Line #18 VideoGame/ChronoArk


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/chronoarkheader_7.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350: "If you operate the clock tower, you can return to normality."]]
3	''Chrono Ark'' is a party-based {{Roguelike}} DeckbuildingGame developed and published by the Korean indie company Al Fine games. You play as Lucy, the AmnesiacHero working with an investigation team fighting their way through an onslaught of monsters while gathering "Time Shades'' to run a ClockTower TimeMachine in the [[FloatingContinent floating]] [[DomedHometown domed city]] that was humanity's last retreat from the [[FogOfDoom apocalyptic fog]] which had corrupted the planet. If successful, perhaps civilization can be restored to normal.
4
5	The gameplay is a combination of deck-building roguelikes (such as ''VideoGame/SlayTheSpire'') and party-based [=RPGs=]. You command a party of up to four heroes with unique abilities and playstyles who can be leveled up and given skill cards individually, but they all share a single mana pool and their skills are shuffled into the same deck.
6
7	The game was [[https://store.steampowered.com/app/1188930/Chrono_Ark/ released on Steam]] in early access on December 19, 2019 and entered full release on May 3, 2024.
8	----
9	!! ''Chrono Ark'' contains examples of:
10	* AmusementParkOfDoom: The Bloody Park stage is an abandoned amusement park filled with [[MonsterClown Monster Clowns]] and LivingToys. [[WesternAnimation/HarleyQuinn And sexy clowns with baseball bats]].
11	* AnimatedArmor: The Living Armor boss.
12	* ArchaicWeaponForAnAdvancedAge: For taking place in a futuristic setting with advanced technology, the weapons most characters fight with are extremely anachronistic.
13	* BittersweetEnding: Defeating the TrueFinalBoss unleashes the 'true' clock tower and finally lets the survivors leave. However, there were some unfortunate loose ends that led to tragedy:
14	** [[spoiler:Pressel has fully succumbed to her KnightTemplar tendencies, and has begun a purge of non-desirables (It begins with killing the asshole who tried to murder everyone on the Ark). It is implied she will start the new world's primary (and hate-corrupted) religion. Ilya tries dating her, because he's also an asshole.]]
15	** [[spoiler:Johan went insane with his virtual memories of his beloved 'Alice' and tried to MurderTheHypoteneuse. He's in prison.]]
16	** [[spoiler:Phoenix's death meant Chiyo didn't inherit his memories, and she doesn't live long due her terminal illness.]]
17	** There was also that one unfortunate guard who got thrown into the 'true' clock tower ''long'' before it was ready. He's DeaderThanDead.
18	* BossBanter: Some bosses have dialog for certain investigators if they are in your party while battling them. For example, The Witch comments if [[spoiler:Sizz' doll Eve attacks, calling it a cute doll.]]
19	* CircusOfFear: Bloody Park in general is an amusement park driven insane by the Twisted Fog. Even those who aren't violent are clearly unhinged.
20	* ClockTower: A very prominent one in the center of the Ark that doubles as a TimeMachine. Most of the plot revolves around getting the clock tower to operate.
21	* ClockworkCreature: The Clockwork Hedgehog enemy has a visible WindUpKey.
22	* ColorCodedItemTiers: There exist five item rarities and they match the standard; White, Green, Blue, Purple, Gold in ascending rarity.
23	* CounterAttack:
24	** Lian's Grand Reflex passive encourages this. Most of her attack skills have a delayed effect and if an enemy attacks before it resolves, the enemy deals reduced damage, Lian's attack will trigger, and the player will be given an extra mana point next turn.
25	** Ruby and Sapphire and The Sacred Karaela bosses sometimes gain a counterattack status buff, triggering immediately when you attack them.
26	* {{Cult}}: The Pharos Cult is a major antagonistic group found on every single level except the last. They all sport similar grayish-purple attire and display the cult symbol somewhere. Almost every member except the leader wears a mask or otherwise [[TheFaceless conceals their face]]. Before the apocalypse, they began as The Ashen order, a cult of terrorists raiding major corporations 'for justice and equality'. They started out with justifiable anger at ''really'' corrupt megacorporations, but poor hiring standards meant the cult devolved into BombThrowingAnarchists who gleefully murder civilians. No-one, in-universe, treats them as anything but a bunch of crazies wearing stupid masks and flinging Molotovs.
