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There Came An Echo |OT| Out on PS4

Axass

Member
I don't quite think it had the impact I wanted it to, to be honest.

But what can I do? I told people they didn't have to talk about it if they didn't want to. I'm not angry at anyone.

I imagine many, like me, took the key because they do want to play it, just not immediately. I literally can't play yet, because I'm in the process or revamping my old PC.
 
I don't quite think it had the impact I wanted it to, to be honest.

But what can I do? I told people they didn't have to talk about it if they didn't want to. I'm not angry at anyone.

It was a gamble worth to take, no chance to win if you never try. I bought some trading cards and crafted the badge early on to compensate for getting it free (didn't get the GAF emoticon, oh well), so I hope some of that money went to you and your team.

I beat the game just fine with keyboard/mouse setup, also posted a review about it on Steam store. But I must say here it had nice story, interesting characters, great art and enough variety in missions.
 
You're acting like you're doing some great service to GAF and humanity by playing the game. You're not.
I don't know where your angry attitude is coming from but I never stated or even insinuated this. All I said is that passive aggressiveness against fellow Gaffers is a turnoff and that it'd be more productive to spread positive words about this game. When Gaffers come into this thread and they see people being angry at those who didn't play the game yet they won't feel welcome at all. Seems like a simple concept to me so cut the hyperbole.

Get over yourself and play the game or don't play it. Nobody cares.
Clearly some do or they wouldn't be complaining. Again, what's with the personal insults? For someone who claims nobody cares you seem to care quite a lot.

No you're right, it's uncalled for. I should probably direct my insults better if I want to start complaining.

Hey it's all good. I know you meant well. It just rubbed me the wrong way so I thought I should speak up about it. I appreciate the understanding ;)

@Feep: I'll do my best to set aside a few hours to try out your game and I promise I will give you extensive feedback in this thread :)
 

Alastor3

Member
I don't know where your angry attitude is coming from but I never stated or even insinuated this. All I said is that passive aggressiveness against fellow Gaffers is a turnoff and that it'd be more productive to spread positive words about this game. When Gaffers come into this thread and they see people being angry at those who didn't play the game yet they won't feel welcome at all. Seems like a simple concept to me so cut the hyperbole.


Clearly some do or they wouldn't be complaining. Again, what's with the personal insults? For someone who claims nobody cares you seem to care quite a lot.



Hey it's all good. I know you meant well. It just rubbed me the wrong way so I thought I should speak up about it. I appreciate the understanding ;)

@Feep: I'll do my best to set aside a few hours to try out your game and I promise I will give you extensive feedback in this thread :)

whaaaat ? He is clearly not insulting you, just replying to your comment
 

chubigans

y'all should be ashamed
I installed this game like a day after it was released and I am trying my best to find some time to play it, in between work, education and other obligations. I also played sequence and liked it. Coming into this thread and reading people like you making these absurd generalizations and accusations mere days after the game came out is both unnecessary and downright insulting.

I am excited to try this game out and I'm keeping up with this OT whenever I can, but if people like you are going to act all high and mighty because people have shit to do I'll just start to feel like putting it off. Your time would probably be better spent spreading positive vibes about this game, rather than whining and complaining about fellow Gaffers.

TLDR: I'm trying to get around to this game, but life gets in the way. Comments like these just piss me off and don't make me want to play the game.
I'm not specifically talking about you, so I'm not sure why you're flying off the handle at me. I totally understand stuff gets in the way, and in fact is my current reason why I haven't played it yet.

I don't think its a large stretch by any means to think that, proportionally, the number of copies out there should have triggered more of a discussion. The percentage of games given away vs posts and reviews is something like ~4%.

If my problem with that ratio causes you to not play the game, well, sorry, not sure what to say to that. That's just strange.
 

Dyle

Member
I finished the game last night and I really enjoyed it. The only games I've played with any kind of voice recognition are Nintendogs and Odama, and There Came An Echo really destroyed both those in terms of making the commands useful and easy to do. There's definitely a certain je-ne-sais-quoi about controlling a game with only your voice, and I hope that this technology is put to use in more games.

All the story elements were very professionally done. The only major problem I had with the game was the just the fact that it was over so quickly. I feel like the game could have benefited a lot from simply having more/longer fights. By the time I finished the story it felt like I was just getting into the swing of things and really starting to approach situations with any amount of strategy.Or maybe the level where you controlled the turrets could have been done again on a greater scale. What was there was really good, it just felt like it flew by just too fast, especially given how large a story you told.

