Overview
A guide focused on basic game mechanics that ought to be understood to be able to play Chrono Ark.Are you finding it difficult to understand how to even get started, let alone worrying about developing strategies? This guide is aimed at giving you the core lessons in how to begin enjoying Chrono Ark to the fullest.*Possible spoilers ahead* Please proceed at your own discretion.
Introduction
Welcome to this comprehensive beginner’s guide.
By no means am I an expert on this game, however, what I did find was that when I first played I was definitely overloaded by the sheer amount of things going on to the point where I was struggling to even get past the first few battles without losing most of my health. This impeded my enjoyment so much that I didn’t try again for a few months.
This is a guide focused on allowing you to get started with this game. With this genre of game play, there is an element of self discovery that can be part of the fun, repeatedly dying because you are learning a new mechanic, or getting wiped out because the team isn’t planned out properly. However, if it is getting in the way of even being able to play, then the enjoyment will suffer for it.
Once I started understanding how to get going, I started enjoying the game a lot more. I believe there is a lot of charm in this game and I hope I can aid you in exploring what could lead you into another few hundred hours of game time.
The screenshots taken in this guide are not done using a fresh save file and with a fair few hours of game time invested, so please be aware there may be discrepancies between what you see in your file.
I’m writing under the assumption that the reader also has a fair bit of prior experience playing other games, as such some key terms are used under the assumption that they will be understood, however, if this is a problem I will aim to adjust terminology as appropriate.
A lot of this information you can work out with trial and error. But if you’re looking for some detail on specific basics, this is the guide for you.
Notes
This guide was written during early access on version 1.5. There may be some differences that may arise as updates are made.
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16/02/21: Added more information on items.
14/02/21: Version 1.0 completed, uploaded and reformatted. Happy Valentine’s day!
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Hub world
Once you’ve clicked into a new game you will find Lucy, our cute little MC, waking up in her room.
You’ll gain control of her and are now free to explore the world.
Standard keyboard and mouse controls are:
- WASD: to move
- E: to interact with ‘?’ icons
- Mouse: to highlight things and interact with the UI
There are a few things of note within the bedroom: the mirror (cosmetics), the radio (lore) and the door (exit). Walk at the door and it will automatically take you outside to the hub world.
This is what you will see when you leave the house:
Exploration near the research tower:
Here you can walk around and talk to various characters and NPCs dotted around. It’s not a huge area, so it’s worth familiarising yourself with the general layout. Most important is the tall building directly to the right of Lucy’s house.
This is the research lab where you will come back to later on. If you’re familiar with rogue-lite game play, this is where you’ll invest into future runs. Early on you won’t be able to do anything here, so carry on for now.
When you interact with the researcher standing outside of it you’ll get various hints.
When you interact with the building you’ll see this menu:
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Unlockable character: Lian
For those that are curious, between Lucy’s house and the research area you’ll see a character called Lian.
As of patch 1.5, you’ll need to come back here to buy skill books necessary to unlock this character. I’d recommend coming back to this after you are more familiar with the mechanics. I’ll cover how to unlock characters later on. For now, feel free to ignore her and it can take a couple tries to get her.
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Progressing to a run:
To continue onto a run of this game, walk to the right, past the research tower and past the gateway, when you leae the screen it will take you to character selection:
Character selection
Consider this as your main lobby where you’ll choose the rough outlines of your team composition.
When you first start, you may notice also note that there are a lot of blacked out characters that are not usable at the moment. If you mouse over each character it’ll tell you the conditions that need to be met in order to use them. A lot of them will be unlocked if you can beat a few checkpoint bosses a few times, do not to worry, this roster will grow quickly.
Spoiler image of the character selection screen.
DON’T view if you want to keep the unlocks a mystery (ver 1.5):
Characters have been assigned roles, similar to what you might find in an RPG, detailed as dps, tank, and support: the icon next to each portrait tells you what role each character is best at.
In Chrono Ark, these roles are not rigid. Most characters will have access to skills outside of their designated role. Just because it says healer, doesn’t mean they do no damage.
