2017-11-29 22:47:40

@Dragomier, most currencies in the world convert fairly easily, especially if Cloverbit are using paypal, so it doesn't matter whether you pay in Euroes, dollars, pounds, Yen, australian dollars or whatever, I've been buying things in Euroes and Dollars with British pounds for years and never had problems big_smile.

@Cloverbit, I've had a look at the page with nvda and google chrome and it works fine (I also signed up to the news letter),  definitely intrigued by the mention of minigames. I also wonder if we might hear a demo of some combat to get an idea of how the situation works. What I am wondering currently is how things progress with respect to the echoe location system mentioned in the features list. The features list also seemed to indicate that the game, while not turn based would have different interfaces for combat and navigation like an rpg, which sounds  since one of the major problems we've had in the design of a lot of audiogames is that they tend to  default to a "hear and react" model where the player hears something and needs to react fast, rather than make judgement calls about a number of factors going on at once.

I also find the mentions of the story intresting, albeit it sounds like yet  it sounds like one of those "oooh no my peasant village!" type of situations big_smile.

Really if I were the mayor of an isolated peasant village somewhere and we happened upon a mysterious amnesiac child or orphaned baby lost in the woods, or  a pregnant woman came to the village just in time to have her baby and die, while dramatically leaving a mysterious locket/weapon/book/note to be given to said child when he/she (but usually he), were old enough, I think I'd have the child packed straight off to the nearest evil empire in the area with a polite letter explaining that yes, we had found the chosen one and here he was, so no need to send  beastial hoard or try out that magnificent new weapon on us, thank you very much big_smile.

Oh, and if the child had sparkling eyes or a runic mark on it's forhead or a dramatic scar, i'd probably just pack up and leave town immediately big_smile.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-11-29 22:48:50

I do wish to ask, since I'd like a bit more perspective, in this game are you simply fighting with one weapon, as in A Blind Legend or The Blind Swordsman, or is this a game where new armor, weapons and other such things can but bought?

Heroes need foes to test them. Not all teachers can afford to be kind, and some lessons must be harsh.

2017-11-29 23:46:23

not trying to be funny or anything here, but do you think we could have some actual gameplay? This just all sounds like cut scene audio, Which tells us nothing beyond our cut scene audio is pretty.

Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.

2017-11-30 00:15:51

Sounds so cool of course We'll see when We will be able to put our hands on it.

The site says in the requirements it's around 300 MB so it's really small compared to other games, especially video games. smile

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2017-11-30 00:28:49

I will say that the song at the beginning of the trailer creeps me out. E. Single. Time.

Heroes need foes to test them. Not all teachers can afford to be kind, and some lessons must be harsh.

2017-11-30 01:02:38

Hello people,
reading your positive feedback is amazing, after so much effort has been put into this project.

I'll try to reply to every question the best I can.

Hi André Felipe Silva,
Seric, our main character, is trained to fight with a quarterstaff. He's very attached to it, so he wouldn't use other weapon if there's his staff around.
I can't spoiler what kind of ability he will learn during the story, but there will not be a skill system as in the traditional RPG way.
Let's just say we focused on the storytelling side of it!
We are currently evaluating the possibility to release a demo, but I cannot assure you on that. Currently it is not being planned.
Thanks for your appreciations!

Hi Muhammad, I'm glad to hear your opinion! Many people dedicated days and nights for two years for this project *smile*

Hi Dragomier, no idiotic question at all, we asked this ourselves before choosing to price the game in euros only!
However, as others pointed out before me, paypal handles all the conversion stuff. It is not even needed a paypal account if you chose to pay with credit card, so it's pretty convenient.
Regarding the weapon choice, Seric is trained to fight with his quarterstaff, we preferred sticking to it. One of the reasons is to not give him the immediate deep knowledge needed to use of every weapon around!

Hi Dark! We will probably release a trailer for the combat, but we found out that it could be confusing since while you listen you cannot know what the player registering the demo is doing.
Probably the best way to show the combat system is to release an ad-hoc demo. We'll definitely keep you updated on that!
You are right, the combat is instanced and uses a different system from the exploration. It's also because on mobile device we have a limited number of inputs we can use.
There's a reaction based mechanic, used to parry the blows of the enemies, like in real life you must know when to parry a blow and from where it is coming.
Of course you cannot knock out an opponent just parrying his attacks, you need to hit him too!
But there's more. While fighting with you, depending on their intelligence, your enemies will learn from the way you fight, so don't expect them to stay still waiting to be defeated. In fact a mindless spam of attacks, even in the right direction, will be counterproductive since enemies will be capable of predict your strikes and knock you down.

