Chronocritters - If you enjoy time traveling cute critters with satisfying strategy euro board game
Transcript
Hi everyone, it's Stella and Tarrant from Meeple University. Welcome to the classroom. Today we'll do overview and review of Chrono Critters. This is an Essen 2026 release.
Yes, this is a one to four player game from Delicious Games, designed by Tristan Heraud, and development of the solo mode by Vladimir Suchy.
Yeah. So, what we're going to do, we're going to give you a a quick thematic overview, the game overview, and then get to the review. So, this is Chrono Critters. It's 2562 is the year, and a massive disaster has left time and space falling apart. And your best hope is an ancient intelligence with the knowledge to put everything back together. You just need to help restore the knowledge using bits of forgotten technology found in underground caves. Luckily, you've got the Chrono Critters, time traveling animals that build portals to places and resources you couldn't otherwise reach. The catch, the seasons keep changing, and those portals don't last long. So, timing everything is absolutely important.
You're competing to do the most to restore the ancient intelligence and earn the knowledge to save reality. And that's Chrono Critters. Basically, saving the world and by sending cute animals to different timeline. How's that, Tarrant?
That's pretty much Yeah, that's pretty much the theme. You're time traveling critters, and you do some crittery things like collecting berries.
Yes.
And you do some time travelly things like repairing your computer.
Yes.
So, it's it's a it's a little bit uh thematically asynchronous, I might say, to give an early review point, but uh we'll see.
Yes, let's get to the overview.
Right, these are the core components. This is the central board. These are your two player boards. This is a game that plays over seven rounds. It is, at its core a worker placement game. You begin the game with three level one workers. Uh you can get a fourth level one worker or you can level up your ones through two to three across the course of the game. The round is played, so as I say, seven rounds played over different phases of the year. So, it's a time traveling game and to begin the game we're in spring [snorts] represented by this.
Oh, it's the best time of the year.
It's spring now. It's quite nice.
Yeah.
We time traveled last night, by the way.
We did a one hour
Time traveled one hour.
Yes.
Uh then you've got two seasons in summer or two rounds in summer, sorry. Two rounds in autumn and two rounds in winter and that's the course of the game. It's in many ways your typical kind of worker placement game. You've got your placement spaces that can only hold one critter and you've got your placement spaces that can hold any number of critters. Uh typically if you go to an action space later, so some first sometimes second will get the action space for free. If you go there later, you're going to have to pay some sort of resource and then eventually you'll run out of space there entirely and no one will be able to go there anymore. Uh the action spaces that are available in a given round are these ones over here. They're always available. You've also got one on your player board that's always available.
And then you've got the action spaces in the middle of the wheel corresponding out to the season you're currently in. So, I could take this action here and it relates to taking one of these tiles from the current season. I could take this action and it relates to taking berries from the current season or I could take dice from the uh the rim where I am at the moment. And there's a special action in each season. So, you're limited for what you can take in each particular round. And that's where the time travel comes into play. As a free action, you can put a time travel portal, which is one of these D3s. You don't see D3s very often, so that's exciting on its own, right? But you don't roll them. You spend a die, a purple die from your board.
Uh and how many pips that has divided by three rounded up tells you how long the portal is going to last for. And you spend these uh hourglasses, sand time particles, to see how far forward or back in time you place that portal. And then while you've got a portal in one of these segments, you can take the actions in that segment as well. And so through through play, you're trying to make sure you've got time in the right place. Every round, this entire wheel, including your portals, will be rotating. So, everything is going to change. Your portals will decay and ultimately come off the board depending on how strong they were to start with. And really one of the cores to this game is your your computer area, your hard disks and your dockings and things like that, which contain these dice. So, these dice are a die placement puzzle game.
They're also So, you're trying to complete little objectives here. For example, I'm putting this tile here. It means I have to have three I can complete this and gain some benefits by having three orange dice in a row in that row. I could com uh place three dice in this row that add up to a value between three and seven, and I would get to resolve this benefit.
Has to be three dice.
Has to be three dice. So, you're trying to place dice strategically to meet these objectives. And you can go and get more of them from these action spaces, and you can you know, put them in your spaces and get bonuses and triggers and things like that. But the dice aren't just for this placement puzzle. The dice are also a resource. A lot of the actions you're going to take will require spending these dice. And generally speaking, the more pips are on them, the more valuable the action is going to be. So, I've already explained spending purple dice to open up portals. You'll be spending orange and green dice to actually gain these new tokens. So, you're trying to manage what's in your pool against the various different objectives you're trying to achieve.
These square tiles are completed by getting the dice. You can also get these rectangular tiles. They're an action that's associated with the season. And these, generally speaking, are objectives requiring you to spend combinations of berries. And the berries are time-limited as well. So, you've got to go to spring to get the spring berries and autumn to get the autumn berries and so forth. So, you're collecting these berries to try to complete these. And you're collecting dice to try to complete these. And then eventually, you can uh make combinations of two of the same color. Once you've completed the Let's pretend I completed all of that. Sure. And as you complete these, you get points based on how early it is in the game and points for all of these pairs of matching colors at the end of the game. That's a huge number of your points.