For now, the take away is that by the end of the game a team will consist of up to four members that you will grow and develop based on what you get along the way. Remember that it’s possible to fix a team of it’s shortcomings over time.
There is fantastic guide on team composition and skills by DeadEnd that is readily available.
To get started, Hein and Joey are two straightforward characters.
Hein: The swordsman with a smirk.
Joey: The steampunk plague doctor.
When you’re ready to go, pick your difficulty and carry onto the map.
Normal is a good place to start to get a feel for this game.
Map – UI and exploration
On the map screen, you move around as you did in the hub world.
Similarly, you can interact with objects using ‘e’ when you see a ‘?’ symbol above Lucy when you walk next to them.
Lucy entering a stage, the starting location designated by the teleportation pad:
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In the top right you will see the map. You can maximise it by pressing the ‘+’ symbol in the corner and again to make it small again:
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Currency
In the top left, you’ll see currencies and your inventory on the two bars directly underneath.
The currencies are going to be gathered as you play, gold, soul orbs and credits.
- Gold: Unique to each run, used to buy items, fairly common. Don’t be afraid to spend a little at each shop along the way.
- Soul orbs: Unique to each run, used to upgrade your team. All encounters and most objects give these. Some planning is involved in their use.
- Credits: Carried between runs, these are used to unlock things that will be available in the next run back at the research tower in the hub world. You’ll get these for beating bosses.
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Inventory: Items are important to your success, learning the different types of items that are available will make your runs easier.
- Lucy’s necklace: hover over it to see the effect: you’ll always start with this.
- Bread: Used to heal a party member when outside of combat, between areas can be used as a group heal.
- Key: Used to open chests for more items.
- Equipment: Up to two can be put on a character, no duplicates allowed, can be enchanted to get a small perk. Comes in a variety of tiers, generally the rarer an item is, the more effects it holds.
- Potions: Used for permanent changes to stats, healing and other effects.
- Scrolls: Have a variety of uses.
There’s more depth to be explored here, but you’ll pick most of it up as you play.
Note: not all effects are positive, be it enchantments, potion and scroll effects, random usage will usually do more harm than good.
Note: items are usually unidentified which is marked with a ‘?’ symbol, this means that you won’t know the additional effects it holds until you use it. You can get identification scrolls or identify them at a shop for 200 gold (increase with each use, reset between shops). I would not recommend randomly using these without identification first.
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Character portraits
Below the inventory you will see your current team and their portraits.
If you click these it will take you to the character screen.
These options will be broken down later on in this guide under: Map – team improvement.
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Dungeon exploration
If you’ve played dungeon crawlers, you may be familiar with the exploration, as you walk around the hex grid you may notice on the map the darker shades turning lighter with various hexes showing a variety of symbols as you move past them.
The map unveils more detail the more you explore:
Yellow symbols are areas where you can upgrade, what is available depends on what has spawned.
Keep an eye out for piles of loot, from wagons to skull piles, these contain free loot (just press ‘e’ next to them:
You may also come across a variety of buildings, denoted by a chest symbol on the map, when you enter these, the map flips to a side scroll and at the end of a short walk will be a chest that you need a key to open. These hold equipment, orbs, and various other items.
Most areas will also have a shop, where you can buy more keys and other items.
Red ‘!’ exclamation marks show you when a fight is about to start.
To initiate the first, just walk towards it.
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What is this well?
In your exploration when you see this well, turn back for now, this marks a difficult fight that will be covered later.
Here is what it looks like on the overworld:
Combat – UI breakdown
Once you enter your first fight the screen will change to a different interface.
Note: in combat you buffer your skills with a left click, it lets you see what effect using a character skill will have on the combat before you commit.
If you right click while buffered, you can cancel the action.
Your inventory will look familiar, but everything else will look different:
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- The top middle of the screen: There is a number, this represents the turn count.
Combat is comprised on individual turns, broken down into a limited number of actions (acts) that are taken between the player and the enemy. - To the right of the turn count: There is a black cloud.
