Echochrome

Gameplay

Echochrome requires the player to control a moving character—which resembles an articulated wooden artist's mannequin—to visit, in any order, particular locations on the surfaces of collections of three-dimensional shapes. The objectives are marked by shadows ("echoes") of the moving character. When the last marked position has been visited, one last echo appears, which the player must reach to finish the level: scoring is simply a matter of timing completion of each level (or a course containing several levels).

However, the character cannot be directly controlled by the player: it moves autonomously, following a path along the surface of each shape in a manner which keeps the path's boundary on the character's left (that is, in order of preference, turning left, proceeding straight ahead, turning right, or turning back on itself).

The unique aspect of the game is that the path can be altered merely by rotating the shapes and viewing them from a different perspective: for instance if a gap or obstacle is obscured, the character will behave as if the path continues behind the object which currently obscures the gap or obstacle from view. Similarly, if discontinuous shapes or parts of the same shape appear, from the chosen camera angle, to form a continuous path, the character will traverse from one to the other.

Although the character cannot step off the surface of a shape, there are certain points where it may hop off or fall. It then falls downwards to whatever appears to be below it, or off the bottom of the screen to be rematerialized at a previous position. This behaviour forms one of the most compelling aspects of the game because the player must deliberately interpret the three-dimensional world as if it were two-dimensional in order to determine where the character will land.

Audio

The music of Echochrome was composed by Hideki Sakamoto at the Tokyo-based sound design company Noisycroak. Most songs on the game score consist of a string quartet including two violins, a viola and a cello. However, three tracks include operatic vocals by singer Rumiko Kitazono. These are the opening themes to the PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 3 versions of the game, plus an additional theme that is unique to the soundtrack album.

Team Entertainment published the original soundtrack to Echochrome (無限回廊 オリジナルサウンドトラック) on May 21, 2008 under the catalog number KDSD-00209. The performers included Hitoshi Konno (1st violin), Nagisa Kiriyama (2nd violin), Kazuo Watanabe (viola) and Ayano Kasahara (cello). The composer had originally considered naming the game's individual tracks after philosophical terminology to match the title's abstract qualities, but later decided to use prime numbers so as not to color the songs with subjective interpretations.

Versions

The PlayStation 3 version of the game was released in Japan, North America, and Europe, through the PlayStation Network. All regions feature the basic gameplay with 56 levels. A later update added 1000 user-created levels.

The PlayStation Portable versions feature different levels from the PlayStation 3 version, with some regions having additional gameplay modes or levels:

Reception

Echocrome was critically well received. Review aggregator website Metacritic has the PSP and PS3 versions assigned a score of 79 and 81, respectively, indicating "generally favorable reviews." The game's minimalistic presentation, originality, and level design were cited as its strongest aspects.