Right.
So, a big a big part of the game is ultimately dice placement contract fulfillment and berry contract fulfillment in specific colors. There's a few other things you can chase here. So, there are the purple rectangular tiles. They work a little bit differently to these berry objectives. Uh they're more expensive to get, but they're just immediate and ongoing bonuses or they might be end-game scoring bonuses. And there's various ways of getting little extra resources around the place. Little Little bonuses for each of your actions. There's a column area control bonus mechanism up here. It's the dam. Uh you know, where critters building computers, but also we have a beaver on our roster who's building dams. So, you can go up there and spend It's wood is one of your resources. You basically spend all of your wood or most of your wood to start putting these uh cubes down here that give you little bonuses and that contributes to uh the You can only
The bonuses?
The More of this opens up from uh round to round. So, each time you've got a new round, more of it opens up. But then you gain the little bonuses and then the columns will score at the end of the game.
The majority control?
Yes.
Yeah.
Uh there are some immediate goals that you can chase over here. There's mining. So, over in winter, you can go mining. It costs you grand ice, but then you unlock some pretty good incomes
Yes.
down here. So, if you invest early, that can really pay back later on.
But the only way to invest early is by sending time portal, right? Because you can't get to winter until round seven eight six and seven.
Yes, exactly. If you just wait for it to be winter, you're not going to do much for mining. If you get some portals, you can get in there really early. You can build up energy. This is a slightly different track resource where if you You've got two tracks and if you invest in just one of them, it'll get to the top more quickly cuz energy is what upgrades your critters. Uh but if you invest in them both, they'll just kind of auto generate each round. So, you've got a little bit of a decision to make there. Uh you can go and find actions that give you golden plates. These can be spent to manipulate your dice up or down by one. Uh or you can collect six of them to get your fourth resource or your fourth What is this?
Worker.
Worker.
Peacock.
Uh the peacock. And again, this is something you can collect over many rounds, but the action to get the peacock is in spring, so you've got to go back in time to actually get the peacock. Um, yeah, that's most of what we've got. These dice are not limited to six, as well. You've got these special dice that will go up as high as nine, um, to make these actions strong. So,
Yes.
lots of different things going around. You can get the dice you need, or you can get dice from different actions.
And then there's also competitive first in get bread get dressed first.
Yes. These are There's only one available for each in a two-player game. A couple more come out at higher player counts. Um, they're not huge scoring things, but they give you some nice little perks. Uh, really the big scoring things are these level two objectives here that will give you a straight nine points, or an objective that you should be able to make worth 15 to 20 points for you if you get the right ones, as well as this down here, creating lots of pairs of matching colors. Um, yeah, there we go. That's That's really the summary of what's going on in this seven-round worker placement game.
I think that's a pretty good pretty damn good summary. It's That's basically it. You just need to get the account detail Sorry, the icon details. You can also upgrade your workers, uh, as you stated, paying energy. And some of these are really useful, and then your old worker will go to this area, which then uh, adjacently, if you play adjacently, will unlock resource and points immediately.
Yes. Yeah, and that gives you either a choice to generalize and get all of these rewards, or you can specialize. The spaces give you little perks for higher-value workers. It's not as if you can bump someone out with a higher-level worker or anything, but some of them, in particular, you don't have to pay the extra cost for getting that second or things like that.
Yeah. So, what we think First, I want to say this is slightly the end of the like towards the end of the game. It feels a bit like Viticulture without the expansion, I think, where Oh, I need to gain lots of points here, but there's only this much spaces for everyone can go to. It's just usually like to towards the end like I need to get the number two chip so that you gain the points. And like I had that experience. It's like, "Oh, I cannot get that." Because the space is full. So, obviously this is like one and two players, one and two players, and then three plus players, and four players only.
Yeah, that's a that's a good observation. I would say it is it's a little bit that way. It's very expensive to get those.
I know.
And that's the only difference with the original Viticulture thing is that everyone's got enough stuff to make a lot of wine and funnel it into the one space. Whereas, you're not going to have enough dice or things to get
Well,
six or seven of those.
Technically, technically though, if you are if you are investing on your dice and all of these are flipped, and then you're just like, "I don't need the dice anymore there." What I'm going to do? And then you just go there, but then timing, right? It's
It's true. It makes you think about those a little bit earlier. It makes you have to consider giving up those dice or fighting for turn order up here on the dam. So, it makes an interesting Yeah, interesting little time.
Taran? What do you think?
This game I really enjoy this game. The you think about the the kinds of things I like in Euros and worker placements, I don't like to have, you know, free reign. I like to fear that some I always like to fear that someone is going to take the action I want if I don't do it now. [clears throat] That choice between de-optimizing my turn cuz someone might take something very important to me. And so many of the aspects of this game really feel that way. There are many points where it feels 5 to 10 of my percent of my score less efficient to do something earlier to make sure I can do it.
