Platforms: PC, OSX, Linux, PS4, XBONE
Genre: Real-Time Strategy
Developer: Iridium Studios
Publisher: Iridium Studios
Release Date: February 24, 2015 (PC); 2015 (OSX/Linux/PS4/XBONE)
Price: $14.99
ESRB Rating: Teen (Violence, Language)
Audio Language: English
Language Support: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Mandarin Chinese
Wil Wheaton: Copious
Steam Page
DRM-Free Link
This OT is optimized for GAF Dark.
Set in the far future of Santa Monica, California, There Came An Echo stars Corrin, a cryptographer, who suddenly finds himself the target of a band of mercenaries. Narrowly escaping alive with the help of a mysterious navigator who calls herself Val, Corrin is now on the run, pursued by an enemy of inexhaustible and vast resources and facillities, all while desparately trying to uncover why he's being hunted. At the heart of the mystery lies an alogrithm of his own design, designed to be virtually indecyphrable, but what could it be safeguarding? Those answers, if unveiled, could imperil the very nature of reality itself.
There Came An Echo is a real-time strategy game designed to be played with the player's voice. Built to simulate the feeling of being a commander barking orders from a safe and omnipresent command room, the game emphasizes smaller-scale strategy, putting a small infantry unit, no greater than four in size, in your care. As you advance through the story, overcoming skirmish after skirmish, There Came An Echo will test your abilities as a commander, demanding more and more of your ability to analyze a situation, discern the best course of action, and order it quickly and concisely, all while under the pressures of enemy fire. The game also features command aliasing, not only enabling you to change every preset command to one of your liking - with no limits on what's allowed - but also to change the designations of the individual characters and strategic points.
Voiced by Wil Wheaton
Voiced by Laura Bailey
Voiced by Cassandra Morris
Voiced by Feep
Also featuring the voices of:
Ashly Burch (Val)
Yuri Lowenthal (Adam)
Cindy Robinson (Farrick)
Rachel Robinson
Q. Do I need to use a microphone to play the game?
A. No, There Came An Echo also supports controller and keyboard-mouse inputs, though the game is still primarily designed around voice commands. However, note that for XBox One users, the game is planned to have Kinect support.
Q. Yo, I played Lifeline, and the voice commands were straight up jank. Is this game going to ask me if it should bark like a big dog or a little dog?
A. Voice recognition technology has evolved considerably since 2003, and There Came An Echo uses recognition software licensed from a dedicated third-party, as opposed to software developed in-house. The technology is still going to be at the mercy of any other voice tech - things like reverb, distortion, and additional loud noises will make the sound unintelligible, but in decent sound settings, the voice commands should work nearly 100% of the time. Of course, precise enunciation will also alleviate most issues, as well. More Siri, less Hey You, Pikachu.
Q. I was born in Ireland, kidnapped, kept alive in Scandenavia, escaped to South Africa, and spent a few years in each of the major continents before settling in the United States. I also spent so many years imitating Donald Duck that now my voice is stuck that way. Will this game recognize my accent?
A. You might be out of luck, but for the vast majority of people, There Came An Echo supports a lot of accents, as demonstrated by Feep himself here and here.
Q. How much freedom do I have with this voice aliasing?
A. You can replace any command with anything you can imagine (and that the software understands), though obviously, doing things like replacing the command to fire with an entire Animaniacs song will probably spell disaster in crucial moments. Check the launch trailer for a demonstration.
Q. This game screwed up my media player! I had all of my settings set to maximum moe before, but now they're not moe at all!
A. Previous versions of There Came An Echo came packaged with the Combined Community Codec Pack, a popular set of video encoders and decoders for improved video playback - particularly popular among anime watchers. However, the installation that came with the game overwrote existing player settings, causing some headache. The codec pack has since been removed, though, removing the issue.
Q. Who composed the soundtrack? Is there any way to purchase it?
A. There Came An Echo's soundtrack was composed by collaboration between Ronald Jenkees and Big Giant Circles. The music itself is available as additional DLC on top of the game through Steam, as is a digital art book of the game. The soundtrack is also downloadable through Iridium's website, though the art book link is suspiciously missing...
Hardcore Gamer (Reviewed by Matt Whittaker) - Positive
Destructoid (Reviewed by Darren Nakamura) - Mixed
Cheat Code Central (Reviewed by Sean Engemann) - Positive
Game Over Online (Reviewed by Stephen Riach) - Mixed
Eurogamer (Reviewed by Dan Whitehead) - Positive
Forbes (Reviewed by Jason Evangelho) - Positive
