Temporal Distortion: place, rotate, chain

Two crews. One beacon. Only one leaves.

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Turn-based strategy · Single-player · Windows · Coming soon

Two crashed crews, one rescue beacon. Place hex pebbles on a salvaged hull plate, then rotate them to strike: higher numbers take lower ones, and every pebble taken strikes on in a chain reaction. Run a chain into the enemy's home row to breach their HQ, and get off this planet.

The Halcyon broke apart in the storm and fell on a world of sand. The Ash Reavers came down with it. One rescue beacon survived the crash, and whoever holds the salvaged hull plate that controls it can call the ship.

Temporal Distortion is a turn-based duel of hex pebbles, played out like a deluxe board game in the dunes. Every pebble has six edges, and every edge a number. Place a pebble, then turn it to strike: its numbers meet its neighbours', and the higher number takes the lower. Every pebble you take strikes on with its own edges, wave after wave, until nothing more falls.

Trailer

Place it, then rotate it

  • Placing positions, rotating attacks

    Each 60° turn costs an action point and strikes all round. Where you put a pebble decides what its numbers can reach; how you spend your few points decides what falls.

  • Chain reactions

    One good turn can flip half the board. Line your pebbles up so that each one taken sets off the next.

  • Breach the HQ

    Run a chain into the enemy's home row, or past an empty slot of it, and their HQ loses integrity. Bring it to zero and the beacon is yours.

  • Blanks and the zero point

    A blank edge never strikes and any number takes it. A 0 takes a 9. Every edge matters, even the low ones.

Sixteen pebbles, three roles

  • Attack

    Cores with the strongest numbers, Sparks that overcharge through equal numbers, Breachers that hit the HQ directly.

  • Defence

    Aegis plates that no chain can take, Wards that harden everything beside them.

  • Utility

    Gyros that spin for free, Gears that turn their neighbours the other way, Amplifiers that make a 7 into a 9.

Who stands next to whom is half the game.

Learn it in minutes, sharpen it for hours

  • A ten-lesson tutorial with Vasha, the Halcyon's chief engineer, one idea at a time on a real board.
  • Eleven puzzles, each a single turn with a goal and just enough action points, proved solvable and with hints when you need them.
  • An AI opponent at three levels that reads the board exactly and looks ahead at your answer.
  • A threat overlay that shows which of your pebbles the enemy can take next turn, and what a move would leave open.

A board game in the sand

The match is played on a printed survey map of the planet, in the wreck of the ship: resin pebbles with printed faces, cards with foil seals, coins that flip as you spend them, tracks round the rim of the board. Bright as a table under lamplight, set on a world that wants you dead.

Coming soon to Steam

Wishlist Temporal Distortion and Steam will let you know the day it lands.

Wishlist on Steam

Support

Stuck on a puzzle, found a bug, or the game won't start? Write to us and we will get back to you.

support@oroi.is

Tell us your Windows version and graphics card if the game misbehaves. The game needs Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit) and a DirectX 12 graphics card.

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