Regarding the story: ahahah, I totally understand your approach to the chosen baby issue. About Seric being a special child: yes and no. You will discover that he is no different from any other boy, however a series of events makes him become the special guy that he is. He does get some “special abilities”, but is mainly thanks to his will power that he manages to put them in good and worthful use. You will discover yourself the the story is much deeper than what we can write here.
It has been written by an author from Rome, and the main script, containing the setting details, the history of the kingdoms involved and the background of the character is about 500 pages long.
We had plenty of material to work on!

Hi Exodus, I totally understand your point, but be assured that before the release other material will come out, so stay tuned!

Hi Lirin, not having too many graphical assets to handle gives us the opportunity to save some megabytes, not that space is a problem these days, especially for PCs, but we tried to keep it as small as possible even for mobiles, so if it happens to download it through mobile network it won’t be a problem anyway *smile*

2017-11-30 01:12:00

Hi cloverbit.

Lol, I was not being serious with my comments about the peasant village, it just always! seems to work out like this big_smile. ~As exodus said, it would be nice to hear some gameplay, even if we didn't understand as  precisely how the combat works and what is going on, it'll at least give us an idea of how the game plays, just the same way a graphical trailer would and give some basic ideas about things such as speed of attacks etc, especially if as you said enemy intelligence is a factor.

this would especially be  good if it  isnt' possible to produce a demo of the game for people to try out before bying.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-11-30 02:14:25

So I think the audio is compressed a lot or packed very well if it's that small.

WHat about the gamepads support? especially DXImput based like X360, X ONE or PS4 (dualshock 4)?

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2017-11-30 03:08:31

Hello: I am very excited about the game: I have a question: Will the dialogues be written and can be read by screen readers?

2017-11-30 05:24:42

I am going to likely assume, no.

At least for PC's, they'd have a lot of extra coding to do for each screen reader.
Most likely all would be "self-voicing" to the ear. If any text, it'd be for sighted users only.

2017-11-30 07:29:18

sounds awesome the trailer! continue with this amazing job!

2017-11-30 08:20:57

hello, this sounds a great game; and i note that you state it is chapter 1. so, can we assume that others are coming and it will be i assume a 2 year wait or so between each chapter? i agree a short even just five minute gameplay demo would be good. are we free to walk around and explore? i know we have a story to complete but i assume we are permitted to not follow it in a liniar way? finally will the title just be in english or other languages too? can't wait see when this is out, early 2018 could be anytime big smile.

2017-11-30 08:40:10

Hi.
Wow. Thanks for all the information which has been shared about the game so far. This is going to be fantastic... Will the game have any kinds of trophies, unlockables or any kind of multiplayer or online stuff? Keep up the fantastic job guys.

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2017-11-30 12:03:53 (edited by afsilva90 2017-11-30 12:10:29)

Hi Marco,

Will Seric be able to jump over obstacles or not? Will he learn special attacks in order to defeat certain types of enemies or not? How will the female character be able to help Seric in his journey? Who will be the main antagonist of this game? Could this antagonist be his father, transformed into a demonic and sinister creature that Seric must defeat? If Seric's health gets low, how will be able to heal his wounds? Who is the author of the book which tells the history of the kingdoms involved, Seric's background, among other details of Seric's adventure?
Cheers,
André

2017-11-30 13:08:07 (edited by Cloverbit 2017-11-30 13:21:52)

Hi Lirin, currently on PCs and MACs inputs are from keyboard and the ingame tutorial shows keybindings for this input type.
However reading inputs from a game controller is an easy enough thing to do, so we'll definitely look into it.
Personally I see no harm in specifying keyboard as the main controller for PCs, but at the same time support also a gamepad if plugged in, mainly to provide accessibility even to people unable to use traditional input methods.

Hello Abdulla-dubais, dialogues are not readable by a screen reader, but the good news is that you don't even need a screen reader: every line of text you will find in the game is fully dubbed.
Different actors dubbed dialogues, cutscenes and other in-game speeches, while a narrating voice (still a human voice) is used to describe entries in the user interface.
There will be subtitles, for most dialogues, by the way!