Not to mention if you pass the season, you can't get there anymore, right?
Yes, as well. And uh you'll you'll move the season so it's like, all right, I have to do it now or I have to get this I need a high value green and this is the only one that's anywhere near the current season. So, I have to spend my turn taking that if I ever want it.
Like obviously they don't get replenished and then they just like place at set up.
Yeah. Yeah, so you've got players fighting for those. You've got objectives here that sweep through pretty quickly. Like there's four of these tiles at any given time, but two of them get swept out every round. Yes. So, if you see something you want, you've got one one and a half rounds to go and get it. Which means you have to prioritize that action.
Or it doesn't have it doesn't have an or because it can it's available that space is available at any time. It's just gone.
Yes. Yeah, this one is not linked to a season, but it is it sweeps through quickly. So, you've you've got to be on the money for it.
Yes.
Um the the cost the cost to go and take an action someone's already taken is meaningful.
Mhm.
It either costs an extra berry, which as you play, you realize is a bit more it feels like the berries are the basic resource, but there's four different types and you're often quite heavily optimized on berries. So, it means something to pay that berry. It means something to lose a die to get an action second. So, I like that. These objectives are important and there'll be a couple that are clearly better for you than others. And so again, getting in there quickly to get it before someone else does. You feel that tension.
Yeah, definitely. First time we play, it just Oh my gosh, what am I going to do, when am I going to do it? Like what and when? And that's really comes together towards I don't know the next play or towards the end of the game. I'm more like the next play. It's kind of like I don't know what I'm doing. I just like block and I Oh, oh, okay. I I missed that bit. It's it's really tight. I would say that it could be a little brutal, but then again at first, but I think there are other ways that you can get more points later on.
Mhm. And there's always lots of ways to get the things you want, but they're not Again, they're not easy ways. There's not Every action I take, I'm going to get an extra die or some extra pips or gold plate or something like that. You've got to You've got to find the one that works for you.
Mhm.
And and really chase it down. I like the way the gold plates work quite a lot. Getting that fourth worker out is, you know, it's typical typical in worker placement types of games. You know, you often want to gun for the the extra worker. That was always how you play Russian Railroads or things like that.
And you don't have to feed your extra work your workers.
That's true. But you have to pay six gold plates for it, which sounds like a lot. And it's quite a There's There's a couple of actions that get you gold plates, and there's a couple of bonuses that get you gold plates. And prioritizing those or hunting them down so you can get your extra worker a round or two early is a it's an important decision. And it's a bit of a commitment, and I like that. Again, it's it's de-optimizing to try to get somewhere sooner or to try to get somewhere if I've got a portal that's like looping around here, I have to get it in that round or or I have to open another portal cuz there's only one round for that portal where it's going to be able to get the peacocks.
That's right. That's right. Prioritizing, but then again, when you talk about prioritizing this, there's also prior- prioritizing energy because you want to try to get in early to get at least one energy, right? Because then it generates energy each round. Otherwise, you'll miss that opportunity.
Yep.
And there's also the prioritizing getting the things at the right time before our opponents get it and before the season pass.
Yep.
So many priorities there.
Lots of priorities, but lots of it
in a good way.
Yeah, absolutely. It I think it's easy to look at the rules for this and look at how many places there are to get lots of little micro bonuses and look at the fact that you've got a big dice placement and grid puzzle here. Like you see this kind of thing in a game these days and you will instantly go to, "Ah, well, I'm working on my board. I'm trying to optimize this perfectly." But it really isn't like that. The fact that you're constantly spending these dice to take actions as well as gaining dice to make your objectives really brings it back together and it makes it very interactive and competitive in that way.
Ideally, you want to complete an objective of your tile first before and then removing the die to pay for an action.
Yep.
Yeah, ideally.
Yeah, which again means that you you may have to do something earlier so you can do that.
Ineffective, inefficient turn.
Yep. There's this nice little thing that's again not obvious on first look, but there are some of these require very, very low values and they're quite precise. So, they're they're relatively high high But some of them require really high values, like 21 to 27. So, you have to have these upgraded dice with the extra pips. You have to have pushed them beyond that. And, those are worth a lot of rewards. And so, again, do I keep lots of low value dice cycling through getting minor rewards, but being able to complete more of these objectives? Or, do I keep and optimize a few high value dice that then really aren't available for me to spend or won't be available until later.
Yes. By the way, this is a pre-production copy of the game. So, some of these So, these are not final. I think the color is coloring is also um not final. And, I In summary, we both really enjoyed. We both really like the game. It's got a really good dice puzzle that's quite different. And, the timing element is really tough, which is really, really good. Am I summarizing that right?
Yes, I would say so.
Yay! If you are interested in what you seeing here, check out Chrono Critters from Delicious Games. It will be first available on retail on Essen Spiel 2026, obviously, and beyond. If you're not there, order it there. And, thank you so much for watching. Please let us know what games you are excited about in as from Essen Spiel 2026 in the comments below. And, have a great day. Bye.