The Broken Hourglass Site Update

Planewalker Games’ official website has been updated with information about how players can add custom character portraits and soundsets to The Broken Hourglass.

Introducing new portraits could hardly be easier. Images in PNG or JPG format can be placed in a special “portraits” directory, and are automatically catalogued by the game. No special resizing is necessary-the game will automatically scale images to suit the different sizes used by the game. In theory any image can be used, but those cropped to a standard portrait ratio of 11 x 17 will look best.

Custom soundset creation is a little more intricate, but well worth the effort, be you an aspiring actor or simply somebody who can’t get enough Bruce Campbell quotes in their games.

There are over two dozen types of soundset entries. Each is triggered by certain game events, be it “failing to pick a lock” or “high success defending against a magic attack”, or more mundane tasks such as “confirming an order” or “being selected by the player.” There is even a special line played when clicking on the soundset list–a chance for the soundset characters to introduce themselves to the player. Unlike some games which have a hard cap on the number of sounds per event (“four battle cries per customer”), in The Broken Hourglass, there is no specific maximum number of sounds. Want your stealthy character to have 10 different ways to say “I am hiding now”? If you can think of and record 10 such lines, it’s all possible.