Fading Echo News

[p]Hey Legends,[/p][p]If you played Fading Echo back in alpha: welcome home. 💧 Same core idea (save the world by aggressively splashing things). New slice of the game. More stuff to melt.[/p][p][/p][p]👉 Play the demo on Steam[/p][p][/p][h2]WELCOME (BACK) TO THE VOLCANO SOURCE 🌋[/h2][p][/p][p]We’re turning up the heat with a demo set in the first Volcano Source.[/p][p]Deep in the heart of an ancient forge, One is chasing the first Ætheric source through the remains of a long-forgotten civilization.[/p][p]You might uncover something about your new powers.[/p][p]You might just have a really good time turning problems into puddles. Both outcomes are valid.[/p][p][/p][h2]REACT. IMPROVISE. SURVIVE. 💧[/h2][p][/p][p]Water, lava, toxic waste, if it flows, it fights.[/p][p]Use surrounding fluids to burn, solidify, and weaken enemies.[/p][p]Chain reactions into elemental combos.[/p][p]Finish it up with stylish hand-to-hand attacks. Creativity isn’t a bonus. It’s the plan.[/p][p][/p][h2]THEY’RE NOT JUST NPCs, THEY’RE FAMILY 👩‍👧‍👦[/h2][p]Meet: [/p]

• [p]Rahne, your mother (yes, really). [/p]
• [p]Vellum, your aetheric spiritual guide (also really).[/p]

[p]Trusted sidekicks for your extremely normal mission to save your homeworld from impending destruction. You know. The usual.[/p][p][/p][h2]WE NEED YOUR BRAIN (FEEDBACK) 🧠[/h2][p][/p][p]If you play, we’d especially love thoughts on: [/p]

• [p]Combat feel + readability of elemental reactions[/p]
• [p]Controls and pacing through the Volcano Source[/p]
• [p]Clarity of puzzles/objectives[/p]
• [p]Performance/bugs (anything weird is gold)[/p]

[p][/p][h2]KNOW ISSUES ⚠️[/h2][p]🎮 Gameplay / Controls[/p]

• [p]Controller recommended. Keyboard and input rebinding are available.[/p]
• [p]Skip prompt stays on screen. If you skip a cutscene, the “skip” prompt may remain visible every time you dash.[/p]
• [p]Possible softlock in the Bastion after skipping cutscenes.
  If you skip a cutscene, you may end up stuck in the Bastion (doors don’t open). Restarting the game may not fix it.
  Workaround: If it happens, the only workaround is to start a new save.
  How to avoid: Don’t skip cutscenes, or rebind “Skip” to a different button than Dash.[/p]

[p]⚙️ Options / Resolution[/p]

• [p]Resolution can become unusable if set too high.
  If you set a resolution higher than your monitor supports, the game will save it and the image may be cut off, making it hard to revert (mouse cursor position may not match what you see).[/p]

[p]💬 Input Display / Naming[/p]

• [p]Wrong button shown for Cannonball on controller. It displays “Q” instead of “LT”.[/p]
• [p]Some actions are misnamed in Options:[/p]
  • [p]“Vault Kick” is shown as “Push Attack”[/p]
  • [p]“Cannonball” is shown as “Water Bomb”[/p]

[p]⚡Crash[/p]

• [p]Crash on quit. Sometimes the game crashes when quitting.[/p]

[p]🩹 Softlock Recovery Tip[/p]

• [p]If you get stuck, quit to desktop, relaunch the game, then press Continue — you should respawn at your last checkpoint.[/p]

[p][/p][p]👉 Play the demo on Steam[/p][p][/p][h2]WISHLIST (OPTIONAL, BUT HUGE)[/h2][p]If you’re feeling generous, a wishlist helps a ton. Feedback helps even more right now.[/p][p]Thank you for being there early. Seriously. Can’t wait to hear what you think.[/p][p] [/p][p]💬 And don’t forget to join us on Discord to share your thoughts & feedbacks![/p][p][/p][p]- The Fading Echo Team[/p][p][/p][h3]🌊 Flow with us[/h3][p]✨ Wishlist Fading Echo[/p][p]Steam | Epic Games Store | PlayStation Store | Xbox Store[/p][p]And follow the adventure:[/p][p]YouTube | TikTok | Instagram[/p]

