Play game
The Echo Runs Deep's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Audio | #35 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Innovation | #92 | 3.833 | 3.833 |
| Overall | #122 | 3.786 | 3.786 |
| Enjoyment | #152 | 3.905 | 3.905 |
| Visuals | #169 | 4.238 | 4.238 |
| Gameplay | #413 | 3.381 | 3.381 |
| Theme | #599 | 3.357 | 3.357 |
Ranked from 42 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does the game fit the theme?
The game is a visual novel about a private investigator searching for a powerful device known as "The Biscuit".
What code and assets did you not make from scratch during the jam (if any)?
3d models licensed from Synty Studios
Sound effects from freesound.org, Cyrex Studios and Signature sounds (credits in game)
Some framework code re-used from our previous game.
How many people worked on the game?3
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Comments
Okay, I’ll be honest – I’m not a fan of visual novels… so at the beginning I skipped everything and just wanted to jump straight into the game. When I realized what kind of genre it was, I was put off at first, but then I thought, “Come on, give the game a fair chance – even if it’s absolutely not my type of game.” So I started over and actually read through the text. I ended up getting really drawn into the story and was very positively surprised! On top of that, the art style is fantastic! The soundtrack is great as well and perfectly complements the atmosphere. Even though I’m not usually a fan of this kind of game, I can only say – great job! It was a real pleasure :)
Thanks so much for giving it a go. I’m glad you enjoyed the story and atmosphere we all created.
Awesome work, wasn't expecting a visual novel in the jam! The story is very nice. It's cool that you guys linked everyone's playthrough together! Did the other 34 playthroughs before mine influence how much of the code I saw, or does everyone have their own amount with each session?
There are some slight changes in the script based solely on how many other people have played, but not on what decisions they've made. (We would've liked to have gone more in-depth with that, but it would have taken too long)
And then the memory reveal of the safe code shows of all the segments other players have revealed, so once enough people have played, somebody will be the first to see the extended ending :)
Really cool entry! I wasn’t sure if this style would click with me at first, but the atmosphere and writing pulled me in and I ended up playing longer than expected. Super impressive for just a week. Well done!
Thanks for playing, glad it resonated with you!
I’m in awe that this was able to be made in a week! The game’s atmosphere is so polished and to top it off also had a great story!
Thanks for playing, glad you enjoyed it!
A fun game, the sense of risk is really awesome, it's special
Thanks for playing
Wow I was not expecting to see a Film Noire style game, as I haven't seen these in awhile. It was very cool and atmospheric!
I try to leave detailed comments on games I play so maybe I'll share my thoughts:
There was one moment in the game where instead of reading the narrative, you actually have to click on the whiskey bottle to continue - I think at that part I thought the game froze, but it turns out I just needed to interact with the scene. Maybe a slight subtle animation could help nudge the player since this is the first time they actually interact with the scene, and it hasn't been established that you can do that.
I think the dialogue choices should not overlap with the down button as it's easy to click too quickly and tap on the choices unintentionally when you're a fast reader and click rapidly to skip the text animation. (Aaaand just as I typed this, I realise you don't have to click on the arrow so maybe this is just me being dense and this point ignored X_X)
Overall, it was a very atmospheric game. I was very immersed that I forgot that I was actually playing through Grant's memories and was following the story. I think I generally like themes with memories, and also find it great that the asset is a biscuit XDD.
Thanks for playing, and the detailed comment! We've had a few people tell us about the confusion when the scene interactions start, we were going to have a highlight shader or icons appear but ran out of time - we will definitely add that post jam 😄
No problem! Totally understand it for the jam, just giving feedback in case you weren't aware but it seems you were! Cool game man well done :)
Really well presented visuals and audio, you did really good! I enjoy the monochrome atmosphere put together. Story was pretty interesting too. Reading from the description though, it says the game changes based on how many people played previously. In my playthrough, Sabine says we did the exercise 26 times; was that a number just pulled out for narrative reasons or did 26 people actually play before me? If so, pretty awesome! If not, great work with the illusion of it all.
Overall, pleasant!
Thanks for playing - Sabine's comment is an accurate count of how many others have played, yep! We track a few things in the backend and use them to influence the game - the memory reveal of the safe code is actually synced in real-time too, if somebody else happened to reveal a point while you were playing it would immediately reveal on yours as well 😁
This was crazy, I was here by repeat 44-46 so thank you to everyone who did the work for me
Really enjoyed this! The story and atmosphere are great, and the soundtrack fits perfectly.
Thanks for playing! Hugo did a great job on the theme music, we love it too 😃
Finally another narrative game :D I love the style, the vibes and the music is great (could be a bit longer).
Intelligent design and story... you could totally do a professional game like this.
Thanks for playing! Narrative games are definitely what we like to build, though they can be challenging in jams - we would've loved to make it longer but we've done narrative games a few times now so we're getting pretty good at scoping it out to something we can actually get done 😀
There will definitely be more Grant Grover games in the future!
Yes. We decided to do a narrative heavier Game as well for This Jam since we like storyrich Games. Your Game was superpolished. :) loved that!
Wow, really good game. The art style and music give the right vibes for the setting of the game. And the narrative story is great! I really enjoyed playing it, great job!
Thanks so much for playing!
great game. love to see narrative direven games in the jam
Thanks for playing
Great atmosphere with cool soundtrack. The more people who play it the more the unlock works is actually kinda intriguing. I kinda the like the default ending, which is kinda smart. Great though I think having oneshot at the safe could be neat since after getting the McGuffin you kinda just yeet instead of having a chance at the safe (?)
Good point about one shot at the safe, maybe a time lock would be good. Thanks for playing and the feedback.
