August 23rd-26th 2013 :: Theme: 10 Seconds
Ludum Dare 27 — August 23rd-26th, 2013
[ Results: Top 100 Compo, Jam | Top 25 Categories | View My Entry ]
[ View All 2213 Games (Compo Only, Jam Only) | Warmup ]
IMPORTANT NOTE: If you want to place in the final results, you NEED votes. The easiest way to get votes is by rating other games. Judging lasts for 3 weeks following the end of Ludum Dare. For best effect, rate 20 games as soon as possible. Rating more games is encouraged.
MORE TIPS AND DETAILS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE
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.
Downloads and Links
Ratings
 | Coolness | 100% |
| #143 | Theme(Jam) | 3.43 |
| #168 | Graphics(Jam) | 3.72 |
| #169 | Mood(Jam) | 3.24 |
| #216 | Fun(Jam) | 3.09 |
| #220 | Overall(Jam) | 3.27 |
| #285 | Audio(Jam) | 2.85 |
| #296 | Innovation(Jam) | 2.98 |
| #395 | Humor(Jam) | 1.99 |
Comments
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*).
Interesting idea to slow time, made for a fun game. Good work for 1 weekend.
best game i have played so far really nice mood good use of theme. nice one!
I actually liked the inertia; it gives the character a sense of weight. Super Mario Bros had inertia!
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
Great job! Nice graphics. I like simple ideas and interesting implementations. That game is one of it. Well done.
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 ticking clock is a nice touch and the character controls very smoothly.
Very nice game, good graphics and gameplay, quite polished too! great job!
Lovely graphics! I don't know how many times I had to 'retry' though.
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 :)
Wow this one plays great and a nice graphics too! Thanks!
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
We're probably adding retrying without clicking in the next update for the Kongregate version.
Love the art and the sound. The controls are also very smooth.
I love the graphics of this game, really nice. Great use of colors.
My only minor complain is that it needs a small pause before the game starts, something like a "ready, set, go!"
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.
I like the art a lot too!
Good game.
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.)
It look like it doesn't work on my old macbook running with mac OS 10.5... :/I'll test it tomorrow with windows 7.
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.
The Kongregate version has been updated and now has a fairly better Instructions menu.
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
The bullet-hell of dodging, done with excellent graphics, spot-on controls, and an excellent way of making a 10-second time-frame last very long.
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 mood and the graphics, but the character move a little too slowly :)
Very very fun! Good use of the theme, and fantastic art/mood!
Cool idea! Dodge everything games like these are pretty fun! Graphics looked great and the sound effects were cool too!
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 =)
I is good use of the theme. I thought the controls were a bit hard, but with some practice I started to pick it up.
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.
Wow! Very intense! Amazing graphics and the difficulty progression was quite well done. The controls were a bit floaty, though :)
Nothing like a little orb-dodging to keep me on my toes. Love the graphics. LOVE the use of the "10 seconds" theme!
The gameplay is a bit simple but really good realization.
Lovely style, lovely gameplay and sounds good. thank you for the game!
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.
Nice game and interesting concept! :)
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.
Very polished visuals and great use of theme! Gets a little tiring after a while though. :S
GFM, your complaint was already adressed for the Post-Compo Kongregate version (you can now retry by pressing the R button at the retry screen.)
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!
Love the use of the theme. Great bizarre world with a solid controls. Very nice and polished entry. :)
Beautiful graphics. It's difficult to me but I think it's supposed to be. I like the mysterious atmosphere
Fun, but the instakill balls felt a bit unfun. I never once had trouble with the timer, because the balls would always kill me.
Nice effort and polished. Felt the balls were too big or the space too small, etc. Too hard to really dodge things and not enough reaction time.
Really liked the graphics. The game play was pretty addicting. Wasn't sure what all the orbs did, they mostly seemed to just kill me and end the game.
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 polished, lovely graphics and simplistic overall.
Very cool game! =D
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.
Nice mood, nice use of the theme... and pretty good gameplay (I like the inertia!).
Good job!
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!
Nice game! Gameplay is a bit simple, but the graphics and presentation is great!
Nice entry, love the different sound for the watch, kinda create a melody :)
Pretty, clean graphics! Kind of felt like the hand of a clock going round and round..
very cool :)
I've been coming back to this game to replay it :D very fun!
-ENDESGA
You must sign in to comment.
TEAMS: Teams entering the Jam should pick a single representative to submit your game, or create a team specific account you can share. We currently do not support Team Voting, but sharing an account and together playing and rating games is acceptable.
NOT LOGGED IN?: If you get a message about not being logged in, even though you are, it’s because your web browser cached the non-logged in page. You can fix this by either refreshing your cache or clearing your cache. CTRL+F5 in many browsers. Chrome is a bit more work. Press F12 to enable Developer Mode, then you can right click on the refresh button and select “Empty Cache and Hard Reload”. This option is unavailable if you are not in Developer Mode.
PORTS: Ports to other platforms can be done after the deadline. That said, the sooner you finish your port, the sooner people can play your game, improving your chances of placing in the final results. For best results, provide a Web version of your game, or a Windows version with no dependencies. Also be sure to rate about 20 games to improve your visibility.
MY GAME DOESN’T SHOW UP: If you can’t find your game, it’s usually because the URL to your downloads are missing ‘http://‘. Fix your URLs (http://mysite.com/mygame.zip) and you will show up.
MY GAME CRASHES, IS UNBEATABLE, OR I MADE A TYPO: We allow you to fix crash or win condition bugs after the deadline (in a sense, like “porting” to support more players). We also allow “typo” bugs. I.e. A true that should have been a false, a word that should have been a different word, very tiny changes that you would have caught if you had more sleep. We leave this open to interpretation, but generally speaking your game should be identical to the game you submitted. No new features, just things you messed up last minute. Typos.
Overall it was a very fun game. Gonna bookmark it