Welcome to this beginner's guide.

This is a guide focused on allowing you to get started with this game. With this genre of game play, there is an element of self discovery that can be part of the fun, repeatedly dying because you are learning a new mechanic, or getting wiped out because the team isn't planned out properly. However, if it is getting in the way of even being able to play, then you just aren't going to have a good time.

Once I started understanding how to get going, I started enjoying the game a lot more. I believe there is a lot of charm to be enjoyed and I hope I can aid you in exploring what could lead you into another few hundred hours of game time.

By no means am I an expert on this game, however, what I did find was that when I first played I was definitely overloaded by the sheer amount of things going on to the point where I was struggling to even get past the first few battles without losing most of my health. This impeded my enjoyment so much that I didn't try again for a few months.

Please be aware this guide was written years ago, the contents of it I believe are still relevant, but I have not played the game in a long time.
The screenshots taken are from a played game from that time too, so please be aware there may be discrepancies between what you see in your screen.

Some of the descriptions might come across as a bit confusing without trying it yourself, if possible I would highly recommend trying to follow along in game as you read each section. Essentially the world moves around you, so take as long as needed to follow along.

With a little bit of assistance, we can eliminate a lot of the frustration that comes from not understanding how to begin interacting with the game at all.

This guide was written during early access on version 1.5.

06/04/25: Updated flow of text.
16/02/21: Added more information on items.
14/02/21: Version 1.0 completed, uploaded and reformatted. Happy Valentine's day!

Once you've clicked into a new game you will find Lucy, our cute character, waking up in her room.

You take control are now free to explore the world.

Standard keyboard and mouse controls:

• WASD: to move
  
• E: to interact
  
• Mouse: to highlight things and interact with the UI

There are a few things of note within the bedroom: the mirror (cosmetics), the radio (lore) and the door (exit). Walk at the door and it will automatically take you outside to the hub world.



Exploration:
Here you can walk around and talk to various characters and NPCs dotted around. It's not a huge area, so it's worth familiarising yourself with the general layout.

Most important is the tall building directly to the right of Lucy's house.
This is the research lab where you will come back to later on. If you're familiar with rogue-lite game play, this is where you'll spend your meta currency (credits) to invest in future runs.

Early on you won't be able to do anything here, so carry on for now.

Interacting with the researcher standing outside will provide you various hints.



For those that are curious, between Lucy's house and the research area you'll see a character called Lian.
This game features a plethora of unlockable characters, each with their own flair and playstyle, for now let's move on.



To continue onto a run of this game, walk to the right, past the research tower and past the gateway, when you leave the screen it will take you to character selection:

This is your main lobby. You'll choose the starting lineup of your team composition here.

When you first start, you may notice also note that there are a lot of blacked out characters.
These are unusable until you complete their unlock requirements, ranging from progressing to certain points in the game to fulfilling certain conditions.

Spoiler image of the character selection screen after unlocking a few characters.



Characters have been assigned recommended roles, similar to what you might find in an RPG, detailed as dps, tank, and support.

In Chrono Ark, these roles are not rigid. Most characters will have access to skills outside of their designated role. There is a great level of flexibility to explore with entire guides written about team composition.

For now, the take away is that by the end of the game a team will consist of up to four members. There are a number of ways to grow and adjust a team along the way. You can usually find a way to fix a team's shortcomings with a little bit of luck and planning.

There is fantastic guide on team composition and skills by DeadEnd that is readily available.

Hein and Joey are two straightforward characters. I'll focus on them for the guide.
Hein: The swordsman with a smirk - He deals damage, hits hard and fast.
Joey: The steampunk plague doctor - Healing and potions, a flexible support.

Normal is a good place to start to get a feel.
When you're ready to go, pick your difficulty and carry onto the map.

On the map screen, you move around as you did in the hub world.
Similarly, you can interact with objects when you see a '?' symbol above Lucy.



Currency

• Gold: Unique to each run, used to buy items, fairly common. Don't be afraid to spend a little at each shop along the way.
  
  
• Soul orbs: Unique to each run, used to upgrade your team. All encounters and most objects give these. Use them, but do so with a little bit of planning on who you want to invest in, you only get so many.
  
  
• Credits: Meta currency - Shared between runs, these are used to unlock things that will be available in the next run back at the research tower in the hub world. You are awarded these after beating bosses.

