As many old-school gamers have been oft to point out, games today just don’t have the challenge they once did. They hold your hands with petty tutorials and simplified controls. Ancient Chronicles is a game for REAL gamers – do you have what it takes?

Gameplay

AC casts you in the role of Commander Svyatapolk, warlord of the town of Staradoob. In this distinguished capacity, you must guide your small bands of forces through a campaign of 10 skirmishes against the hostile bandits that surround your town in an unidentified time somewhere in the fantasy past.

Each of your units has hitpoints defined by green boxes at their feet. Reasoning that rules and statistics would only get in the way of smashing your foe, you guide these men by tapping on them, then tapping on the space to which you would like them to move. If there is an enemy within range, you can then tap the enemy to engage in combat. Stats will be compared, some behind-the-scenes mechanisms will trigger, and then both attacker and target will suffer some hit point loss. Trial and error are your only guides here; the developers assume you care enough about gameplay to pay attention to what interactions result in what advantage to you and the bandits you face. After all, telling you things like the relative strength of a unit or what range your archers have would imply that you weren’t smart enough to figure it out for yourself – where’s the challenge in that?

Each of the 10 campaign missions has it’s own victory objectives – defeat all enemies within 10 arbitrary turns (more would be too easy!) or get your units from one side of the map to another. Meet the objectives and you unlock the next map; fail and you must try again.

Implementation

The game is the main thing here, and to emphasize that point, the interface is minimal to the point of abstraction. The welcome screen features only 3 buttons – launch the battle, adjust animation speed, or see the masterminds behind this unique and challenging work.

You can then select any of the 10 scenarios you’ve unlocked – only 1 is available initially, as all good things must be earned in this life, not simply handed out. You can play each scenario in either Easy or Hard mode; precisely what differentiates the two is left as a surprise to the player.

In game, the interface keeps up its spartan mode. Tapping a unit selects it, and reveals the spaces into which it can move. Yes, terrain features affect movement; no, there’s no information on how, as a true warrior can learn only through observation. Does terrain affect combat? Try it and find out, as with everything else in the game!

Keeping with the sense of austerity, animation in the game is kept to an absolute minimum. After all, no one needs pretty pictures getting in the way of slaughter! Each unit has one pose and one facing, neither of which will change barring a secondary frame of combat animation. This makes it very easy to determine which side is which – all of your units face to the right, and all of your opposing forces (which look sneakily similar) face to left. Simplicity itself! Equally simple are the multiplayer options – there aren’t any. Why bother with such trivialities when there are bandits to conquer?

Verdict

This reviewer feels it can be stated with certainty that no one reading this review has ever played a game like Ancient Chronicles. Completely lacking in any hand-holding information (or indeed any information at all) and relying solely on trial-and-error with a bare minimum of interface, the game underscores one of the harsh realities of life: banging your head against a wall without anything to go on is simply no fun. Life is punishing – why shouldn’t games be too?