Game: Hourglass
Genre: Adventure, Puzzle, Platformer, Role-Playing.
System: Nintendo Switch (Also available on Steam & Windows)
Developer | Publisher: Secret Item Games
Age Rating: US E | EU 3+
Price: USD $24.99| UK £22.49 | € 24.99
Release Date: June 30th, 2022
Review code used, with many thanks to Secret Item Games.
Hourglass is a first-person puzzle adventure game developed and published by Secret Item Games. Its colorful and beautiful aesthetics together with its time manipulation mechanic makes this experience worth every moment. This game has puzzles that challenge the player in many ways, yet it is easy enough to learn and master quite fast.
You will have to scratch your brain and try different ways to progress, but it has a good balance of easiness and complexity. When starting this adventure, learning its mechanics can be quite intuitive. It is only later in the game that the puzzles get more time-sensitive and difficult, yet so enjoyable to solve.
Anything and Anywhere for Family – The Adventure Begins!
Hourglass’s story sets the scene with you playing Aywa, the daughter of Arthur McConnor, a 47 archaeologist who has been lost since his last expedition to Egypt. After two weeks of searching, the rescue teams gave up and stopped looking for him, leaving you, his daughter the task to find him (and whatever he was looking for).
And so, the game begins! Taking you to a river in Egypt where you learn how to operate the technology which lets you progress your path. Looking for clues, Aywa finds the Great Gate, where she realizes that her father also was there before. But to open this gate, she needs the three missing seals. Arthur had heard something about a “Place above the Clouds”. So your motivation of finding your dear father, lost on his expedition, becomes also a desire of following his dream and finding the way to open the Great Gate. There, the mystery of Egypt’s technology would be revealed.
Blocks and Time – Old yet Futuristic Technology
People who have played games like Portal will find a similar feeling in this game, but different in its way. Hourglass excels where many other games have trouble, which is the tutorial. Being able to teach the player how to play, how to solve the problems, without a single text box and while having fun is something that many games lack. I enjoyed this game a lot and most of it was because of its mechanics and how Hourglass teaches you to use them.
There are paths and doors that you need to cross, and to do so you need to stand over certain platforms or more complex sequences of actions to habilitate your way. Sometimes you need to move blocks to press these platforms or to climb higher places. It sounds simple enough, but the more you advance, the more you realize you might need a strategy before acting.
When the game gets more interesting, is when you find special doors, which lets you record your actions for a temporarily. When this time finishes, you go back to the moment before you started recording, but you can see the actions your past self is doing. Using this mechanic, you create past recordings of yourself to help you solve the puzzles and progress. It’s always good to have another pair of hands.
Colorful Atmosphere – Beautiful Aesthetics
The way Hourglass expresses its environment is simply amazing. The rocky mountains, the palm trees and the small lakes match perfectly with the fantastic technology introduced in this game. You feel you are exploring Egypt, discovering the ancient lost technology capabilities that your father was trying to uncover. The moment you enter the first of the three pyramids to find the missing seal, that is when you realize this game has a lot to offer with its art.
As I wandered in this creatively crafted game world, I came across statues, little birds (many with different colors and designs), walls with symbols telling stories and much more. Even though it is not an open world, it gives you a sensation of a vast world that you curiously seek to explore. It is pretty simple, clearly not designed by an army of artists, but by passionate creators who knew what they wanted to deliver.
New Gadgets – Portals and a Time Watch
Later in the game, when the puzzles start becoming more challenging, new mechanics are introduced, or actually, your old mechanics get improved. You start finding portals that you can move around and use to teleport yourself between two places. Also, you find a special watch which can let you record your past self without the need of a special door. These new mechanics add the necessary spice to the puzzles to make you an expert on timing and strategy.
Overcoming the last few puzzles was not so easy, but again, this game is gentle and peaceful as it is sometimes complex. Its atmosphere and sudden relaxing sounds generate a pleasing experience. The whole difficulty progression is very well balanced, whenever I felt stuck it wasn’t for a long time. I was never bored nor angry with this game, I was mainly entertained and intrigued.
Conclusion
Hourglass is beautiful, artistically charming and has creative mechanics. That combined makes it a good game worth exploring. It is not such a long adventure, as it can take less than 3 or 4 hours to complete, depending on your puzzling skills. Even though its story is not something to highlight, it makes up for it with the rest of its design. It kept me hooked and entertained from the moment I started until the end. It is a great brain scratcher for anyone who loves puzzle games.
Final Verdict: I Like It. 