Starting inventory: Items are important to your success, learning the different types of items that are available will make your runs easier.

• Lucy's necklace: hover over it to see the effect: you'll always start with this.
  
• Bread: Used to heal a party member when outside of combat, between areas can be used as a group heal.
  
• Key: Used to open chests for more items.

Other Item types:

• Equipment: Up to two can be put on a character, no duplicates allowed, can be enchanted to get a small perk. Comes in a variety of tiers, generally the rarer an item is, the more effects it holds.
  
• Potions: Used for permanent changes to stats, healing and other effects.
  
• Scrolls: Have a variety of uses.
  
  This is not a comprehensive list of what you may find, but will get you started on what to expect.
  
  Note: not all effects are positive, be it enchantments, potion and scroll effects, random usage will usually do more harm than good.
  
  Note: items are usually unidentified which is marked with a '?' symbol, this means that you won't know the additional effects it holds until you use it. You can get identification scrolls or identify them at a shop for 200 gold (increase with each use, reset between shops). I would not recommend randomly using these without identification first.
  
  
  
  - - - - - /// Top Right \\\ - - - - -
  In the top right is your minimap.
  You can maximise it by pressing the '+' symbol in the corner and again to make it small:
  
  
  
  - - - - - /// Under the inventory \\\ - - - - -
  
  Character portraits
  You will see your current team and their portraits.
  
  If you clicking these will take you to the character screen.
  These options are explained later in the guide under: Map - team improvement.
  
  
  - - - - - /// Dungeon exploration \\\ - - - - -
  If you've played dungeon crawlers, you may be familiar with the exploration, as you walk around the hex grid you may notice on the map the darker shades turning lighter with various hexes showing a variety of symbols as you move past them.
  
  Here is an example of how the map unveils as you explore:
  
  
  As you do so, there will be a number of symbol tiles you will find. These represent special interactions you can make on that tile.
  
  For example:
  Yellow symbols are safe areas where you can upgrade your team in a number of different ways. There are a number of different nodes that can spawn in. You do not have to use them immediately if you wish to explore a bit more first.
  
  
  General adventuring
  Keep an eye out for piles of loot, from wagons to skull piles, these contain loot when interacted with
  
  
  Similar nodes that you may also come across a variety of buildings, denoted by a chest symbol on the map, when you enter these, the map flips to a side scroll and at the end of a short walk will be a chest that you need a key to open. These hold equipment, orbs, and various other items.
  
  Most areas will also have a shop, where you can buy more keys and other items.
  
  
  - - - - - /// Combat encounters \\\ - - - - -
  
  Red '!' exclamation marks show you when a fight is about to start.
  
  To initiate the first, just walk towards it.
  
  
  - - - - - /// What about this well? \\\ - - - - -
  It marks a difficult encounter coming up, we'll get to that later, for now, let's go get our ground legs.
  
  

Just a foreword, generally speaking, if you need to cancel something right click.
This can happen if you accidentally click something and don't want to do that.

Combat uses everything that you gathered during the exploration phase and puts you in a threatening scenario. You won't be able to make character adjustments such as levelling up in the middle of a fight. Make sure to prepare before entering fights. Being caught unprepared is a very quick way to lose a run.

But it's too late for that, let's breakdown what exactly it is we are looking at.

Your inventory will look familiar


We will be jumping around the screen a fair bit, it will be easiest if you are able to follow along in your own game and mouse over each element as it comes up.

• The top middle of the screen: The large number represents the turn count.
  Combat is comprised on individual turns, broken down into a limited number of actions (acts) that are taken between the player and the enemy.
  
  
• To the right of the turn count: There is a black cloud.
  This is black fog.
  This is combat fatigue. You are encouraged to take out the enemy efficiently and quickly otherwise you will take taking various punishments that make the combat more difficult. Such as taking damage over time and debuffs that make you weaker in the fight.
  Highlighting this cloud will give you details on how long before it kicks into effect and what effects it will have.

Underneath the inventory:

• Blue and black crystals.
  This is your mana. This is used by your characters to cast their skills. Skills have an assigned cost that will change over the course of a turn.
  
  
• Between the crystals and the inventory: The End Turn button.
  This button will affect a number of things:
  
  • Increases the turn counter by 1.
    