27	* DamageIncreasingDebuff: The Weakening Potion gives a character 10% increased damage received.
28	* DiscardAndDraw:
29	** The Fountain of Oblivion lets you replace all of Lucy's skills in the deck with new ones.
30	** As a literal example, the game gives you the option to discard any card in hand to draw a new card once every turn.
31	** There are several draw skills Lucy can obtain which discard some or all cards in your hand in order to draw new cards.
32	* DistantFinale: The final scene of the game [[spoiler:takes place several years after the Ark Project survivors awakened and rebuilt society]].
33	* DoubleJump: Every swiftness or vitality scroll used gives Lucy the ability to jump one more time. Both jumping and double jumping are entirely useless features, but it does give you an achievement if you can jump four times.
34	* DueToTheDead: [[spoiler:After the Ark Project survivors wake up, they erect a memorial to the 600 virtual avatars who sacrificed themselves to awaken them]].
35	* EffortlessAchievement: You earn the "Jump!" achievement for making Lucy jump, which can be easily obtained with a single press of a button.
36	* EquipmentUpgrade: An Enchant Table can provide a positive enhancement to an equipment, which results into additional random stat boosts.
37	* FireIceDuo: The twin swordswomen and DualBoss Ruby and Sapphire have fire and ice powers respectively. Both give debuffs that make cards more difficult to play; Ruby causes every skill played to deal damage to its caster while Sapphire increases the mana cost of a hero's skills. The effects stack and are very effective at crippling your party.
38	* FireIceLightning: The Cryomancer, Pyromancer, and Electomancer are an enemy trio with a SharedLifeMeter and they do exactly what their names imply.
39	* FloatingClocks: Upon death, the screen fills with these before Lucy [[GroundhogDayLoop wakes up in her bed]].
40	* FloatingContinent: The Ark is a floating city. After the builders disappeared, it remains a mystery what technology is used to keep it aloft, much to the anxiety of those living on it.
41	* FogOfDoom: A black fog is the apocalyptic force that annihilated human society. In-game, it's present in every battle that takes too long, dealing increasing damage to your party every turn once a turn limit is met - it also prevents healing past your pain gauge.
42	* GroundhogDayLoop: It becomes apparent that Lucy is trapped in one, as time rewinds and most of the world rewinds when she's killed, rolling back their memories. When the story starts, she's on her 499th run. [[spoiler:And sadly, using the Clock Tower doesn't solve this, as it simply orders the world to rewind and rollback memories usual. By Act 2, the cast has been looping for ''48 years''.]][[note]]Based on some quick math, ~2500 runs divided by ~50 years equals ~50 runs/year means each run likely takes one week.[[/note]]
43	* HardModePerks: The game is generally harder to clear in Expert difficulty, but you gain extra Credits when a boss is defeated.
44	* HealingCheckpoint: Interacting with a campfire restores a bit of your alive party members' health, revives fallen allies with a portion of their health, and restores a charge of Lucy's necklace (only on Normal difficulty). There's also a nearby book in every camping site in case you want to create a SuspendSave.
45	* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:The avatars inside the virtual world of the Ark Project collectively agree to sacrifice themselves to awaken their real world counterparts and ensure the survival of humanity]].
46	* JustifiedTutorial: In the first "proper" run from the Ark, Azar offers Lucy the chance to go to the training grounds, and agreeing will bring up the tutorial section with Phoenix as your instructor. Talking to Phoenix anytime in later runs lets you replay the tutorial.
47	* LastChanceHitPoint: Heroes don't die instantly when going below 0 hp. Instead, they will be considered at "Death's Door", a system fans of the roguelike genre [[VideoGame/DarkestDungeon might recognize]]. Any further damage will cause the hero to faint unless something is granting them the "Faint Resist" stat and luck is on their side. Life can go ''negative'', so it often takes some work to get allies back to 1 hp.
48	* LightEmUp:
49	** Pressel uses divine light-themed powers both to heal allies and deal large amounts of damage to her foes.
50	** The Sacred Karaela is a boss that uses similar divine light powers against the heroes, with more emphasis on the offense than the defense.
51	* LightIsNotGood: The Sacred Karaela, in contrast with the rather dark bosses and enemies who make up the rest of the White Grave stage, is a bright, sun-colored, almost angelic being who summons [[CrossAttack Christian crosses]] and purifies her foes. She's just as dangerous and violent as the other White Grave bosses.
