#echochrome

The perspectives I’m talking about are not within the game’s clockwork levels, but outside of them. In the menus. In the presentation. In your approach to the game as a player as you hold your PSP and look upon it. 

Echochrome does not function like a traditional game. You don’t go from Level 1 to Level 2. I mean, I guess you technically can, but good luck figuring out how. Because when you load up Echcohrome for the first time — after getting through its initial tutorial — you’re thrown into its main menu, greeted not by more expected options like “campaign” or “time trial” or “challenge.” Instead you’ll see the words “freeform,” “atelier,” “canvas” and my favorite “etc.”

Love it. No notes. Well, maybe just one note: What the hell do any of these things mean?

“Freeform” is the top option. Let’s try that. It dumps you into a puzzle. You solve it. You’re dumped into another puzzle. You solve it. Maybe this is a traditional game after all. But then you notice a letter and a number shown at the beginning of each puzzle. B4, F6, D1, C3. But you don’t think much about it. That is, until you reach a puzzle you can’t solve. One in which you realize the game has a 10-minute time limit per puzzle. 

This is B8. I'm too stubborn to look up the answer, but I just can't figure out how to get the last echo. I hate it.

Cool, cool. While I think on that puzzle, let’s go back to the main menu and check out “atelier.” There’s no Ryza or Sophie to be found though, only a 8x7 grid of level options. And now the codes you saw on freeform make sense. Those were level identifiers. Row B, stage 4. Which means freeform is essentially a randomizer, whereas atelier presents them in the game’s natural order, of which you’re free to tackle any of the 56 stages however you wish. You go back to the one that stumped you before — B8. But after five minutes elapse, the failure bell rings. You only get half the time to complete a level in atelier mode (I guess because you chose the level yourself?)

And then there’s canvas — a neat little level editor to make your own stages — and etc., where the options, saves, credits and a replay of the tutorial go. 

The game itself? Oh, it’s pretty cool, I guess. The perspective mechanics can feel a little inconsistent, requiring very digital outcomes through an analog control scheme. And the time limits feel rather pointless (if the game is already tracking your time on each puzzle like a score, then what’s the need for a limit?) in a game that should be as pleasantly relaxing as doing the daily crossword or sudoku. And it is equal parts frustrating and funny when the soothing disembodied lady voice says “oops” every time you let your Escher lemming fall off the world.