Wow it's been awhile since we've posted! Needless to say we've been busy, hard at work on our new game - which we can finally talk about :) Introducing Echo Weaver, a time loop metroidBRAINia where time is your currency and secrets your only upgrades. Play as the last known living weaver, the remnant of a ruined society trapped in a fatal time loop. Uncover their story - and your own - as you explore what remains.
Knowledge is everything in Echo Weaver - from the very beginning of the game, you can already do everything you will ever be able to do, you just don't know how yet. A typical metroidvainia will gate progression and power-scaling through upgrades and unlocks; you'll need to wait for that missile powerup or double-jump ability before you can access new areas, etc. But in the metroidBRAINia, it's all just learning new secrets and hidden mechanics. Hypothetically, you could look up all the answers before buying the game, and then beat it in 5 minutes! (I mean, don't do that... but cool, right??)
Use each loop to chip away at the mystery, exploring beautifully drawn biomes, helping quirky survivors, and tracking down leads. Fine-tune your skills to blaze through new routes, harvest potent “echoes”, and unlock game-altering secrets and shortcuts. Gain powerful knowledge to reshape the timeline and master the loop, weaving a new fate for all those trapped within.
Our vision is to combine the constant discovery and "mastery of knowledge" from Outer Wilds with the fast, fluid platforming and "mastery of controls" of a Celeste or Ori and the Blind Forest. With a small dose of Spelunky's "Chain" and some speedrunning influences thrown in.
And if that all sounds too hardcore for you, don't worry! We'll be carefully crafting the experience of the main story to be accessible to anyone with a casual interest and some basic gaming experience. We'll also have a suite of settings and toggles for players to curate they're own play style, like turning off damage or bypassing death entirely.
But if you want to go deeper, you'll be able to engage with the game's layered systems and optional content meant for precise timing, dexterous skills, and speedrunning. All you platformer sickos out there, eat your hearts out! There may even be hidden "competition", let's call it, buried in there among the game's many secrets...
The second core system of the game is "time as your currency." During each loop you'll be gathering chunks of time that will extend the loop, giving you more time to explore. But you'll also encounter barriers that require you to sacrifice time to pass, giving you access to new places but leaving you with a shorter loop. Every run will be a constant push and pull of the timeline, challenging you to think creatively about your routes, pickups, and where and when you want to explore that loop. All within the comforting embrace of "just one more time" - no single loop is precious, so you never have to worry about starting a new one.
Time will be used as a resource in other ways as well:
Draw from it to heal yourself, shrinking the loop but improving your chances of survival for that tricky section coming up
Trade chunks of time with NPCs who want to extend their own loop (or just eat it because... it tastes good? We don't ask...)
Bypass enemies to move faster, or choose to engage with them to pickup small timeline boosts
Sacrifice an entire loop to-- wait, no spoilers! ;)
There's tons more to talk about in the game, but I'll stop there for now on the design front! Now that the game is announced, we'll try to post more regularly here and on all our socials. We also want to do more dev streams and AMA's on our Discord, so hop in there if those sound cool to you.
Last but not least, wanted to say a huge "thank you" to both Day of the Devs and Xbox for inviting us to show with them last week at GDC! Both events were amazing, and we're so pumped to finally be able to share the game with people and get live reactions <3
Some incredible quotes from players and press:
"The moment I played it I was like, my mind has been blown, I'm all about this"
"Duuudddddeeee... DUUUUDDDDDEEEEEEEE!"
"I've been playing for 20 minutes already?? I never do this..."
"Holy f***ing sh**."
"I heard I HAD to come play this game, but no one will tell me why."
"You literally made a game just for me. Thank you."
Ok that's all for now, thanks for reading!
Oh right - go wishlist pllleeeeassseeeeeeee!