The mind-twisting puzzle game Echochrome made its way to Play.com Live, available on the same unit as Hot Shots Golf 5. Recently released in Japan, I was able to get my hands on some of the latter levels in the game.

As the difficulty ramped up, a mini crowd built around me. With them in awe of my genius (read; luck) I wasn’t quite expecting the opinion I overheard.

A young gentlemen expressed his feelings to a nearby Sony representative, saying that Echochrome was “a bit racist.”  Alright (???) His reasoning behind this was that “you’re a little white guy trying to get rid of the black ones.”

You see, in Echochrome, you’re a mannequin that has to make its way to the end of the level by following shadowy black figures.  In reality, the mannequin is a see-through character on a white background, and the shadowy figures are your guides to the end of the level.

For a black and white game, it’s difficult to conclude that Echochrome’s Japanese developers had subconsciously input their (non-existent) pro-white racist opinions into the game…

Echochrome is the latest videogame to be short-listed as racist, from Resisdent Evil 5 to Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (though this latter example was a joke from Yahtzee in his Zero Punctuation review.)  Awareness of the attitudes presented in videogames is of course very important, but the uninformed labelling of a little puzzle game should only be ignored.

Naturally this was one mans opinion after seeing the game for a few minutes.   The game hasn’t been labelled by anyone else, but this man’s words both saddened and amused me. Perhaps Echochrome could offer a black background (making the colourless mannequin appear to be black) as an option, in the vein of the original design for the PSP version.

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Independent games make me excited. The unrestrained creativity of game developers trying to break into the industry can be a dynamic and explosive thing. So I had to check out this years GDC mobile awards to see what the best had to offer.

The entire awards ceremony was only half an hour long… short and sweet or perhaps short and oversimplified? I went to get a glimpse of a lot of the games and to be honest, I only got a minimal one at that. No video or game description was given and only one or two pictures for each nominee and winner. I wanted to see more.

The awards ceremony started at 10:05 in the morning! Equally bizarre! Plus, prior to the events start, Rage Against the Machine’s Killing in the Name was pumping through the large event’s speakers. I love me some Rage, but at 10am, I don’t know that my heart wants to feel riotous anarchy. 11am, sure, but 10? No.

All the Awards presenters and winners were very respectful and classy, and presented the following awards:

Audio Achievement Winner: Critter Crunch by Capybara Games

Impressions: A very colorful, whimsical looking puzzle game? It looks like a column based puzzle game and in one picture, it looks as though a character at the bottom of the screen is about to eat a critter column that has formed at the top of the screen with his tongue, Yoshi style.

Technical Achievement Winner: Steam Iron: The Fallen by Mikoishi

Impressions: They only showed one screenshot, but the graphics look fantastic for a mobile game.

Artistic Achievement Winner: Kodo by Jadestone

Impressions: Kodo are little hungry things that live in the digital environment.

Innovation in Augmented Design presented by NVidia Winner: Phone Tag Elite by Knowledgewhere Inc

Impressions: This category had me more excited than any other, since the nominees use GPS as the technology base for their games. Phone Tag sounds great, I’m not surprised it won, but another nominee used GPS as a sort of tour guide function, telling you history as you followed it around. Cool.

Innovation in Mobile Game Design Winner: Ego by Punch Entertainment

Impressions: Looked like a fairly flushed out Japanese RPG. Again, only making judgments from one picture.

IGF Best Game Winner: Critter Crunch by Capybara Games

Impressons: The guys from Critter Crunch tell us to look for it on other platforms, which makes me hope DS.

All in all, the IGF mobile game awards were short and fun and although i would of liked to see more info about the games they were honoring, it definitely wet my appetite for the full fledged Independent Game Festival Awards that we’ll be reporting later on tonight.