This is black fog.
It acts as combat fatigue. You are encouraged to take out the enemy efficiently and quickly otherwise you will take taking various punishments that make the combat more difficult. Such as taking damage over time and debuffs that make you weaker in the fight.
If you highlight this cloud, it will give you details on how long before it kicks into effect and what effects it will have.
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On the left side of the screen
- Underneath the inventory: There are a number of blue and black crystals.
This is your mana. This is used by your characters to use their skills which each have an assigned cost. - Between the crystals and the inventory: The End Turn button.
This button is used to carry out a number of effects:- Increases the turn counter by 1.
- Resets your available mana (and cost increases – explained later).
- Enemies waiting to act, act immediately, in turn.
- Resets your limited turn effects – hourglass and recycle.
- Resets fixed ability use.
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- To the right of End turn: There is an hourglass symbol.
This reduces the act counter of all enemies by 1 and allows them to act a bit sooner. Any enemies that reach 0 will perform their queued action. - Underneath the hourglass: There is a recycle symbol.
This allows you to change and discard skills that are inside your hand. When you click it, a recycle symbol or a trash bin icon will appear next to your skills. Clicking the recycle will replace the skill with another from the deck, whilst the trash bin will discard the skill. You will discard when under the effects of crowd control to clear the effect immediately. Temporary skills can not be replaced and will be discarded.Note: Both of these are limited each turn, they reset when you end the turn.
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- To the right of the hourglass: There are two symbols, one is a trash bin and the other is a pile of cards. The pile of cards represent the remaining skills that you will draw from, whilst the discard represents those that have been used. When you run out of cards, your deck is refreshed.
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- The colourful bars underneath the buttons: These are the skills available to you to use this turn.
These will be greyed out while the enemy is doing something and will light up when you can use them. You have infinite time to plan what you want to do between each of your actions. - On the left side of each coloured bar: There is a portrait of the character that the skill belongs to. Who a skill is owned by will be important when it comes to mana economy. This is explained in putting it together.
- The bottom middle of the screen: There are large portraits of your characters with a large symbol of a skill in the bubble. You might notice that the skills in this bubble also cost 1 more than their counterparts in the hand. These are your fixed skills that are available each turn. You can only use one a turn.
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- In the middle: There is an enemy. Multiple enemies will be spread out horizontally on this axis. In this case, we’re fighting a table. Other fights feature more enemies and sometimes reinforcements that will join the fight over time.
A spooky table. - Each enemy has:
- a health bar (red)
- a small number (the health)
- a larger number in a diamond (act count: in this case it’s 3).
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In the bottom left: There is a picture of Lucy.
Combat – Player’s team
Once you’re familiar with the UI, it’s time to understand how a fight is split into different parts.
Whenever the player has priority (enemies have stopped doing things), you have access to your skills.
The start of the fight:
After clicking the ‘fixed ability’ for Hein a few changes to the UI appear:
This is the combat insight that can be used to plan the move before committing.
In the second image, you’ll see the skill by Hein’s portrait is raised slightly, this shows that it is being buffered. Skills on the left will show this buffer by moving slightly to the right.
The spooky table is also being hovered over with the cursor which shows some extra details in the top right, saying how much damage is expected and any multipliers that you might want to consider before attacking. This is handy for combat prediction.
You can cancel using this skill by right clicking elsewhere on the screen.
Note: Enemies have their own multipliers, skills and resistances, look out for effects such as high armour, evasion and taunt status. Make sure to check these before attacking.
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This is what using combat insight looks like when using a skill owned by Joey:
In this instance, I have selected Joey’s attack skill.
It’s important to see that the mana costs of skills increase in both of these instances if I were to use the skill. Using a skill owned by a character increases the cost of their other skills by that character until the next turn. This cost increase also affects and is affected by the fixed ability.
When you start a run, you will only have 3 mana to work with.
This number can be increased later.
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This is how the UI changes after a skill is committed:
I have used one of Hein’s attack skills to damage the enemy.
Note: The basic heal skill in my hand that belongs to Hein has gone up to cost 1 instead of the usual cost of 0.