Thanks for giving out the game, I'm not sure if I would have even heard about it otherwise but I'm definitely going to pick up Sequence now.
 

chubigans

y'all should be ashamed
I'm not an expert, but from what I've heard about free giveaways in ebooks, 4% uptake would actually be pretty good. Granted it's a totally different industry, and I'd hope people here would be more inclined to follow through, but what can you do.

Gosh, really? That seems low but then again conversion rates for anything are usually pretty bad (demo to full game purchase, etc.) so I guess I shouldn't be surprised...huh.
 

Mohasus

Member
Anyone playing this on PC with a Sony Gold Wireless Headset?

I'm talking loudly but I can barely fill one bar, so the game doesn't detect my voice most of the time.
 

Feep

Banned
Some headsets have odd reporting mechanisms. I would try just speaking we a regular volume despite the bar and see what happens. (Also make sure it's the default device!)

Also guys stop arguing, it's all good :)
 

Dinjoralo

Member
Goody, the last couple of patches fixed my issues with the voice controls crumming out. I'm loving my time with the game, though it's a shame I'm already almost done after a couple hours. Hopefully there's more to come, because the voice commands working as well as they do for me... honestly, it makes it seem like the future is now. I went ahead and bought the soundtrack, it's the least I can do after getting the game for free.
Also, who else went a bit nuts when
it was revealed this all ties into Sequence? I loved Sequence!
I wonder if Feep can say how far back that was planned.
 

Feep

Banned
Goody, the last couple of patches fixed my issues with the voice controls crumming out. I'm loving my time with the game, though it's a shame I'm already almost done after a couple hours. Hopefully there's more to come, because the voice commands working as well as they do for me... honestly, it makes it seem like the future is now. I went ahead and bought the soundtrack, it's the least I can do after getting the game for free.
Also, who else went a bit nuts when
it was revealed this all ties into Sequence? I loved Sequence!
I wonder if Feep can say how far back that was planned.
Since 2011. Been keeping it a secret for a long time. = D

Thanks man!
 

Swamped

Banned
So I'm having a really dumb issue...my game 'freezes' after the first mission. Like, the second one loads but then my screen just goes black. I am playing on a pretty old laptop, but the first mission worked just fine. Do i just have to adjust my settings or something?
 

Chrozi

Neo Member
Woah,

Just realized I tried this at PAX East last year. I was very impressed. The voice recognition worked well, I made a joke and asked if I could ask the characters to "get me a beer". The guy demonstrating the game said no, but pointed out you could customize the voice commands. So I sampled myself saying "get me a beer" and assigned it to one of the commands. It worked great! So when I get to sit down with my free download (thanks feep!), I'm going to assign the commands with horrible vulgarities and let the hilarity ensue.
 

Dinjoralo

Member
One of my friends is interested in the game, but he's worried that the game won't recognize his Swedish accent. Can anyone who speaks Swedish say how the game works for them?
 

RiccochetJ

Gold Member
I wound up buying copies for both my brothers :)

I only have a couple achievements left to get and I think the game has trained me how to talk to it!
 

Feep

Banned
So I'm having a really dumb issue...my game 'freezes' after the first mission. Like, the second one loads but then my screen just goes black. I am playing on a pretty old laptop, but the first mission worked just fine. Do i just have to adjust my settings or something?
Looking like an Out of Memory issue. You need 4 GB minimum. =/
 

Dinjoralo

Member
So I just got to mission ten.
I'm sorry, but... Huh? What lead up to all of that?
The hidden message from Iris in Sequence, and Sequence's hidden ending
are all I can think of, and those are very vague at best, plus
if you never played Sequence then you'd probably have no clue what was going on
. Maybe someone can explain it to me, but until then, I'm going to say that the twist at mission ten seems kinda dumb.
Beyond that, the last mission was fun, and I liked the end credits video. Maybe I'll try out the war room in detail at some point.
 

Nickle

Cool Facts: Game of War has been a hit since July 2013
The game has trouble reading my think American accent. I've talked into the mic for 20 minutes and it hasn't registered a single command. I'll try re-installing it and see if that fixes the issue.
 

Feep

Banned
The game has trouble reading my think American accent. I've talked into the mic for 20 minutes and it hasn't registered a single command. I'll try re-installing it and see if that fixes the issue.
Make sure your microphone is set as the Windows default recording device, and that it isn't a Logitech G930. :p
 

Spoo

Member
I've put about 30 minutes in so far (which isn't much), but Wow! The voice stuff actually works, and really pretty well. I've had some issues, but I kind of came into the experience expecting that it... well, to be honest I just expected it would fall flat.

