ECHOPLEX (Early Access) Preview – Puzzles of the time-bending kind
A memory hunting puzzle game set in a cyber-horror world. Why do people always end up trusting questionable companies? Either way, ECHOPLEX is here to help you find those lost memories and obviously it’s going to go fine.
Developer: Output Games
Publisher: Output Games
Release Date: TBA
Platforms: PC (Windows and Mac OS)
Platform Reviewed on: PC (Windows)
ECHOPLEX, a cyber-horror puzzle game which is set in the near future. You are an unnamed person, who has lost their memories. Using the Memory retrieval and reparation program (Memred) provided by the company ECHOPLEX, you set out to restore your memories.
You do this by completing various puzzles. These puzzles are levels which you go through, to find the memory shards in the end. Just walking through these levels wouldn’t be much of a challenge so you will have to open various doors by walking through the light screen with the matching color. The door will open or close, depending on the current state of the door. You can see it as an on and off switch.
Of course, this doesn’t make it much of a challenge either, so this is where ECHOPLEX’s unique attribute comes into play: your echo. This echo is a duplicate of what you have done so far and will follow you until you finish the level, or until you collide (in which case, it is game over). And this is where it gets tricky.
Your echo, just as you, can open and close doors by walking through the screens of light. This means, that if you are not fast enough, he can close the door you just opened. In the same way, he can also be used to open doors after you just closed them. Another thing to note is that multiple echoes can spawn. If these collide, you lose both echoes. This opens up possibilities for some really fun and complex puzzles.
One of your echos
Sadly, not all these possibilities are used. Out of the 15 playable levels, only about 4 made me really use my head. The rest was more ‘run from start to end as fast as possible’, and that would actually finish the level. On the contrary, the levels that were actually challenging ended up REALLY challenging. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to beat it, becoming more and more obsessed every time I came a little closer, with some serious satisfaction once the challenge was conquered.
What also came as a pleasant surprise, is that the story was rather intriguing. Being told through fragments, you come to know more and more bits and pieces of the puzzle, the farther you get into the game. And after I had beaten all the levels, I really wished there was more content to play, because I wanted to know the full story of what happened.
All in all, I think ECHOPLEX is a fun puzzle game, with great potential for mind-cracking puzzles, and a surprisingly interesting story!
Pros
- Unique Echo system
- Interesting background story
- Hard puzzles are a fun challenge
- Fun graphics style which really fits the game
Cons
- A lot of the levels seem to straight-forward (This is being fixed with the upcoming Timeline update)
- No real build-up of difficulty, levels are either hard or not
- No inverse mouse option
- Small bugs here and there
Lunawolf Gaming 
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