An interesting take on time travel which is impenetrable to new players.
Pros:
- it offers a different model of time travel which IAn interesting take on time travel which is impenetrable to new players.
Pros:
- it offers a different model of time travel which I haven't seen in other games. If in Achron you could send units to the past or to the future to change the past or the future, and there was just 1 timeline, here any time jump creates a new time line. Also, units can move between timelines, and time essentially becomes 2-dimensional
- it actually stays very close to rules of original chess, even with concepts like check, stalemate and checkmate working essentially the same in all these multiple dimensions (I'd expect them to be simplified to just "capturing the king")
- I know a few other versions of chess with time travel (one of them dating back to 2003), and this one seems the only one that actually got developed well enough to become a proper computer game, with a multiplayer and AIs and even some community of players. That alone is an achievement of its own
So-so:
- the game has passable graphics and sound effects. While they look functional and not much else would actually be needed for a super-hardcore puzzle/tbs like this one, the game still would become better if it had richer aesthetics like selection of soundtracks, customization of the pieces and the board and so on.
- the game invites you to join their Discord channel, but this is not something the game should rely on to be playable. I don't use Discord because I don't like it, so I don't expect any game to force me to use it so that some random strangers would start explaining the game to me. The whole approach is just ridiculous. The game should be a product on its own, and fully playable in single-player. When I feel comfortable with the game I may want to play online as well, but it shouldn't be a prereq. It's not an MMORPG. Even if it has multiplayer focus, it should have an in-built chat of its own. What if Discord gets shut down? It's a third-party service, independent from Steam even.
Cons:
- the game is impenetrable to new players. Even though most players may think that they are just not smart enough to understand the game ("my brain hurts" is a frequent comment I've seen on Steam), or should be more patient, the real truth is that there is no proper interactive tutorial which is commonplace for puzzle or TBS games since 2000s or even late 1990s, especially if the game is so complex and has unique mechanics. I'd imagine most players, even those experienced with chess, TBS genre and having interest in time travel, simply give up right after seeing the first timeline splits and being unable to understand what all the differently colored arrows, frames and highlights actually mean. So, it ends up being a game for a tiny community of super-hardcore fans who invested dozens of hours, chat on Discord about the game and probably also participated in the game's development as playtesters.
- as mentioned, there are multiple colored highlights, arrows, frames (white, violet, yellow, black) - with no explanation anywhere, even in its lengthy wall-of-text - style "guide" pages
At its current state I can't recommend this game. However, I'm giving it 6 stars because it's a major achievement in game design and its main drawback (lack of proper tutorial) is actually quite easy to fix. I'd estimate this to be a rather small chunk of work for the devs compared to other, very complex features (like multiplayer, or even the mind-boggling timeline mechanic) which they've already implemented. It's simply an unfinished product which was released too early without proper playtesting and player feedback.… Expand
