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A jam submission

Echo Command (Development)View game page

An audio-based, reaction-testing, shoot-em-up
Submitted by Pancake — 20 hours, 29 minutes before the deadline
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Echo Command (Development)'s itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Bug Free#153.4003.400
Overall#193.1503.150
Likely to Release#203.1003.100
Aesthetic (Art & Audio)#233.3003.300
Interesting Gameplay / Fun#242.8002.800

Ranked from 10 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

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Comments

Submitted

I think I have the same opinion as most people here, I went to play without reading anything and was lost and even thought that the game had a bug.

After reading a bit I switched to my controller and headphones (they are on mono) and I was still lost, I managed to score 100 once by kinda predicting that an enemy would spawn in a position close to me vertically, (I was assuming the Ikaruga like layout)

There are a bunch of assumptions I'm making like ship's velocity, enemy's velocity, enemy spawn position, ship's spawn position, do my projectiles or the enemy ones follow a target, or do they follow a direction? how long is my fire rate? does the ship has acceleration or not? these things I can't tell just by audio cues as I don't have a reference to draw front and visualize it

I think you got a great unique concept that if polished can be an amazing game, but right now it does require more design iterations to improve accessibility

This also reminded me of a talk I saw long ago about audio design in Overwatch, in case you haven't seen it: 

Submitted

Its such a cool idea and such a never before seen idea! 

I  had no idea what I was doing most of the time as the sounds were a bit difficult to distinguish them from one another but it was nice whenever i did something  right and saw the score go up! xD

The style is really cool and all looks so polished given the time worked on it. Congrats on getting the game done! :) 

Submitted

I like what you're trying to do, and I like the idea behind the game. However, I'd need some significant hand-holding, training, or a visual component to even start to understand what is happening. Something like a short intro with an audio track that provides instructions and explains what's happening while an enemy ship follows a preset pattern around your ship.

Submitted

Was not sure how to get points but, the sounds effects, art, and animation are fire.

Submitted

Interesting incursion into audio games, I thought I had good earing, but turns out I have none, since can't go above 0 score. Anyway, I had some fun trying to find how it works and how I should interpret the sounds, distances, angles... Hope to play the final build soon!

Submitted (2 edits) (+1)

The tutorial does a good job of explaining the concept, but the problem is that I have no idea what is happening when I am actually dropped into the game.

I got a score of 1000, but I have no idea what was really happening in-game. Is it like Tempest / Gyruss? Am I in a tube... or is it like Space Invaders? Are my enemies in front of me? To the sides of me? As far as I can tell, enemies and sounds pan left and right only, so I have no idea. I know it's not relevant information, but I don't have enough audio cues to really piece together my surroundings, so my mind jumps to these questions -- and while it stems from an issue with the game, I really think that mystery of not knowing your surroundings is what really makes this game so intriguing to me.

My issues are that, as stated, there's not really enough information to play the game, and with what little info I have, the sounds are too similar, and I frequently get audio cues mixed up. I'm no audio designer, but:

  • Some sort of continuous, whining sound for enemies moving around the playfield with some doppler effect (I think???) would effectively let you "see" the enemies.
    • Afaik there is a thruster sound for the player, and I think there is no reason for it to be there because it clutters up the soundscape. Highly recommend you replace it with audio cues for enemies instead. For this game, if it isn't the case already, I'd suggest limiting the number of enemies on the field to like 1 to 3 .
    • Again, I literally have no idea what the playfield looks like, so I keep envisioning this is some sort of tube shooter where enemies are moving back and forth in the foreground and taking potshots at you.
  • A distinct cue for grazing an enemy with your shot / an enemy grazing would help with aim.
  • Sounds for your shot trailing down the playfield where it decreases in volume the further it gets.
    • In addition, I don't mind the beam charging mechanic, but the requirement for it to be fully charged to fire feels unwieldly because I didn't hear any distinct sound for it finishing charging.
  • Getting hit: if you have ANY visual feedback, it should be here. I don't know if there is a health system, but I think I was getting hit sometimes?

EXTREMELY fascinating concept, but it definitely requires some serious reworking. I think that an arcade game like Galaxian where enemies simply swoop down from formation and divebomb the player could totally work as an audio-only game already, so I think you're onto something really cool here.

Submitted

Was able to play it this time, with the web build :) My experience was similar to some of the ones below. I found it difficult to figure out what was happening, and what the result of my actions were. There are a lot of sounds going on in the game, but mapping it to what that means was hard. Maybe have a visual of the player and enemy ships in the tutorial. That way the player can associate the sounds, and in actual game be able to play without the visuals. It's just a thought. For pure-audio accessibility this solution will not work anyway. The concept is promising though, and also challenging to pull off. Wish you the best to take this forward!

Submitted

I think that this game could be cool, but it requires a tutorial to tell what is going on. Any new player has no idea what any of the audio cues mean, and given that there is no visual indicator for what is happening (even how much health you have left, which might be a good idea as some kind of feedback for getting hit), you can't really figure it out yourself either. I think it really has some potential and even this genre itself has some great potential but it is impossible to understand what you need to do as a player without some guidance. I got score 100 a few times and had no idea why. I couldn't really tell when my gun was charging either, though I heard some sounds a few times that sounded like it could have been that. Really want to see what a finalized version of this game would look (or sound) like!

Submitted (1 edit) (+2)

I ended up playing this some more.

I am not 100% sure but I feel like I understand whats going on a little better when I flip my headphones; put the right speaker in my left ear, left speaker in my right ear.  I think that means I am 'visualizing' what is going on completely backwards?

I'm not sure what would be best to help that situation, or if its just me.

But some thoughts:

  • For a tutorial consider 'training' the player.  e.g. Have a ship move around and the player can move left and right, and let the play know when they are lined up with the ship. Maybe a lock on tone. That might help orient me.  It wouldn't have to be in the main game but just a 'tutorial' to help orient and get familiar with the sounds.
  • Possibly way off your design, but consider visually rendering the scene.  Show the player ship, the enemies and the missles etc.. to help orient a sighted person. For a blind person it would change anything.  But then very early there is scene is obscured by cloud cover or a nebula or your sensor go out, and everything is hidden and the player has to operate on sound alone.  Just another way to help orient a person in the audio environment.
Submitted

I second the idea of training the player. Something to provide audio context, even if there ends up being no visual component.

Submitted (1 edit)

I tried playing this for a while, with my eyes closed and headphones.  I couldn't ever really figure out what was going on.  Played about 10 times and never got a score above 0.  It is interesting and I think audio only games are cool.  I rated 'Bug Free' as 3 stars as I honestly have no idea if it was functioning correctly or not. But it didn't crash and seemed to run fine.  

Interesting but I think I probably just suck at it.