The Indie Informer

You all know I can’t resist a hand-painted game. So, that’s how I ended up getting drawn in by Echo of the Waves, a game that before the Day of the Devs showcase, I didn’t have on my radar at all. Getting a chance to go hands-on with an early build, which was both long enough to give me a general understanding of the mechanics but nowhere near lengthy enough to satisfy my curiosity, has me interested to see more.

The game’s visuals can’t be overpraised. With each environments subject to camera manipulation, the team has has to depict the beauty of the landscapes from various perspectives. I can only image how long that process takes with watercolors.

The reason for this is important to the gameplay. My mysterious, blue-clad protagonist steps from a boat docked at an obliging rock. With the focused scope of the demo, I don’t know much about what came before this moment or why I’m here. However, I quickly learn how the magic of the game works.

By guiding the camera from left to right, I can line up different parts of the landscape. Sometimes these form shapes I’ve found in written clues. Sometimes the world;s formations glide together to make what appears to be a doorway. When I get the environment to line up just perfectly, I’m prompted to play music. The result is a mystic tune which stiches the parts together.

In the case of, say, trees that appear to make an arch, my melody will forge from them one single portal. And now, where there was before a dead end, there is a way to move across the one sandy shore to the next.

Solving Echo of the Waves‘ perspective-based, wonderfully visualized puzzles was satisfying, though I hope my next hands-on opportunity with the game reveals a little more of the narrative.