Echo Chamber

Created for Mystery Game Jam 2025.

Currently a prototype since I barely had time to work on this during the jam. But it still ended up in a fairly polished state, and you can play multiple rounds from start to finish. But I have a lot more I want to add in the future when I have more time.

Hopefully there aren't any game-breaking bugs since I had no  time to actually test this with more than one person... That also means I have no idea if it's actually any fun to play, so feel free to try it out with some friends and see for yourself!

What is Echo Chamber?

Echo Chamber is an online multiplayer social deduction game with a twist: you can only read the last message sent before yours.

The game takes place in a chatroom, where you type to other anonymous players (no voice chat required). Your goal is to deduce who among the group is the Mole, and vote them out of the chat. Or if you are the Mole, then your goal is to remain hidden while getting everyone else voted out before you.

Each round, everyone except the Mole is given a set of facts, and a prompt to discuss them and flush out the Mole. 

However, unlike everyone else, the Mole can read the entire chat.

The game proceeds through phases: in the Chat Phase, players discuss the facts of the current prompt. After time passes, or a vote is called, you move to the Vote Phase. Each player has a short time limit to cast their vote for who to "ban" from the chat. Banned players can still watch the game play out, but can no longer chat or vote. This process repeats until either the Mole is banned (Regime wins), or the Mole survives to the end (Mole wins).

Playing the game requires at least 3 people, but can have up to 6. If there are more than 3 people,  1 person is banned each round until the game ends. 

Also, once the game is over, the identity of the Mole and the full chat history is revealed to everyone.

Story

The authoritarian Regime has forced its citizens into using a messaging app to communicate, which the Regime itself also uses. One day, a hacker sabotaged the communications system: all messages are corrupted, except for the last message sent before yours.

As part of the Regime, you have been summoned to a secret group chat in order to find this saboteur. Is there a traitor among you? 

As the Mole, you've intercepted the Regime's communications and gained  access to all of their chat messages. Blend in, sow discord, and convince the Regime to ban themselves from their own chatroom until you're the only one left.

Strategy

The chatting is real-time, so you need to choose whether to send a message early to provide info to others, or message later to gain it instead. You can also see who is currently typing if you want to time your response to specifically to view one person's message.

During each round, a Mission Report is provided, which arms all Regime agents with information to verify with each other. The Mole does not have access to the summary nor the discussion questions, but can see the list of key words -- though unable to distinguish the good from the bad.

Disclosure

ChatGPT and Grok were used to help brainstorm ideas, write code and in-game text, and generate art assets.