Echo Mates Playtest · published · build 26268899
Campaign difficulty, on-screen indicators that finally tell the truth, a floor rage that stops multiplying with depth, visible psi, and a pause screen where you can shut down a teammate who won't stop kicking you.
Four levels — Easy / Normal / Hard / Max. You pick one once, when you start a campaign in an empty slot, and that slot keeps it; a different one means a different slot. Max is locked until a campaign is finished on Hard, and it unlocks for everyone who was on that shift. The difficulty is shown in the game list, so you know what you are joining.
It moves descent permits (4/3/3/2), payouts and prices, how much the director may spend and how many bodies it may hold, the price of a death, the shift timer (back on Hard and Max) and friendly fire: on Easy a wrench or a crate in a scrum knocks a teammate down instead of killing them, while mines, the defibrillator and a cryo flask still kill on every difficulty.
A Screen indicators switch in Settings turns them off on any difficulty, and the tablet is untouched either way.
Health is now a real pool instead of "a second hit inside a window kills you". That window could not be drawn honestly — the bar healed while the next blow still killed — so the mechanic changed rather than the picture. It applies on every difficulty, whether or not you can see the bar.
A three-player shift walked the offices and the metro, then cleared the warehouse once in seven attempts. Depth was multiplied into rage in three separate places, so depths 5-6 heated two to three times faster and effectively never cooled.
Rage now does two things: it keeps one or two extra creatures in reserve (and they leave on their own, out of sight, when it cools) and it points whatever is already on the floor at whoever is making noise. No more speed, hearing or lunge bonuses from it. Going deeper brings costlier creatures rather than more of them.
While the emitter runs — and while the Hypnotist is working on someone — the psi field is something you can see: shells spreading out, rings running to the victim, both strengthening on whoever is being affected. It is clipped to what the field can actually reach, so it never glows through a wall into a room it cannot touch.
The emitter is also always a single device now, and never sits in a room that cuts the crew off from the lift. Depth adds another power cell instead of a second emitter.
A new mark in the top right of the pause screen. You can forbid kicking and carrying — everyone, or one specific person — set each voice individually for yourself (radio and the PA included), and the host can remove someone from the session for good. Playtesters asked for this after being kicked around the warehouse for a whole shift.
There is more in this build that sits outside the demo's scope, and we are holding that back for now.
Bug reports and ideas are read, and several of the changes above came straight from them. Thank you for playing.