Hourglass

I hope you’re excited for Hourglass by Cyberwave. Prepare yourself for some time manipulating madness in this interested first-person puzzle game that takes a brand-new concept never seen before and runs with it. You play as Aywa, a young woman who must traverse Egypt to discover it secrets and find out what happened to her archeologist father who went missing during his last expedition there. Players are offered a chance to work with a unique new ability and solve some mind melting puzzles that will test your creative and problem-solving minds. Let’s get into it.

Gameplay

As specified before, this is, for all intents and purposes, a first-person puzzle solving game. You play the main character, Away, who must traverse through a gauntlet of puzzles, solving each of them to progress the story and discover what happened to her father. Now, interestingly, a bit less like The Stanley Parable and a bit more like Superliminal, you have a special power that helps you solve the many trials.

This game requires you to alter your perspective and think like someone who can control the specific movements of another player, this is done by a “time clone.” The time clone ability lets you activate it, perform a task and then return to the point that you activated it. After you return, the clone will act in the exact way that you did while using the power, freeing the real you to do something else at the same times.

The time clone ability is absolutely genius and allows players to have a multiplayer-like experience in a single player game. Thankfully, you don’t actually have to rely on someone else who might keep getting things wrong. This core mechanic has been beautifully realized which made it a breeze to use and a joy to experience when I solved a puzzle.

Visuals

The visuals in this title leave little to complain about. Everything has a gorgeous cell shaded vibrancy that you get from games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The time-clone is presented as a crips blue spectral figure, and there are a few small issues in regards to how that ghost acts but they are ignorable. For instance, the time-clone does not have the same physical mannerisms that the player does, when the player picks something up and returns to the pre-ability state, the time-clone will show themselves holding it but their hands are not on the item like you would expect.

As I said, its not a big issue, just a little something that you think about while playing every now and again. That being said, it is not something that takes anything away from the game itself so don’t panic.

Music

Finally, the thing I found that stuck out to me as much as the gameplay and visuals was the music. Fantastically rendered tunes that fit the entire aesthetic and were a genuine pleasure to listen to. Rarely do you encounter music that, nearly by itself, grounds you in the action like this game’s does.

Pros

• Great gameplay mechanic
• Nice visuals
• Excellent music

Cons

• A few visual issues