Sands of Time

Sands of Time is 90 seconds on a crumbling disc while a giant hourglass in the middle sprays sand at everyone. A grain that touches you knocks you straight away from the hourglass, the same distance wherever you stand, so near the middle a hit is a stumble and near the rim it is the end. You last by hopping, hiding, and pressing the plates that bend time for everyone at a moment that suits only you.

The 90 seconds

• From the start: a burst every 1.3 seconds or so: rings, double rings, spirals, rings with one gap, walls with none, sweeping arms, grains aimed where you are about to be, and sets of four boulders. By the end it is one every 0.7 seconds.
• 0:20: quakes. Every 8 seconds five tiles glow red for a second and drop. The holes stay.
• 0:30 to 0:56: the Sand Guardian, a sphinx circling the hourglass, slams the floor every 5 seconds and sends a shockwave ring across the disc. Hop it. The hourglass also starts favouring its nastier patterns.
• 0:45: every 9 seconds the outer ring glows red for a second and falls, with any plate or stela on it.
• 1:00: the Chrono Titan. Two opposite beams sweep round from the middle, so one passes any spot every 3 seconds. Hop them. From 1:03 meteors strike every 6 seconds, a second after their tiles flash red.

Anyone still on the disc at the buzzer shares first place.

Your two keys

Q, Punch. Stuns anyone just in front of you for a second, with a small shove. A stunned player can't move or hop, so punch in the second before a ring arrives. It recharges in 4 seconds.

E, Rewind. Hold it and you slip backward along the path you walked, up to four seconds of it, and the sand can't touch you while you do. Three seconds of holding empties your sand meter, and it refills at 5% a second. Rewind through a wall with no gap, or back onto the disc the instant a hit throws you over the edge. It returns you to where you stood, not to the floor as it was, so a spot that has since dropped drops you.

The time plates

Step on a lit plate and it fires for everyone, you included, then jumps somewhere new and stays dark for 10 seconds. A new press replaces whatever is running. Players who are out can still press them by floating over.

• Slow: sand at 0.3 times speed, players at three quarters, for 4 seconds. For when a volley is about to catch you.
• Fast: sand at 1.8 times speed, players slightly quicker, for 4 seconds. For when your rivals are in the sand and you are not.
• Rewind: the sand runs backward for 3 seconds. Everyone but you slides back along their trail to where they were a few seconds ago, then stands dazed for a moment, while the hourglass flips and pulls everyone toward it. Anyone who reaches its mouth is swallowed. Running away always beats the pull.

While the Rewind plate is lit, a faint cyan disc marks where each player would be sent back to. When a rival's disc sits over a hole, that is your moment.

Staying on

• Hop grains, sidestep boulders. A grain is about knee high and a hop clears it; a boulder is taller than any hop.
• Get behind a stela for a dense pattern. Each takes 8 grains (a boulder counts as 4), cracks when nearly spent, then crumbles.
• Change direction against aimed grains. They lead you, so a straight run walks into them.
• The hourglass keeps pouring at its own pace under Slow, so a Slow packs the disc with sand. A Fast pressed straight after sends all of it out at nearly double speed.
• Fetch plates between bursts. They start near the rim, where hits cost most.

Disc size

The disc's radius is 11 metres up to 4 players, 13 at 5 and 6, 15 at 7 and 8, and 18 from 9 players up to 16, with more stelae and more grains to a ring on the bigger discs.