[p]Previously on the New Tales devblog...[/p][p]So now that we’ve covered the prototype and pre-production, it’s time to talk Production![/p][p]Okay so now we know what we want to do, so let’s do it? Not necessarily that simple. We need to come up with a comprehensive roadmap that allows us to see how much time it should take to make our game, with the correct order of events. Perhaps not super exciting to most, but shoutout to my fellow excel lovers![/p][p]How much will the game cost?[/p][p]Do we need to hire more people? Will we need to hire external contractors?[/p][p]When do we need them to join?[/p][p]When can we expect the game to ship?[/p][p]What is the best marketing strategy?[/p][p]Once we’ve tried to predict the answers to these questions, we can start *really* making a game. Let’s go![/p][p][/p][h2]Assessing the cost[/h2][p][/p][h2]Hiring Internally and Externally[/h2][p]When building the studio, we knew our best chance of success was to focus on a few key elements and build a great team in-house, and then rely on contractors who can join us for select periods of time.[/p][p]As an example, we couldn’t afford to build both an Environment Art team, as well as a Character Art team. As our game is SO focused on the different realities, we decided it made more sense to go for the first option. That meant we found some incredibly talented artists that could help us take the characters from concept to reality, without adding fulltime headcount.[/p][p]This is just one example, but it also applies to Narrative, Audio (Sounds + Music), VFX and more![/p][p]Once we figured out what support we needed, we also decide when it best makes sense for them to join us. For example, it’s much easier to make the music of the realities once we have some visual references in-game, so we knew we wanted to bring in our composer a little bit later. On the other hand, we needed a writer very early on, to help ensure the game we were building made sense.[/p][p][/p][h2]Ship it![/h2][p][/p][p]At the end of the day, we need to ensure we are staying a-float. I’m not shore I know what to say about this one? We just need to make ship happen. Okay, okay sorry.[/p][p]In order to market the game, we need to know when is a good time to release it. This requires not only looking at how much time we think it will take to make the game, but also what the market looks like at the time. For example, when is GTA VI coming out? Let’s avoid that porthole window![/p][p][/p][h2]Capturing the Market![/h2][p]One does not simply … make great games without marketing. While we refine exactly what the game will be, this is where we figure out who are target demographic is *hint* It might be you .[/p][p]We do many workshops to assess what aspects of the game we think are the most important and which kind of players best match so we can begin to create our social media pages and marketing strategy, to ensure we are able to share our game with the people who will enjoy it most.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Rumour has it that the Producer who wrote this blog originally wrote a 57 page book but it was deemed “too much information”, so don’t hesitate if you have more questions, drop them in the comments, as I’m sure she would be willing to join your “COLOUR CODING IS LYF3” club 🙂[/p][p][/p][p]– The Emeteria Team[/p]

[p]The Maze has opened once again — and this time, it’s delivering an early holiday surprise.[/p][p]That’s right: the Fading Echo Closed Alpha is officially back online starting today, and we couldn’t be happier to invite you in for another round of fluid-bending chaos, exploration, and discoveries.[/p][p]Whether you played during the first playtest or you’ve just joined the community, consider this your December gift from the Echoverse. The world has grown, the systems have evolved, and much more...[/p][p]Let’s unwrap what’s new. 💧🎁[/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p][/p][hr][/hr][p][/p][h2]What’s New Since the First Playtest?[/h2][p]A lot has changed since you last stepped into the Echoverse. For this December reopening, we’ve packed the Closed Alpha with new content, fresh visuals, smoother combat, and system reworks designed to make the experience more dynamic, readable, and surprising. Here are the biggest highlights:[/p][p][/p][p]🌋 A World That Feels Alive[/p][p]The Volcano is now fully dressed, the Bastion has brand-new visuals inside and out, and the Collapse Dimension has evolved with strange cables, jellyfish, and glitchy anomalies. The world is richer, clearer, and more atmospheric than ever.[/p][p][/p][p]⚔️ Sharper, Faster, Better Combat[/p][p]One’s kit feels snappier — a faster Combat Dash, stronger Cannonball, improved push attack, and smarter, more expressive enemies make every fight more reactive and satisfying.[/p][p][/p][p]🎥 3D Cutscenes & Clearer Storytelling[/p][p]Cinematic moments now play out in 3D, although they are still very much work-in-progress. Some dialogues and subtitles have also been refined to keep the experience cleaner and more immersive.[/p][p][/p][p]🌬️ Systemic Upgrades Everywhere[/p][p]Steam Form has been reworked for more freedom and smoother transitions, elemental absorption speeds are adjusted, and the whole systemic sandbox feels more responsive.[/p][p][/p][p]🔊 Better Sounds, Better Feedback[/p][p]Updated music, clearer audio cues, and new SFX make every action — from landing a crit to buying a perk — feel more alive.[/p][p][/p][p]🧰 Quality-of-Life Boosts[/p][p]Camera sensitivity options, improved KB/M controls, faster performance, perk preview videos, and a cleaner HUD all help the game feel smoother and easier to read.[/p][p][/p][hr][/hr][p][/p][h2]⚠️ Known Issues (Important!)[/h2][p]This is still an Alpha build — here are the key things to keep in mind:[/p][p][/p][p]🚪 Portal Crashes[/p][p]Crashes may occur during transitions. Avoid traveling in Water Form through portals where possible.[/p][p][/p][p]🌋 Systemic Reaction Crashes[/p][p]Heavy elemental reactions (lava, waste, water everywhere) can occasionally cause crashes. Restarting usually resolves it.[/p][p][/p][p]💾 Save Loss After Crash[/p][p]Progress may occasionally be lost after a crash. When you reload your save:[/p]

