CHRONO ACES: One Finger, Six Eras, 360° of Sky

A shooter that scrolls every way

CHRONO ACES is an all-direction aerial shooter you play in the browser. The camera looks down on your fighter, which always stays in the middle of the screen, and the sky scrolls in whatever direction you fly — north, south, or in tight circles. Enemies come from every side, so there is no 'top of the screen' to hide at.

The story is GameNow's Arena & Expedition world: a runaway machine legion slipped back through time and let loose copycat squadrons in six eras. You fly for the Chrono Patrol and chase them from 1917 to 2199. The enemy aircraft look like the planes of their era, but they are the legion's copies, so they carry a red glow underneath — that is also how you tell friend from foe at a glance.

One finger, any direction

On a phone you put your thumb anywhere on the screen and push toward where you want to go. The fighter turns toward that direction and keeps flying; when you lift your thumb it holds the heading, so you can rest your hand and still be flying with purpose. Turning is fast but not instant — the Greyhound turns about 229° a second — which is what makes the classic loop-and-shoot dogfight feel right.

Firing is automatic on touch and gamepad (it can be switched off in the pause menu), so your thumb only steers. Three round buttons at the bottom right do the rest: DODGE, DECOY and BRAKE. On a computer you steer with the arrow keys or WASD, or simply move the mouse — the fighter flies toward the cursor — with Space or left click to fire and Shift or right click to dodge. A gamepad uses the left stick, with RT or A to fire.

Three time-patrol fighters

The Greyhound is the all-rounder: 215 speed, twin guns firing 9 shots a second, one shield and a dodge that returns after 2.2 seconds. The Scimitar is the interceptor: 245 speed, the sharpest turn (about 269° a second), a single gun firing 13 shots a second, and a dodge every 1.5 seconds. The Bastion is the heavy: only 195 speed and the widest turn, but three guns that hit harder, two shields from the start and four decoys instead of three.

Every fighter starts with three lives. A hit with no shield costs a life; you come back two seconds later in the same place with 2.5 seconds of invulnerability and at least one shield, and your weapon drops one level.

Six eras, six skies

Each era has its own sky and its own palette. 1917 Golden Fields is a patchwork of wheat and amber fields with a river, fought against Fokker, Balilla and Sopwith Camel biplanes. 1943 Storm Strait is a cobalt sea under heavy cloud, with lightning flashes, against Spitfire, Hellcat and Mustang fighters. 1972 Red Canyon is terracotta mesas under a hot sun, and the F-4s and MiG-21s there fire homing missiles.

1991 Sunset Harbor is a pink and violet city by the water, where Cobra, Tiger, Apache and Hind helicopters do not fly past you but hover a short way off and circle you while they strafe. 2031 Aurora Ice Field is a bright snow plain with ribbons of light, with F-22s, Su-57s and drone swarms. 2199 The Time Rift is a violet and gold void where flying saucers teleport around you every three to five seconds.

In every era you first fill a kill gauge — 30 kills in 1917 rising to 44 in 2199 when you fly solo — and then the boss arrives.

The bosses

Each boss is a huge aircraft that sweeps past you in long curves and cycles through attack patterns every three to four seconds, faster once it is below half health. The Iron Airship of 1917 throws rings of bullets, aimed fans and escort fighters. The Flying Fortress of 1943 adds flak: red rings appear around you and burst into eight shots a moment later, with a falling whistle as a warning. The Stratosphere Bomber of 1972 mixes flak with missile salvos.

The Twin-rotor Hauler of 1991 fires lines of rockets and calls in more helicopters. The Shadow Wing of 2031 cloaks for 2.4 seconds — it cannot be hit while it shimmers — and comes back with a ring of shots and spiral volleys. The Legion Cruiser of 2199 sweeps a beam of bullets across you and spins spirals. When a boss falls, every remaining enemy explodes, the screen is cleared and you jump to the next era.

Four weapons, three levels

Glowing supplies drop from elite enemies (they glow red and take three times the hits) and from V formations. Fly through them to collect: S is the Spread gun (3, 5 or 7 shots in a fan), L is the Lance (long bolts that pierce up to four enemies), H is Homing (two to four small missiles that find targets, while your normal guns keep firing), and R is Rapid (16 to 22 shots a second).

Picking up the weapon you already have raises it a level, up to 3. Picking up a different one switches to it and keeps your level. ◆ adds a shield (up to three) and ✦ adds two decoys.

Dodge, decoy and the time brake

DODGE is a phase dash: for half a second your fighter more than doubles its speed and enemy bullets and missiles pass straight through it. It recharges in 1.5 to 2.8 seconds depending on the fighter. DECOY is the future version of chaff and flares: it drops a sparkling lure behind you, every missile chasing you turns to it, nearby enemies aim at it for 1.8 seconds, and enemy bullets close around you vanish.

Every 12 kills fill the time brake. Press BRAKE and for four seconds every enemy, enemy bullet and missile moves at 35% speed — in co-op it helps the whole patrol. The screen edges show arrows for anything off-screen: red for enemies, BOSS for the boss, coloured for supplies, and blinking white for an incoming missile, which also turns the screen edges red and sounds an alarm.

Chains, formations and time-lost pilots

Kills within 2.5 seconds of each other build a chain: from the third kill the multiplier is ×2, from the seventh ×3 and from the twelfth ×4. About every 15 seconds a V formation of five crosses your path; down all five for a supply drop and 1,000 points.

Yellow ☺ capsules carry time-lost pilots. They stay for 18 seconds; the first is worth 500 points and each one after that doubles, up to 5,000.

Three stars

Clearing an era earns one star. Two stars if you were shot down at most once, and three if you were never shot down and finished within the era's par time — 2:50 in 1917 up to 4:10 in 2199. Clearing an era adds 3,000 points plus 1,500 per star, and opens the next era.

If an era is too hard, the Shield boost option starts you with one extra shield and refills one every 20 seconds, but limits the result to two stars. After each run the result screen shows your next goal, and you can send the run as a challenge link: your friend flies the same era, the same fighter and the same enemy spawns.

With friends

Co-op patrol takes up to four pilots. The host can launch straight away and friends join mid-patrol from the link or a four-character code. Each extra pilot raises the kill goal by 60% and the boss's health by 70% of the solo values, and the par time for three stars grows by 15% per extra pilot. If you run out of lives, you watch and cheer while the others carry on.

Team dogfight is Team Chrono against Team Red, from 1v1 to 4v4, under any of the six skies. Bots can fill empty seats. A match lasts three minutes or until a team reaches the kill target (8 plus 4 per seat: 12 in 1v1, 24 in 4v4). You respawn three seconds after being shot down, supplies appear in the arena every 8 to 12 seconds, and if you fly too far from the centre your fighter turns back on its own.

What you see is what you dodge

When you play with friends, the server runs the rules 30 times a second and sends the state 15 times a second, but each browser flies its own fighter and sends its position 20 times a second. Your bullets are judged on your screen, and so are the bullets, missiles and collisions that hit you. In a game this fast, that means a dodge that looks clean on your phone is clean — the server only checks that hits are possible (distance and how many shots you actually fired).