  • Resets your available blue mana (and cost increases of skills).
    
  • Forces enemies waiting to act, act immediately, in turn.
    
  • Resets your limited turn effects - hourglass and recycle.
    
  • Allows you to reuse a 'fixed' ability.

• To the right of End turn: hourglass symbol.
  This reduces the act counter of all enemies by 1 and allows them to act a bit sooner. Any enemies that reach 0 will perform their queued action.
  
  
• Underneath the hourglass: recycle symbol.
  This allows you to swap or discard skills that are inside your hand. When you click it, a recycle symbol or a trash bin icon will appear next to your skills. Clicking the recycle will replace the skill with another from the deck,
  A trash bin will discard the skill instead.
  When you are under the effects of crowd control you can use this to clear the effect immediately for the affected character.
  
  Later you will come across temporary skill which can not be replaced and will just be discarded.
  
  Note: Both of these are limited each turn, they reset when you end turn.

• To the right of the hourglass: There are two symbols, one is a trash bin and the other is a pile of cards. The pile of cards represent the remaining skills that you will draw from, whilst the discard represents those that have been used. When you run out of cards, your deck is refreshed.
  
  This is the equivalent of your draw and discard pile in any other card game.

• The colourful bars underneath the buttons: These are the character skills available to you to use this turn.
  These will be greyed out while the enemy is doing something and will light up when you can use them. You have infinite time to plan what you want to do between each of your actions.
  
  
• [Character portraits] represent WHO the skill belongs to. This is important. Characters keep track of their mana cost increases individually. Similarly characters can have the same skills, be sure to check who's skill you are using.
  
  
  Bottom Middle - Fixed Skills
• There are large portraits of your characters with a large symbol of a skill in the bubble. You might notice that the skills in this bubble also cost 1 more than their counterparts in the hand. These are your fixed skills that are available each turn. You can only use one a turn. These skills are always available to your character, even if they burn through the whole deck.
  
  There are instances where you run out of cards and only have your fixed skill left.
  As such, note that outside of combat you can swap this fixed skill out for something else, the trade is the extra cost to use it each turn.

• There is an enemy.
  At this point we panic and give up. Just kidding.
  
  Multiple enemies will be spread out horizontally on this axis.
  In this case, we're fighting a spooky table.
  Other fights feature more enemies and sometimes reinforcements that will join the fight over time.
  
  
• Each enemy has:
  
  • a larger number in a diamond (act count: in this case it's 3).
    
  • a small number (the health)
    
  • a health bar (red)
  
  
  Bottom Left - Lucy
  There is a picture of Lucy. Let's appreciate her hard work, onward!

Once you're familiar with the UI, it's time to understand how a fight is split into different parts.

Whenever the player has priority (enemies have stopped doing things), you have access to your skills.

This next part is a little numbers heavy, but understanding why certain things are changing will be important to your success, otherwise you'll find you suddenly can't use the powerful skill you wanted to use for some reason and just lose on the spot.

The start of the fight:


After clicking the 'fixed ability' for Hein a few changes to the UI appear:


This is the combat insight that can be used to plan the move before committing.
In the second image, you'll see the skill by Hein's portrait is raised slightly, this shows that it is being buffered. Skills on the left will show this buffer by moving slightly to the right.

The spooky table is also being hovered over with the cursor which shows some extra details, saying how much damage is expected and any multipliers that you might want to consider before attacking. This is handy for combat prediction.

You can cancel using this skill by right clicking elsewhere on the screen.

Note: Enemies have their own multipliers, skills and resistances, look out for effects such as high armour, evasion and taunt status. Make sure to check these before attacking.

This is what using combat insight looks like when using a skill owned by Joey:


In this instance, I have selected Joey's attack skill.
It's important to see that the mana costs of skills increase in both of these instances if I were to use the skill. Using a skill owned by a character increases the cost of their other skills by that character until the next turn. This cost increase also affects and is affected by the fixed ability.

At the start of a run, you will only have 3 mana to work with.
This number can be increased later by levelling up Lucy.

This is how the UI changes after a skill is committed:


I have used one of Hein's attack skills to damage the enemy.
Note: The basic heal skill in my hand that belongs to Hein has gone up to cost 1 instead of the usual cost of 0.

I am buffering an attack skill with Joey. The UI now reflects the future increase of mana cost this would have on Joey's basic heal skill in my hand too.