• [p]If One has Blue hair → everything is normal[/p]
• [p]If One has Brown hair → please restart the game (sometimes requires a few tries)[/p]

[p][/p][hr][/hr][p][/p][h2]Ready to Jump Back In?[/h2][p]The Closed Alpha is available right now on Steam.[/p][p]If you joined the first playtest via Steam, simply update the game in your Library and you’re good to go.[/p][p]New explorer? Just register directly on the Steam store page to get instant access to the playtest.[/p][p][/p][p]💬 And don’t forget to join us on Discord to share your thoughts & feedbacks![/p][p][/p][p]- The Fading Echo Team[/p][p][/p][h3]🌊 Flow with us[/h3][p]✨ Wishlist Fading Echo[/p][p]Steam | Epic Games Store | PlayStation Store | Xbox Store[/p][p]And follow the adventure:[/p][p]YouTube | TikTok | Instagram[/p]

[p][/p][p]Just like building a car or a house (I assume…) it’s important to ensure there is a good foundation before starting production. Different industries use different names for this, but within games we call this Pre-Production.[/p][p]An important component of a successful pre-production is to know to answer questions without finishing features. It’s not about having things perfect, instead about ensuring that we know roughly how long something will eventually take and what components we need to consider ahead of time.[/p][p]For us, that was six weeks where we answered a lot of questions like:[/p][p]Which enemies will we need, and how many?[/p][p]What will the realities look like and how do we make them within our budget?[/p][p]How versatile is One, can she deliver all the emotions of the storyline?[/p][p]And the million dollar question (seriously, it’s been expensive) – how will we render One’s hair?[/p][p][/p][h2]Enemy Types[/h2][p]During pre-production, we focus on how the enemies will work more than how they would look. We start with core mechanics and ensure they are working and fun and only then can the concepts begin. Here is an example of the original pitch of the Ranged enemy. We discussed which attacks could be fun and how they could connect to elements.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]Art Pipeline[/h2][p]Knowing that we wanted to have multiple realities meant we had to be very smart on how we built assets. We knew we couldn’t afford to make three completely unique realities without reusing content. We started with really simple tests like changing the colours of a rock to see if it could look different enough.[/p][p][/p][p]Not only was this an efficient way to create multiple items from one, it also helped us figure out how we would represent that the game has different realities, as opposed to alternative worlds.[/p][p]In this image, you can see that a test of swapping out a few assets (highlighted in orange) and a different arrangement of coloured rocks look similar enough, but still with changes in the aesthetics and feeling of the space.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]Tone + Emotion[/h2][p]During this time we were working on figuring out our tone and how our characters would show emotions. We always loved the over-the-top reactions used in many anime and manga, so we tested how extreme One’s face could go without looking broken.[/p][p][/p][p]We wanted One to be able to be very serious and intense but also very silly and comical so we were very pleased with these results.[/p][p][/p][h2]Fluid Rendering[/h2][p]We knew water (and other elements) were crucial to our game, so we spent a lot of time doing Research and Development of various solutions to see what would make the most sense for us. Comprehensively going through different pre-made solutions as well as prototyping our own solutions.[/p][p]Investigations included tools like FluidNinja Live and VFX, Niagara Fluids as well as in-house options like materials with ripples or baked mesh animations.[/p][p][/p][h2]Island Theming[/h2][p]This was a really interesting and complex problem to solve, figuring out what the themes of the islands would be. We knew we wanted a semi-linear experience where the player could choose any direction and should have a unique feeling. We have to confirm things like:[/p][p]Does each island make sense within the Bible/history of Fading Echo?[/p][p]Could we explain their stories in narrative and environmentally storytelling, without being too complex?[/p][p]Were they unique enough from each other but not so different we couldn’t re-use content between them?[/p][p][/p][p]There was A LOT of back and forth here and many loops of validation – and still quite a few changes since this document was made back in April 2024.[/p][p]Taking the time to discuss the HOW, WHEN and arguably most importantly, the WHY, ensured we could start the Production phase of the game in the most efficient and exciting way… but more on that next week 😉.[/p][p][/p][p]The Emeteria Team[/p][p][/p][h3]🌊 Flow with us[/h3][p]✨ Wishlist Fading Echo[/p][p]Steam | Epic Games Store | PlayStation Store | Xbox Store[/p][p][/p][p]💬 Join the Echoverse on Discord[/p][p]And follow the adventure:[/p][p]YouTube | TikTok | Instagram[/p]

