Help! Time progression based system with different menu item

[ProxyPawaa]

No idea how to fit what I'm trying to do in the title, but I tried. I'm creating a game with a story that progresses over time. The main story completes automatically at certain dates and times, and other times are spent with other characters or completing tasks. The idea is that the story will have events with different characters as you spend time with them, changing a little bit from month to month as the overall plot changes. These events would change depending on how much time was spent in previous months and ect.

Naturally, how you spend your time will alter what choices are available. I'm already pretty rusty with variable check statements, so if anyone could help me brush up on those I'd be really grateful but.... for more experienced coders, how would you handle this?

If the menu was always going to be the same that'd be easier, but the menu would change depending on your actions. Otherwise it'd be easy to just have a loop at the end of a menu choice that checks where you are within that choice and deposits you where you need to be, but having to have that loop at the start of it to send you to different menus depending on what choices are available..... is there a way to check if a menu item needs to exist?

Yeah, sounds like a really rough way to do it, but with my expertise as it is, that's all I can imagine. At the moment I am only working on a prologue section but very soon I'll be at the point where the player character will have more freedom with his actions. Any tips?

[Kia]

do you have a game clock?
I got a clock that ticks no matter what's going on. this helps me with day/night actions and much more. don't let player stay idle around force a time table on him.