Tick-based video games

A Tick-based video game is a video game that is played using ticks, or units of time. Not to be confused with a game round, a tick can be any measurement of real time, from seconds to days or even months, and is the basic unit upon which all important game actions take place. Players in tick-based games are allocated a certain number of turns per tick, which are subsequently refreshed at the beginning of each new tick. Predominantly found in browser-based MMORPGs, tick-based games differ from other turn-based games in that ticks always occur after the same amount of time has expired. Conversely, in a typical turn-based game, a turn would end only once every player has made all of his or her moves. In real-time games players are not limited, time-wise, in the number of actions they can take.

In some real-time games, a notion of rounds exists, whereby game actions are timed according to a common interval that is longer than 'real time'. For instance, units might only begin or cease to act at the beginning or end of a round. In video game series such as Baldur's Gate (1998–2001) and Neverwinter Nights (2002–2008), the notion of rounds is carried over in part from the pen-and-paper rule systems they are based upon; and a similar (but unrelated) example is when a game unit's ability to act is limited by the length of its combat animation, in which case the unit may become unresponsive until the animation has completed.

Online turn-based gaming uses the term rounds differently: in these games a round refers to when a new game begins following the completion of a previous one (i.e. after someone or some group of people has "won").