Clocknockers 2

Clocknockers 2 is an action game developed by Archor Games, released in February 2022 for Windows as the sequel to Clocknockers (2021). Featuring a behind-view perspective and direct control interface, gameplay revolves around pushing characters, such as little kids, around various maps while navigating the risk of falling off edges, based on community-shared content.

Clocknockers 2: A Review of the Indie Curio That Frozen Time (and Critics)

Introduction: The Sound of One Hand Clapping

In the vast, ever-churning engine of Steam’s digital storefront, where thousands of new games compete for attention annually, certain titles achieve a peculiar form of obscurity. They exist not as forgotten classics, but as digital ghosts—titles with a store page, perhaps a few screenshots, and a whisper of a description, yet vanishingly little critical or community discourse. Clocknockers 2, released on February 25, 2022, by the enigmatic solo developer Archor Wright under the Archor Games banner, is precisely such a ghost. It arrives with a brash, all-caps premise—”BAD DUDES HAVE FROZEN TIME ALL OVER THE WORLD”—and a suite of ambitious, almost parodic design claims (“HYPER-PHOTOREALISTIC GRAPHICS”). Yet, a deep dive into the available data reveals a game that exists more as a conceptual artifact than a played experience, a puzzle box with barely any pieces inside. This review will argue that Clocknockers 2 is less a game to be evaluated on traditional merits and more a fascinating case study in the minimalist, prolific, and often baffling ecosystem of modern indie development on Steam. Its legacy is not one of influence or acclaim, but of pure, unadulterated obscurity, serving as a benchmark for how a game can be both completely present and utterly absent from the cultural conversation.

Development History & Context: The Prolific Mr. Wright

To understand Clocknockers 2, one must first understand its creator. The sole listed developer is Archor Wright, a persona operating under the publisher/developer label Archor Games. A survey of the “ALL ARCHOR GAMES ON STEAM” bundle, which includes a staggering 100 items, reveals a developer of extraordinary, almost industrial, output. Titles like Multiplayer Citizens, Jet Fighters with Friends 2, The Search For Fran 3, and Epic Zombies suggest a developer working through a vast list of genre and mechanic permutations, often with series (Evan Quest, Epic Knight, Jet Fighters) extending into double-digit entries.

Context of Release (2022): Clocknockers 2 emerged in early 2022, a period post-COVID indie boom but during an increasingly crowded Steam marketplace. The “action” and “indie” tags were saturated. For a solo developer without a prior hit, gaining visibility was a monumental challenge. The game’s lineage as a sequel (Clocknockers, 2021) suggests a rapid development cycle, possibly building on a prototype or engine developed for the first entry. The technological constraints were likely self-imposed: a focus on a single, simple core mechanic to allow for rapid iteration and production of levels, bundled with the “IRL ARG” challenge hinting at a design philosophy that values meta-narrative and community engagement over graphical fidelity or complex systems.

The Studio’s Vision: From the sparse official descriptions, Wright’s vision seems twofold: 1) Mechanical Purity: Strip down an action-game concept to a single, physics-based verbs-noun interaction (push object A to location B). 2) Ecosystem Integration: Weave the game into a larger “ECHS BACHS” franchise and an “Alternate Reality Game” that spans all Archor titles, encouraging a “Steamy Streamer” challenge to play everything. This is not a vision aiming for mainstream critical success but for a dedicated, niche audience of completionists and ARG hunters.

Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive: An Elevator Pitch in All Caps

The narrative of Clocknockers 2 is presented entirely in its official store blurb, a stark, eight-word sentence: “BAD DUDES HAVE FROZEN TIME ALL OVER THE WORLD.” This is not a story; it is a logline, a high-concept justification for the gameplay. There is no dialogue, no character development, no world-building in the traditional sense. The “people of Earth” are “paused”—a state depicted in the minimal screenshots as statuesque figures in T-poses, frozen in various scenes of mundane life.

Characters: The player is an anonymous protagonist, a silent force of restoration. The “Bad Dudes” are never named, seen, or elaborated upon. The “paused people” are environmental objects, lacking identity or backstory. This reinforces the game’s thematic emptiness: it is not about saving people, but about solving a puzzle involving human-shaped tokens.

Themes: The most apparent theme is restoration through physics. The frozen world represents stasis, disorder, and a broken state. The player’s act of pushing—a fundamentally physical, non-violent interaction—is the restoring force. This aligns with the game’s “Family Friendly” tag. The secondary, meta-theme is play as investigation. The “IRL ARG” challenge and the call to explore other games for clues transform the act of playing from consumption into detective work, framing the entire Archor library as a single, sprawling puzzle. The game is thus thematically about connection (between games) and revelation (unlocking secrets across a publisher’s catalog).

Gameplay Mechanics & Systems: The Hockey-Mini-Golf Paradox

The store description explicitly states: “THE GAME MECHANICS ARE SIMILAR TO HOCKEY, SOCCER, AND MINI-GOLF.” This is the core, and seemingly only, gameplay loop.

Core Loop & Physics: The player controls a character from a behind-view perspective in a 3D space. The objective in each level is to use character movement (which includes a sprint function, per the “Walk Don’t Run” challenge) to apply force to “paused people” (statues), nudging or hitting them across an obstacle course towards a designated portal. The comparison to hockey/soccer implies a continuous application of force, while mini-golf suggests a more precise, calculated push. The outcome is determined by the physics engine: momentum, friction, collision with walls/objects, and the weight/size of the “people” tokens. Levels are described as having “fun physics related challenges,” which likely involve slopes, moving platforms, conveyer belts, or hazards that disrupt the player’s careful planning.

