Editor’s Note: Credit for this article goes to Codasleuth with minor editing from VRFI staff.
Echo Combat Lounge and ECRanked announce the release of The Flamingo Challenge, an ongoing event for Ready At Dawn’s Echo Combat (an in-app purchase for Echo VR by Ready at Dawn for the Oculus/Meta platform) that will run parallel to Echo VR’s Echo Pass from start to end of each season.
Season 1 of the Flamingo Challenge begins March 15th, 2022 and ends May 31st, 2022, the same days as Echo Pass Season 5.
The Flamingo Challenge is a collection of 25 challenges players can attempt to complete within Echo Combat. All 25 primary challenges contain multiple different achievements (of which there are hundreds) slowly rising in difficulty and given different awards based on what is completed on the list. Primary challenges include pulsar, nova, threat scanner, loadout, deaths, capture point, and more.
All primary challenges are listed under the categories Day, Week, and Season, with an additional Community category for special achievements to encourage players to be more involved in the extended Combat Community outside of the game. In order to complete or “win” the challenge list, all achievements under all categories and challenges must be completed. Player stats for the challenge are collected from the game API and then organized into a user-friendly easy to read format.
The Flamingo Challenge is hosted on ECRanked, a website built and programmed by Combat community member Kaleb (aka BiffBish) with the support of fellow community leaders/collaborators Vibinator (hosting and support) and Codasleuth (creative director). The site is intended to act as an extension of the game and the Echo Combat Lounge community Discord server to help players learn about their playstyle and to encourage the community to interact and grow in new ways, which is where the new challenge list comes in.
“This is a gift to the Combat community, to the RAD devs, to Echo VR as a whole, stated Codasleuth, ECRanked and ECFL co-creator/admin. “We hope it encourages players to play even more and inspires the devs to give Echo Combat more focus and
content updates in the form of more maps, loadouts, and/or maybe even a Quest port.”
The creative team behind The Flamingo Challenge hopes this brand new community-created seasonal event, the first of its kind for Echo VR and exclusive to Echo Combat, excites and challenges players across the entire scale, from a brand new player to a seasoned pro veteran. There’s much to explore within the achievement list.
Many key references and Easter eggs specific to the game and to the community are hidden throughout, as well as nods to key RAD devs who’ve shown their support for the Combat Community over the years since the game’s release in November 2018. The creative team behind the challenge list wanted to honor the game, community, and developer Ready at Dawn as much as possible with The Flamingo Challenge. Everything from top to bottom and the way the challenge works has been refined countless times and the team finally feels it’s ready for its inaugural season, with more fine-tuning after the initial launch.
BiffBish, the sole programmer of ecranked.com noted, “By far my largest project ever. Was extremely fun to develop and learn in the process. I hope people enjoy and give the challenges a try.”
Codasleuth added that “helping create and run a pro-league for Echo Combat (ECFL) was an amazing and rewarding experience, but one of the things I learned after season one was how important normal public games are for helping grow the community and playerbase, which in turn leads to more players and teams for the competitive scene to also grow. Many players don’t have the time or desire to play in pro-league events but they do want something more, and many pro players need something when there isn’t a league event happening.”
“The Flamingo Challenge is intended for both types of these players and all skill levels within them,” he continued, adding that the challenges allow them “to compete against themselves at their own pace but to also try to complete the entire list before anyone else, all while improving their skills along the way and hopefully preparing them for pro-league events in the future.”
A labor of love years in the making from concept to reality, the Echo Combat Community invites you to join the ranks and to take part in this new seasonal event.
Pew pew pew!
