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The travelling echo
echochrome is a game on everybody’s lips, but what exactly is it? Grab a copy, power up your PSP and prepare to have your mind refreshed...
Publish date: 23/05/08
"Do you spin it? Rotate it? How about...?" These are but a mere sprinkling of the questions that will race through your mind when playing echochrome, a brainteaser with a twist. Or is that a turn? Maybe a slight adjustment here... ‘chromed out
Perspective. While not literally the name of the game, it plays a large part of puzzler echochrome. You must help a mannequin called the Walker to its goal of collecting all the echoes around a number of 3D mazes that look like they've stepped right out of a MC Escher art gallery. However, the Walker has a number of problems stopping this noble quest - each maze is full of impassable gaps, holes and other hazards that can prevent it from reaching the echoes.
While the Walker is bound by the laws of physics, you are not, and the power is in your hands to change its fate. You can do this by switching the screen's perspective and viewpoint to alter reality and make the Walker's journey easier. For example, by spinning the maze a certain way, holes temporarily cease to exist simply because you can't see them, making it safe to pass until you're ready to show them on-screen again. Magical...
Look at it this way...
Like any form of magic, these little tricks have rules. Five of them, in fact:
1. The Law of Perspective Travelling - when two separate pathways appear to be touching, they are.
2. The Law of Perspective Landing - if one pathway appears to be above another, it is.
3. The Law of Perspective Existence - when the gap between two pathways is blocked from view and the pathways appear to be connected, they are.
4. The Law of Perspective Absence - when a hole is blocked from view, it does not exist.
5. The Law of Perspective Jumping - when the Walker jumps, it will land on whatever appears to be beneath it.
With these in mind, you're soon shaping the Walker's world to solve its intricate problems, trying to get yourself into a mental zone where the solution is only a head scratching moment away. echochrome is entrancing in its gameplay, drawing you into its uniquely monochrome landscape with soothing classical music and an essence of purity and depth that all great puzzle games possess.
While the Walker is alone in its pursuit of echoes, solitude is the last thing you'll be experiencing in echochrome. It's the perfect portable game, as you literally look for fresh viewpoints and pass it on to others who can try their hand at a particularly difficult puzzle that may have stumped you. Add that to the ability to pick up and play the game whenever you want and you have a truly addictive and social experience on PSP.
[Insert your own a-mazing pun here]
Even if you somehow manage to get through the 315 levels that await you, it's not the end of echochrome's appeal as there's also the opportunity to create your own mazes and share them with friends via Ad Hoc Mode. So not only can you give your brain a workout, but your imagination too - before setting challenges for your friends to engage in.
echochrome's world may be inhabited with mazes inspired by artist Oscar Reutersvärd's impossible constructions, but it's a game that's far from impossible, open to all comers through its fresh and inventive take on the puzzle genre. Fancy a spin?
