Hourglass is a Bullet Hell game in which you control an embodiment of time itself and try to defend the Hourglass, a container for temporal energy, from the Time Eaters, beings who feed off of it. The catch is you only have ten seconds to do it, and must manipulate the passage of time by retrieving watch-shaped containers of temporal energy. While doing this, you'll have to dodge orbs of different speed and effects.
The use of the theme is pretty classic, but the realization of the game is quite good.
The graphics and ticking sounds convey a nice atmosphere.
My main gripe would be the controls: for such tightly controlled movements, there REALLY need to be no inertia in the movements (since the game is made with Unity, I think just switching from Input.GetAxis to Input.GetAxisRaw would improve things *a lot*).
Added a Kongregate link. Thanks for the comments and the compliments on the art. When DoubleS wakes up (I'm Halfy, who made the art and some other things in the game), I'll ask him about the inertia. - Halfy
Nice realization of the theme and your ideas. One problem is that the slower moving balls become a nuisance at timescales of 0.2 and below. However your gfx and audio are really polished and so the mood of the game is excellent.
The particle effects are great, the UI is great too. I think you could add more gamplay to it, such as more kinds of item or more kinds of bullets behavior, not just randomly shoots them toward center. Good job overall :)
The difficulty is generally a staple of the Bullet Hell genre. It's difficult, but not impossible: you can survive for far more than one real-time minute.
There might be gameplay changes in the future if we both feel like it, they'll be avaliable on the Kongregate version, so keep an eye on that. During the development I was thinking of adding bullets that had established routes, but didn't get to it because the game already needed a lot of balancing and we were running a bit short on time. Thanks again for the compliments. - Halfy
A fun and pretty game. One remark : I would have like to replay by pressing any key on the keyboard instead of grabing my mouse. It's just a detail, but I think it's important for this kind of short game, especially when they're good enough to make you want to play again
I played the regular web version, I'll check out the kong version later today when I get home. I hope there are some leader boards or scoring on kong because I really like the challenge you have here.
Yes, there are leaderboards in the Kongregate version. It saves both how many watches you've collected and how much realtime you've endured (they're separate.)
Liked the idea and looks really good too. Though I found bullets to be either: too large, too random or too many for effective dodging 2 minutes in the game.
A really good idea for a passing-the-time game, no pun intended! A 3 second safe period at the start might make it a little less irritating if I get hit as soon as I start, however. I had fun, simply.
Pretty fun game, wouldve been cool if the moving things were physics objects that would push you off the edge instead of just killing on impact. Enjoyed it tho, great entry :D
I like the way you transform the time trial challenge. Think you could implemented new strategies in the mechanic. I like the graphics too! Well made =)
Great use of the theme and excellent audio design. Having the pickups be different tones really adds a lot to the experience. The controls felt right for movement. Good game guys!
Excellent excellent stuff. Just about everything here works, the visuals are gorgeous, the audio complements the mood, and the game is on the right side of just hard enough to make it a challenge. The time scaling as you get closer to the goal is really inventive. Awesome job! One of the best things I've seen in LD!
Gorgeous graphics and sound, creating a great atmosphere. The little protagonist was especially cool. I would have appreciated a way of disposing of some of the slower moving balls, but otherwise the game was smooth and fun.
At the beginning I was afraid the game might feel boring, but when the orbs start ovewhelming the whole place it becomes very fun to play ! I liked how you used the theme, too.
good take on the theme, although the enemies were more threatening than the countdown. hard, but quite balanced, and as a fan of bullet hell shooters this was a fresh spin on the formula.
I really liked how you must slow time to score higher but that makes the game harder.
But only (small) complaint is that it really sucked to go back and forth between mouse and keyboard only to restart the game. The are no problems with the menu (it also forces the player to set focus to your game), but in game it would be better to keep my hands all the time on the keyboard... Perhaps this is just me being picky. xD
Reading the instructions just confused me, but when I started playing it, it made all clear. Very interesting concept, and the difficulty is just alright.
Pretty fun but I felt like the orbs spawn too close to where you need to be so I had almost no time to react to some of them. Decent use of theme and nice sound effects!
Very well-executed game! Understand wich kind of balls can hit me and wich one make me lose was a trial&error, maybe adding those in the instructions can be better!
Very nice!! It seems like you had an idea similar to mine. The game was really challenging and fun but I wish the screen was just a bit larger so I could see the spheres coming with a bit more anticipation. Lovely entry.
This is one of the best uses of the theme I've seen so far. I love that you only get 10 seconds, and all you can do is slow down time to make more of those last few seconds (or milliseconds). Awesome entry!
Comments87
The graphics and ticking sounds convey a nice atmosphere.
My main gripe would be the controls: for such tightly controlled movements, there REALLY need to be no inertia in the movements (since the game is made with Unity, I think just switching from Input.GetAxis to Input.GetAxisRaw would improve things *a lot*).
boring gameplay D:
There might be gameplay changes in the future if we both feel like it, they'll be avaliable on the Kongregate version, so keep an eye on that. During the development I was thinking of adding bullets that had established routes, but didn't get to it because the game already needed a lot of balancing and we were running a bit short on time. Thanks again for the compliments. - Halfy
My only minor complain is that it needs a small pause before the game starts, something like a "ready, set, go!"
I like the art a lot too!
Good game.
Very fun, for sure, and it was nice to see how some dangers eventually became more annoyance than danger.
If anything, add some light ambient music, quieter than the clock ticking.
Excellent work.
I like the graphics too! Well made =)
I really liked how you must slow time to score higher but that makes the game harder.
But only (small) complaint is that it really sucked to go back and forth between mouse and keyboard only to restart the game. The are no problems with the menu (it also forces the player to set focus to your game), but in game it would be better to keep my hands all the time on the keyboard... Perhaps this is just me being picky. xD
Very interesting concept, and the difficulty is just alright.
Very cool game! =D
Good job!
I've been coming back to this game to replay it :D very fun!
-ENDESGA