Two years ago, a demo from a three-person team in northwest North America hit my email and I wasn’t really prepared for how special it would end up being. My name is Buddy Solá, I’m the Head of Publishing for Akupara Games and with a title like that, you can imagine I spend quite a lot of time playing demos from prospective indie developers. To put it in the clearest possible terms, Echo Weaver is the best demo I’ve ever played in my career in indies.

Created by Moonlight Kids, Echo Weaver is something of a cross between Outer Wilds, Edge of Tomorrow, and Celeste, and we’ve been using a very fancy new term to describe its genre. If a Metroidvania is a game where acquiring gear and upgrades lets you progress in new ways, Echo Weaver is a Metroidbrainia, where the only thing you ever need to acquire is knowledge.

You’re stuck in the colony of Provenance, a futuristic space colony suffering after something called the Collapse – and you’re stuck not just in place, but also in time. Every cycle, you’ve got minutes to live, tracked right at the top of your screen. When that clock runs out, the cycle starts over. You have a whole new chance to progress as long as you’re clever. Make no mistake, this isn’t a roguelike. Nothing here is random or procedurally generated. It’s a grand, clockwork time loop puzzle, and every reset gives you a chance to come back faster, smarter, and armed with everything you learned last time.

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