Time travel mixed with magic and strategy

Sep 17, 2021 12:33 GMT  ·  By

With no spirits to infuse into the world my character is reduced to blue hand bolts, which take down one enemy easily enough but have problems with big groups. I take down one Pawn that has some mystical energy and power up a tree. That mix of nature and magic takes down an entire group of enemies, which nets me more spirits. I use them to bring out a fire creature, but I fail to keep tabs on a smaller group of enemies and I die. I hope that the time-traveling second copy of myself can do a better job.

Timemelters is both created and published by Autoexec Games. The game will be coming to Steam and is currently on Kickstarer, with the team aiming to deliver it in late April 2022. The currently available preview content reveals a cool mix of action and tactics with a good implementation of time travel.

Gamers take on the role of Teagan, a capable but fragile magic-user that’s threatened by both a world that does not trust her kind and by a slowly encroaching evil. She has enough power to shoot bolts of magic out of her hands, but she will need much more than that to deal with the bigger threats she needs to take on.

Timemelters is mostly played from a third-person perspective but there are also moments when it shifts to a strategy layer, for sequences that play like enhanced tower defense. Teagan dies when one enemy touch her but she can animate the trees and call of fire elementals to help her, which requires mana that’s not always easy to obtain.

Timemelters
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Time travel adds another layer to the experience. When she is taken down by a monster Teagan re-appears and, as her former self plays out her timeline, can do new things to influence the battlefield. With three versions of the character running around the complexity level rises. The mechanic works well and is very cool, but it requires quite a shift in thinking to be used effectively.

Timemelters looks good, using traditional Scottish concepts and motifs to create an engaging world. Teagan and the other characters have a lot of cool small details, and the game makes it easy to mix direct action and tactical elements, offering players info all the time. The sound design is also well-built to suit the themes and the genre.

Conclusion

Timemelters has the potential to be one of the most surprising releases of early 2022. The echo and time travel systems are solid and open up a wide variety of strategies for players to try out. The narrative also has potential and I hope it leans into weirdness rather than moving towards more classic role-playing tropes.

The developers are also promising a full cooperative campaign, which will create even more interesting situations given the core mechanics. I look forward to seeing what surprises the final version of Timemelters packs.

Timemelters screenshots (16 Images)

Timemelters artwork
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