Echo of the Void
About
The continent of Ardenvale is a land in perpetual conflict. Demon invasions ravage the land periodically, leaving destruction and misery in their wake. The last invasion was only won by the sacrifice of one man, who inspired the other defenders to rally and push the demons back. Now a new threat is rising, one which will change the very face of not only Ardenvale, but the entire realm.
What type of game is this?
Echo of the Void is a game styled after the GBA era of RPG's. It pulls heavily from games like Golden Sun and it's sequel The Lost Age. There are other aspects drawn from games such as the Mega Man Battle Network and Zero games, Fire Emblem games, and even the various Pokemon games. A few things were changed to make things fit a bit better. The two most notable being enemies present on the maps so you can choose when to fight them, not random encounters, as well as face portraits instead of a sideview battle system. Otherwise you'll notice a lot of the same tropes, cliches, predictable story beats, and the usual awkward dialog that comes with needing to make things fit in a single text box. There's also a bunch of references to other games and popular media tossed in as well.
So what's included?
This is a complete base game. It's not a partially finished game, or a "beta", or any of that. It includes 3 full acts of the story, all the intended side quests, companion quests, hidden challenge fights, and all the bits and pieces of information, lore, and intractable objects needed to tell a complete story. This is what you would get when you bought one of those old GBA games. I do have plans for further updates, 1 somewhat small update and 2 much larger story focused updates to flesh out the lore and world more, however if none of that came to pass, and the only thing I did was fix any bugs that I missed, you would still have a complete game.
The game is "free". What's the catch?
There isn't one. This game, and any future updates to it, will be free. This was a personal passion project that started as a way to get to do the things I used to do in my previous positions working on games but no longer get to. Sadly coders don't normally get to write for the games they work on and I wanted to at least attempt to do a bit of design when it comes to artwork. (Even though I'm terrible at it which should be obvious from some of the things actual artists will notice playing through the game) Any future projects I work on will have a price tag attached, but this game is free. Enjoy!
I only see a PC version. Are other version coming?
Right now I'm starting with a PC only release. That will let me focus on any bugs that are present and get those fixed as quickly as possible. (I was the only one to directly work on this game, including testing, so I know I missed at least a few things here and there) In a few weeks, once anything major is cleared up, I'll release a version for Mac. At this time I have no plans for a version for mobile devices. During my testing I tried it on both a phone and tablet and, like most RPG Maker MV games, it didn't run great even with things like turning off animated tiles to help performance. Since this is entirely my project, and I'm not answering to anyone giving me a paycheck to do what they say, I'm not putting something that I don't feel confident in out there for people to play.
Contact Info
If you would like to keep up to date on what's going on with the game, or any future projects I'm working on, you can check the blog I setup at https://ashendal.wixsite.com/voidecho. My contact email is listed at the top there, but you can reach me at [email protected].