Thats My Echo

Inspiration

We wanted to make a game where death actually means something. Most platformers reset you and pretend nothing happened. We wanted your failures to stay in the world, to matter, to be used. The idea of being a sound born from wind came early and everything built around it naturally.

What it does

ThatsMyEcho is a 2D platformer where you play as a breath, a sound born from wind cutting through ancient mountains. You place echoes of yourself that replay your exact movements in real time. Those echoes stay in the level and can interact with the world. An enemy called the Listener wanders dormant until an echo is placed, then hunts it down. Reach the Ancient Ones before everything is silenced.

How we built it

Built in Unity over 36 hours. We used a custom character controller for the breath character, a recording and playback system for the echoes, and a simple but effective AI for the Listener that activates only when an echo exists in the world.

Challenges we ran into

Getting the echo playback to feel accurate was harder than expected. Wall jumping and collision detection gave us a lot of trouble early on. Balancing the Listener so it felt threatening but fair took several iterations.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The echo mechanic genuinely changes how you think about movement. Watching your past self replay while you navigate around the Listener hunting it is exactly the feeling we were going for. The world and the mechanics tell the same story.

What we learned

Scope is everything in a hackathon. We cut a lot and the game is better for it. We also learned that the best mechanics are the ones that serve the narrative without needing to explain themselves.