Time Warpers

Time Warpers takes the design philosophy and mechanics of an idle clicker, and just builds a bigger, fuller experience. And the end result is easily one of the more elegant implementations of idle clicker elements to date. The idea is to have a massively multiplayer online first-person shooter PvE experience, with a huge progression grind based in idle clicking. Yes, there are many moving parts here, and I'll try to explain this as best I can.

First, we must consider that there is a spectrum between complete idle clicking/AFK and complete active playing. Time Warpers allows the player at any given point to choose where they want to exist on that spectrum. And really, your place on that spectrum will depend on your strategy and goals. You want to idle this in the background to grind some levels? Sure, we can do this for the most part. You want to run through FPS-style and actively progress with even more benefits? Yep, we have that option, too.

One of the best parts of this title is playing with the community on the public server. The whole thing feels alive with folks running convoys to gain ground, or just having people in the chat discuss strategies and such. So far, the community is beyond nice and helpful, and has created it's own subculture at this point. Do you have to interact with the community? Nope. You can play offline or just stay to yourself, but being online is a huge part of the charm here.

There is a lot of layers here, and a good bit to learn. I suspect it takes dozens of hours for most people to grasp all the mechanics. In fact it took me five hours before I even had the option to 'idle'. At fifty hours in - I'm still learning fundamental things and strategies. Explaining how everything works isn't useful here. All you need to know is that there are some tower defense elements, heavy loadout management, a great and intuitive UI, and a wickedly addicting gameplay loop.

The only people I wouldn't recommend this game to would be those that simply want nothing to do with any idle clicking elements whatsoever. Yes, this is perhaps the most complex use of idle clicker elements - but at the core they are still present.

Pros:
+This is a feature-complete game in my opinion, and is wonderfully polished.
+The most impressive implementation of idle clicker elements to date.
+Balance feels great. Everything is well thought out.
+The massively multiplayer PvE experience is remarkable.
+I love the layers of complexity mixed in with idle clicker elements.
+The community is helpful and kind.
+The world is quite beautiful and I've become really fond of it.
+I love the butterfly collection elements.
+The upgrades are awesome. Particularly the hoverbike speed!
+Horribly addicting.
+Weapon perk/loadout management is fantastic.
+I appreciate that this doesn't go on deep sales during the Early Access campaign.

Cons:
-If you despise idle clicker elements, this probably won't change your mind - although it is much more active in general.

Easily easily worth full price for anyone looking for something totally fresh.

---{Graphics}---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☑ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ Paint.exe

---{Gameplay}---
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☑ It‘s just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Starring at walls is better
☐ Just don‘t

---{Audio}---
☐ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☑ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ Earrape

---{Audience}---
☑ Kids
☑ Teens
☐ Adults
☐ Human

---{PC Requirements}---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☑ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boiiiiii
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{Difficulity}---
☐ Just press ‚A‘
☑ Easy
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{Grind}---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isnt necessary to progress
☑ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You‘ll need a second live for grinding

---{Story}---
☑ Story?
☐ Text or Audio floating around
☐ Average
☐ Good
☐ Lovley
☐ It‘ll replace your life

---{Game Time}---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☐ Average
☐ Long
☑ To infinity and beyond

---{Price}---
☐ It’s free!
☐ Worth the price
☑ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{Bugs}---
☐ Never heard of
☑ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

Disclaimer: This review covers only the single player aspect of the game. If you want to know about the multiplayer mode and its community, be sure to check Ryan’s review

A new kind of clicker game

Time Warpers pushes the clicker genre forward. While it can be easily mistaken with just another clicker game with great graphics (based only on screenshots and trailers), the moment you get to play it, your opinion will surely change. Combining the action of loot shooters and ARPGs with the addictive progression of a clicker game, Time Warpers rewards active play. You can progress faster when you are actively playing, but of course, if you want to idle you can still make progress. You even earn gold to buy upgrades when you’re offline. What’s not to like?

Learning curve

Gameplay here is pretty straightforward, but you will still need about four or five hours to discover all game mechanics. Those initial hours are like a giant tutorial, and while this long introduction can turn off some people, those who persist will be rewarded with one of the most engaging games recently released. You basically are always progressing – there’s always something new to unlock – a new ability, a new weapon, a new research, etc. And there are collectibles too! At every five minutes, a rainbow butterfly will appear near your turret, and if you collect it, you’ll receive a huge gold boost. Each level is subdivided in 100 zones, and in every zone you have to collect red butterflies that will reward you with an extra amount of gold at the end of the level. There’s also blue butterflies at each 10 zones that gives you Time Cubes, that are used to research for better DPS (damage per second), more DPC (damage per click), more rewards, and much, much more neat features that wouldn’t fit in this review. These Time Cubes leads to another topic, which is:

Gameplay loop

If you have played a clicker game before, you will feel right at home at how the gameplay loop works here. If you haven’t, let me explain: you won’t progress forever and ever. At some time you will hit a wall and will need to Time Warp (yes, like the title implies), which is basically starting from zero again, but with more bonuses and more attack power. While this can sound a bit off-putting for those not familiar with clicker games, believe me, it’s the contrary – this gameplay loop is one of the things that makes this game so addictive. And as you get more Time Cubes, you can do a research that allows you to start in more advanced zones - just don’t forget to research for more DPS and DPC first, otherwise, you won’t be able to kill those tougher monsters. And – here it comes my favorite feature of this game – you can play Time Warpers like a roguelite. Each time you do a Time Warp, you can apply some modifiers, which includes Permadeath (after dying, the games forces you to Time Warp), No Healing Stations (but you still have a chance to get health drops from big bosses at some point), No Ghost Progress (which means no idling in-game) and No Hover Bike (a feature that plays the game for you). And, yes, enabling these modifiers (separately and/or combined) gives you a huge Time Cubes bonus, which leads to more research, which leads to more gold, which leads to faster progress, which leads to more fun!

Development

Time Warpers is being made by Proton Studios – the same team that developed Time Rifters and Time Clickers. While I haven’t played the previous games of these devs, with Time Warpers I’m a huge fan already. The game is basically finished, given the amount of content (5,000 zones so far, with more to come) and polish (I haven’t found any bugs yet and the interface is very easy to use). There are huge updates at every two weeks and some smaller patches in between. The developers are also easy to reach and are always listening to the community, so if you like the idea of helping to shape the future of this game, you’ll have a great opportunity here.

Closing notes

With huge amounts of content, very fun gameplay, appeal to both idle and active players, some innovations, and a responsive dev team, Time Warpers is an easy recommendation for everyone who loves loot shooters, clickers, ARPGs and games that simply makes you feel good. Time Warpers is pure dopamine rush!

Pros:
* Very fun and addictive gameplay
* Easy to use and intuitive interface
* Rewards active play
* Progression even when you’re offline
* Single player and multiplayer modes (public servers or friends only)
* Dedicated and responsive dev team

Cons:
* Nothing major, but movement is a bit clunky on low gravity levels