Ecco The Dolphin Creator Kickstarting ‘The Big Blue’

Ecco The Dolphin was one of the most iconic games of the 16bit era.  Now its creator, Ed Annunziata, is looking to fund ‘The Big Blue’, an underwater adventure game, along with a number of members from the original Ecco team.

They’re looking for a total $665,000 initially to bring the game to iOS, Android, PC and Mac, with a tentative release date of 22nd April 2014.  Currently the Kickstarter pledges stand at $17,317, with 34 days remaining, which seems to be a solid start. If they exceed their goal by 50% the game will get multiplayer and co-operative modes, while somewhat hopefully they’ve also stated that if they make twice as much they’ll be able to turn the game into an MMO.

The impressive development team includes original Ecco (and Sonic CD) sound designer Spencer Nilsen, who will collaborate on the soundtrack with the incredible Bear Mcready, whose work includes both the soundtracks to Battlestar Galactica and The Walking Dead television series. They also have creature creator Jon Berg on hand, who designed both the AT-AT’s in The Empire Strikes Back and the chessboard characters in Star Wars.

“Our game will deal with themes such as climate change, mass extinction, predation, evolution and biogenesis,” Annunziata reveals in the campaign video. “Ultimately, the game poses the Gaia theory, that the Earth itself is a living organism.”

“Immediately after the extinction of humans, the oceans become silent, causing a surge of cetacean communication. A kind of cetacean internet is born. This awakening brings life on Earth to its next evolution.”

“Millions of years later, dolphins are able to use their voices to sing songs with effects like magic spells. You’ll be able to control whole schools of animals at once, create new organisms and populate your own small sea.”

Having spent a good deal of time with the original Ecco game, a similar experience using modern technology could be interesting, especially with the sound designers they have involved. However, whether they can generate enough interest to reach their Kickstarter target remains to be seen.

5 Comments

  1. I hope it makes it.

  2. interesting concept, the Ecco game was fun, though a stupidly hard boss meant i never finished it.

  3. ha ha, what a classic game. I doubt they could recreate anything as fresh as that these days.

  4. The way you grow lifeforms makes it sound a bit like an underwater version of Waking Mars, which is a fantastic PC/Mac/Linux/Android/iOS game. Only not on Mars, of course – Oh and you don’t use song to grow life on Mars either.

    So really it sounds nothing like Waking Mars, but the idea seems similar.

  5. I never got on too well with controlling Ecco the Dolphin but the concept sounds interesting.

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