The Hourglass

As the game is an hour long I have been thinking of how to show the players time running out. I came up with the hour glass - known as the hour glass as it was difficult to make one that could go on longer then an hour! Weirdly after a bit of research they were actually invented the same time as the mecanical clock. They can only be used as a basic means of telling the time. If you were to mark off five minutes on the hourglass each time you ran it, it would be slightly different. They can only tell you when the hour is up.

"Two technologies, one simple, one complex, running side by side -- the clock making a continuum of time, the hourglass segmenting it -- the clock speaking of timelessness, the hourglass showing us finality -- the clock evoking things celestial, the hourglass reminding us of base earth. They are Yin and Yang"


The hourglass, whose sands run out, was a thing of this base earth. It became a metaphor for the running-out-of-sands we all inevitably face. It became, and it remains, a universal symbol of death. This is interesting because I've been thinking of using one in the mechanical heart also. The persons life expectancy dependent on your class, IQ etc is all set when the heart is first placed inside the person. This can be terminated at any time - a simple flick of a switch and thats it your gone. Within our story the rebals have infiltrated there hearts they are no longer on the system.