Chroma Zero

Chroma Zero is an unusual abstract 3D puzzle game. This is a game that preferably has to be played with minimal prior knowledge, so this review won’t be detailed as I don’t want to spoil anything.

What I can tell you is that you’re a human bound to a world that defies understanding, a small world composed of 3 massive colored rings that you can rotate and explore.
You’re assisted by a multi-dimensional being that isn’t affected by time, they can be found in various places on the rings. You need to explore and find how you can reach them in order to expand your knowledge and gain new powers that progressively let you decipher this strange world.

The similarities with Outer Wilds are obvious as this game is also about being stuck in a time loop that lets you explore various states of the world. Except this time, your actions are what causes the world to change. Its balance is fragile, and the puzzles are indeed about altering the world itself.
The beginning of the game can be a bit tedious if you don’t find a certain knowledge rather quickly, you’re bound to explore again and again the same limited area while having to repeat the exact same path in order to be able to experiment. But once this part is over, the game truly opens and becomes really fun to discover.

Though the story stays very light, the puzzles are satisfying, the exploration feels very smart, and the music is on point. I don’t often talk about soundtracks, but Chroma Zero has a very good one that perfectly fits the game.

Chroma Zero is a finely crafted game that will surely please any “metroidbrainia” enjoyer. Congratulations to the dev, interesting 3D puzzle games are not easy to make, especially alone.
Highly recommended.

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Developer: ekorz
Publisher: ZeroXP
Platform: Steam – Windows
Release Date: December 12, 2024