Immortus Temporus was built by a speedrunner for speedrunners and it really shows. The game is purely about getting from A to B in the quickest and most efficient way possible. In that way, Immortus Temporus is a big success and whilst it may lack some graphical pizzazz, all the elements for a tight game are here for you to enjoy.
Your circle character can move in any direction and is teleported in at a specific start point in each single screen level. You’ll need to turn all the lights on in the level to open the exit portal to leave. Doing so under a time limit lets you progress whilst beating a gold time is a badge of honour to open the next set of 10 levels. You can choose to turn the speedrunning time limits off and just progress through the game but it does take a large amount of the fun out of the experience. This is because of the warp mechanic Immortus Temporus uses is so central to saving time rather than completing a level. By removing time limits, there’s no jeopardy. Keep them on if you can help it.
The warp mechanic comes from large circles or shapes, often red and scattered around the levels. These return you instantly to your level spawning position. They are integral to saving time, cutting routes in half, passing obstacles and getting to the finish line in time. This means part of the fun is cantered around exploration of what route is faster. Many levels, especially in the first 50, are quite open ended and so you choose loads of routes before finding the quickest. Then you just need to pull it off, which thankfully due to some consistent controls is largely great to do. There were some rare collision detection issues where I’d get stuck on a wall but that’s the only technical issue I came across. What adds more to the tactical challenge is that level design takes the fact a warp pad deactivates and does nothing once you’ve used it once. This means some levels require a mixture of using warp pads to clear to way to then travel beyond them – a bit like a breakout game. I really enjoyed how the same mechanic was used in lots of different ways.
In the end, I turned off the timer for the later third of the game to see all the levels. I found it helpful to learn the patterns and then go for the speedruns. I just wished there was an online leaderboard for the game. This is a local against yourself affair and that’s a bit of a shame. Everything else is decent though. If you want a speedrunning game where precision and speed is king and you need it on a budget, Immortus Temporus is a decent bet.
Review copy provided by publisher.
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