For a generation now, gamers have been afflicted by various ailments. “Nintendo thumb”, “Wii tennis elbow”, “Excessive minigame depression”, these are all illnesses we’re familiar with. So when someone who loves games, as I do, breaks their pinky finger, their gaming options become astoundingly limited. GTA IV is officially on hold.

I went in search of something I could play with just one hand. Two stick shooters and mouse & keyboard games were immediately knocked off the list. I needed something slow paced. Then this week’s new Playstation Network offering sprang to mind: Echochrome.

The premise of the game is as simple as its graphics. One lemming-like mannequin walks on various pieces of M.C. Escher-like platforms. You manipulate the level, not the mannequin directly – minus start and pause commands. Moving the level allows him safe passage to various checkpoints and eventually back to where he started. The level’s movement is a result of its relationship to the camera’s viewpoint. If two 3D objects appear to be on the same plane in 2D space they are treated as such. If you temporarily cover the camera’s view of a hole with an object in the foreground, it no longer exists. I liken this paradox to the quantum physics question of the cat in the box. The hole both exists and doesn’t exist. I am going to be bold and declare Echochrome as the world’s first quantum game.

As you may have deduced, Echochrome is a game with simple rules but extremely complicated puzzles. Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of the game is the time limit per level…the unknown time limit. There is no on-screen counter, presumably to maintain the game’s beautifully simplistic aesthetic, but at the cost of not knowing exactly how much time you have left to get our little friend to the end. There are some audio clues to indicate that you’re running out of time but often I neglect to notice them when I’m immersed in the game. Also, the manipulation of 3D objects in a 2D medium can be very challenging and will occasionally result in the mannequin being unintentionally launched into space.

Echochrome does, at times, seem to forget its own rules. A few times I have found that when I align two pieces of a level that should allow for one continuous piece, the game simply doesn’t recognize what I’m trying to do. Instead I’m stuck trying to find out exactly what the designer intended me to do and not free to explore the level on my own.

There are 56 puzzles included in the game and with every launch you are prompted as to whether or not you would like to download new content. Word is that this content will be free user created content, hand picked by the creators of the game. The process of how to submit your piece of level art to the team is still a little foggy as is the date when we can first expect to see something.

Overall, if you like to give your brain a workout while you game then Echochrome is well worth the $9.99 price tag. It’s also available for the PSP and seems like a great fit for brief bus rides and lunch hours spent solving puzzles.

WARNING: Do not try to watch someone else play this game. Usually, I have no problems with being a gaming spectator, but Echochrome drives me insane. It is basically impossible to try to describe to another person how you want them to manipulate the screen, and watching them try to follow your directions (or in some cases completely ignore them), is so frustrating, I can only tolerate playing this game in doses of one level. If I owned a PSP, though, I would definitely buy it to play by myself.