Hourfall
A character-action RPG where you play the Clock Hand, the executioner of Time itself.
Trailer
Design breakdown
- Time is Life
- A timer starts ticking when combat begins. Damage taken costs seconds instead of health, and when the clock hits zero you die.
- Three Clock Hand blades
- Each clock hand is a weapon with its own abilities, and kills with each one generate a different resource.
- Team pipeline
- Anchorpoint for version control and Azure DevOps for planning, in Unreal Engine 5.6.
Hourfall is a character-action RPG where you step into the role of the Clock Hand, the executioner of Time itself. After developing sentience you were deemed a flaw, discarded and cast from the Clock Tower by your former master. Weakened, but no longer bound, you begin your ascent with a single, clear goal: to reach the top of Time’s tower and confront your former master at its peak.
Time is life here. A timer begins to tick the moment you enter combat, and if it runs out you die. Damage taken does not reduce your HP; it takes seconds off your timer instead. You cut through Time’s servants with the three Clock Hand blades, each with its own abilities, and each generating a different resource depending on which one lands the kill. Every second has to count.
Freed from your duties and your past life, you also choose who you will become. Will you wield your executioner’s skills for the greater good, or abandon your old role entirely?
We developed Hourfall over four months as a university project and released a demo on Steam. I handled combat design and programming: I set up and ran our pipeline with Anchorpoint for version control and Azure DevOps for planning, and designed the combat around the timer and the three blades.
Hourfall Combat System
Core rules
Seconds decrease during combat and when the player takes damage. Reaching zero triggers death, so sharing one value between health and time puts natural extra pressure on every fight. Outside combat, the resource regenerates.
The perk system pays out for combining blades instead of committing to one. Weapons Empowered is the clearest case: finishing the Rapier combo arms a ×2.5 damage multiplier that only a Javelin or Claymore hit can cash in. Chaining approaches like this is where the highest damage lives.
Rapier follow-up attacks and the Claymore charge QTE accept input during defined windows. The Javelin also has tight cancel windows that let the player throw more efficiently.
The time economy
Seconds are both health and the combat timer. The player starts with 100. Combat drain and incoming damage reduce the same value. Seconds regenerate outside combat, and Rapier hits and kills grant additional Seconds.
The Max Seconds track raises the cap from 100 to 375Minutes are the perk currency tied to the Javelin. Javelin kills and loot grant Minutes. The player spends Minutes on 12 weapon perks, with four assigned to each blade.
12 perks · 4 per bladeHours are the upgrade currency tied to the Claymore. Claymore kills and loot grant Hours. Four upgrade tracks each contain five tiers with separate costs and benefits.
Tier costs range from 1 h to 40 h