[quote]BOOKS ARE THE MEMORY WHICH DOES NOT DIE. (inscribed in five languages over the gate of Hush House)[/quote] I cant believe Im writing this, but: BOOK OF HOURS is OUT NOW! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1028310/BOOK_OF_HOURS/ If you like what you see, leave us a review. Our games tend towards the weird and inexplicable, and its incredibly helpful to let other gamers know that weve not just, like, knitted a sock and drawn a face on it or something. Help unweird and explicate us! As much as is possible. After Cultist Simulator, we wanted to set our next game in the same universe - but AK felt bad that hed made another game about eating people and bringing the apocalypse, and he wanted to write something kinder. Fast forward four years and here we are, in the soft golden glow of a deep auburn game about managing an occult library, of organising things carefully and thoughtfully, of being left alone in a beautiful Gormenghastian abbey to light candles and read books and walk the parapets, where every so often someone drops by to ask you something or give you a book - and then they go away again. BOOK OF HOURS: the introverts dream! I thought you might be interested in some fragments of development history. You might recognise some things that evolved into the game weve just released, and others that (rightly) were left by the wayside because for the love of god how was that UI ever going to work? Heres a little sample: Early sketches for our hero art:
Some of the earliest design notes:
The first draft layout of Hush House:
Early Hush House design:
Some early prototypes of what BoH's art might look like:
Our 'porthole' phase:
We wanted to build something that had the crunchy recipe-based mechanics of Cultist Sim but was a welcoming place, somewhere you could go just to be on your own even if you werent working to achieve anything: a sun-dappled hammock; a candle-lit nook; a secret walled garden whose only key is yours. BOOK OF HOURS will not be for everyone, but I hope everyone can feel the love we poured in radiating from the worn stones of Hush House, the wave-weathered rocks around Crowcross Sands, the lamp-lit leaded-glass windows of the Sweet Bones, and the purr of the well-fed cat you brought in from the cold. The mellifluous Systemchalk is broadcasting BOOK OF HOURS live on the Steam page, if you'd like to see the game in action. Alternatively, join us at 8PM BST / 12PM PDT for an AMA on r/Gaming (live here!), or in a live interview on GOGs Twitch stream tomorrow at 7PM BST / 11AM PDT. Thank you so much for reading, and if you decide to pick up BOOK OF HOURS this week, may the Hours look kindly on your deeds. Love, Lottie & Alexis