Hello there! Quick word from the developer. My name is Ramil, and upon finalizing the Demo version of Echoes of the Abyss, I wanted to make some sort of overview of gameplay mechanics. Hopefully, it’ll be useful to some of you.
Overall features
One hit gameplay – eat or be eaten. Elemental interplay – Poison, Frost, Fire, Electricity, Gravitational forces are interacting with each other. Destructible environment – almost everything can be destroyed. Random generation of Rooms and layouts from hand-crafted presets. Random generation of enemies and traps from hand-crafted presets. Permadeath from physical, elemental damage or from going insane. Zero handholding and help - gameplay by trial and error, no tutorial, just a small amount of descriptions in dialogues and hints in menus. No map – Player has to memories the path taken (but it’s not that hard).
How to play the Game
The main gameplay loop - fighting for survival and resources, while progressing towards the boss. Player has to eat or destroy other enemies with abilities to become bigger and stronger (but gets slower when grows).
Enemies do the same – they eat each other or the Player, level-up and grow bigger. Enemies are living their lives and are chasing each other as much as the Player. However, corrupt enemies are going exclusively after the Player.
Everything around you may be destroyed (except main layout walls). The faster and bigger Player is, the easier it is to destroy objects. Also, Frost abilities make objects brittle and easier to destroy.
When Player dies, the small part of its humanity leaves the body to inhabit a new one to begin the cycle anew.
Player Abilities
Player has 3 types of basic abilities: Dash to make short bursts; Shield that protects the Player from physical attacks; Shockwave – at first, it can only push enemies away.
All abilities go on cooldown after use and may be upgraded. All 3 abilities may be weaponized with Frost, Poison, Fire, Electricity and Gravitational powers.
Elemental forces and ecosystem
Push force pushes enemies and some objects away and Pull force pulls them in.
Electricity stuns enemies, making them immobile for a short period of time.
Frost slows down enemies and makes objects easier to destroy. It also neutralizes poisonous substances. If a creature is frozen, it becomes immune to poison attacks and fire attacks. If the enemy is frozen, fire attack will defrost them, while not harming them at all. If the enemy has high cold resistance, it won’t slow down as much as other enemies on frost attack.
Poison intoxicates enemies, building up, until prey becomes poisonous to other enemies, starting a toxicity plague.
If the enemy is poisonous, it takes more fire damage. Poison substances are explosive when come in contact with fire. If the prey is toxic, the hunter who eats the prey, receives toxicity from it. So, if the Player is toxic, rather that losing a life to intoxication, Player may let himself be eaten by a bigger enemy to poison it. If the enemy has high poison resistance, the higher is the threshold of it becoming poisonous to all surrounding enemies and to eventually die from intoxication.
Heat energy (fire) burns enemies. Fire explodes toxic substances and is more efficient on intoxicated enemies. Frost and fire evaporate each other. Fire amplifies electricity though high temperature. If the enemy has high fire resistance, it will take a few attacks to burn it.
How to do Upgrades and Use abilities
During Playthrough, the Player finds DNA Runes in crates and chests. Those Runes are various abilities Player may use. White Runes serve as upgrades for Player’s physical stats, such as maximum lives, resistances, speed... Or they may be used to enhance Player’s basic abilities i.e. Shield, Dash and Shockwave cooldowns and durations.
However, all found Runes are not charged, so Player has to energize them in order to use.
In the safe zone there is a shop and a machine that lets Player upgrade abilities. Player has to put its experience points to energize the Rune, thus becoming smaller and weaker. But, when you put the ability in one of the slots – Shield, Dash, or Shockwave – the Player’s corresponding ability gains those elemental properties.
You can do all kinds of synergies with elemental powers, but be careful, the elements interact with each other.
Madness
The world at the Edge of the Abyss is full of danger not only on the physical level, but the mental one as well. Madness monsters hunt Player, trying to take away what’s left of its humanity. If the Sanity meter falls below 50%, the world starts to change, increasing the risk on Player going even more mad.
Lanterns, as beacons of light and hope appear to help Player repel those monsters, and to relieve stress. However, they disappear, when world returns to normal.
If the madness level reaches its peak, a Grim Reaper ascends from the Abyss and follows Player to take away its body and to restart the cycle.