Echo Chamber
A project from an Electronic Arts game jam
I think I'm having Déjà vu
In the fall of 2014, Electronic Arts had a game jam and allowed employees who were interested to take two weeks from their regular work to participate. I took the opportunity to resurrect a game mechanic I had tried to use for the original Amoebunnies game and created Echo Chamber. Even though I was working for EA, I had no prior experience with the Unity engine and was mostly working alone on the project.
Level 5 with pill-shaped "echoes"
The concept for the game was a Portal-like game where you're trapped on a spaceship that suffers disaster after
disaster. Each level finds you stuck in a room where you will die. However, shortly after dying, time rewinds
and you replay the level. This time though, an echo of you is in the room and it repeats the actions you took
on the previous iteration. Up to two echoes can exist with you per attempt and the goal is to work with these
echoes to find your way to survival.
For the game jam, I designed 4 levels and a teammate designed a fifth. Unfortunately as I had no graphics help, the game looked extremely basic when compared with a lot of other games at the jam that had artists involved. It didn't gain much traction, and without a proper tutorial a lot of players were confused. I do believe, however, that my game was one of the few with an innovative idea. I will admit my own bias in this case though. If you'd like to try it out for yourself, I've included a link below. Unfortunately something happened to level 1 and it was overwritten with level 2, so after you complete the level you start on, skip to 3. I apologize for the loud klaxon on the first level.
