A psychedelic roguelike that blurs the line between real-time action and turn-based tactics.

Play as misfit aliens, craft wild combinations from hundreds of weapons, items and abilities, and disable uncharted chronospheres: Colossal structures that consume time and distort reality.


This page hosts the prototype of Enter the Chronosphere, developed for 7DRL 2021. The game is under active development—screenshots on this page are from a newer builds.

Join our Discord for access.


Wishlist on Steam

StatusIn development
PlatformsHTML5, Windows, macOS
Rating
Rated 4.8 out of 5 stars
(57 total ratings)
AuthorEffort Star
GenreAction
TagsBullet Hell, Roguelike, Roguelite, Singleplayer

Download

Download
Early prototype (macOS) 41 MB
Download
Early prototype (win) 33 MB

Development log

Comments

Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.

i loved this game

One of the most innovative shooters in the past ten years. 

Does this have to do with Red Alert?

Nope, only learned about the thing in RA long after this was named. Turns out there a few things "chronosphere" in this world!

I like this game because it is so fluid in attacks and movement.

Bruv this is already fun, will get your game when it's done bakin

(+3)

Really great roguelike. Will the full version be made available on Itch when it's ready, or is it a Steam exclusive?

(+1)

Really love this game. It's a simple roguelike where you traverse through floors finding a variety of items like weapons and health pickups. The turn based system makes it all the more fun in my own opinion as it doesn't function like an RPG turn based game (such as Fire Emblem) but that's what makes it good. The various different enemies makes it more interesting to play and keeps me entertained. A real solid game and would love to see more of this at some point in the future.

(+1)

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed the game. If you'd like to see the latest build you can get access in Discord.

I got to play this at PAX West yesterday and loved it. I think it's a sleeper hit for Roguelikes--can't wait till release or an updated demo!

This was fun!


(+1)

great game! Not a huge fan of the sounds

(+2)

Amazing game! wishlist already. The game is so fun, can't wait to see how it will go. And I am learning my Unity right now. I am so curious about how you guys making this kind of effects. It does not like simple timescale pause. Did you guys make it with certain turn state machine?

(+1)

Ah, somehow I never saw this comment. I disabled physics update and then manually run it myself using Physics2D.Simulate with a time step determined by an easing function. In this case the function is CircInOut.

You can come and pick my brain in our discord server if you like.

(+2)

Amazingly thought out game design and really gripping to play. I would say though it's worth looking at a colour blind friendly mode (especially for players that find red and green hard to differentiate). A good tool for that is https://coolors.co/ (if you click on generate palettes and click the glasses icon it will show you what the colours look like based on type of colourblindness).

Thank you for the kind works dap005!

We are still working on the game and will give it a proper accessibility pass in the Steam version. I hope it wasn't a problem for you to play the game. Thank you for the resource. ❤️

(+2)

An excellent tactical shooter! A bit like Hotline Miami.
It gives you this feeling of "it's hard but I can beat it, let's just play one last game..." 😄
Knowledge of the power-ups & enemies is also vital in order to judiciously pick the right weapons to face the next level (damn spiders), which means you get better at it the more you discover the game, and I like that!

its like crack

(+3)

Amazing! Love this game

(+2)

This game is so so sick

(+2)

Cool game, very satisfying

(+2)

This game goes hard.

(+1)

wow, the Chromebook my dad got me (so that i can't really play games on it) is struggling to even load the intro animation... i knew Chromebooks sucked but turns out they are far worse than i even imagined....

That loading animation is actually generating the whole game level by level so it's quite expensive. The rest of the game should run faster once it's done. I could consider doing a Linux build, that might run on a Chromebook?

(+2)

This game is great! It's really hard though wow

Yoo I've beat the game!

16 hours between first comment and victory? Not bad.

I haven't spent 16h into the game though lol

😜

(+1)

bro I havent played the game in a few months and how many updates did it get like I saw so many new enemys and weapons wow \(〇_o)/

Hahah, there has only been one update (changelog) and actually no new enemies or weapons have been added. There was always a lot of stuff in there.

(+1)

oh (。_。) I guess I didn't progress far enough to see those enemies and weapons but hey still love the game and I am still addicted to it... in a good way .

Awesome! Let me know if you make it to the end.

(+1)

thanks!

(+1)

Awesome game but there's no way to aim and fire if you have a single button trackpad. (Two fingers is right mouse button, but there's no way to then click with the "left" button.)

Oh yeah, that's true of a touch screen too (it's almost possible to play on phone in browser). For what it's worth you can beat the game without aiming so long as you don't pick up the splitter gun.

Thanks for the feedback. I've logged an issue but we're not expecting to push an update in the immediate future.

Just letting you know this has been fixed in v5. Added spacebar as a secondary aim button.

(+1)

Nice work!

(+2)

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/965988159?t=00h48m58s

Thanks this was wonderful. excellent polish and gameplay! The music was stellar.

(+1)

I just wanted to ask what everyone's favorite gun is.

my favourite is the shotgun. 

(+1)

Mine is the radgun (the one which shoots a wide piercing projectile that erases other projectiles)

nice

(+3)

Absolutely phenomenal game. Super satisfying turn-based time increments- especially the time dilation, accelerations, deceleration, etc. etc. Was a lot of fun to fight large groups, would like to see the core mechanic reused in new overarching game contexts as well in addition to the additional incremental fight-at-a-time model.