Note: Notice how the cost of both of their fixed abilities has also increased.

These cost increases are temporary for the turn and are additive, for example if I want to use Hein's 3 skills: fixed ability, 1 basic heal and 1 basic attack
It would cost me 2 for the fixed ability (+0), 1 (+1) for the basic heal and then 3 (+2) for the final attack for a total turn cost of 6.

These cost increases reset once you hit the end turn button.

Using the same fight, let's ignore what is going on for the player and focus on what the enemy is doing.

Jumping back to the start of the fight:


The important thing to be aware of is the number in the diamond next to the health bar of the enemy. This is the action count of the enemy. This is the number of actions that the player can make before they do whatever it is that they have queued up. What they will do will depend on the enemy. Different enemies also act at different times, keep this in mind when you fight multiple at the same time.

Note: Enemies can also have a queue of actions. This will look like a number of diamonds on top of one another. Once the action at the top of the queue is taken, the next one begins queuing right away.

The number in the diamond in the image is 3.
This means that the current action count at the moment is 3.

After attacking with Hein (taking a player action), the number drops down to 2:


The fight would then progress like this:

• After using 1 more skill, it would drop to 1.
  
• After using 1 more skill, the player skill finishes it drops to 0.
  
• The enemy activates the action at the top of the queue.

Note: If the enemy is killed before this count hits 0 (or as it is hitting 0 then the action is not taken). This is helpful in fights with multiple enemies where you will need to prioritise to minimise how many actions that they take.

The spooky table is crushed before it can do anything.
The team leaves the fight healthy.

Your health between fights is carried over.
Any dead party members remain dead between fights.
When all party members (except Lucy) are dead, it is Game Over.

Chrono Ark is about managing the resources that are available to you to ensure that you can progress. If you enter a fight with less health then you could have had, you'll start fighting at a disadvantage and make a loss that much more likely. Health gives you wiggle room.

Note: There are some skills that need your health under certain conditions, for example Hein has one that does critical damage if either he or his target is below 40% health.

Note: For this section, I do not know the formula to how it's calculated. Nor do I believe my explanation is 100% accurate, but I generally this is how it works and it will be enough for you to get started.

Your health bar comes with two different types.
Red health: this is real health, when you have red health, the character can't die from one hit.
Green health: this can be considered temporary health.

A boss fight where the red health has been damaged and has been converted into green health:



When green health is hit again, the damage is taken as real red health damage.



Note: Any remaining green health that a character has when a the last enemy is defeated is converted back into red.

So long as a character has red health, they won't die.
This mechanic is called Death's door.
(If you know Darkest Dungeon you may be familiar with this.)

When a player's character reaches 0 red health it puts them on a revival mechanic. They won't die immediately, but the next source of damage will (have a chance to) faint them.
When a character takes damage during Death's door, they will faint, this is affected by a character's faint resistance, which can be increased with equipment and relics.

Note: Further damage on this character (if they protected for whatever reason) will be dealt as green health damage that can go into the negative. This makes helping the character back up more difficult.

When a character is on Death's door, their health will be green health that can be healed back into the red zone. If they cross the thresh hold back into the positive they will be taken off Death's door and guaranteed to survive one more attack.

Note: Be wary of damage over time effects, such as bleed, that deal an amount to the character at the start of the turn. These effects can also faint the character.

After combat and in the map exploration you will pick up soul orbs, equipment and relics along the way that are used to make your team stronger.

You can collect loot from a variety of nodes that are dotted around an area:


Note: You might as well check. Even detrimental effects and items you might find a use for at some point. You can discard items if you need inventory space.

Your first jump in power level will be using two soul orbs to level up your characters to unlock their unique ability.

You can click the portrait on the main screen in order to bring up the character sheet menu:


Here you are able to see an overview of the team.

• On the left: Here are Lucy's skills.
  Here you can upgrade your maximum mana and add powerful draw skills to your deck.

Note: Lucy's skills often come with a trait called Swiftness that allows you to use the skill without reducing the enemy act counts.

Note: Lucy's skills are also subject to ramping mana costs.

Clicking a character's portrait brings up the screen that is unique to them.
Here, I am highlighting Hein's level up and can see what effects this would have on his stats


Whenever you level up you will be able to add new skills to the deck.
You are presented with 3 choices from the unique skills available to the character.
For your first level up - level 2, you will be presented with this option twice.
For levels beyond, you will be presented with this option once.

