“…the thing that makes Timemelters special is your ability to affect the flow of time.”
Timemelters by developer Autoexec Games is a game mixed between strategy and action within the flow of time. You take the role of Teagan McPhee, a young Scottish woman who, alongside others, is accused of being a witch and sentenced to death by fire. As the execution begins, creatures called Pawns (satyr-like servants of the Dark Puppeteer) attack the village. An old witch Amina, whose pyre had already been set ablaze, transfers her essence to you and helps you to escape by sharing her power and awakening your own. Unfortunately for Teagan, her brother Edwin had already been killed in the attack before she could get free, but times change, and you may yet be able to save him.
Once you are free of the village, Amina will guide you in the use of your new abilities to fight your way through several small groups of Pawns. You have two basic attacks, the first is called Spirit Strike, a slow firing energy attack from your hands. This uses mana, shown by a bar at the bottom of the screen, which will regenerate itself shortly after you stop firing or you run out. Your second ability is called Spirit Blast which will hit multiple enemies up close and stun them, this has a hefty cooldown so you will almost always only get to use it once in a combat. Spirit blast is very useful as you cannot let any enemy touch you, you have no health bar so if they get close enough they will instantly kill you.
Your other spells require spirits to be able to cast them. Some enemies will have these glowing spirits hovering above them, and when you kill them you will absorb those spirits. How many you have will be shown under the mana bar. With these you can do such things as summon a fire spirit, root enemies to the ground or awaken certain tree’s called the Sons of the Great Oak to fight for you. These abilities will only target a set number of enemies, though at certain times you will get the chance to upgrade a single spell, and many of these will be to increase the number of enemies they affect. You can also upgrade your spirit strike and spirit blast abilities.
Now, the thing that makes Timemelters special is your ability to affect the flow of time. Early on in the story once you have met a few other characters, you are taught how to manipulate time, and this is where the strategy comes in to play. You can reverse time a certain number of times, the amount will differ between locations and be indicated by rings around your left forearm. When you reverse time you create a new timeline and an echo of yourself, this echo will do everything you did in the first timeline, and enemies will react to it the same and ignore you until you either get too close or intervene. Enemies that will die in the first timeline will have a red mark above them, if you do nothing they will die as they did before, if you intervene though it can change the original timeline and any enemies acting differently to how they did will have an orange mark over them. Two echo’s can be created in this way, and along with yourself you can manage the battlefield.
Beware though that your spirit mana that you get from enemies is finite and will not regenerate when you reverse time, so you must choose how (and when) to use it wisely.
You can view the entire battlefield by astral projecting, called Spirit Sight, your own spirit rises high in the air to give you a view of the enemy and their projected path. You can move about in this form and even cast your spirit mana spells, so if your enemy will pass close to a Son of the Great Oak or two you can animate the trees, or cast the same spell on certain stones to create a barricade and reroute them, then reverse time and tackle another group while your echo does its work. Another important tactical ability you gain is the ability to teleport. This is not teleporting as you may know it but further time manipulation. By pressing T you will set a mark that looks like an echo of yourself, then when you need to you can return to that spot by holding T. These teleport echo’s are not affected by reversing time, so if you have a time sensitive task such as reaching a portal before it closes, you can run to it and set your teleport mark then reverse time to reset the clock. Then in the new timeline just hold T to teleport and you will be there with time to spare. This is actually the task you are given to teach you how to use the teleport function.
Combining these abilities in different ways will be key to success as the missions increase in difficulty and the solutions become more complex. Different enemies also require different tactical combinations, a Plague for instance is a beefed up Pawn and can only be damaged by hitting it in the back, but the beast will chase you and never turn. Bonewalkers are fairly weak during the day but their durability increases greatly at night, so delaying them until morning comes is ideal. The mixture of strategy and action goes a long way towards making each level interesting, and the time manipulation features are fantastic. Being able to alter time is something very few games touch on, and none that I know of does so in the way that Timemelters does, and it does it extremely well.
While the graphics are not the best they are not terrible either, and Timemelters makes up for it in its gameplay and story.
The campaign can be played solo or multiplayer, and both versions have the option to play a speed run. There are also 9 challenges to unlock and play, you unlock them as you play through the campaign and can either play them straight away or access them from the main menu whenever you want to.
The story is told mostly in written dialogue before or after a mission rather than cutscenes, with a text box and the characters picture attached to show who is speaking. Don’t worry though, there are no walls of text to wade through. These sections are artfully done, they are short enough not to want to skip through, and give you enough information to advance the story and give a sense of how the characters feel about each other. Each loading screen will also have further information on other characters, even minor ones, which I felt helped flesh out the world.
Early in the story you meet Amannan, a Timemelter like yourself though with far greater experience, and another witch Eleanyss. Eleanyss belongs to the Silver Chain, a druidic organisation that Amina was once a part of. Each of you has a different goal it seems, but all need to work together to stop the Dark Puppeteer from ending the world. Does that mean you can trust each other? You shall see.