Progression & UI: There is a “progress system and save/load via the main menu,” suggesting a level-select structure rather than a continuous world. The UI is presumed minimalistic—a simple HUD showing perhaps time or level objectives. The “Evan the Adventurer” challenge (“Explore every inch of the entire map”) implies maps have hidden areas, rewarding thorough exploration beyond the critical path to the portal.

Innovation & Flaws: The innovation lies in the extreme mechanical focus. By reducing the verb to only “push,” the design forces elegance in level geometry. However, the source material reveals zero information on controls, camera, or precise physics parameters. This is a massive blind spot. The potential for frustration is high if the physics are unpredictable or the camera uncooperative—common issues in cheaply made Unity/Unreal prototypes. The “flaw” may be the game’s total lack of instructional depth; it relies entirely on player intuition, which could lead to immediate abandonment.

World-Building, Art & Sound: The “Hyper-Photorealistic” Claim

The store description’s assertion of “HYPER-PHOTOREALISTIC GRAPHICS AND CHARACTERS” is, in the context of a $0.69 indie title on Steam with a 100-game bundle, immediately suspect. This is either:

1. A joke or piece of meta-commentary on overselling indie games.
2. A deliberate aesthetic choice employing low-poly models with baked lighting or photogrammetry textures in a purposely awkward way, leaning into an “uncanny valley” or “so-bad-it’s-good” charm.
3. A catastrophic misunderstanding of the term by the developer.

The available screenshots (not embedded in this text but referenced) and the complete lack of any visual analysis in the provided sources suggest the art is functional, likely using basic 3D primitives and simple shaders. The “world” is a series of disconnected, abstract puzzle arenas. There is no cohesive environment, no art direction beyond “generic low-poly.” The sound design is entirely unmentioned, implying either non-existent or placeholder audio.

Contribution to Experience: The dissonance between the “hyper-photorealistic” claim and the probable simple 3D aesthetic creates a layer of intentional or unintentional absurdity. It primes the player for a jolt of comedic disappointment or for an appreciation of the game’s pure, unadorned mechanics. The atmosphere is one of sterile, empty puzzle-space, reinforcing the thematic idea of a frozen, lifeless world awaiting reactivation.

Reception & Legacy: The Sound of Zero Hands Clapping

Critical & Commercial Reception at Launch: Clocknockers 2 experienced total critical silence. Metacritic has “tbd” for both critic and user scores, with no reviews listed. MobyGames has no approved description and no critic reviews. The Steam store page, as of the latest data retrieval, shows only 2 user reviews (split 1 positive, 1 negative in some sources, or 3/3 positive/negative in others—data inconsistency itself indicates low engagement). Steambase records a Player Score of 50/100 from 6 total reviews, indicating profound indifference. The Kotaku page is merely a placeholder linking to a generic “games” section. It was, for all intents and purposes, a non-event.

Evolution of Reputation: There has been no evolution. The game has not been rediscovered, featured in “hidden gem” lists, or subject to retrospection. Its reputation remains frozen at “utterly obscure.” Its presence in the massive “ALL ARCHOR GAMES ON STEAM” bundle (priced at ~$92 for 100 games, ~$0.92 each) is its primary commercial context—it is not sold as a standalone experience but as a filler item in a colossal collection.

Influence on the Industry: There is none. The game is too obscure, too poorly documented, and too mechanically narrow to have impacted any other developer or title. It represents the absolute tail end of the Steam long-tail, where games exist not for an audience but as entries in a developer’s portfolio, as experiments in automated publishing, or as items in a mega-bundle.

Legacy as a Curio: Its true legacy is as a data point. It is a perfect example of the “stealth release” or “bulk upload” strategy used by some prolific indies. It demonstrates the limits of Steam’s discovery算法—a game can be technically available, tagged correctly, and on sale, and still achieve near-zero visibility. The “IRL ARG” challenge, tying it to a larger mystery across dozens of other obscure games, is a fascinatingly desperate or brilliant attempt to manufacture community and longevity, but with no documented evidence of anyone engaging with it, it reads as a poignant, unanswered call.

Conclusion: The Pause That Refreshes?

Clocknockers 2 is a phantom. It is a game whose existence is documented in databases and storefronts but whose essence—the actual act of playing it—remains a locked room with no key. The analysis based on its sparse depictions paints a picture of a hyper-minimalist physics puzzle game with a comically overwrought premise and a bizarrely ambitious ARG meta-narrative, all wrapped in packaging that grossly misrepresents its aesthetic.

Its definitive verdict in video game history is that it is a non-entity. It does not deserve praise for its mechanics (which may be broken or brilliant, we cannot know), nor condemnation for its flaws (they are undocumented). It deserves to be cited as an exemplary case of the “long-tail obscurity” phenomenon. It is the digital equivalent of a single, unplayed note held indefinitely in a vast, silent library of sound.

For the historian, Clocknockers 2 is not a game to be reviewed, but a condition to be noted: the condition of absolute, un-commented-upon existence in the modern marketplace. It is the void between the “Add to Cart” button and the “Review” section, a testament to the fact that for every game that sparks a thousand discussions, there are a hundred like this—pushed silently into the ether, frozen in time not by villainous dudes, but by the sheer, indifferent gravity of the algorithm. Its final score is not stars out of five, but 0/0—an undefined value, a true pause in the timeline of play.