But it doesn't, and it's really unique how it actually plays a role in the story, including the player as a character instead of just being a gimmick. Really impressed Feep. I actually think I'll be gifting a copy of it to a friend who has a lot of interest in voice recognition stuff.

Hopefully I remember to come back in here when I finish the game for final impressions, but early impressions are thumbs up from me (the visuals are really solid too).
 
I haven't gotten the chance to sit down with the game just yet, but checking out the Quick Look has me excited to hambooger my own Gary all over the place!
 
Am I missing a way to skip each line of dialogue, because I honestly got really tired of having to listen to something I had already read through really fast.

Also that tutorial...it was so hand holdy it turned me off really bad. Felt like I was being forced to learn babby's first tactics game. Maybe I'll give it another chance when I have free time but that was a really really bad first impression. Also from what I see you can't manually set where they go, am I seeing that right? Like, they can only move to those predesignated Alpha 1/2 etc. spots? If so, I have to ask why because that is needlessly limiting. It's the equivalent of shooters making you press a button to glue yourself to cover rather than just letting you crouch.

Not trying to start a big flame war or w/e just posting what I felt.
 

Nachos

Member
Finally updated the OT with more info (including links for actually buying the game - can't believe I forgot those). Still need to fix some of the jank in the graphics, but I wanted to make sure that the most helpful content was up ASAP.

But can anyone who's beaten the game answer a question I have about the story? (I don't know when this happens, so it could be an ending spoiler for all I know)
I read that the stories of Sequence and Echo are connected. I don't know how, but I was always interested in playing it anyway, so now I'm considering playing that first. Is the connection meaningful enough to do that, or is it just a neat Easter Egg for previous fans?
 

Lyude77

Member
I just finished the game. It was pretty fun. The voice controls were good and worked 95% of the time, though I'm one of those people who gets frustrated by controls not working. I liked the gameplay in general as well.

Other comments, good and bad:

I generally liked the story, but I felt like all the characters were jerks a little too often. There could have been a few more normal-ish people. (This is kind of like Vinny's complaint in the quick look).

A few times there were so many things going on that it made the game overly chaotic, specifically the stage where
you had to continue saying "deactivate alarm with two people"

The turret section was really fun, I would have enjoyed another one of those stages (or that type of stage).

I liked the game's length, but I felt like more could have been done with the tactical part of the gameplay (I'm betting this critique will be fixed by war room).

I feel like team members should be able to trade their energy batteries with each other - there was at least one time where I was more stuck than I should have been because of this.

I also would have enjoyed a skip cutscene option for the times where I had to retry a stage.

All in all, I probably preferred Sequence, but only by a hair. I'd give it an 8 out of 10.

Thanks again for the gift Feep. I'll buy it for a buddy later on.
 

Feep

Banned
Finally updated the OT with more info (including links for actually buying the game - can't believe I forgot those). Still need to fix some of the jank in the graphics, but I wanted to make sure that the most helpful content was up ASAP.

But can anyone who's beaten the game answer a question I have about the story? (I don't know when this happens, so it could be an ending spoiler for all I know)
I read that the stories of Sequence and Echo are connected. I don't know how, but I was always interested in playing it anyway, so now I'm considering playing that first. Is the connection meaningful enough to do that, or is it just a neat Easter Egg for previous fans?
There Came an Echo is an absolute, direct sequel to the events of Sequence, though it is not revealed until about halfway through the game. It's quite meaningful, and I would indeed recommend playing Sequence first.
 
There Came an Echo is an absolute, direct sequel to the events of Sequence, though it is not revealed until about halfway through the game. It's quite meaningful, and I would indeed recommend playing Sequence first.

I have yet to play Sequence, but There Came an Echo still felt complete without it. Story was complex sure, but I was able to piece things together. When the ending credits came up and you said it was a sequel, I was like WTF? Hahaha, did not expect that. As a standalone the game worked great. Really impressed with how you managed that. Also makes me way more interested in picking up Sequence.

When you first made Sequence, how much of this expanded world had you already designed?
 

Applecot

Member
Great game :D Looking forward to buying the PS4 release.

Actually got Sequence as a result of playing this game
 

Shinypogs

Member
I think I've just about made it to the end of the game. Voice controls work pretty damn well though Syll is the odd one out when it comes to the frequency that he messes up or ignores orders. Loved the
turret
section, it was tense but fun. Also I think the only mission I haven't failed at least once yet. I'm not good at this game but it's engaging enough to keep me coming back for more.

