Echochrome is all about
perspective. In this stark, black-and-white puzzle game, players manipulate an
Escher-like construction. Tweak the view just right, and two spots that were
originally separated by empty space will meet. Spin the whole shebang around so
a gap is obscured, and it will cease to exist. The game works a lot like Lemmings. Players control the fate of
an artist's manikin—a swivel-limbed puppet that walks back and forth
until new avenues are opened up. The point of Echochrome is to guide the manikin
through a series of goals before time runs out. Pads that will make the wooden
man jump or holes that cause him to plummet into space complicate the task of
guiding him from point A to point B. Thinking your way around these puzzles
requires tossing aside notions of reality and embracing all of Echochrome's impossibilities.
The
onscreen action is backed by an austere classical soundtrack and a robotic
female voice that could easily conjure flashbacks of Portal's GLaDOS. Staring at Echochrome's pristine white world feels
a little like looking at a blank word-processor page. Can a video game make you
snowblind?
Beyond
the game:
Both the PlayStation 3 version and the PSP version are available only as
downloads. Each comes with 56 completely different puzzles. Last year's Crush for the PSP has a similar
perspective-hacking premise, but the mechanics are different enough that Echochrome doesn't feel like a rehash
or a rip-off.
Worth
playing for: Players
can craft their own puzzles, then upload them for review. The game's developers
handpick the user-made levels and make them available online. Already, Japanese
gamers have cooked up more than a few mind-bending challenges.
Frustration
sets in when: Time
limits are an unnecessary contrivance and an all-around annoyance. Echochrome is most interesting when the
player is making mental leaps. The addition of a ticking clock tears the focus
away from the mind-game.
Final
judgment: A literal
expression of the phrase, "What you see is what you get."