I am buffering an attack skill with Joey. The UI now reflects the future increase of mana cost this would have on Joey’s basic heal skill in my hand too.
Note: Notice how the cost of both of their fixed abilities has also increased.
Combat – Enemy team
Using the same fight, let’s ignore what is going on for the player and focus on what the enemy is doing.
Back to the start of the fight:
The important thing to be aware of is the number in the diamond next to the health bar of the enemy. This is the action count of the enemy. This is the number of actions that the player can make before they do whatever it is that they have queued up. What they will do will depend on the enemy. Different enemies also act at different times, keep this in mind when you fight multiple at the same time.
Note: Enemies can also have a queue of actions. This will look like a number of diamonds on top of one another. Once the action at the top of the queue is taken, the next one begins queuing right away.
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The number in the diamond in the image is 3.
This means that the current action count at the moment is 3.
After attacking with Hein (taking a player action), the number drops down to 2:
The fight would then progress like this:
- After using 1 more skill, it would drop to 1.
- After using 1 more skill, the player skill finishes it drops to 0.
- The enemy does whatever it was about to do.
Note: If the enemy is killed before this count hits 0 (or as it is hitting 0 then the action is not taken). This is helpful in fights with multiple enemies where you will need to prioritise to minimise how many actions that they take.
The spooky table is killed crushed before it can do anything.
The team leaves the fight healthy.
Combat – Health management
Your health between fights is carried over.
Any dead party members remain dead between fights.
When all party members (except Lucy) are dead, it is Game Over.
Chrono Ark is about managing the resources that are available to you to ensure that you can progress. If you enter a fight with less health then you could have had, you’ll start fighting at a disadvantage and make a loss that much more likely. Health gives you wiggle room for mistakes and learning enemy patterns.
Note: There are some skills that need your health under certain conditions, for example Hein has one that does critical damage if either he or his target is below 40% health.
[Note:[/b] For this section, I do not know the mathematics behind how these concepts are calculated. Nor do I believe my explanation is 100% accurate, but the general principles can be applied to your runs.
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Your health bar comes with two different types.
Red health: this is real health, when you have red health, the character can’t die from one hit.
Green health: this can be considered temporary health.
A boss fight where the red health has been damaged and has been converted into green health:
When green health is hit again, the damage is taken as real red health damage.
Note: Any remaining green health that a character has when a the last enemy is defeated is converted back into red.
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So long as a character has red health, they won’t die.
This mechanic is called Death’s door.
(If you know Darkest Dungeon you may be familiar with this.)
When a player’s character reaches 0 red health it puts them on a revival mechanic. They won’t die immediately, but the next source of damage will (have a chance to) faint them.
When a character takes damage during Death’s door, they will faint, this is affected by a character’s faint resistance, which can be increased with equipment and relics.
Note: Further damage on this character (if they protected for whatever reason) will be dealt as green health damage that can go into the negative. This makes helping the character back up more difficult.
When a character is on Death’s door, their health will be green health that can be healed back into the red zone. If they cross the thresh hold back into the positive they will be taken off Death’s door and guaranteed to survive one more attack.
Note: Be wary of damage over time effects, such as bleed, that deal an amount to the character at the start of the turn. These effects can also faint the character.
Map – Team improvement
After combat and in the map exploration you will pick up soul orbs, equipment and relics along the way that are used to make your team stronger.
You can collect loot from a variety of nodes that are dotted around an area:
Note: There is no reason not to take look that you come across. Even detrimental effects and items you might find a use for at some point. You can discard items if you need inventory space.
Your first jump in power level will be using two soul orbs to level up your characters to unlock their unique ability.
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You can click the portrait on the main screen in order to bring up the character sheet menu:
Here you are able to see an overview of the team.
- On the left: Here are Lucy’s skills.
Here you can upgrade your maximum mana and add powerful draw skills to your deck.
Note: Lucy’s skills often come with a trait called Swiftness that allows you to use the skill without reducing the enemy act counts.
