Hourglass

**Hourglass** (The Hourglass Project, during its development) is a side-scrolling game developed by Rice and Mia.

## Gameplay

Hourglass will feature 2D sprite-based artwork with Metroidvania-inspired combat aspects and platforming, as well as a simplified crafting system and a map that can be freely explored by players after reaching certain parts in the story.

## Setting

A majority of Hourglass takes place in the Empire of Cynedom, a feudalistic, medieval setting that combines several human "pre-extinction" cultures, which have been restored and maintained from highly advanced ruins of a previous civilisation. The different regions of Cynedom can be travelled to on-foot and via carriage, and previously visited locations that have a Library can be fast-travelled to using the Librarian's system of Lodestone Teleportation.

## Plot

In the distant past, humanity has colonised a majority of the solar system, but as of yet have been unable to viably colonise other systems thanks to hurdles in developing faster-than-light travel. Overpopulation on Earth, as well as fractured leadership and political disagreements between the old Earth government and political leaders of Mars and Europa, stir discontents between the planets and result in a Human Civil War. Silhouette Technologies (Sil-Tec), an inter-planetary technology firm, profits greatly from the war by selling weapons systems and other instruments of war.

Hazel Everglade, a molecular biologist working under Sil-Tec, develops a revolutionary new nano-mechanical combat augmentation that grants an ordinary soldier abilities far beyond that of regular biological feats. She is assisted by her long-time friend Shimon Ishikawa, who warns her of the possible effects of the augmentation. Augmented soldiers sold to the highest bidder quickly turn the Human Civil War into one of the bloodiest conflicts in recorded history. Over time, the hivemind computing intelligence behind the augmentation process starts to spread itself of its own accord, mutating affected individuals into monstrous, parasitic entities which devastated all sides of the Human Civil War and resulted in the near total extinction of all life in the solar system. Exhausted by continued "Haze" nano-mechanical monster attacks and having run out of options, Hazel activates a prototype time-machine she calls the Hourglass and attempts to escape to the past to stop her actions, but the mechanism that controls the process of time travel is damaged by a Haze monster and she is flung to a random period in time.

Sometime else, in a fantastic, medieval-styled landscape, a strange machine falls from the sky and crashes in the Empire of Cynedom. Syntax, a physical and technological oddity equipped in high-tech body armour, is discovered amidst the smouldering remains of the wrecked capsule-like machine that fell to the earth from the sky. She spends a year in a coma before suddenly awakening in a Library , a hub where Librarians (the world's philosophical and religious enforcers) congregate and study technologically advanced artefacts scavenged from ruins. She notes that she suffers retrograde amnesia before freeing herself from her restraints and tentatively leaving the study she was confined to, before armed guards quickly notice her escape and give chase.

Syntax escapes outside, realising the entire city floats thousands of feet above the air. As guards chase her, Syntax is forced through the city of Eversail before being confronted by a man in purple robes, who accidentally blasts both her and himself off of the skypath, resulting in them both freefalling towards the surface of the earth; she hits the ground at terminal velocity, but the robed man uses her as a cushion, understanding that her armour has kept her safe from extreme heights due to the way she arrived on the surface prior. The fall knocks Syntax out, and Calligraph begins to drag her back towards Eversail.

She regains consciousness back in the Librarian Lodestone, this time unrestrained, and is greeted by the earlier figure dressed in purple robes introducing himself as Calligraph, the Librarian of Eversail. He explains that Syntax landed here in the Empire of Cynedom a year prior, and her sudden awakening is rather troublesome, as she was considered to be dead - her awakening has sent the Librarians into a state of panic as the majority of the Librarians believe her to be an icon of great calamity as foretold by ancient texts of the Great Northern Ruins. Calligraph, one of the less pious members of the Librarians, has arranged her transportation to the Sunfall Mountains, where her presence can be masked until the turmoil of her awakening blows over. In return, Calligraph asks for Syntax's co-operation, as her previous escape attempt has accidentally demolished much of the skypath and has caused considerable commotion around the Empire itself.

The pair set out by caravan north towards the Mournwood Forest, which is between Eversail and the Sunfall Mountains. They are attacked by a group of pirates hired by the Belt of Orion, an extremist sect of Cynedomian religion who aim to simultaneously ransom Syntax, but also to keep her for study due to the extreme value she holds in unlocking technologically advanced ruins. They are fought off with help from a mysterious, hooded archer, who introduces herself as Lullaby and informs Syntax of her worth to both the Belt of Orion. With her remaining incognito no longer an option, Syntax agrees to help Lullaby in disposing of the Belt of Orion (whom Lullaby has a personal vendetta against) whilst Calligraph seeks political asylum for Syntax's continued protection from third parties at the capital of Cynedom, the Bronze City.

During their journey, Syntax is perused both by hired assassins and members of the Belt of Orion, seeking to either capture her for study or to kill her for her representation of the apocalypse as they dispose of Belt of Orion leaders and make their way towards the capital. They hire a man named "Eight" to journey through the arid plains of Kanina Sounds after a direct path to the capital is blocked off by pirates who set off explosives in an attempt to capture Syntax, and travel to the capital via boat at the small seaside town of Cleir's Remote.

