Echoes
A downloadable game
I’m just tired of everything... even the echoes.
There is nothing in my life but echoes...
Echoes of lost hopes and dreams and joys.
They’re beautiful and mocking.
L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea
In time,
everyone fades away,
transfiguring into
echoes that latch
onto our memories
and bleed our hearts dry.
Barbara Garay, Beneath the Surface: A Book of Poems
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Echoes is a game about atonement or damnation. A game about fear and the obscure and resilience in the face of adversity both physically and mentally. You will explore the suppressed and repressed aspects of your mind and either project them into your new reality or deny them by projecting them into others.
You are a lone soul lost in a mysterious town searching for what remains of a loved one who has long since gone beyond the world. Mysterious creatures roam the mists surrounding the city, turning it into a cage, and supernatural forces rule over the streets and alleys. The echoes of your past latch onto you and challenge you at every turn.
You are alone.
You are afraid.
You are without hope.
Maybe if you survive, you'll learn something about your true self.
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Echoes is a solo journaling game where you write or record your story, using only a six-sided die and a deck of cards which provide prompts to get your mind engaged. You may get attacked during the night, recall memories from you and your loved one's past, or answer deep questions about your own morality. Echoes is deadly--but you can also add a block tower to make the deadly even deadlier.
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Disclaimer: There are themes of death, gore, violence, loss of agency and mental degradation that some players may find disturbing. Discretion is advised. Themes are heavily influenced in horror genres such as Silent Hill and Resident Evil.
This game was created as part of the Wretched & Alone Jam, a game jam organised to coincide with the release of the SRD for the Wretched & Alone system, based on Chris Bissette's game The Wretched.
This product is available in a single PDF in letter size (8.5"x11").
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An unbelievably fun way to spend a few hours. If you’re looking for a TTRPG to play solo, I couldn’t recommend this game more. Fantastic!!
Echoes is a Wretched engine single-player journaling rpg inspired by Silent Hill. That Silent Hill influence is *very* evident, and the cover image pretty much calls unbidden the SH1 soundtrack in my head. The game is also pretty authentic to the core elements of SH without getting lost in specific aesthetics, and may be worth checking out even if you don't play tabletop if you're a fan of Silent Hill.
Echoes is 18 pages, with an atmospheric layout but virtually no illustrations. This works in its favor, strangely, and it means there are no specific images competing with the abandoned town you're picturing. In a multiplayer game, not having everyone on the same page visually might be a problem, but Echoes doesn't have to worry about that.
Gameplay in Echoes cleaves pretty close to the bone of the Wretched engine formula. You play with jenga, cards, dice, and a journal, and your success or failure is ultimately up to the random whim of the card deck.
You can lose by not jenga-ing hard enough, but certain card combinations just end you, with nothing you could have done to prevent it.
The writing and design of the individual events in Echoes is strong, and it's definitely an atmospheric game. Overall, I would recommend it to Silent Hill fans, horror writers, and anyone who wants to journal a story of a person descending into an abandoned town purgatory, with their fate up to the whim of the deck.
Appreciate the feedback! In all honesty, this was my first ever published game and with that went all the anxieties of a thoughtful review. From the cover "art" to the layout, I did my best on my own to try and give a "mood" to the game which seems to have bled through while still being true to the W&A system.
In hind sight, I wish I had done something with it that set it apart from the rest of the menagerie or W&A games, but for a first outing, I think it achieved what I wanted for it--mainly just an homage to a game that really sticks with me to this day and influence my writing and the stories I tell in TTRPG spaces.
Thanks so much for taking the time. I highly appreciate it again. <3
Echoes is a really excellent game! My complaints are basically nitpicks of the W&A engine, and they're only included because W&A's randomness was the element that I most thought a random reader would want to know about going in.
This game was an amazing experience. I will play again, this was amazing.
I'm so glad, that warms my black heart <3
Intense and exciting and tragic and excellent. The impending dread of each turn and the desire to discover what is to come is gripping.
5 stars. Will absolutely play again. And again. And again!
Thank you, so, so much. This was my first project I had the guts to release to the public.. I am so glad you enjoyed it <3