FACTSHEET
- Developer:
Box Fire Games
Based in Rochester, NY - Release Date:
Coming out in 2022 - Platforms:
Steam - Website:
https://www.EssenceOfTimeGame.com
Description
Essence of Time is a hand-drawn RPG visual novel full of time travelling puzzles, turn-based combat, and storylines that'll rip your heart out before lifting your spirits.
Story
The new emperor of O'Qua will be chosen from the students at the Academy of Essential Arts. But when controversy surrounds the winner, civil unrest grows into outright war. Fortunately, you have access to the essence of time! Repeat those fateful last days, where you learn to call essence in combat against monsters, alter the hearts and minds of your peers, and change who becomes emperor and with it the course of history.
Features
- Hand-drawn frame by frame. Explore and discover the timeline altering consequences of interacting with the fantasy world of O'qua.
- Unlock non-linear timelines. Time passes when you commit to one of many daily activities, which play out in visual novel fashion and sometimes combat.
- Turn-based RPG combat. Defeating monsters requires consideration of essence type, walls, environment changes, and cooldowns, so make sure you have a strategy. Since there's no magic points and your health refreshes after combat, there's no need to conserve anything. And because you can go back in time turn by turn (basically an undo button), each battle becomes its own puzzle to solve.
- Progress through a sphere grid and build modular moves. Picking the right moves to get you through any given timeline is crucial. If you get stuck, however, you can always go back in time.
- Collect Skill Points to grow stronger. Use them to fill out your sphere grid. But watch out, going back in time resets your Skill Points! However, completing other characters' quests rewards you with Link Points, Skill Points that stay with you when you go back in time, giving you a way to grow permanently.
- A time journal manages your memories. An alternative to rewatching previously done activities is simply writing them in your journal, allowing you to skip the day. Timeline experimentation is always a few button presses away.
Trailer
Images
Logo and Icon
About Box Fire Games
Mark and Brad Collins founded Box Fire Games in 2020, but the brothers started designing games in the 90s with nothing but tablet paper, index cards, and a box of colored pencils. Brad studied Arts at Ithaca College and Mark studied Mathmatics at Rochester Institute of Technology. They entered the workforce and felt the soul-sucking drain for nearly ten years before teaming up to fulfill what had been started but never forgotten, a childhood promise to make games as full of wonder as the ones that had once inspired them. Essence of Time is their first full-length game.