Developer: Fuse Game
Publisher: Leyo Games, 2P Games
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Time Treker – Preview
It seems all we do lately is cover Vampire Survivors clones on our platform, and while we like the genre as a whole, not all recent entries have been that great. We tried out Viking Survivors and Primal Survivors recently, but sadly both games ended up disappointing. Luckily, this sour aftertaste was washed away thanks to Keeper’s Toll, an Early Access title that brought a few original gameplay mechanics to the table. Now, we’ll be taking a look at Time Treker, another Survivors clone in Early Access that tries to do things differently.
While there is a narrative present in Time Treker, we doubt many players will actually be really involved with what is going on. You’re playing as some sci-fi soldier who is trying to alter different timelines to prevent the world from suffering heavy casualties. You’ll have an operative that gives you some information during missions, and that’s about how deep the story goes. There are different characters available, and these all interact a bit differently in the levels.
As a whole, we quite liked the presentation. The pixel-art sci-fi setting looks good, and the overall character designs, enemy designs, attack animations, and so on, all look very good. The movements are fluid, the explosions look impressive, and we enjoyed blasting our way through hordes of alien enemies. The stage designs, however, are extremely bland, and we hope things get spiced up a bit by the time the game hits its full release. The sound design is also quite good. Weapons provide satisfying audio feedback, and the soundtrack is varied enough not to grow stale. Most tracks are also upbeat enough to give you a small adrenaline boost. There are a few text lines present in the game, but these sadly are not voiced.
Time Treker does try to approach the entire Survivors format slightly differently. Instead of playing through lengthier levels, you’ll play through so-called timelines. In these timelines, you’ll find small five-minute-long stages in which you need to complete multiple objectives. If you fail, you can still progress, but you’ll have a less ideal outcome in that timeline. You can retry levels a few times, but experiencing consecutive fails will make the timeline even more unstable. Completing missions and surviving the five-minute timer will make sure things remain stable. It’s a simple format, but it does feel somewhat fresh. Sadly, the difficulty scaling feels off, where the game has fairly ridiculous difficulty spikes, even when you keep upgrading your gear and stats.
The game does try its best to create an original experience outside of the mission-based format as well. You’ll notice that you have the traditional overarching upgrades that will aid you with your consecutive runs, and you’ll unlock more points to invest in your talents tree as you hit more milestones in the game itself. You’ll also have a full gear system during your runs, where you can equip multiple weapons, upgrade them, and then also equip modifiers that influence the performance of all these weapons. You’ll find passive upgrades during your runs as well that will further influence the flow of the run. And last, but not least, you’ll also be able to upgrade your stats during a run. All of this combined allows you to try out quite a few different builds, and you’ll have to think about what you want to invest in first. It feels nice to have a few more strategic elements that are thrown into the mix.
All in all, the game controls pretty similarly to other titles in the genre. You’ll run around, and you can either choose to aim manually or have the game aim automatically for you. It’s all standard fare, and the controls in-game are quite good and responsive. We didn’t notice that many hitbox issues either, which is also great for a game such as this. The controller support in the menus feels a bit rough around the edges, and with the mouse cursor also always visible on the screen, it is sometimes a bit tricky to see what item or menu option you have selected. A better color indicator of what is selected would already help a lot here.
Conclusion
Except for some difficulty spikes and clunky controller support in the menus, Time Treker already feels like a polished product. We enjoyed trying out quite a few different builds and weapon combinations, and the overall gameplay loop remained very enjoyable throughout different runs. With a bit of extra content, we feel like this could be one of the better Survivors clones out there. Even now, if you’re a fan of the genre, this Early Access title is already worth picking up.
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