After you have 5 skills, the default option will begin replacing basic attack and basic heal skills for that character (You can turn this off if you want to).

Note: You can also remove skills from the deck if you do not like them, but you need at least 5 skills on that character to do so.

You can highlight individual skills that are presented in order to see more information about what they do:


Level 2 unlocks your character ability, these are unique to each character. These are the equivalent of traits, or passives in other games.

For example: Hein unlocks Madness: This is a great ability to see the type of power increase that is possible. Whenever Hein scores a last hit on an enemy, the skill he just used will be recast on a random target. So long as an enemy is killed by Hein, the skill will keep recasting.

Each character gets 2 equipment slots to use.
To equip items you can either right click equipment from the inventory
or drag it into the slot.


Note: You can move equipment between characters (provided they aren't cursed).

Unidentified items
On your exploration you will come across many items that are marked with a '?' symbol on them. For scrolls and potions, their effects will be unknown until one has been used or identified during your run. For example, if you use a potion that increases damage, the next time you find that same potion type, it will remain identified until your next run.

Note: The icons for each potion and scroll effect are randomised each run, so it is no good memorising which effect looks like each run.

How to identify items
An important and easy to overlook function is item identification.
You can use what is known as an identity scroll which can spawn in a shop and costs 180 or it can be found randomly when exploring (though the scroll itself is also unidentified at first).

At a shop it is also possible to directly identify items of all types for a 200 gold fee that increases by 100 gold each time it is done at the same shop.

Note: Not all effects are positive for potions, scrolls and equipment alike.

Using unidentified items
Generally speaking, scrolls carry the least detriment for just using them. It's just a bit wasteful as you can find some use out of most of them.

Equipment can sometimes hold negative or effects that you don't want on a character when used this way. Equipment can also turn out to be cursed, meaning it cannot be unequipped by the character once it is attached. You can remove a cursed item using a somewhat rarer purging scroll that removes curses from all equipped items.

Potions, I would not recommend using until identified as the effects are much more varied and versatile. They often contain permanent stat increases that you want on specific characters, or hold situational powerful effects, such as a 12 health instant heal that is great for pulled characters off of death's door easily.

When you are ready to find the boss, you might remember that well from before that is marked by a yellow symbol on the map. This is essentially your warning that you won't get another chance to finalise your upgrades before you head into the fight.

when you walk passed it you'll see some black fog:


Walk further into it and a boss fight will trigger.

Each area will have a boss that:

• Are strong
  
• Have lots of health
  
• Have special attacks
  
• Have unique gimmicks
  
• May summon followers (minions) to aid them
  
• May add new skills to your deck and hand
  
• May talk too much
  
• Have super thematic music (turn it up!)
  
• Will catch you off guard the first time you fight them and make you say "wtf? I lost??"

If you mouse over any icon it will give you detail on the effect that it will have.
In boss fights they may affect your skills.
Blue border icons have positive effects.
Red border icons have detrimental effects.
Read everything and plan accordingly.

Each boss has it's own strategy to take it down. Hopefully you are strong enough to beat it, else come back and try again. These fights are tough and sometimes will stomp you even if you're as strong as you could have been.

After you beat a boss: You will be put back on the map of the area you were in. This gives you the opportunity to explore or finish off anything that you wanted to do on the map before you continue.

When you're ready, head past where you fought the boss to head to the resting area, you'll have access to a couple facilities to let you prepare for the next area.

Inside the safe zone you won't encounter enemies and can take your time preparing for the next area:


Facilities:

• Campfire: When you interact with it, your party will be healed, reviving anyone that is dead for half their health. At the campfire you can use various items, such as bread (small group heal) or herbs (CC protection). At the end of areas x and x (TBC) you will be able to recruit another party member to round out your team.
  
  Unlocked item spoiler: Note: After you unlock the sweet potato, you can upgrade it by using it at the campfire
  
  
• Rabbit donation box: Stores up to 7000 coins in donations that are preserved between runs before it disappears. It's used to unlock a character. There is no bonus for donating, but once you're finished donating you don't need to worry about it again.
  
  
• Save pedestal: Lets you quick save if you need to take a break. When you load back in you will be at the start of the next area. Runs can take a couple of hours.
  
