Chronescher — Which way should I be looking?

Matt Fuller, 7 October 2022

I hate to admit it, but the similarities to the popular Monument Valley were quite a turn-off for me when my eye first caught Chronescher. Once I began to play, I realised this isometric 3D puzzle game is its own beast, combining time and space bending mechanics with Escher-esque visuals and complex level design into a challenging yet gratifying experience.

When I think of a word that best describes Chronescher, the one that sticks out to me is elegant. In both its design and execution, the game has no excess or unneeded fluff that distracts from the core experience. The game takes place in a 3D isometric perspective, with you guiding a small hooded avatar by clicking (or tapping on Android) to move them through levels inspired by the artist M.C. Escher — overlapping stairs, weird and twisted perspectives, that whole deal — to reach the glowy golden tile that awaits you at the end of each level. I can imagine that description will spring to mind a certain popular puzzle game, but let me say right now that Chronescher has a voice all its own thanks to some great additions and ideas.

Aside from being visually pleasing, each of the six biomes had well-crafted, intricate, and sometimes quite complex puzzles that make you view perspective differently; When I say that I mean it quite literally. On most levels, players can rotate the entire level in 90-degree increments, and with that, your whole idea of the level can change. 

At first it seems like just a quirky idea, but after a few levels it quickly becomes more sophisticated and brings a good dose of difficulty to these self-contained challenges. Areas that seemed inaccessible become open and misaligned sections become uniform, making you rethink how you view each level and the process of solving them. Then the additional switches throughout levels shift and move your character and sections of levels, some even changing the orientation of gravity, thereby revealing a new path or hidden passage. Their excellent design kept me engaged with every new weird and wonderfully abstract world and puzzle the game threw my way.

If that doesn't sound mind-bending enough, there are a few powers at your disposal that add to the variety and work incredibly well with the game's stellar level design, at least for the most part. The first is a portal that can be placed where you want, which players can easily return to on a whim. Once unlocked, levels once again take on new dimensions as you need to use these to work around their ever-growing complexity, rethinking which button to press or what perspective you need to switch to. You'll need to employ logical thinking to decide how and when best to use it, which brings its own creative twist to the process. 

Lastly, you have the snapshot mechanic — which was the one I struggled with most, requiring the most brain power for me to understand and use correctly. Where using the portal is about moving your character, taking a snapshot is the complete opposite, as you'll save the level in its current state in a photo so that when you choose to, you can restore the level back to that saved state — all without moving yourself. Trying to keep track of every piece of the puzzle and think a few steps ahead and backwards was quite the headache at times, and with the already challenging nature of the game this was sometimes a little too tough for me. That's not to say the mechanic or how it is used in the game is bad, I do think it's used very well, but it certainly presented one of the more challenging aspects of the game. When I could get my head around it, it was another good addition to the overall experience that brought new challenges to the table, which is one of the key things the game does consistently. The later stages show this off best when you'll be using all these mechanics interchangeably to solve incredibly elaborate puzzles that are difficult — and I mean pretty damn tough — but are so interesting and shows the excellent interplay between every one of the game's systems.

With each level, I noticed myself becoming more adept at how I looked and approached each puzzle, and as I progressed it became natural to start twisting and turning my visual perspective on stages, pressing every button to piece together each moving part and finding the correct way to put them together. Experimenting with the portal and snapshot became second nature and the process of solving each puzzle was an overall great experience that for the most part felt fair and inventive, but that's not to say it was smooth sailing the whole way through.

It felt tough, maybe sometimes a little too tough, and like similar games, it's easy to feel like you are making no progress or are stuck on a puzzle that just doesn’t seem to make any sense unless you were the developer who made it. It does make it a sometimes agonising trial, and I'm not ashamed to admit my patience was tested quite a few times whilst playing Chronescher. Does that mean it needs to be fixed? Not really, as it's not broken or particularly unfair, but it's also not going to hold your hand, so it's worth bearing that in mind if you fancy taking a crack at the game.

However, despite those moments, when the pieces fit and you get the all empowering “aha” moment, it is a great, well-earned feeling and the process of getting to it is often a wonderful one and overshadows the occasionally aggravating moments. 

Chronescher was an overall great experience for me. Its visuals were repeatedly impressive and full of character, and the symbiotic relationship between the level design and mechanics was some of the best I've seen since writing for Thinky Games. Even with its few rough edges and particularly hard moments, it was consistently a tough but fair puzzle game that sets a good example of what other games of this style should aspire to.