Meet Echo Zhang | Indie Game Designer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Echo Zhang and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Echo, why did you pursue a creative career?
For me, the world we live in is full of mysteries like a mountain covered in mist. Pursuing a creative career might be the most convenient way to understand the world while earning a living.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
Most of my work focuses on the theme of ruins and liminal spaces, which usually are transitional spaces, but also include empty or abandoned places that appear eerie, forlorn, and often surreal in internet aesthetics. I also explore anemoia in some of my works. anemoia is a kind of nostalgia for a time you never experienced and is generally associated with surrealism, retrofuturism, and weird core. I am obsessed with creating an atmosphere that elaborates on the feeling of “a place where the transition will happen and has not happened yet” since it will effectively bring fluidity to the game both narratively and visually. However, accurately revealing the fluidity of an unchanged, still space is difficult since the boundary between changed and unchanged is ambiguous. It may take days or even months to adjust details in my game project to achieve the desired effect.
On the other hand, different people have different understandings of the same scene. I also need to ensure that players can understand the message I hide behind world settings, environment designs, and other little details. Although it is hard to completely avoid ambiguity, having a lot of playtesting can be very helpful in preventing the creation of more ambiguity. Listening to players’ feedback and reconsidering my approach could guide me to design more fascinating games.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I might take my friends to visit all the abandoned places in my city, such as the ruins of a shopping mall and an abandoned construction set. For me, these abandoned places represent the past or the lost future of a city. Having a little adventure in those places is also a very interesting experience. I might also prepare some homemade food to have a picnic with my friends while visiting those ruins.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
As an indie game designer, I get a lot of inspiration from Hidetaka Miyazaki’s Souls series, which changed my comprehension of video games and encouraged me to become a designer instead of a player. On the other hand, I’m always interested in reaching out to all kinds of eerie and retro aesthetic styles, such as retrofuturism, steam waves, and weird core. Thus, I’d like to thank Mark Fisher for his theories that clearly elaborate the definition of nostalgia while generalizing this theme from sociological and philosophical aspects. And for sure, my parents and friends deserve a huge thanks for their love and support all the time.

Website: https://ezhang4.wixsite.com/website