Echo: Descend

You are blind. You are underground, and the way you came in is gone. Ten descents below you, there is a door that opens outward, and the only way to it is down. You cannot see. You can make a sound and listen to it come back — a pulse that races out from you, washes over whatever is there, and shows it to you for a second or two before the dark takes it again. That is your only sense. It is also the loudest thing you can do. SEEING COSTS YOU Every other game about darkness hands you a torch and asks you to ration the battery. Echo asks something sharper: the act of looking IS the act of announcing yourself. You are never punished for being in the dark. You are punished for wanting to leave it. So the question is never "where do I go". It is "do I dare look". WHAT IS DOWN THERE The Stalker is slow and patient. You can walk away from it forever — it only ever catches people who stop, and…