  
• Relic box: Allows you to use powerful relics that you get from bosses (and rarely through exploration).
  To use them, locate the Relic cabinet on the far right of the camp and drag them in like equipment:
  
  
  Unlocked feature spoiler Angel statue: Unlocked at the research lab. Allows you to recharge the necklace charges. Later upgrades to allow it to act as an even better skill book for a price.

In order to reach the final boss you will want a fairly balanced team. However, how you get these is part of the joy of this game. Discovering different combinations and skills to aid you in your progression.

You can set a fixed ability in the character screen by clicking the trash can icon next to a skill:


This skill will be available to your characters every turn, always costs 1 mana more than it's base cost and does not get discarded when used. Although you can only use one fixed skill per turn.

Note: In boss fights, it will become important to use this feature as you will run out of skills as they get consumed.

I recommend aiming to get each of your team members to level 4 at first and weaving in some levels for Lucy as you go. Then focusing on one character that is your main carry.

However, this is of course character dependant and this isn't a team composition guide, once you know what you're doing it'll be easier to make sense of what the other guides are asking you do to do for specific teams.

Your late game level spread will look something like this:
Level 6
Level 5
Level 5
Level 4
6 max mana
3 Draw skills

This is how I played back in 1.5, after many updates I don't know if this strategy is still viable, I'd recommend using it as a general shape of how to distribute your levels to get started and explore what works for you.

You will find yourself returning back to the hub world at some point.

At this point you will likely have a few credits to spend to improve your future runs.

Make your way over to the research lab and click the research button:


You're investing the tokens into your future runs, they are split into 2 categories:

• Upgrades that affect every run.
  
• Those that are not guaranteed to appear, but have a chance to once they are unlocked.

To do this go to the research tower and you'll see this option:

Do note that if you have enough credits and you click one of the research, it will unlock it automatically without confirmation. Mouse over them to check what they do in runs.

You won't be able to unlock the next page of research until you get everything from a page first. Then after you come back to the hub world, the page will reset with the new products.

When a research is unlocked, it will then have a chance of appearing within the next run.

Equipment unlocks: When you beat the penultimate boss with a character in your party, it will unlock their character's themed equipment.

To the right of the research tower there is a vending machine where you can also spend 200 credits in order to unlock a cat costume for Lucy.

Once you have understood the basics, playing around with other characters is a great way to expand upon existing knowledge. Chrono Ark has a broad cast of members, each with their own style and approach that changes how you might tackle each fight.

Having a bigger roster improves the amount of flexibility you can have within a run, allowing you to adapt as appropriate.

Characters are each unlocked under specific conditions, some are simply beating a certain boss a few times, whilst others need a bit more attention to fulfil. On the character selection screen, if you highlight a shadow it will tell you the criteria for unlocking them.

I came back after getting pinged a couple of times to learn that people continue to find this guide every now and then. I'm glad to learn that it has been of use. I'm afraid I haven't played the game in a long while so I've missed out on a lot of the content.

This game truly was a unique experience for me, it's so rare to come back to something that had me scratching my head for so long. But finding a way to push through it really showed the depth and enjoyment underneath.

I've given the guide a fresh coat of paint and reworded a bunch of areas to make it flow and make a bit more sense.

I hope this finds you well, and if it was useful in some way, please leave a comment or rating.

---
Thank you for reading this guide.

I hope some one gets use out of this, please let me know if there is anything that warrants more looking into.

Honestly, I'm really enjoying the game after I learned more of the mechanics and starting doing reasonably in runs. I didn't really understand the tutorial and trial and error only got me so far.

Chrono Ark is a lot better than I first gave it credit after a sour beginning. The art is fantastic, the score is just such a bop (clown face) and it's a refreshing entry into the genre. I just feel the accessibility at the start makes it really difficult to get into.

Well, with this all said, I'm still pretty new, at the time of finishing this, I have under 30 hours of gameplay, but I have managed to complete it on normal with all but 2 characters.

---
Also, for whoever needs to see this, have a hug <3 I see you, it's rough out here, you got this, I believe in you.

Thank you all for being part of the community.

DeadEnd - Thanks for writing your guide, I look forward to seeing what you work on next :)
AncientSpark - Thank you for being your input and for being the first to do so!