They arrive in Bronze City, where the monarchical rulers of the empire, the Tandem, agree to offer Syntax royal protection in exchange for her assistance in opening and uncovering technological secrets of several ruins dotted around the empire. Syntax agrees, with Calligraph as supervision, and the Tandem offer assistance against the Belt of Orion after learning that they have attacked and razed the village of Tall Tale in an attempt to capture Syntax. Calligraph rallies and recruits for the old order of the Torchbearers, pious guardians skilled at defensive formations and hand-to-hand combat.

Over the course of the game, Syntax defends herself and her allies from bandit attacks, scavenges materials to upgrade her team's equipment and weaponry, and unlocks technological wonders from Cynedomian ruins, which offer evidence that an earlier civilisation existed here with technology quite similar to what Syntax wields. The ruins trigger hallucinations, where she earns glimpses of an unknown woman's life. Unable to access the Great Northern Ruin due to the existence of a "keystone", Syntax is informed that the Keystone of the Ruins was a great religious reliquary that was shattered into fragments of considerable worth, and the fragments now are held by assorted figures, all enemies of the empire - one of which is even held by a leader of the Belt of Orion.

Recovering all three fragments from the pirate queen Lan Kai Sha, the Kevecai warlord Asubu, and the heretical prophet Theophilus, they are able to breach the Great Northern Ruin, where a message written by a man named Shimon warns the people of Cynedom to stay within the confines of the planet and to shun technological advancement, and warns the people that the day when a comet falls to the earth is the day of judgement where the world will be swallowed up and destroyed by a great evil. Realising that her hallucinations were in fact flashbacks of her life as Hazel Everglade, the woman responsible for the destruction of humanity; and that in fact she was thrown forwards in time instead of backwards, Syntax hastily organises a retreat back to the impact site of her Hourglass capsule in preparation of the arrival of the all-consuming Haze nanomachine that she realises at this point has followed her here.

Syntax's team arrives at the outer edge of Eversail too late, as the Haze has already made its arrival and has consumed much of the western portion of Cynedom and spreads east at an alarming pace, the infection driven by new forms of mutated life thanks to Cynedom's rich and varied ecology. Syntax race to breach and destroy Eversail's Lodestone teleportation system to slow the Haze's spread, and then race against the Haze to the Bronze City, where a replica of the Hourglass stands on display as a religious icon, with the intent to both keep it out of the hands of the Haze, but also to use it to jump in time again so that Syntax can prevent the Haze's existence.

Syntax reaches the capital, which has only just started to be attacked by Haze organisms - the guard are no match for this new threat, but the now reformed Order of Torchbearers forms a city-wide militia and organises guerrilla tactics, holding the Haze at bay as Syntax and her allies rush towards the seat of government where the Hourglass stands. Forced to kill an infected Tandem, Syntax activates the Hourglass by herself, as she alone possesses the equipment required to survive the trip - her armour is revealed to merely be a safety harness for the Hourglass, which would kill anyone placed inside due to extreme centrifugal force.

This time the Hourglass works, placing Syntax in Hazel's room, days before she even conceives the Haze. There, Syntax either attempts to persuade Hazel or attempts to coerce her with force to cease development of the nanomachine - but is rebuffed not by Hazel, but by her assistant Shimon, the writer of the warning within the Great Northern Ruin. She is informed of Shimon's Net, a chronological "safety net" that ensures all events to have happened within the timeline happen no matter what, and external influence from time travel are guaranteed to either fail or have a part in the event happening regardless. With no way to stop the Haze from destroying humanity, Syntax travels forwards in time to mere moments before Hazel activates her own Hourglass, with the intent to obtain a Universal Failsafe code designed to deactivate the Haze nanomachine.

Arriving half an hour before Hazel is flung into the future, Syntax battles her way through the infested corridors of Hazel's orbital laboratory and confronts her past self again. Here, depending on moral actions and how much of her past memories she has recovered, she either chooses to obtain the failsafe by force or attempts to coerce her past self into giving it willingly - either way, Syntax is forced to battle herself, knocking herself out in order to obtain the failsafe. To fulfil the requirements of Shimon's Net, Syntax places her unconscious past self into the Hourglass, and sets the destination date to coincide directly with her arrival in Cynedom, forming a closed loop in time.

Escaping back to the present day, Syntax and her friends fight towards a buried planetary Terraformer in the eastern desert of Sandstorm, the only pre-extinction machine capable of broadcasting the failsafe with enough range to disable the Haze. There, her party is disabled and she is forced to enter the control room in order to broadcast the failsafe at the cost of her own life - again, depending on personality, Syntax either does so selflessly and accepts her death but is saved last-minute by a mysterious figure named Keine, or instead reprograms the failsafe so that she absorbs the Haze herself and becomes its central processor, capable of controlling the entire Haze biosphere with her mind. Regardless of either action, the Haze deactivates/leaves the planet, and Calligraph, Lullaby, and Eight believe Syntax to be dead.

Far distant from Cynedom, in the vast emptiness of space, a woman named Kumori receives new orders from a now-reformed Earthen organisation to assassinate a woman only known as Syntax.