Thanks Vectis, we're definitely interested in exploring the mechanic further! We were thinking some terrain elements moving on the beat, moving floors, time based locks, etc. So glad you enjoyed it.

(+2)

it is a  reallly good game.the only problem for me is that the green enemy is really hard.is it a boss?otherwise a really good game.

(+1)

Do you mean the spooky 'Scary Movie' like figure? He's quite tough indeed. You have to be really careful predicting his movements. Easier to avoid it, but more satisfying to kill it ;-)

He doesn't show up all the time, but when he does I tend to just run and try and keep walls between us. He's not a boss, but he's a rare spawn powerful creature. (Perhaps not as rare as he should be, haha)

(+1)

oh ok thanks,because I keep on dying to him.Maybe make him a little more rare because he is just like a boss

Will do! Thanks for the feedback.

yea ok thanks.

Fixed in version 5. ✌️

nice

(+2)

Very good game :)

Thanks!

(+2)

The music is so groovy and inspired me to play. Maybe an option to turn off music/volume configuration? I love the smooth transitions each turn; the turn transition gameplay is awesome. I liked the sprites indicating their difficulty using chess pieces, but then with the extra robot and samurai is a little different thematically could be confusing. But in the end, I got screwed D:

Thanks jestbubbles. I will be sure to include volume controls in the next update.

(+2)

Really really liked this! It gave me that true roguelike itch of wanting to discover and toy with all of the weapons, and try to get a winning run with each of them. (Partially to prove i wasn't carried by the magnum)


Something about the rhythm of the game, mixed with the simple aesthetic and bangin' soundtrack made it very easy to go for more and more runs, even after defeating *redacted* that laid at the center of the Chronosphere.

I could definitely see this getting expanded into a full release!

Don't really have to redact anything that's clearly in the description above :-P

(+2)

Really, really original and well executed as well. I absolutely love procedural games because of the replay value and your game is an absolute joy to play over and over again. Well polished, distinct style, creative gameplay. 

As mentioned below, the music choice is also interesting and a big plus because of that. But it's loud indeed, it sounds distorted even (at low volume, so not my speakers ;-) ). Would definitely tune that. 

Only one small improvement I could think of. Some sort of level indicator of the enemies. I now got killed by some tough enemy that took too many hits to kill before it reached me.

Thanks for the kind words, swoopie. Did you make it to the top hemisphere?

Yes sorry about the audio 👂🩸. I realized I had the volume down on my computer during development and haven't given it a final mix. Will be fixed in an update. 

Haha, no worries, still adds to the overall atmosphere, regardless whether it's not nicely mixed.

Haven't reached the top yet, not sure how far I got, I think 6 or 7. But I'll keep trying. Noticed I get a bit overzealous when having a proper gun, but you get punished quite quickly when doing that.

(1 edit)

So I had a look and actually the game is outputting audio well under the red. The clipping you're hearing is Shisvi's lo-fi style.

https://soundcloud.com/shisvi2/journey

I've added a basic volume control and reduce the default volume in the dev branch.

(+1)

Ah, right, I hear it indeed. Seems I just don't like distortion then ;-) Thanks for updating it with volume control. I will have a go at the dev branch (if I manage).

However, I just finished the first 'dimension'! I noticed two things of which one might be deliberate. 

Spoilers below



On the level where you first see the heart, I could fire my shotgun through the surrounding wall to kill the blood vessels around the main heart.

I noticed (only once) that my shotgun bullets passed through the very fast bleeping virus like landmine.

Nice work haha. I'll do a dev blog when I update so you get a notification.

The first spoiler issue you mentioned is intentional.

However bullets passing through enemies is not. This is also something I'm playing with for the next update.

Damn, now that's an exploit I hadn't considered...

(+2)

Really nice game, with a fun gameplay loop.  I love that the movement isnt bound to a grid.  The controls were pretty intuitive.  The weapons felt like they had a nice weight to them.  The variety in the enemies was nice too.  Great stuff, sets a high bar for other entries :)

(+2)

This game is dangerous.  It almost makes me feel like I'm cool enough for its music!

Maybe you are Tahnan. Maybe you are...

(+2)

The projectile-dodging is so fun in this! The overall style and presentation is unbelievably awesome too.

(+2)

This game is pretty awesome. I can hardly believe it was made in seven days.

The only major problem I see is that quite a few enemies can attack from outside the screen, and there's nothing you can do if their projectiles move fast.

(+1)

Thank you aprilmarch. We are surprised at how much we achieved too! We worked near constantly for the seven days.

(+2)

This is a great entry, polished and quite well balanced. The only thing i could ask for is a way to move faster [le'ts say a longer "slinger" line which i can adapt better when needed].

Nice work!

(+1)

Also, tune a little bit down the sound ot give an option/slider because it's quite loud.

Oh yes, I'll put this on the list.

Thanks Luca. I had imagined a UI like that with a notched line measuring out the steps in a move. However it's usually very dangerous to make that kind of move so we ended up not testing it out.

I think that would affect the balance of the game quite a lot as well, because the whole purpose is that your movement is a bit restricted, making you plan your moves a little bit up ahead.

What I could imagine though is having powerups that make you temporarily move faster / longer within an iteration, similar to the difference between some enemies and bullets.