The Song of Aria by sydan
The Song of Aria is a game about a Songcrafter; a girl called Aria who can craft magic with her voice. She is also blind and uses her singing to listen to echoes allowing her to 'see' the world around her.
Aria finds herself trapped in the ruins of an ancient power and must use her vocal talent as an 'unconventional weapon' against the dangers that she finds there.
Controls:
[NOTE: For web player go full screen to use right mouse button properly, otherwise it just ends up being a context menu.]
Space - Advance story text
WASD - Move
Right Mouse - Sing to hear echoes
Left Mouse - Sing to freeze enemies (due to time constraints you can do this from the start of the game, despite story telling you otherwise. If you wish to play properly try to ignore the Left Mouse button until the game tells you to use the ability.)
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Disclaimer: I do not know anyone who is blind, nor was I able to get any first hand experience of the lives of blind people while making this game. If you have been offended by this game, its events or any content within it, please contact me with your concerns. I delved into this challenge knowing fully that I am the least equipped to create a game around this topic but I did it because I wanted to explore a character who's experience of the world is very different to those you usually see in video games.
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Zips: I've uploaded everything in .zip folders for now, I'm aware this might hinder some people but not certain. Too sleep to fix it, will do in the morning if it's a problem. I've also not tested Mac or Linux, let me know if they don't work!
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Tools:
- Unity3D 5
- SAI PaintTool
- Paintshop Pro
- Notepad++
- Visual Studio 2012
- git
- LMMS
- BFXR
- Wikidpad
- TexturePacker
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Comments:
Wow, thank you for the lovely comments! I'm really pleased you're enjoying the game! My apologies for the slippery character motion, I made a dive late in development from Unity's CharacterController to my own physics based character which obviously still has some bugginess.
---
Update:
I've made one tiny change to only the webplayer: I've added the 'alternative input methods' to the help text so that players can more easily pick up the game while playing in the webplayer. The buttons are effectively K and L mapped to LMB and RMB respectively. All desktop versions remain completely unchanged if you still want to see the game as it is intended.
Update 2:
Type and bug fix: The boss battle was broken so that it was not properly completable. Now the final barrier fill not lower until you have defeated him, mostly this change is unnoticeable.
One of the text passages has been change because it was nonsensical and potentially offensive, the meaning and implication is the same.
Aria finds herself trapped in the ruins of an ancient power and must use her vocal talent as an 'unconventional weapon' against the dangers that she finds there.
Controls:
[NOTE: For web player go full screen to use right mouse button properly, otherwise it just ends up being a context menu.]
Space - Advance story text
WASD - Move
Right Mouse - Sing to hear echoes
Left Mouse - Sing to freeze enemies (due to time constraints you can do this from the start of the game, despite story telling you otherwise. If you wish to play properly try to ignore the Left Mouse button until the game tells you to use the ability.)
---
Disclaimer: I do not know anyone who is blind, nor was I able to get any first hand experience of the lives of blind people while making this game. If you have been offended by this game, its events or any content within it, please contact me with your concerns. I delved into this challenge knowing fully that I am the least equipped to create a game around this topic but I did it because I wanted to explore a character who's experience of the world is very different to those you usually see in video games.
---
Zips: I've uploaded everything in .zip folders for now, I'm aware this might hinder some people but not certain. Too sleep to fix it, will do in the morning if it's a problem. I've also not tested Mac or Linux, let me know if they don't work!
---
Tools:
- Unity3D 5
- SAI PaintTool
- Paintshop Pro
- Notepad++
- Visual Studio 2012
- git
- LMMS
- BFXR
- Wikidpad
- TexturePacker
---
Comments:
Wow, thank you for the lovely comments! I'm really pleased you're enjoying the game! My apologies for the slippery character motion, I made a dive late in development from Unity's CharacterController to my own physics based character which obviously still has some bugginess.
---
Update:
I've made one tiny change to only the webplayer: I've added the 'alternative input methods' to the help text so that players can more easily pick up the game while playing in the webplayer. The buttons are effectively K and L mapped to LMB and RMB respectively. All desktop versions remain completely unchanged if you still want to see the game as it is intended.
Update 2:
Type and bug fix: The boss battle was broken so that it was not properly completable. Now the final barrier fill not lower until you have defeated him, mostly this change is unnoticeable.
One of the text passages has been change because it was nonsensical and potentially offensive, the meaning and implication is the same.
Ratings
| Coolness | 71% | 3 |
| Overall | 4.00 | 36 |
| Audio | 3.84 | 60 |
| Fun | 3.37 | 296 |
| Graphics | 4.10 | 79 |
| Humor | 2.30 | 770 |
| Innovation | 3.90 | 88 |
| Mood | 4.18 | 19 |
| Theme | 4.10 | 61 |
Only thing I did not enjoy at ALL was the character movement, felt really sloppy and slippery.
The only issues I had were that the movement was a bit too floaty, and the health indicator bugged out a bit so it wasn't very clear to me when I was about to die or if bandages worked.
I dig the art style. Audio is great. Great atmosphere overall. Makes me wanna play some MegaTen. Which is... Actually, I'm not sure whether that's good or bad... Oh well. Good job!
The thing I like about this game is damage bar. It surprising that, instead of decreasing your health, enemies increase your damage.
The ending was great. Couldn't ask for a better story, except that you don't do anything epic.
As for graphics, they could be a bit more various. It's plain dungeon all the time.
Well, that's a great idea and a great implementation. I wish this game had more levels. And still, it lacks epicness.
For me the web player crashed my mac twice when loading. Switching to the app instead it played fine.
The movement felt less than enjoyable, only because I kept fighting with the corners of the one-block-wide corridors, but that's just a minor complaint.
Great job!
The levels discovering mechanism became a little bit tedious after a time, since it was just "spam click to reveal the current room". Perhaps some gameplay mechanism (your song attracts the daemons, or your memory of rooms fades after a while) would have made this more rewarding.
Oh, the mood/story is good and rings true too.