Ec(h)osystem

What is Ec(h)osystem

Ec(h)osystem is an audio-driven exploration game set deep underground. As you navigate dark caves and tunnels, you have to trust your ears more than your eyes. Your only means of orientation: echolocation, which you create by snapping your fingers. Down here, everything communicates through sound, and only by listening closely will you be able to understand. 

Find a way through collapsed tunnels, discover hidden cave entrances and open new paths to find out what happened down here - and how you're connected to it. 

Ec(h)osystem is a whimsical, magical experience about a world veiled in darkness, lighting up only when touched by sound. No combat, no horror - it's all about not knowing what lies ahead, yet wanting to find out more, one snap at a time.

The world

At first, the dark tunnels seem empty and void of life - but hit them with a soundwave and they start to glow in soft hues and vibrate with little creatures. This underground world harbors a complex ecosystem full of wondrous species and intertwined dependencies. Every creature had its place and played its part - well, at least until you entered the system.

Made to hear

Ec(h)osystem is built with a strong focus on accessibility for visually impaired players. The world isn't just seen - it's heard, with just as much information, if not more. And although there are visuals - glowing mushrooms and luminescent jellyfish - they, too, are designed with different levels of vision in mind: high contrast between light and dark makes objects easier to tell apart, and of course you can adjust the brightness in the settings. 

Our goal is to make every part of the game accessible - menus as much as gameplay. To get there, we work as closely as we can with visually impaired players to understand your perspectives and preferences. If you have impaired vision, no matter the degree, we'd love to hear your thoughts - and please let us know if you're interested in the game.

Project status

So far, we've focused on testing, and you can check out our first prototype right here on itch.io. The prototype includes a few tunnels to test basic orientation, an illuminated scene of the ecosystem, and a tunnel with a bigger creature - best not to disturb that one just yet. 

Currently, we're working towards a full demo, including a tutorial on how to play and your first interactions with the underground world. We'll document our progress here in our dev log. Feel free to check out our latest prototype and let us know what you think!

How to test

The current build is for PC only. We recommend playing with a controller, but a keyboard works as well. Headphones are a must - the better the audio quality, the better the experience! 

If you already have a screen reader like NVDA running, the game should pick up on it automatically and use your preferred settings. You can toggle this on and off in the game's settings. 

Controls - Controller
Walk - left joystick
Turn / look around - right joystick
Snap to echolocate - south button (A / X) 
Navigation help - Left bumper and use right joystick to look around

Controls - Keyboard
Walk - W, A, S, D
Turn / look around - mouse
Snap to echolocate - E 
Navigation help - M2 hold and look around

We appreciate your feedback

We're still at an early stage, and continuous feedback is really important to us - it's how we learn what works and what doesn't. Whether you're visually impaired or not, we value your input. Testing is the only way we can improve. 

Tested the current build? We'd love to hear your thoughts - please share them! Just comment below, or email us directly at enchoigames@gmail.com. Here's what we're especially interested in: 

- Did you get though the whole tutorial? At the End there should be "Thanks for testing" displayed.
- Did it feel like you could tell where you were from the sounds around you?
- Did you get stuck anywhere? If so, where?
- How did moving through the tunnels feel?