Note: Lucy’s skills are also subject to ramping mana costs.
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Clicking a character’s portrait brings up the screen that is unique to them.
Here, I am highlighting Hein’s level up and can see what effects this would have on his stats
Whenever you level up you will be able to add new skills to the deck.
You are presented with 3 choices from the unique skills available to the character.
For level 2, you will be presented with this option twice.
For levels beyond, you will be presented with this option once.
After you have 5 skills, the default option will begin replacing basic attack and basic heal skills for that character (You can turn this off if you want to).
Note: You can also remove skills from the deck if you do not like them, but you need at least 5 skills on that character to do so.
You can highlight individual skills that are presented in order to see more information about what they do:
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Level 2 unlocks your character ability, these are unique to each character.
Hein unlocks Madness: This is a great ability to see the type of power increase that is possible. Whenever Hein scores a last hit on an enemy, the skill he just used will be recast on a random target. So long as an enemy is killed by Hein, the skill will keep recasting.
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Each character gets 2 equipment slots to use.
To equip items you can either right click equipment from the inventory
or drag it into the slot.
Note: You can move equipment between characters (provided they aren’t cursed).
Unidentified items
On your exploration you will come across many items that are marked with a ‘?’ symbol on them. For scrolls and potions, their effects will be unknown until one has been used or identified during your run. For example, if you use a potion that increases damage, the next time you find that same potion type, it will remain identified until your next run.
Note: The icons for each potion and scroll effect are randomised each run, so it is no good memorising which effect looks like each run.
How to identify items
An important and easy to overlook function is item identification.
You can use what is known as an identity scroll which can spawn in a shop and costs 180 or it can be found randomly when exploring (though the scroll itself is also unidentified at first).
At a shop it is also possible to directly identify items of all types for a 200 gold fee that increases by 100 gold each time it is done at the same shop.
Note: Not all effects are positive for potions, scrolls and equipment alike.
Using unidentified items
Generally speaking, scrolls carry the least detriment for just using them. It’s just a bit wasteful as you can find some use out of most of them.
Equipment can sometimes hold negative or effects that you don’t want on a character when used this way. Equipment can also turn out to be cursed, meaning it cannot be unequipped by the character once it is attached. You can remove a cursed item using a somewhat rarer purging scroll that removes curses from all equipped items.
Potions, I would not recommend using until identified as the effects are much more varied and versatile. They often contain permanent stat increases that you want on specific characters, or hold situational powerful effects, such as a 12 health instant heal that is great for pulled characters off of death’s door easily.
Combat – Boss fights
When you are ready to find the boss, you would have passed one of these wells that is marked by a yellow symbol on the map.
when you walk passed it you’ll see some black fog:
Walk further into it and a boss fight will trigger.
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Each area will have a boss that:
- Are strong
- Have lots of health
- Have special attacks
- Have unique gimmicks
- May summon followers (minions) to aid them
- May add new skills to your deck and hand
- May talk too much
- Have super thematic music (turn it up!)
- Will catch you off guard the first time you fight them and make you say “wtf? I lost??”
If you mouse over any icon it will give you detail on the effect that it will have.
In boss fights they may affect your skills.
Blue border icons have positive effects.
Red border icons have detrimental effects.
Read everything and plan accordingly.
Each boss has it’s own strategy to take it down. Hopefully you are strong enough to beat it, else come back and try again. These fights are tough and sometimes will stomp you even if you’re as strong as you could have been.
Map – Between areas
After you beat a boss: You will be put back on the map of the area you were in. This gives you the opportunity to explore or finish off anything that you need to do before you continue.
When you’re ready, head past where you fought the boss to head to the resting area, you’ll have access to a couple facilities to let you prepare for the next area.
Inside the safe zone you won’t encounter enemies and can take your time preparing for the next area:
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Facilities:
- Campfire: When you interact with it, your party will be healed, reviving anyone that is dead for half that value. At the campfire you can use various items, such as bread (small group heal) or herbs (CC protection). At the end of areas x and x (TBC) you will be able to recruit another party member to round out your team.
