The Hourglass Sings
A downloadable game
If something should happen to you,
remember this song.
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (2000)
The Hourglass Sings is a storytelling game. It's a love letter to the dark, mysterious, magical stories of early 3D Zelda games. The Hourglass Sings was created to tell magical stories about healing, trauma, transformation, and hope, in spite of everything.
Game info:
- 1 - 6 players
- 2 hour sessions
- 3 roles: The Hero, The Town, and The Dark, with 53 unique prompts each
- Playable in-person or online
- Card-driven, narrative gameplay
This game includes:
- 32 page illustrated game book with rules and playbooks (PDF file)
- Online play spreadsheet tool (Google Sheets)
- Audiobook version (MP3 files)
You can buy a physical copy of The Hourglass Games through Indie Press Revolution (US) or Compose Dream Games (Canada).
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $6 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
I'm currently playing through it and really enjoying it. I'm planning to post the playthrough on my blog and was wondering if it'd be okay to use some of the art to spruce things up a bit? Primarily that which is already public on the itch page here.
Thank you for asking! Yeah, totally: you may use any of the art in the book as visual accompaniment for the playthrough blog. Would love to see it once it's up.
Thank you! I'm currently debating with myself if I'm going to upload it as a single long blogpost, or if I'll do a blogpost for each cycle. Will have to see how fast I'm in general.
I can write you here again once something is up!
Hey, I just put up the first part of my playthrough, it got a bit long so I decided to cut it into three parts. part two will follow in the next few days, part three sometime next week. You can find it here:
https://daydreamingmoose.bearblog.dev/the-hourglass-sings-13/
Had a great time facilitating and playing a three player game of this today. Very enjoyable game that came together to tell an interesting story.
Thank you for this review! I love when people say nice things about my games, but I love even more when it comes with attestation of play. Any interesting plot points from the session?
I think the implication that the lizard toy that was bringing the darkness - The sun coming closer, I have no idea of the person playing the Darkness did that as a deliberate Majora's Mask inversion or not - had been abandoned by the hero was interesting, as was the weird political machinations going on within the town that was at this point mostly populated by skeletons cursed with immortality - alongside a shrinking contingent of living people - but I think the scene we kept coming back to, cycle after cycle, with various lenses, sometimes from the perspective of the town, othertimes the lizard toy, othertimes the Hero, of children playing with the lizard toy before abandoning it because it was broken was my favourite part.
And ultimately informed the resolution - A scale the hero acquired from that scene being sewn back on to the lizard in a future cycle by a magical craftsman practicing forbidden magic, after it had broken off in the cycle that we were playing through when a prompt suggested it was time to bring it to an end, 39 prompts into the game across 4 cycles.
What a lovely game. Great labor of love, Kurt.
Hey Kurt,
Just wanted to say thanks for hosting this game jam, making the bundle, and for the cool game!
I am hosting a jam of my own, and was inspired by the bundle you made. Is it hard to make a game bundle on itch?
[PS you should join the jam too! :) ]
I should save the rest of the art for the full release, but here's a preview because I can't help myself - the full page for the Playbooks illustration.
Trying to download the pages version to read on mobile, both uploads are spreads it seems!
How silly! I'll update tonight.
Update: File replaced! Thank you for letting me know.
You’re a star! Gonna dig in in soon!!!
This is a really neat game. It reminds me of the quiet year. I have not played it yet but when I do I think we are going to draw everything. Love the prompts. They are inviting but not too restrictive.
I appreciate the kind words! If you do end up drawing, I would love to see what you put to the page. Art creating art is a special thing.