Book of Hours News

"How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!"

— 'Ulysses', Alfred Lord Tennyson

Tennyson knows what's what. It's hard to sit still with art: it jiggles around like a catnipped kitten or a goose on a Roomba or a kid who needs the loo. We've been updating BOOK OF HOURS a lot, and it's put new wind in our sails as a studio - but we have mountains of ideas, and we've been working on other things as well.

Tennyson also says that you are a part of all that you have met - so if you're here, reading this, you're part of the Secret Histories, too. Here's a round-up of all the things that have just launched or that you and we both can look forward to in 2024.

"Only twins drown twice."

Europe, 1937. The War in the World is coming, and worse yet, the War in the Sun. In this gathering gloom, the notables of the occult underworld consider new weapons; new alliances; new paths. Who can they turn to for help, if not the Librarian of Hush House?

Explore visitors and their stories in much greater depth. Host exotic feasts and sophisticated soirées. And in your own quiet way, shape the genesis of the controversial Lighthouse Institute.

The big ticket item is the HOUSE OF LIGHT content expansion, coming to BOOK OF HOURS in 2024. It'll be more like Cultist Simulator's Exile DLC in size than The Dancer, and will be a paid DLC (though free to anyone with Perpetual Edition).

It's one of several content expansions planned for BOOK OF HOURS, which we're hoping to release next year alongside with the QoL / general improvement patches you've been seeing already. So buckle up, librarians! Or more appropriately, get yourself nice and comfy under that charming wool blanket. Brancrug calls.





ICYMI, we released BOOK OF HOURS's glorious soundtrack earlier this month. It features twenty-five remastered tracks from the game, arranged by the composer, Maribeth Solomon, herself. It costs $10.99 / £8.99 / €9.99 and is available now!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2340780/BOOK_OF_HOURS_Original_Soundtrack/



A small but significant confirmation that we are now working on Simplified Chinese, Russian and Japanese translations of BOOK OF HOURS. These will almost certainly come out next year!

Depending on how these languages do at launch, we may add more localisation in future. Fingers crossed.



The Church o' Merch has been in need of a bit of a revamp for a while, but I was too busy with BOOK OF HOURS to give it the love it deserved. December was a great time to right this wrong, so we now have a variety of new items coming to the shop next year:

[h3]Tarot colouring book[/h3]



An A5 wiro-bound colouring book with all 78 Lucid Tarot cards in glorious black and white for you to bring to life. Pages are thick so they'll carry everything from crayon to felt-tip pens. Colour in while listening to your favourite piece of music, sipping your favourite beverage, and generally having a jolly chill time.

[h3]Wisdom Tree necklace[/h3]



The first piece of jewellery we've ever made! Keep your Wisdoms close with this gold pendant chain with embossing, coloured enamel and cut-out detailing. Photos of the actual necklace IRL coming soon!

[h3]Hours notebooks[/h3]



Hardback French-creased notebooks with cloth covers, foiled detailing and page-marker ribbons! Inside, the Magician has lined paper, the Hermit plain and the Wheel of Fortune dotted. They'll be available individually or as a beautiful threefold set. These should look classy and occult at the same time - more photos when I get them from the printers.

(The scholars of the House watched the courses of the stars to determine their pasts and understand their future. You just need to be on the mailing list if you want to know when these items come out. They'll all be limited runs initially, so get in quick!)





A number of small gifts appeared by Reverend Timothy's Christmas tree in BOOK OF HOURS. They're still there if you haven't collected them, and they'll remain until midnight on 31st December 2023. If you'd like your in-game advent calendar gifts, load up BOOK OF HOURS some time between now and the end of the year, wait until in-game winter rolls around and find your horde by the Rectory. For those of you who don't like surprises, hover to reveal your presents beneath the Christmas tree: Seaglass, a Dearday Lens, moly, canned ham, mackerel, ambergris, a jar of rose-pearls, an awakened feather, a flushed mommet, a chronsicord, a phial of January Sanguinary and uzult.



Finally, we updated user flairs on the subreddit (tag yourself with any of the nine starting Legacies, from Archaeologist to Twice-Born), released a new Skeleton Songs all about how much we love Susanna Clarke, and there's a wintry HD Hush House wallpaper for PC and mobile at the bottom of our freebie On the House page, in case you'd like to festive-up your backgrounds.