52	* LostTechnology: An instantaneous example; the technology that went into building the Ark was lost when the founders mysteriously disappeared. For 80 years, no attempts at reverse engineering have been successful.
53	* MagikarpPower: Phoenix Kick costs 4 mana to play and does middling damage... but every time you use it, its power increases by 4 permanently. If you can get lucky and acquire this skill for another investigator early, you can assign it as a fixed skill and ''really'' bring the hurt.
54	* MakingTheChoiceForYou:
55	** While fighting the Witch boss, if you refuse to choose an ally to give her curse to, she casts the curse on ''everyone''.
56	** The Pharos Leader boss requires you to cast an attack skill from hand on an ally every turn. If you don't, a random attack skill from hand will be cast on a random ally at the end of turn. In some rare cases, this can be a strategic option because the random skill isn't cast with your mana.
57	* TheMole: Trisha was this while operating undercover inside the Pharos order, collecting intel for the investigation team. [[EtTuBrute The Pharos bosses call her out on it]].
58	* MonsterClown: Many of the enemies and bosses in the Bloody Park stage are clowns.
59	* MonsterCompendium: The "Monster" tab of the Encylopedia menu lets you view entries for the monsters you previously fought, sorted by the area where they're found. Each entry details a monster's name, artwork, stats, debuff resistances, and a short FlavorText of their backstory or lore.
60	* OneHitKill: Two playable characters have access to a skill which one hit kills any regular enemy, and bosses from 40% of their health. However, one of them costs 4 mana to use this way and has a delay, and the other is permanently removed from the deck on use and becomes more expensive with each completed stage.
61	* OutOfTurnInteraction: Your investigators have higher initiative than most enemies, but ultimately all enemies and allies play in the same turn. Every time you play a card with a purple mana-cost indicator, the enemy's action timers will tick down[[note]]cards with 'Swiftness' have blue mana-cost indicators, and won't pass any time[[/note]], and they'll perform their corresponding actions when a timer reaches 0. In addition, some enemies are even ''faster'' than the player and can attack at the start of the turn. Conversely, some enemy attacks take ''so'' long that they can only perform their final action when you end the turn.
62	* PumpkinPerson: The Pumpkinhead Giant foe has a pumpkin for a head.
63	* RandomEffectSpell: The Scroll of Vitality has Lucy play an entirely random skill from those she can learn. Effects include increased max mana, casting random ally skills, or doing absolutely nothing.
64	* RelationshipValues: Lucy can give gifts to her fellow Investigators and develop bonds with them, in the process learning about their pasts.
65	* TheReveal: [[spoiler:Clyne used BrainUploading on the colonists so he could freeze their bodies perfectly, but Phoenix went crazy and destroyed some of the pods and all the scanning equipment. The Ark itself is hard-coded to self-destruct the moment it ends, deleting the engrams. So now, the inhabitants have the sadistic choice of either living in a lotus eater machine and letting humanity die out, or risking it all knowing that some won't survive the process due to their pods malfunctioning, and humanity may still be screwed because the ice age may not have ended. Azar freaked out and tried to create said LotusEaterMachine, along with his extra clone.]]
66	* RevivingEnemy:
67	** Snow Giants turn into Snow Giant Remnants upon death, and you have a short time to kill the remnant before it regenerates back into a full health Snow Giant.
68	** [[spoiler:An Ultimate Illusion Sword]] will revive itself if you play five skills before destroying the other one.
69	* SadisticChoice:
70	** The Witch enjoys putting Lucy (and the player) through this. Her gimmick is giving a "Horrendous Pain" curse card to the player every turn, who must choose a hero to cast it on. It causes a painful DamageOverTime effect. The heroes will respond to your mouseover, some confidently accepting it while others protest quite passionately. A few heroes will even cry out in pain. The Witch doesn't hold back from taunting your dilemma throughout the fight.[[note]]Back in Run #12, Lucy had CutsceneIncompetence due to her inexperience and fear, forcing you to first choose the character with the lowest health because she demanded it, and then not choosing at all.[[/note]]
71	** Joker will take one of your cards and turn it into his attack, forcing you to choose between playing something that will harm you and keeping it in your hand to ''replicate''.
