Echo

design phaser programming

Echo is a video game without video. It was made at the Malta Global Game Jam 2014 by Bernard Brincat and myself.

The game requires at least 2 people to play, and needs a mobile device and a laptop or tablet. One player plays as the bat; they are blindfolded and given a pair of headphones that are connected to a mobile device. The other player plays as the eyes; they are given a laptop or tablet that can send sounds to the other player, used to control the direction of their physical movement.

Echo was written in Javascript and HTML5. It involved lots of client/server socket programming, as well as the use of positional 3D audio. The server was written using node.js, while the clients were written using Phaser JS. I was in charge of the overall game concept, as well as the development of the client side, while Bernard took care of the server-side development.

Below, you can see a video of a game in progress.

Echo also happened to appear on local television! More specifically, the game is being played in the background during a spotlight on the Malta Global Game Jam (interviewing Patricia Pizer, who was the keynote speaker).

Source code and installation instructions can be seen here: https://scutajar.itch.io/echo

Echo was cited in academic literature in the following places:

  • Playing the Non-Human, Proceedings of Reconfiguring Human and Non-Human: Texts, Images and Beyond, Jyväskylä, Finland. Full conference proceedings here
  • Playing the Nonhuman: Alien Experiences in Alien vs Predator, Reconfiguring Human, Nonhuman and Posthuman in Literature and Culture, Chapter 5, pgs 108-124, editors Karkulehto S., Koistinen A. & Varis E. 10.4324/9780429243042-6. Author copy available here

The source code can be downloaded from the Global Game Jam website here.

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