My friends seems content to let me babble to them about it every time I successfully beat a mission that's been stumping me. I don't know that any of them are sold on the game themselves but I know I'll be grabbing sequence in the future to help repay the awesome gesture here.
 
So as I was playing through, I found myself constantly saying Corrin to A4, and then realizing nothing was happening because I wasn't saying Corrin, Move to A4.(I think) I put "to" in as the alternate command for move to and it's making the game flow a lot better to me. I wonder how much of the gameplay enjoyment is derived from how naturally one can speak and give orders.

Also, a curious question for Feep. Did you apply phonetics in such a way that you made the 4 character names as linguistically distinct as possible?
 

Feep

Banned
So as I was playing through, I found myself constantly saying Corrin to A4, and then realizing nothing was happening because I wasn't saying Corrin, Move to A4.(I think) I put "to" in as the alternate command for move to and it's making the game flow a lot better to me. I wonder how much of the gameplay enjoyment is derived from how naturally one can speak and give orders.

Also, a curious question for Feep. Did you apply phonetics in such a way that you made the 4 character names as linguistically distinct as possible?
"To" by itself should be recognized by default, but I'll check it out.

Yeah, the four names were designed to sound quite different from each other. :)
 

Nachos

Member
There Came an Echo is an absolute, direct sequel to the events of Sequence, though it is not revealed until about halfway through the game. It's quite meaningful, and I would indeed recommend playing Sequence first.

Cool.
I actually figured that'd Syll was basically the main character from Sequence since I could hear your voice creep through the accent in the official trailers, but then the Giant Bomb quick look actually showed the scene where they're revealed to be the same character in no uncertain terms.
Depending on how long Sequence is, I might just marathon them back-to-back over this upcoming weekend.
 

Coolluck

Member
Just started the game tonight. I'm really bad at it but I find myself more engaged having to tell everyone what to as the action is happening. Really makes the mistakes more apparent as I panic to get them back to position and they can't understand me anymore and I'm left to cry as the mission falls apart.
 
I really liked this game, especially the story. The game was the perfect length, if it got any longer and more complicated I don't think I would've continued, remembering all the correct voice commands as it was took a while. Voice recognition was fine but weirdly stopped recognising my voice at like mission 5 or 6. Worked again after I boosted the mic's volume but kinda weird.

Oh and Miranda's definitely my favourite character. :p

So I just got to mission ten.
I'm sorry, but... Huh? What lead up to all of that?
The hidden message from Iris in Sequence, and Sequence's hidden ending
are all I can think of, and those are very vague at best, plus
if you never played Sequence then you'd probably have no clue what was going on
. Maybe someone can explain it to me, but until then, I'm going to say that the twist at mission ten seems kinda dumb.
Beyond that, the last mission was fun, and I liked the end credits video. Maybe I'll try out the war room in detail at some point.

I never
played Sequence
or had any background knowledge and it all made perfect sense to me. What needs explaining?
 

Nyoro SF

Member
Just got through some of my backlog, so I can finally start this game. Sorry for the delay!

Got about an hour in. My verdict so far: all the voice commands work beautifully well so far, very few errors. It's a lot of fun to command units in this fashion, got used to it pretty quickly (it makes me want voice commands in other strategy games I own). Gameplay is solid and panic can definitely set in once you realized you messed up, which leads to funny voice fumbling.

The "on my mark" command is probably the only one that gave me trouble in all the missions. I said "Collin, on my mark, Target 1" and it just ignored the "on my mark" part lol. This happened a few times, so I think I am probably inputting it incorrectly via voice.

My only complaint so far? The cutscenes and dialogue are all really, really bad. Felt like I was listening to a teenage fanfiction copying mediocre movie scripts for inspiration. The personalities of every character so far is incredibly grating. And these cutscenes interrupt gameplay a lot. I'm worried about skipping cutscenes because I usually enjoy even the worst game stories and I haven't skipped cutscenes on a first playthrough in my entire life but this game may actually force me to break my streak.

So if I were to recommend this game to someone it would have to be on the basis of gameplay alone.
 

Feep

Banned
The "on my mark" command is probably the only one that gave me trouble in all the missions. I said "Collin, on my mark, Target 1" and it just ignored the "on my mark" part lol. This happened a few times, so I think I am probably inputting it incorrectly via voice.
For various reasons, this is not a valid command. "On my mark" needs to go at the very beginning or at the very end of a command, not in the middle.
 
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