Countdown Timer Loop

The ghost ship sails into Marooned Town the exact second the billboard hits zero, and here’s the Verse loop that makes that countdown tick without freezing your game.

We use a suspends function with a loop and Sleep to pause just this task frame-by-frame, letting the rest of the island keep running while the timer drains.

We declare a suspends RunTimer method, set our TimeLeft variable, and loop to update the billboard device, sleep for one second, and decrement the time until it breaks at zero.

Reach for a suspends loop with Sleep whenever you need repeating game timers, cooldowns, or countdowns that run in the background.

countdown_device := class(creative_device):
    @editable
    Board : billboard_device = billboard_device{}
    MyText<localizes>(S:string):message = "{S}"
    RunTimer()<suspends>:void =
        var TimeLeft : int = 3
        loop:
            Board.SetText(MyText("{TimeLeft}"))
            Sleep(1.0)
            set TimeLeft -= 1
            if (TimeLeft < 0):
                break
    OnBegin<override>()<suspends>:void =
        spawn{RunTimer()}