72	** Every [[spoiler:Illusion Sword]] forces Lucy to decide who choose who it targets. ''Ultimate'' [[spoiler:Illusion Swords]] get a permanent passive buff each turn, but Lucy has to pick one of two.
73	* ScienceFantasy: Includes the likes of a [[ThePhoenix Phoenix]] and a [[OurWitchesAreDifferent witch]], but also includes [[TimeTravel time travel]] and a [[DomedHometown domed city]]. Science and research play a central role in the plot, as does [[ReligionIsMagic faith]]. Technology is modern to futuristic, but most characters still fight with archaic weapons and they are often glowing in ways that imply some modern technology went into their design. Sources of power are usually vague, so it's often left unclear if something has a mystical source or if it's just WeirdScience.
74	* SignatureMove: Each character can assign a Fixed Skill, which puts that skill card next to that character's portrait instead of waiting for it to be drawn. Fixed skills have to be chosen carefully; in addition to the extra mana cost, only one fixed skill may be played per turn (unless you have an Innate Fixed skill, which can be played separately), and on Expert most fixed skills have a 2-turn cooldown.
75	** Johan in particular has a unique fixed skill that is weaker than standard attacks but ''will refresh its cooldown every time you play a 1+ mana card'' among other boosts, meaning with sufficient mana and the right Fixed Skill buffs you can unleash a spray-and-pray of attacks.
76	* SmashingWatermelons: If you talk to her in the Ark, Pressel may mention the game of "smashing watermelons", describing it as a beloved summer activity in an old eastern country.
77	* StopHittingYourself: The Pharos cult leader has weak attacks, but her unique passive forces you to play an attack card on your own investigators ''at least once per turn''. Ending the turn without attacking yourself and with attack cards in hand will cause her to select and use an attack card at random. During the mid-game, she'll outright brainwash an Investigator to fight for her, who then uses a random skill from the entire deck per turn for four turns. To make the brainwashing wear off faster, you have to ''use those self-attack on the enthralled Investigator''.
78	* SuspendSave: Finding a book in the Twisted Lands and saving with it creates a save that can only be loaded once (the tutorial even warns you about this). Naturally, the game sends you back to the main menu after doing so. However, you are also given the choice between continuing from where you left off or restarting to the beginning.
79	* {{Synchronization}}: Some enemy duos will have the life-link trait. This means you can't kill one before the other, but you can use multi-hit to beat them down.
80	* SharedLifeMeter: Although visually still represented with their own life bars, certain bosses and enemies function exactly as this. All changes in life total from any source are shared among the linked characters. AreaOfEffect attacks will deal double or triple damage depending on the number of foes like this.
81	* ShoutOut: Clearing the game with Iron Heart earns you the [[Film/TheLordOfTheRingsTheFellowshipOfTheRing "You Shall Not Pass!"]] achievement.
82	* SigilSpam: The longer you look at a character that's related to the Pharos Cult, the more instances of the Pharos Cult symbol you'll find. This sigil has also made its way to some unexpected places, such as the expert difficulty icon.
83	* SpeedBoots: When used, a Swiftness Scroll increases Lucy's movement speed during the current stage.
84	* TimeMachine: The ClockTower is said to be this. Because the operators disappeared and no one knows how to run it anymore, Lucy and the investigation team are forced to collect "[[{{Macguffin}} time shades]]" to get it to run.
85	* UnknownItemIdentification: Potions and scrolls have unknown effects and must be identified by either using the item, using a scroll of identification, or paying to have them identified at a shop. Potions and scrolls look different, but the textures given to each potion and scroll type are randomized every run.
86	* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: The story's climax reveals that [[spoiler:the people of the domed city are just digital constructs based on people in the real world to keep their minds active while they're in cryostasis, and will remain trapped there when the originals awaken; the final conflict is the Program Master arguing that they'd all be better off trapped in a LotusEaterMachine while Lucy is convinced by her allies that it's worth dying to revive the originals so their lives have meaning]]. Furthermore, the logs unlocked afterwards reveal that [[spoiler:Clyne, Lucy's father and one of the heads of the Ark project, was fully aware that the duplicates would object to spending their lives as prisoners in a simulation but went through with it anyways, even forcing an underling that thought it was unethical into cryostasis after she slipped down some stairs while running from him with evidence]].

Context VideoGame / ChronoArk