TEMPUS from JanduSoft and K148 Game Studio is a first-person puzzle adventure through time. Learn more about it in our TEMPUS review!

 

TEMPUS from JanduSoft and K148 Game Studio is a first-person puzzle adventure through time. You’ll experience how the island you live in changes with the passage of time as you jump hundreds and thousands of years into the future at a time. As the only citizen on the titular island, you live a quiet life far from civilization. All was well until one day when a blinding light appeared along with a thunderous sound. As you approach the light, you find a mysterious portal that will teleport you into the future. It’s then that you think that it might not be too late to find a way to reactivate the portal so that you can travel back to the past to what used to be your present. But try as you might, it seems that you just can’t manage to make it work as you want it to, and the portal sends you even further into the future!

Since this is a first-person puzzle adventure, the controls are easy to understand. You’ll walk with the left analog stick as you look around with the right one. Your character will start out by walking, and you can speed that up to a healthy running speed by pressing in on the left analog stick. You can grab objects and can interact with them with the Circle button. Some objects you’ll have to grab with the X button. To solve puzzles, you’ll have to pay attention to the clues in each location – and time! – so that you can find the right solution for each conundrum.

 

As to not spoil things for you for this short but charming experience, allow me to discuss the first set of puzzles you’ll find in Tempus after your first jump into the future. You’ll walk out of what used to be your house 200 years prior and will follow a sign that will lead you into a large building. Outside you’ll find a pair of futuristic glasses that will allow you to see some neon-infused footprints on the ground.

Sure, you could follow them right away, but if you walk towards the left side of the building, you’ll find a small fountain with a contraption in the middle that has a glowing green handprint on it. After interacting with it, you’ll then follow the neon green footprints to a wooden cross you can interact with, and then you’ll be able to follow the initial set of footprints that lead inside the building. Once inside, you’ll find another green handprint on top of a painting. Interact with it, and the door next to the painting will open up!

 

The next room will have a series of objects for you to look at, as well as a set of mysterious lamps to interact with. When you interact with one for the first time, it will start to turn with a red glow. Pay a bit of attention, and you’ll notice that each one will eventually start to glow green. Could this be a clue? Maybe if you stop each of the three lamps when they’re glowing green, you’ll be able to open the door that will lead you into the next room! This is as far as I’ll go regarding the puzzles since I don’t want to spoil the whole thing.

The game has a full trophy list with a Platinum, and since it’s a Cross-Buy title, if you own a PlayStation 5 console, you can work on adding two Platinum trophies to your collection. The list includes 2 Silver trophies and 11 Gold trophies. The first trophy will pop as soon as you start to play the game since it’s tied to the Prologue. After that, there will be trophies for playing through each segment of the game as time passes at an exponentially higher pace. There’s also a trophy for completing the game, along with some miscellaneous trophies for completing some specific objectives. If you need some extra help to streamline your trophy run, you can check out this TEMPUS Trophy Guide.

 

TEMPUS is a colorful and chill first-person puzzle adventure that will send you on a time travel journey on PlayStation. It’s a game that you can play at your own pace as you find the clues that will allow you to solve each puzzle so that you can escape into the next area. Overall, you’re looking at around 2-3 hours at most to complete TEMPUS, depending on your experience with first-person puzzle adventures on the console. Tempus is available as a Cross-Buy title with a $6.99 asking price, so your purchase will give you access to both the PlayStation 4 and the PlayStation 5 versions of the game at no extra cost.

Disclaimer
This TEMPUS review is based on a PlayStation 5 copy provided by JanduSoft.