Merry Christmas and a happy new year! Kiss your beloveds, hug your loved ones. If you've had a good year, long may that continue. If a bad one, remember: though much is taken, much abides. Love from AK, myself and the House Without Walls. See you in 2024. ♥

"[The music] was deep and wide and beautiful, but slow and blended with an immeasurable sorrow, from which its beauty chiefly came..."

- The Silmarillion, J. R. R. Tolkien

No, you started a Steam post with a quote from The Silmarillion! YOU'RE the nerd!

...Okay okay maybe not in this case. Regardless, a quick update to let you know that the long-awaited OST for BOOK OF HOURS is out now, with a 10% launch discount for anyone who gets it in the first week.



The album features twenty-five remastered tracks from the game, arranged by its composer, Maribeth Solomon, herself. It's totally beautiful, and we've tried to keep some of the game's sense of seasonal change in the track listing. An extra bundle of Christmas candles to anyone who can guess AK's and my favourite tracks.

The OST costs $10.99 / £8.99 / €9.99 and is available now. Go forth and float by the shores of Brancrug.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2340780/BOOK_OF_HOURS_Original_Soundtrack/

It's the first of December, and we're trying something NEW this year! BOOK OF HOURS seems such an obvious fit, so starting from today we're running...

[h2]...a 25-day advent calendar of Hush House! 🎄🎁[/h2]



Each day we'll open a door containing treats in BOOK OF HOURS or the 'real' world (you'll see it on all of our socials [ Twitter / Facebook / Instagram ], and we'll update our advent megablog daily with What's Behind Today's Door).

Most are tasty amuses-bouches. Some are pretty major reveals. A few real world treats will only last for 24hrs, but you'll never miss anything in-game. Playing BOOK OF HOURS any time in December will give you everything the calendar's revealed to date whenever in-game winter rolls around. So there's no stress if you're 'out' having 'fun' with 'friends'. Except, you know. Have a think about your life choices there.

To start with today's door as an example, it reveals:

[h3]Door 1: Seasonal art in BOOK OF HOURS[/h3]

The next time you're playing BOOK OF HOURS and winter comes around, you'll notice some festive cheer sprinkled throughout Brancrug Village and Hush House. For anyone who wants to be left alone like the Weary Detective and his Illustrated London News, there's an option to turn off seasonal art in the Settings menu. For everyone else, take careful note of Reverend Timothy's Christmas tree next to the Rectory...



More like this every day from now until Christmas Day. Check the advent megablog if you're not sure what today's gift is - we'll announce them every day at noon.

That's it! Warmth, good cheer and a glass of Chateau Raveline to you and yours. Merry Christmas, friend.

There was a glitch that could occur if you played during a particular combination of patches in the last week

"HOTFIX: If Hendrik's bust niche disappeared, it's now back. If so, you may also find one or more Pale Mommets in there. DON'T ASK IT'S BEEN A WEIRD ONE, JUST CALL IT A CHRISTMAS PRESENT"

This has spent the usual couple of weeks on the beta branch, and I have had ALMOST NO bug reports... but now that fewer people are playing the game my fear is that this is because it's had fewer eyeballs, not just because it's the most stable patch ever. It _is_ a very stable patch, but do hit us up at [email protected] if you run into problems.

Notes below - you'll probably be most interested in the bolded things.

* You can now order some goods through the post (if you don't have an order form, one will arrive inside a year)
* You can now label bookshelves
* Timers for workstations look a bit spiffier
* You can now zoom while moving the camera
* Crafting helper panel now also works for Determinations and Histories
* Histories page now includes the pre-ending text for your later referencing pleasure
* Tightened up zooming controls
* That annoying shelf in the Westcott Room is less annoying
* Game won't unexpectedly switch between fullscreen and windowed when you open options
* Notification windows now universally respect the timeout option in Settings
* HOTFIX: swoosh-to-house-threshold button no longer forces close zoom.
* HOTFIX: Deep Mandaic books can now be translated again (you wouldn't believe what caused this prob)
* HOTFIX: Bookshelf plaques sometimes didn't appear on load
* ...and one additional small, fun, hidden feature

--

There'll be at least one more patch before Christmas, with another small, fun, less hidden feature.

After that, the updates will keep coming, but at the pace of snowflakes rather than raindrops. As Lottie mentioned last time, we'll be shifting our focus to the first BOOK OF HOURS content expansion. I just spent three days in a quiet room on a shingle headland writing on cards and moving 'em around on the floor, so I know now what it'll be. We can't talk about that quite yet, but I can share this partial photo of
the early design process:



this helpful excerpt from our design docs:



this charming picture of a lighthouse:



and this news item from a UK charity: