Blessed Relic Chronis

Intro

"The Void Chronicles: Blessed Relic Chronis" or simply the "Blessed Relic Chronis" for short is a brief visual novel developed by KazukiT126 that can be beaten in around 15 minutes or so. And this game was originally developed for the Indiepocalypse Issue # 17 where developers were apparently paid $20 for their game and then given sales revenue for a magazine that was being run along side a monthly game jam. Though this game jam in particular seems to have told developers to play fast and loose with the theme. So I suppose I won't need to take that aspect of the game into consideration if the people approving these games for the collection weren't. Though, I suppose I should move on from talking about my questions about the sustainability of these business model and get to talk about the plot of this game.

Story
Summary

You play as Artemis, a guy named after the Greek Goddess of the hunt, whose currently looking for a job requiring a journalist since he'd rather not due factory work again. Apparently he was a little to slow as well as had some other issues so he really doesn't want to go back. Though oddly enough while checking out the job listings he finds a blessed pocket watch that can rewind time which will come in handy when his neighbor gets killed by a bat like monster.


Image is from the Doctor Who episode Father's Day

Obviously the ones in game are a lot simpler in appearance, but they seem to share a similar purpose. After all, it appears that Artemis broke time itself by causing a time loop to occur with the aid of the blessed relic. And the only way to end it and repair time is for Artemis to bind himself to the blessed relic which will cause him to die a lot sooner then he would have otherwise. Though how much time Artemis lost to the relic is never explained. We just know he goes onto be a successful writer after this incident. I guess he needed a little creative help like George McFly.


All hail Darth Vader! Favored son of Planet Vulcan!

Greatest Strength/Weakness

I'll admit it's hard to really find a positive aspect to this game's story. This is because it's rather short and a lot of the dialogue tends to exist for the sake of exposition. As such, it's hard to get a feel for either Artemis, the main character, or Melody, his upstairs neighbor. And in a way this is kind of frustrating since the jam this game was submitted to ran for a month. So there was plenty of time to create a story heavy game that was longer and had more time for character moments to help the player get invested. Instead the story feels rushed so I'm left wondering if KazukiT126 decided to enter the jam near the end date and simply tried to slap something together.

Gameplay

On the gameplay front there isn't that much to do beyond running around and interacting with a handful of objects. As such there isn't that much game here. In fact, the biggest chunk comes in the final five minutes or so as you try to navigate your duplex while trying to avoid the time bats.



Which isn't that difficult in my opinion. In fact, the worst part of avoiding them is this little bit shown in the image above since it's not immediately obvious that you can walk behind the car in order to reach the garage opener.

And the final puzzle you need to solve in order to fix everything is an absolute joke if you've got a piece of pencil and paper. Which is something I always keep handy when I'm at my desk, but even then you only need to memorize four numbers in the order they were presented. Which isn't that hard considering the human brain can easily hold around 7 pieces of knowledge at a time before things start getting hazy to the point you'll need to make use of a memory trick of some kind.

Graphics

On the graphical side of things the game is entirely custom if the end credits are to be believed. Which if true is a major positive. Though the game world itself is rather small with the world being comprised of a small handful of rooms. On the negative side of the scale are the facesets for Artemis and Melody which are extremely fugly. So much so that I honestly think it would be an improvement if their facesets were removed from the game entirely.

Sound

Sound wise the game makes use of pretty standard sound effects and background music that was composed by various groups. As such, I'm expecting my Let's Play for this game to get slapped with a copyright claim. Though to end on a slightly brighter note the music selection and utilization was average in my opinion.

Conclusion

"The Void Chronicles: Blessed Relic Chronis" is a short visual novel with only one clear ending. As such the player's input really doesn't matter that much as far as the story goes which is rather disappointing for something calling itself a visual novel. At any rate this might be worth a quick visit if you've got sometime to spare and nothing better to play, but my opinion on it's value is being heavily influenced by this game being short.