Very polished and a great story!
Thanks for playing!
Very cool game well done love the art style. I spent about 30 seconds just starting at the screen when text stopped before I realised I was meant to click on the door lol but other than that was very immersive game really enjoyed it!
We’ve heard this a bit now, so we might have to think of some sort of prompt to let you know that you have control over the scene. Thanks for playing.
This is nice! The music reminds me of "This war of mine!".
Think I found a bug when pressing on the whiskey bottle. The message appeared 2 times and got stuck.
Guess the detective wanted to enjoy more whiskey...
Good job!
Oh strange, I haven't seen that bug! Was the text overlapping at the bottom? It may be related to another one I've seen... thanks for the report though!
If you refresh the page, you can continue from the scene you left off from, in case you want to see the rest of the story :)
Yes. After the text starts overlapping if you continue it gets stuck.
After refresh it happened again a few scenes later. I wonder if the window with overlapping text is spawned on top and prevents the new scenes from being seen.
I tried the windows version and the same thing happened.
its probably just me pressing too fast on things.
Idk if it helps but here is the console logs:
"init data received { "event": "init", "number_of_plays": 14.0, "revealed_code_points": [{ "x": 52.3576812744141, "y": 119.286468505859 }, { "x": 101.056549072266, "y": 116.325042724609 }, { "x": 99.0950012207031, "y": 143.325012207031 }, { "x": 453.076080322266, "y": 29.4854888916016 }, { "x": 134.220001220703, "y": 127.949981689453 }], "has_revealed_point": false, "memory_cursor_size": 2.0, "play_thresholds": [5.0, 50.0, 75.0], "connection_id": "9d558a32-f21f-4902-a548-8671f88655c9" }
{ "event": "scene_reached", "scene": "title" }
{ "event": "re_init" }
{ "event": "re_init" }
init data received { "event": "init", "number_of_plays": 14.0, "revealed_code_points": [{ "x": 52.3576812744141, "y": 119.286468505859 }, { "x": 101.056549072266, "y": 116.325042724609 }, { "x": 99.0950012207031, "y": 143.325012207031 }, { "x": 453.076080322266, "y": 29.4854888916016 }, { "x": 134.220001220703, "y": 127.949981689453 }], "has_revealed_point": false, "memory_cursor_size": 2.0, "play_thresholds": [5.0, 50.0, 75.0], "connection_id": "9d558a32-f21f-4902-a548-8671f88655c9" }
init data received { "event": "init", "number_of_plays": 14.0, "revealed_code_points": [{ "x": 52.3576812744141, "y": 119.286468505859 }, { "x": 101.056549072266, "y": 116.325042724609 }, { "x": 99.0950012207031, "y": 143.325012207031 }, { "x": 453.076080322266, "y": 29.4854888916016 }, { "x": 134.220001220703, "y": 127.949981689453 }], "has_revealed_point": false, "memory_cursor_size": 2.0, "play_thresholds": [5.0, 50.0, 75.0], "connection_id": "9d558a32-f21f-4902-a548-8671f88655c9" }
{ "event": "scene_reached", "scene": "psych_office" }
{ "event": "scene_reached", "scene": "psych_office" }
{ "event": "response_selected", "response_text": "Be stoic." }
{ "event": "response_selected", "response_text": "\"What sort of methods?\"" }
{ "event": "response_selected", "response_text": "\"No time like the present.\"" }
{ "event": "hotspot_selected", "hotspot": "back" }
{ "event": "hotspot_selected", "hotspot": "back" }
{ "event": "scene_reached", "scene": "office" }
{ "event": "hotspot_selected", "hotspot": "whiskey" }
{ "event": "hotspot_selected", "hotspot": "door" }
{ "event": "hotspot_selected", "hotspot": "door" }
{ "event": "scene_reached", "scene": "tech_dealer" }
{ "event": "response_selected", "response_text": "Humour them." }
{ "event": "response_selected", "response_text": "Drop it and get real." }"
I got stuck after "Drop it and get real."
Thanks for the report! If you're able to recreate it again, press Ctrl-D and a bunch of extra debug info will be spat out in the console log, if you could send that to me at ben (at) slinger.com.au I'd really appreciate it :)
I can no longer reproduce it. I got to the end without problems!
Good job =)!
This is very, very cool.
Love the story, love the immersive sound, love the experiment--will be back in a few days to see if it has changed.
This is also inspiring.
Small Issue: In the settings there is a note about saving, I think. I cannot read it because the characters bleed into each other.
Thanks for the bug report. Glad you enjoyed your time playing. Hopefully we’ll get enough players to unlock the memory fully.
This was all written a week. SOLID, Love the new animations added since I playtested and love the new main menu. Theme use is chef's kiss. Solid solid solid. Awesome work
Thanks for playing. We’ve had a bit of practise in knowing what we can accomplish within the time limits.
Great work! The story is engaging, with a unique premise to it. I appreciated the visual style, and found that the sound design struck a perfect balance between adding to the scenes noticeably, without being distracting. I love the idea of adding/expanding on the experience based on how many times it's been played.
My only note is that it wasn't very clear to me when the text stopped for the first time that we had to interact with the world to keep going. Otherwise, it's a brilliant game that this team should be proud of.
Thanks for playing, glad you enjoyed it!
Very valid note, we had planned to put a shader or icons on the interactable items to make it a bit more obvious, but unfortunately ran out of time. Post jam fix, perhaps!
Great visuals, and quite a lot of content for a 1 week jam. Nice and unique game!
Thanks! We've built a couple of games along these lines now so we're able to scope pretty accurately which definitely helps :)
good job
Thanks!