It’s All About Perspective
The idea behind echochrome is simple, but so beautiful: help your character navigate landscapes in order to reach all of the Echoes. The Echoes are simply static human-like figures; they look almost like smoke figures that you must find a path to and touch. The landscapes are geometric shapes floating in a pure white space; reference a picture or video, but essentially you are playing through an optical illusion or an MC Escher drawing. That said, to get to where your character needs to get to, you don’t control your character directly; instead, you control the path he takes. The character in the game is nameless and faceless, but he walks around constantly, something you can only stop in Thinking mode (read on).
In altering the path your character takes, you have to keep in mind that echochrome is all about perspective; the tutorial explains that, in this world, there are five laws of perspective to abide by. These laws are fairly self explanatory from their name: Perspective Traveling, Perspective Landing, Perspective Existence, Perspective Absence, and Perspective Jump. Understanding and using these laws to manipulate the landscape is the key to success. By simply rotating the camera, you change the perspective of the landscape and create totally new paths for your character to traverse. See a gap between two landings that your character (who only walks, he cannot run and jump or climb) can’t cross? Look for a piece of the landscape that you can move the camera in such a way that this piece literally covers up the gap; if you can’t see it, it doesn’t exist: what you see is reality…it’s gorgeous. Another great aspect to echochrome is that the first path you see might not be the only one; in the previous example, covering the gap is likely one of a couple or few options. Orienting a jump-pad or hole in a certain way could be another route. Whichever route you go, you want to be sure to touch all of the initial Echoes as quickly as you can. After you touch the initial Echoes, one or more new ones, that you couldn’t see when the puzzle first loaded up, will appear and you must get to these as well. All the while the clock is ticking in the background (you can make it appear on screen by pressing Select), and it serves a dual purpose: determining the best (i.e., shortest) time for solving a puzzle, and determining when you’re out of time. I don’t know the exact circumstances for the timer, but I’ve had several maps that had a five minute timer on them.
Before getting into the controls, I would like to talk briefly about the three modes in echochrome you are presented with at the main menu. There is the Free Form mode, Atelier mode, and Canvas mode. Canvas mode is the level editor, where you can edit existing levels or create your own. I have yet to fully create a level yet, too busy playing the puzzles included with the game, but for the first time since the BUILD engine on old school PC FPS games am I excited about making my own maps. Anyway, in Free Form mode, eight puzzles are selected for you at random. You don’t have to play through one puzzle to get to another, either; you can choose to skip a puzzle should you want to. Atelier mode, where I have spent most of my time, is about playing each puzzle that echochrome offers. The great thing is that you don’t have to play through the puzzles in linear fashion; the full set of fifty-six puzzles is available to choose from.
Control in echochrome is concise and accurate. The X button makes your character walk faster. The Square button auto-snaps two edges together, so you don’t have to try to finely tune your analog stick motions to get two edges to match up, saving time and frustration. The R1 button is used to speed up the rotation of the camera, making snappy motions with your camera adjustments all the more easy. The triangle button is used to make your character stop walking, it’s called Thinking mode. In Thinking mode, your character does not walk, but the clock is still ticking. Any newcomer can understand the controls to echochrome in just a few short minutes, adding to its accessibility.
As I mentioned, echochrome ships with fifty-six puzzles, all playable from the get-go. That’s plenty to keep me busy for the time being, but what’s great is that there are plenty of new user-created, developer-approved puzzles are already out for download, and for free at that. Each time you load up echochrome there could be new levels to download, how cool is that?
I inadvertently found that echochrome makes a great party game, too. Anyone in the room that began to watch me play was captivated, offering their own suggestions to how to proceed in whatever puzzle I was playing. When I finally gave up my turn to play and passed the controller, I discovered that even just watching someone play echochrome is enjoyable and entertaining. It goes without saying then that echochrome is a treat to play and it’s addictive, too. Each puzzle you successfully beat offers some replay value in itself as well. You might try an alternate path, or come back ten minutes or two days later to see if you can remember how you solved the puzzle, and how quickly you can do it again. echochrome stores a replay and your best time for each puzzle completed. On that note, I should mention how satisfying solving puzzles in echochrome is; thinking abstractly isn’t something most games give you a chance to do, echochrome requires it, and it’s a nice feeling when you analyze a puzzle and succeed.
In terms of presentation, echochrome is very surreal and ultra simplistic; truly further proof that superb games in this day and age do not require high end graphic engines. As you have no doubt seen in screenshots and or videos, echochrome is a black and white game, a white background with black edges to display the characters and puzzles. It’s refreshingly and elegantly simple. What few sound effects there are in echochrome are nicely done and pleasant, matching the classical instrumental soundtrack very well.