13 Hours

About the game

13 Hours is built around one idea and one gesture. A curse has twisted the clocks, and you have to remove them all before the time runs out. The active clock, shown dark, has a hand that keeps sweeping around it. When you tap, the clock fires a bullet along the direction that the hand points at that moment. If the bullet hits another clock, the clock you fired from is gone and the one that was hit becomes your next shooter. If the bullet hits nothing, the level is lost.

That sounds simple, and for the first few levels it is. Then the clocks begin to sit in awkward places, the hands turn faster and the time limit tightens, and picking the right moment to tap is the whole game. Finish inside the limit and you earn a star, and stars open the levels further on. There are sixty levels in Progress mode and an Infinite mode with no limit, for practice or for the calm of tapping.

Jorge Rubiano made 13 Hours for js13kGames 2024, where the whole game had to fit in 13 KB and the theme was Triskaidekaphobia. It works well on a phone, with big round targets and a plain, bright look.

Playing it here

Click Play, then choose Progress or Infinite on the title screen. You can also pick a colour for the game with the round buttons. In Progress mode the level list opens first. Tap or click anywhere to fire; you do not need to hit the clock itself. The game remembers which levels you have opened in your browser.

Controls

A few things worth knowing

Watch the hand, not the clocks. Wait until the hand lines up with a target, then tap.

Plan two shots ahead. The clock you hit becomes your next shooter, so check where its hand will be.

Use Infinite to warm up. There is no timer there, so it is a good way to get a feel for the rhythm.

Credits and licence

13 Hours was created by Jorge Rubiano. It is released under the MIT licence, which is linked from this page. For this site we removed the share button, the link to the author's personal page and the service worker.