Pfft… 3D? I’m already playing in 4D!

When sitting down to write a preview, the normal question before collecting my thoughts are something along the lines of “Where to begin”? That just wasn’t the case with Achron. The correct question was something closer to “When to begin”!

Conceptually, Achron isn’t too hard to grasp. It’s an RTS that allows you to travel through the annals of time as easily as physically treading across the battlefield. However, when one stops to actually think about the implications of that concept funny things begin to happen to the integrity of ones head! Brains get mushy, skulls become wobbly, as well as other not-quite-so-pleasant scenarios. As if real time strategies don’t require enough thought as it is in 3 dimensions, how about layering on the generally accepted 4th dimension as well! Before I try and keep you interested in something so deep, watch this explanation video for some visual help. Hit the play button below and join me after the break.

Hopefully that video helped. If you’re anything like me though, it took visiting Hazardous Software’s site and watching every single video they had posted before I really started to ‘get it’. At that point, I felt confident enough that I could actually play Achron without fear of my cranium recurring severe damage. Luckily for all parties involved, and by that I mean me, once you sit down to play Achron yourself, it doesn’t feel too bad. In fact, the time controlling setup feels really solid and almost… natural!

The only other game I’ve played that included time travel as a main mechanic is Braid. Mr. Blow did a fantastic job of introducing one concept at a time so that traveling back to correct mistakes never became too overwhelming. It wasn’t long before you were jumping around confidently with fickle sparkly keys as your companion. You began to look back at the first levels and wonder why they seemed so hard at the time. That’s what happens in Achron.

After playing through some very necessary tutorial levels that cover the basics of the time travel mechanic, you’re thrown in to a nice hand holding level that walks you through a series of attacks in which you’re supposed to defend yourself. From then on, you start to understand the time traveling very well. Time makes traditional strategies, such as blitzing an opponent, almost meaningless because they can easily jump to 30 seconds before you show up and have a counter attack ready. Essentially, it makes the game more about strategizing than about developing “uber micro skillz.” However, Achron still feels frantic as events start to fall off the timeline. It still pays to be quick.

Across the bottom of the screen is the player HUD. In the bottom left is the mini map, and in the bottom right are the unit commands. However, the bottom center is dominated by a fancy looking timeline. The cool thing about it is that it’s not really that confusing. There’s a line that represents when in time all players are issuing commands, how much damage has been dealt or received at any particular time, and waves that carry past events to the present. All of which are really intuitive and easily understood. There are a lot more nuances that are helpful, but not necessary for this review. I’ll go so far as to say that it’s 100% because of how well thought out this timeline control is that the game is playable at all. It makes jumping 30 seconds into the future to send units back 3 minutes in the past to protect themselves from being destroyed (John Conner style), while at the same time launching an attack on the enemies base at 1 minute in the past so you can get there before he has his current defenses… seem normal. Like Braid, manipulating time becomes so second nature that you begin to wonder why every game doesn’t have a similar system.

I’m a sucker for public alpha’s. If it’s stamped with Beta or Alpha, I’m an early adopter. Achron is one of those games. Buy it at a discount to help fund the game while it’s in production. It’s on PC, Mac, and Linux, with the full game included in the deal once it’s released.

[Pre-order to play the Alpha]