggling to find the time values in The Occupation (White Paper Games). I want to freeze time so I can explore clues without rushing.

I’ve tried all value types: unknown initial values, scanning for increasing/decreasing values, and checking hours, minutes, seconds, and milliseconds. I only found the display values (the wristwatch starts at 14:48 on a 24-hour clock), but not the root address. I’m not sure if the timer starts low and increases, or if it’s a countdown that triggers the next sequence of events.

Do you take requests to figure this out for viewers, offer video calls, or paid help? I’ve watched tutorials and tried many methods, but nothing works.

The first step is simply finding the value, then the static address. From there, maybe a script could be made to stop whatever assembly code makes the time progress, until I’m ready to unfreeze it and ideally also allow me to manually set the time.

There are literally no .CT files or trainers for this game, which is crazy. It almost makes me think no one has been able to figure it out.

[ParkourPenguin]

Time is a terrible thing to scan for since it can be stored in so many ways. Unknown initial value and changed / unchanged on all value types (check the settings for which types the "All" type includes) is the most general way to search for it; however, that leads to many false positives that will need to be sifted through. Even then, the game could be using different semantics: e.g. instead of a continuously increasing value, store time points that remain unchanged while time is running but get updated after the game is paused & unpaused.

I read pausing the game with the "Esc" key pauses time in-game. Maybe you can search for a value that stops time using that: e.g. an int that's 0 if time is running and 1 if time is stopped. Clever use of changed / unchanged value and "Compare results to first scan" could reduce false positives by a lot. You'd be lucky if such a convenient value exists, but I've seen something similar before.

[Dark Byte]

There can be multiple clock instances, each with their own time, and there can also be a singular timer that all other clocks sync with. That will be difficult to find.

I got the game to test but I don't have the patience to get to the part in the game where you get the wristwatch.
But as a proof of concept, there is an analog clock in someones office. The second, minute and hour hands are controlled by a 'Float' each (next to eachother in memory), and editing those values will change the clock's timer permanently (though I doubt it has any in game effect)