Echo by FunnyPumpkin
In the depths of castle Fang there is a young Bat trying to solve its puzzles with everything she has.
Controls: Spacebar - emit soundwave
Music by Paul Thick
Game-design/Sound-Design by Funny Pumpkin
Game-design/Programming by Factorizer
Art by HotCoffee
Art by Akira Arlert
Programming by Owi
SFX used: FilmCow Royalty Free Sound Effects Library
Elemental Magic: Fire Attacks [Audio Assets Collection]
Free Fantasy 200 SFX Pack by TomMusic
UI Sound Effects by lolurio
Ratings
| Overall | 26th | 4.267⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 18th | 4.224⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 17th | 4.345⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 17th | 4.603⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 299th | 3.983⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 169th | 3.875⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 329th | 3.045⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 294th | 3.857⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 25🗳️ | 18🗨️ |
Anyway this puzzle game is very original
the puzzle was great, and i really liked the amount of mechamics you added. congrats!
It's especially cool that you added super challenging levels in addition to the regular ones! I especially liked the dark maze level - it really showcased the bat's unique abilities!
I'm curious how this signal wave is implemented to disable in some area of the circle that hit a wall?
Is it using multiple collision meshes? Lots of raycasts in all directions? Something else?
From the gameplay logic point of view we sort of cheat and just perform a raycast from the cached wave source position to the torch once the wave circle reaches the torch, which is not ideal but works for most situations.
From the visualization point of view we use a shadow mask texture that is generated by rendering quads on top of shadow casting objects with a special vertex shader that moves vertices with a non zero z coordinate far away from the light point, the idea I got from this great post https://forum.gamemaker.io/index.php?threads/ultra-fast-2d-dynamic-lighting-system.80742/
Additionally our shadow mask also includes a second channel to store "color" information to make the colored glass visualization work.
Besides that it's basically just a matter of maintaining different vertex buffers for static and dynamic parts of the level as well as colored glass and updating them as necessary and when waves get emitted a shadow mask is rendered from their point of view and stored for rendering (also updated as needed, for example in response to doors opening and closing).
This system is used to render both waves and the player's light glow.
Pros: bat Cons: bat doesn't turn into a vampire girl
The sonar effect is stellar. That moment where a ping reveals just enough of the geometry to commit to a plan, but not enough to be sure, that's the whole puzzle genre in one mechanic. And you're letting the *player's memory* do the heavy lifting instead of cluttering the screen with UI, which takes real restraint.
Puzzle design is great too. The ramp feels earned — each level taught me something without a tutorial pop-up. Rare.
Really glad I played this. Would love to see where you take it.
Top notch entry, well done!
I'm stuck on what some commenters say is the final level (the 5x5 grid) and it's a bit frustrating, I'm not sure if there's a trick to it or if you just fly around and keep hitting them until they're all orange, but I've tried for 5 minutes and ran out of patience! But a very well deserved high score overall.
Stopped here for now, but added to a collection and favorites!
Very calming but thoughtful puzzler that was thoroughly enjoyable. Great job!
Some elements were a bit unclear visually, like the paths to the doors, the blue shields, and how everything connects. A bit more spacing between elements could help reduce confusion, especially since there is quite a lot of empty space in each room.
That being said, I really enjoyed the echolocation concept, the mystical vibe, and the audio. Great work!