The Chronos Principle is a minimalistic puzzle game with a time manipulation mechanic. That mechanic is what I found interesting. During the gameplay I had to really visualize in advance what would happen and I had to think in unexpected ways. To expand on that: You can choose when to revert time (with a limit per level on how often you can do that) and you are then playing the same level from the start. But your previous actions will be executed at the same time as what you are doing fresh and they can influence what’s going to happen.
Game design
The game introduces new concepts regularly enough to keep you engaged and the game varied. I found the level design pretty good. Some of the levels do make your head hurt a bit and the last few levels were definitely the most difficult one’s. But it still only took a few hours to complete as I never got stuck on any level for longer then a few minutes. So I do think it probably should have had a few more (difficult) levels. The graphics are minimalistic but pretty, which I generally enjoy with these kind of games. No need for flashy distractions.
Availability
It’s available on android (on which I played it), iOS and will be available on PC somewhere in 2022. It was made by Logisk Studio Inc. I played version 1.5.3 (2022-01-18) which has 77 levels and the game at the time cost roughly 2 euro’s (no ads or in-game purchases).
Other thoughts
– The time manipulation mechanic operates in real time, so some levels do involve timing your moves accordingly. This can be annoying at times as you can do everything right, but be off in your timing. One tip there is to pause a few seconds after every move so that you have enough time to make subsequent moves after you have gone back in time.
– There is some supporting story text for many of the levels. I enjoyed it for how it added to the atmosphere and I was curious where it would go. But in the end I didn’t find the philosophical musings or conclusion interesting.
– One thing i generally tend to enjoy are achievements in a game, which this game has. The achievements themselves are not that good though, as they are either very easy or purely based on progression or doing something a set number of times, which I tend to find less interesting. The “Brute Force” achievement is the most interesting one.
– One small annoyance is that before you can actually move in the level you first have to touch the screen. I would have liked this to not be there or at least have an option to turn this off as it did not seem relevant to actual gameplay (probably just to prevent players from accidentally moving).
