Chronal Dissonance

Chronal Dissonance is a top down shooter that, rather than putting emphasis on precise micromovements, tries to reward you as much as possible for taking risks and moving. This is done through a dash mechanic that lets you dash through energy based projectiles, but not physical based ones, in addition to a damage multiplier based on how often you dash and a special attack meter. 

You play as Lorenzo Allegretto, a notorious thief bearing the Curse of Time, which allows him to rapidly accelerate his body's movement, at the cost of becoming older and frailer. With the mafia unleashing robots, they begin an attack on the city, chaos ensuing. Lorenzo, itching for some fun, heads into the Backstreets, aiming to destroy all the robots and reduce them into nothing but scrap. 

Chronal Dissonance was created by a team of 7 (down to 5) people at ACM GameBuilders, a student game studio at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It is heavily inspired by the games Sora (Suguri II) and Nuclear Throne, lifting many design notes and mechanics from both of them. Work on this project took place between September 2024 and December 2024. 

This project is one of five games that represent the fifth effort by the studio to create a released game, the others being Swap Strike, Tunnel Crawlers, Pathogenesis, and The Downstairs. With a drastic shift to the Studio's structure this semester, and with our team being one of the smallest, it's incredible that our team was able to produce this game, and we are incredibly proud of both this team and the others who worked on the other games. The future looks very promising for GameBuilders, and this will allow us to produce more games each semester! 

Credits