Wlomas, hi, Echoes from Levia takes places in an universe that have many things to tell, our writer really put a lot of effort in it, so we couldn't simply put all that contents inside a single chapter.
I cannot give you an estimate date on when other chapters will be released, this is our first project that narrates of the lands of Levia. However what I can say right now is that we do have enough narrative material for a chapter 2 and that if everything goes well we will be definitively happy to work on a second chapter, but right now our energies go in finishing well and soon the first one *smile*
The player is free to walk around and explore, in fact exploration is one of the game mechanics we dealt the most. The game is story-driven and divided in different game scenarios since Seric will travel quite a lot, but every scenario gives you enough free space to roam around.
The primary localization is in english and right now is the only one. We felt that since english is widely spoken around the world we could reach more players than any other language. Localize the game in another language isn't really an issue, in fact all we have to do is translate dialogues and add other audio assets for that language.
The problem is dubbing isn't really cheap unfortunately, but there's actually nothing that stops us from localizing the game in another language, if the game is worth the candle, once we have the resources.

About multiplayer and trophies: no, we don't have any right now and this is by design. Multiplayer is surely something is fun to have in a lot of games, but, at least for now, we prefer to concentrate on giving the player a nice and all-round single player experience rather than split in half our efforts on both single and multiplayer.
Same goes for trophies, actually, trophies or unlockable achievements are something way easier to implement than multiplayer and we know many modern games go in the direction of putting trophies for many different achievements, but we felt they would just not integrate well with the game as we believe that completing parts of and discovering new details of the story is an achievements "per se" even if not defined in an official way.

Hi afsilva90. I'm afraid that most of the responses to your questions would end up spoiling too many details about the story *smile*. About Seric skills: he doesn't need to jump since every visitable place can be accessed simply walking. Let's say he is not a fast learner, although advancing the game you will find he does refine his abilities.

And again, thanks for your supporting responses *big smile*

2017-11-30 13:18:39

Some of the questions being asked sound like you want to be told how the movie or book ends before you see or read it. Where's the fun in that? Have some patience.

24.90 Euros translates to just under 30 US dollars at the current exchange rates.

2017-11-30 13:43:40

when in 2018 will this be available? can we pre-order?

2017-11-30 15:28:51

Orko is right, we're glad to have sparked your curiosity, and sooner or later we'll disclose other details of the game, but for the moment I have to keep my moush shut about a lot of thing that risk to ruin the story! *smile*

Hi, Wlomas, it will be available in early 2018, we want to make sure everything works fine before the release day!
We cannot yet tell if there will be a pre-order system available.

Thank you!

2017-11-30 15:32:56

@Cloverbit
Thank you for your response. Implementing gamepads is really important as most of the sighted players are using it as their primary imput device, more and more blind people too. You have also things like force feetback (vibrations) which could add a lot to the experience.

We'll see how the combat works but I was hoping for real-time free combat, not limited to only button presses and reactions where you can freely run around, block and perform attacks, combos etc, something more like a slasher than a game where you are listening for a sound and reacting with single button press.

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2017-11-30 17:05:04 (edited by Orko 2017-11-30 19:20:43)

I'm not worried about preordering myself as I prefer to wait until there is an actual product to deliver before spending my money. In the past, too many promises with preorders have turned into vaporware.

So far I prefer using the keyboard for game input, primarily because I have yet to find a game controller I like, and I've looked at a lot of them.

2017-11-30 18:14:44

Hi Marco,

I would like to make some comments about Seric's companion, Ciroth. She sounds, at least to my ears, very unfriendly and rude and doesn't like to be kind towards other people. I wonder why she is so authoritarian and unfriendly.
Cheers,
André

2017-11-30 21:46:12

Hi André, Kiroth is indeed a mysterious companion, even for us!
But quoting the trailer "You received a gift, as well as my wonderful company", so... maybe you received something and Kiroth just happened to be part of the pack?
"My job is to watch over you and make sure that you respect the pact you made with my Master". Well, she’s not evil, but if she has goals to reach, then maybe the end justifies the means?

2017-12-01 00:15:24

@cloverbit: the more I hear about the game, the more I get excited to it. Keep up the fantastic job guys. And I do agree, a game with a valuable single player game for me is better than a one with online feature that's less valuable. And I really love that type of games which focusses on story, exploration and combat. By the way, could we perform like combos while battling?

Kind regards!

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2017-12-01 01:22:23

The trailer sounds quite nice, but am not  sure how this one turns out. If it will be as good as your promise, definitely I'll buy it for sure. Demo version  would put our mind at ease, you see, not everyone can just throw out 30 dollars for something they cannot play or not accessible as they hoped.

Often we have no time for our friends, but all the time in the world for our enemies.

2017-12-01 10:03:43

Hi Marco,

This game is, without a doubt, going to be the next breakthrough in accessible gaming for blind gamers!. Keep up the awesome work!
I would like Seric to learn combo attacks and not just swinging his staff around like a madman! I would like a demo version of this game, if this is possible!
Cheers,
André