In the beginning, Echochrome is a puzzle game of masterful illusions. Only after you’ve played a few levels will your eyes adjust and be able to see the possible solutions. The square, rectangular, and odd-shaped blocks appear to be thrown onto the screen without direction. But their placement is intelligently specific; following the rules of five in-game laws, players will manipulate the perspective of the shapes in order to guide their character to each goal point. Displayed as a silhouette of your transparent character, these goal points can only be reached after seeing the image for what it really is.

Awe Inspired

The image above is a great example of the way you’ll navigate Echochrome’s stages. Your character moves automatically; you can stop it by pressing the triangle button and take a moment to think (as noted by the “thinking” image on the bottom of the screen). Movement is otherwise continuous, and may be sped up with the X button.

Sounds pretty simple, right? But in this game, character control is not your primary concern. There are more pressing matters, like the two black and two white circles, each of which plays an important role in Echochrome. The former is a drop point – walk over a black hole and you’ll fall right through. White circles do the opposite, hurling you into the air as if you had jumped off a trampoline.

Does this still sound simple? In words and screenshots alone, the full effect of Echochrome is not apparent. But the twists will make you curious to find out more. Rather than leap through the air aimlessly or drop through the hole without any hope of survival, the game allows you to guide your character by changing the perspective. Using the D-pad or analog stick, you can tilt and turn the shapes for a different view. But it’s more than a view change – your character walks on whatever path you lay before it. In the photo above, the character had been moving toward the white circle on the left. As you can see, he leapt forward in that same direction. In this case, that’s what the player wanted to happen since you need to reach the goal point.

But what if the player wanted to reach the lower platform on the other side, and the black holes weren’t available? After the jump, you’d have to swing the platform around and try to line it up with your character before the jump ends. This is one of the trickier elements of the game, and is sometimes optional. You may be able to find a simpler way around it. Echochrome does have some strange limitations, which I’ll get to later. But on the whole it is a very intelligent and open-ended game.

Since the black holes are there, you could instead jump over to one of the top platforms and wait for your character to approach the hole. Before that happens, line up the hole with the lower platform you wish to reach. Ignore your thoughts of perception – one of the laws in the game is that, if the character falls through the hole, it can be caught by any platform underneath. What happens if you miss? No worries; in Echochrome, time is your enemy, not death. Fallen characters will re-spawn at or near the last platform they touched.

Connect More

This next level (in the screenshot above) is another great illusion whose reality is revealed by another law. The bottom part of the middle platform is not parallel to the small rectangle in front of it. But you’re going to line up them up, the two platforms will touch, and you will walk across them. The solution is not entirely difficult, but the visual aspect is out of this world. You’ll accomplish this mission by angling the shapes until the perspective makes them appear to be parallel, just as they are in the screenshot. Then, with a little more tilting, the platforms will touch, their center line will disappear, and they will become one object. Simply amazing.

Connection Not Always Perfect

Echochrome is an impeccable game, but it is not impervious to its own rules. There were a couple of times when I had two shapes lined up perfectly, both of them connected, and yet my character wouldn’t walk across them. Without knowing what was in the developers’ heads, or perhaps not being a master of the game, it’s hard to figure out – even after solving the puzzle – why this occurs. The “laws” of Echochrome are more of a gift than what the word typically means, but the occasional restrictions were not welcome. If I’m missing something – if there’s some additional part of the law I’m not understanding – then that’s clearly an issue that a sequel (if developed) should address.

Minor issues aside, I have just one complaint: replay value. Echochrome is by all means a game worth playing through multiple times. But once you’ve solved a puzzle, it’s hard to shake the solution from your mind, making it very easy to solve the second time around. There is a great puzzle creation tool that allows gamers to make their own, but the PSP edition only allows you to share them locally. (As opposed to the PS3 edition, which allows you to upload homemade puzzles to the developers. If impressed, the developers will distribute those levels to all PS3 players for free via PSN.)

On the bright side, it’s unlikely that I’ll remember any of the puzzle solutions one year from now, which means the game will have long-term value. But don’t count on short-term replay value to keep you playing. Echochrome is a low price 56-level gem that was designed to be a stellar first-time experience. And mind you, these levels are different from the PS3 edition. The $10 download fee is worth every penny. Puzzle fans, even those who are skeptical, shouldn’t hesitate to make this their next PSP game.