Unlocked item spoiler: Note: After you unlock the sweet potato, you can upgrade it by using it at the campfire
- Rabbit donation box: Stores up to 7000 coins in donations that are preserved between runs before it disappears. It’s used to unlock a character. There is no bonus for donating, but once you’re finished donating you don’t need to worry about it again.
- Save pedestal: Lets you quick save if you need to take a break. When you load back in you will be at the start of the next area. Runs can take a couple of hours.
- Relic box: Allows you to use powerful relics that you get from bosses (and rarely through exploration).
To use them, locate the Relic cabinet on the far right of the camp and drag them in like equipment:
Unlocked feature spoiler Angel statue: Unlocked at the research lab. Allows you to recharge the necklace charges. Later upgrades to allow it to act as an even better skill book for a price.
Map – Team improvement cycle
In order to reach the final boss you will want a fairly balanced team. However, how you get these is part of the joy of this game. Discovering different combinations and skills to aid you in your progression.
You can set a fixed ability in the character screen by clicking the trash can icon next to a skill:
This skill will be available to your characters every turn, always costs 1 mana more than it’s base cost and does not get discarded when used. Although you can only use one fixed skill per turn.
Note: In boss fights, it will become important to use this feature as you will run out of skills as they get consumed.
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I recommend aiming to get each of your team members to level 4 at first and weaving in some levels for Lucy as you go. Then focusing on one character that is your main carry.
Your late game level spread will look something like this:
Level 6
Level 5
Level 5
Level 4
6 max mana
3 Draw skills
Hub world – research for future runs
You will find yourself returning back to the hub world at some point.
At this point you will have a few credits to spend to improve your future runs.
Make your way over to the research lab and click the research button:
You’re investing the tokens into your future runs, they are split into 2 categories:
- Upgrades that affect every run.
- Those that are not guaranteed to appear, but have a chance to once they are unlocked.
To do this go to the research tower and you’ll see this option:
Do note that if you have enough credits and you click one of the research, it will unlock it automatically without confirmation. Mouse over them to check what they do in runs.
You won’t be able to unlock the next page of research until you get everything from a page first. Then after you come back to the hub world, the page will reset with the new products.
When a research is unlocked, it will then have a chance of appearing within the next run.
Equipment unlocks: When you beat the penultimate boss with a character in your party, it will unlock their character’s themed equipment.
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To the right of the research tower there is a vending machine where you can also spend 200 credits in order to unlock a cat costume for Lucy. Miao!
Roster expansion – character unlocks
Once you have understood the basics, playing around with other characters is a great way to expand upon existing knowledge. Chrono Ark has a broad cast of members, each with their own style and approach that changes how you might tackle each fight.
Having a bigger roster improves the amount of flexibility you can have within a run, allowing you to adapt as appropriate.
Characters are each unlocked under specific conditions, some are simply beating a certain boss a few times, whilst others need a bit more attention to fulfil. On the character selection screen, if you highlight a shadow it will tell you the criteria for unlocking them.
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Final thoughts
Thank you for reading this guide.
I hope some one gets use out of this, please let me know if there is anything that warrants more looking into.
Honestly, I’m really enjoying the game after I learned more of the mechanics and starting doing reasonably in runs. I didn’t really understand the tutorial and trial and error only got me so far.
Chrono Ark is a lot better than I first gave it credit after a sour beginning. The art is fantastic, the score is just such a bop (clown face) and it’s a refreshing entry into the genre. I just feel the accessibility at the start makes it really difficult to get into.
Well, with this all said, I’m still pretty new, at the time of finishing this, I have under 30 hours of gameplay, but I have managed to complete it on normal with all but 2 characters.
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Also, for whoever needs to see this, have a hug <3 I see you, it’s rough out here, you got this, I believe in you and if you need someone to listen, LMK.
Credits
Thank you all for being part of the community.
DeadEnd – Thanks for writing your guide, I look forward to seeing what you work on next 🙂
AncientSpark – Thank you for being your input and for being the first to do so!