Real Sound: Echoing Sky
A downloadable game for Windows, macOS, and Linux
A mysterious crash, the sudden disappearence of a village, a deserted island hosting the first artificial ecosystem...the mysteries of New Ascension Island keep piling up as a young undercover exorcist is sent by the church to investigate what's really happening on the island.
- A visual novel without visuals
- Original music by me!
- Experience the beginning of the story and explore a little bit of the island in this short demo!
- Unlockable Music Room to listen to the soundtrack
Ever since I heard of Kenji Eno's Kaze no regret, I've always wanted to create something similar: it was the first audio-only game, and being mainly a musician I think sound is the most fitting way of expression for me. Now, thanks to Games for blind gamers jam #3 and Blind accessible game jam #2 I finally got the chance to do it! Many things are still unpolished and the story needs to be continued but this is a first attempt at translating my visual novel style into a non-visual format, and it's very exciting for me!
CONTROLS
| ENTER/SPACE/A button (controller) | Advance dialogue, select item |
| ESC/START controller | Open game menu |
| A | Accessibility menu |
| V | Toggle self-voicing |
| Q | Toggle auto-forward |
| TAB | Skip already read text (and intro) |
HOW TO PLAY THE GAME
This is an adventure game that plays very similar to a radio drama, you listen to the story and at certain times (when you hear the bell sound) you can interact with the environment to examine things, move, or make decisions.
This version of the game uses Ren'Py's self-voicing function, which means that the game will use your operating system's text-to-speech voice to read in-game texts and menus. I know these voice sounds are not that great, I hope to add voice acting in the future. You can toggle self-voicing by pressing the V key. NVDA users can enable text output to the clipboard by pressing "shift+C"
To set the self-voicing volume (usually it's very loud!) you can access the Accessibility Menu by pressing A on your keyboard. The two settings that regulate volume are Voice Volume and Self-Voicing Volume Drop (this one determines how much the rest of the game audio is lowered when self-voicing is on).
Dialogue will advance automatically. You can press ENTER, SPACE, or A button on a controller to advance manually. If you want to disable auto-forward mode, press Q on your keyboard.
One last note: if you are sighted and want to play this game, turn your monitor off!
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Comments
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can you make the shared visions magazine blind accessible?
since the pdfs contain images, its not posible for us to read.
im talking about the manual attached with the game.
done! I also did the same thing with koyamachou watch repair shop's manual (which has a lot more stuff)
hope to play more vns and endings.
i like the creepy atmosphere
look forward to play all your games when they're completed!
i've finished this game.
its really nice.
however, im waiting for more story.
also, all of your vns are accessible, but are they all demos/unfinished?
if so, will you be finishing them later with this one?
thank you!
Good question, I guess I'm planning to continue working on all of my games but there are some visual novels that I consider to be complete for now, and they are: Shared Visions, Haunted Club Manager 88, Koyamachou Repair Shop and Undead Air.
My current plan is to finish this one first (Echoing Sky) since I've already written all the endings and I'm at proofreading/revision stage.
would also love to know the ending
For once I know what the ending will be! I just need to polish the last chapter and the full story should be ready, I'll keep you updated via the game blog!
Wow, this is great!
I really liked the music and sound design.
Can't wait to find out where it goes.
thank you, as you can imagine that's what I've been focusing the most, I already have the ending in mind it just needs some more polish and it will be ready!
i like this!
can blind people play your other games?
Thank you! You can try playing them by pressing V and activating self-voicing, but they need some optimization, I'm working on that, I will post updates when they're ready!