Meet your past self
Introduce the hourglass and rewind. The player creates an echo that repeats their previous actions, then continues from their current position.
GAME DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT / 2025GMTK GAME JAM · THEME: LOOP
Echoes
of Time.
A 2D puzzle game where rewinding time turns your past actions into a physical partner, creating puzzles of timing, passage, and cooperation.
Play on itch.io ↗
Built with external art and audio assets. Asset credits on itch.io ↗
01 / THE CORE IDEA
Your past becomes
part of the puzzle.
The jam theme “Loop” led me to time loops, then to rewind. I designed and programmed a system where rewinding creates an echo of the player’s recorded actions. The player stays at their current position while the echo returns to the beginning of its recording.
Once time moves forward again, the two share the same physical space. An echo can hold a switch, open a route, or block the player in a narrow passage.
- 01 / RECORD
Make a plan.
Move, wait, or keep moving toward a closed gate. Plan the actions you want your echo to repeat.
- 02 / REWIND
Stay. Turn time back.
Press R to rewind the recording and recover countdown time. The player cannot stop rewind early.
- 03 / REPLAY
Act alongside the echo.
The echo repeats the recorded movement, then fades out. Its limited duration makes waiting part of the plan.
02 / A PROGRESSIVE INTRODUCTION
Teach one consequence
at a time.
The first three levels separate the system’s ideas: creating an echo, recovering time without losing position, and using a past action to change the environment.
Recover time, keep your ground
A deliberately short countdown makes a direct run fail. Rewinding restores the countdown while preserving the distance the player has already covered.
Leave someone at the switch
For the first time, an echo must hold a pressure plate. The player records time on the plate, rewinds, and uses that window to pass through the gate.
03 / FROM SYSTEM TO LEVEL
Two puzzles.
Two ways of finding them.
Level four grew from an unexpected behavior in testing. Level five began with a planned solution that shaped the implementation.
LEVEL 04 / A DISCOVERY IN TESTING
Make room for your past self.
Testing revealed that the player and echoes could physically block each other. After considering whether to remove that behavior, I kept it and designed a level around a shared narrow passage.
The player must coordinate route and timing with the echo: which one enters first, when to wait, and how to leave room for the other to pass. Recording a successful route is only half of the solution; the player must also be able to coexist with it.
LEVEL 05 / A PLANNED INTERDEPENDENCE
Help the echo help you.
I designed this level around mutual dependence: the player creates the conditions for the echo to advance, and the echo returns the favor. Each actor must enable the other’s next action.
→ Movement ┄ Active switch → matching gate · A and B identify the same mechanisms in every view. The camera follows Player.
IMPLEMENTATION / SUPPORTING THE INTENDED SOLUTION
Restore positions backward.
Apply velocity forward.
← Rewind
Read backward
- Restore Position
- Restore Sprite
ONE RECORDED SEQUENCE
t₀PositionVelocitySprite
t₁PositionVelocitySprite
t₂PositionVelocitySprite
Rewind: t₂ → t₁ → t₀
Replay: t₀ → t₁ → t₂
Replay →
Read forward
- Apply Velocity to Rigidbody2D
- Unity physics handles current collisions
Rewind restores the past; replay responds to the present. Reading recorded positions backward returns Echo along its original path. Forward playback instead applies recorded velocities to its physics body, so current gates and collisions determine where it can move.
What the recording preserves: Each frame, the movement controller sets the rigidbody velocity from the player’s input, and the recorder then samples that value. This is the controller-set velocity, not velocity calculated from actual displacement. Holding movement against closed Gate A therefore records motion toward the gate even while it blocks progress. During replay, Player opens Gate A, allowing that motion to take Echo through to Switch B. This distinction makes level five’s mutual dependence possible.
04 / HIDDEN LEVEL 0
One last loop.
A different intention.
Unlocked after level five, the hidden ending returns to the starting courtyard. The player’s goal changes from helping their past self to stopping them.
“Go back. Stop yourself—stop me—before we ever touch the hourglass.”
Earlier levels ask the player to cooperate with their past self. The ending reverses that relationship: take the hourglass first and stop the loop from beginning.
Watch the story & ending excerpt
PLAYER FEEDBACK & NEXT STEPS
Keep the cooperation.
Revisit the pacing.
Players responded positively to the progression between levels and the ending’s reversal. Several comments also highlighted long rewind waits and slow movement; one player reported finishing level four with only 0.15 seconds remaining.
My next step is to test faster rewind playback and recalibrate level time limits around the revised pacing. I would also test movement speed separately to understand how it affects passage timing. These changes are planned and have not been implemented.
Read the player feedback ↗