[h2]Hey Legends![/h2][p]Since the reveal, there’s one thing you’ve talked about a lot: the soundscape of Fading Echo.[/p][p]So today, we’re pulling back the curtain on the person shaping all those eerie vibes and soaring themes: our deer composer, Maxwell Sterling.[/p][p]In a game where atmosphere and emotion do a lot of the heavy lifting, music had to be more than just background noise: we tried to make it a core part of the experience. So we sat down and asked Maxwell about the creative process, the challenges along the way, and how he turned the mood of Fading Echo into sound.[/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][hr][/hr][h3]How did you approach the atmosphere and tone of Fading Echo through music?[/h3]

[p]I was blown away from the earliest screen captures and images of Fading Echo as well as the brilliant text documents and bible. [/p][p]As a composer, the more information about a project I can get before I start writing, really allows me to go full detective mode and dig deep into what the sound of a world, character, and tone could be. It felt interesting to play with genres and context of certain musical styles and popular culture, as a means of subverting them or reimagining them to amplify One’s view point and the full ecosystem of Fading Echo.[/p][p]My style of writing mixes classical music with heavy digital manipulation and analogue synthesis, all of these ingredients I wanted to draw upon for the score. Take the theme for The Quarry as an example: here it felt right to almost evoke a western style of music but mutate this and push it into a new futuristic dimension to match the epic visuals. Taking instruments like pizzicato strings and putting them through resonators, Karplus-strong delays, and feedback allowed me to paint a more vivid sonic picture of what that landscape feels like.[/p]

[hr][/hr][h3]Were you given a clear direction, or did you have creative freedom from scratch?[/h3]

[p]For me, it was the best of both worlds :). I was given a stellar direction from the team as well as lots of visual material to inspire me, but ultimately I was allowed to explore openly in terms of my approach. This made the experimentation process super fun and rewarding! [/p][p]We sometimes found that one idea that was originally intended for a certain environment might actually be better suited for a different one, if we just tweaked certain elements and balance. I was really encouraged to push the envelope with the music, which felt like such a breath of fresh air and allowed me to try and match the singular vision of Fading Echo and its characters.[/p][p]Having not done a ton of scoring in the game world, the team gave me all the encouragement to be me and guided me along the way to make sure that the music was fitting the collective vision.[/p]

[p][/p][carousel][/carousel][hr][/hr][h3]What challenges did you face while composing for the game?[/h3]

[p]The main challenge (which was a good one!) was crafting the music to work for gameplay as opposed to a film or other media.[/p][p]Initially we built the music to be more loop-based and to be triggered to certain actions, however this didn’t yield the best results so we had to explore another route… We landed on having each theme of music be continuous, not looped, but how this becomes interactive or iterative is by the addition or subtraction of layers. [/p][p]This was a fun challenge as it pushed me to write in a different style. With loops, you can more easily change a key, let’s say from major to minor, or from F to F#, however with our approach we had to think more continuously and think about how emotion and action is achieved through the collaging of layers.[/p][p]To me, it reminds me of when Miles Davis moved from Bebop to Modal jazz - a change in which he described moving from vertical to horizontal - in the simplest of terms, making music less about big bold harmonic changes and more about implied melodies, changes in frequency, and rhythm.[/p][p]The balancing of tension and calm was fairly straight forward as we quickly established that for most pieces of music we should have a “calm” base layer and then have several “tension” layers. The most exciting of which was creating the sonic identity of the Corruption. For this, I was encouraged to delve deep into distortion and how that can be used creatively. There are so many flavours of distortion, not all of which are heavy rock guitars, but some are more like static interference, low bit rate and sample quality. For me, the latter of these has a cool psychoacoustic effect on the gamer/listener and can help create a sense of change or WTF feeling.[/p]

[hr][/hr][h3]What was your favorite track or moment to compose for Fading Echo, and why?[/h3]

[p]The whole journey has been super enjoyable, and each composition has informed the next, it’s been quite linear in that respect. [/p][p]But my favourite would probably have to be all of the cutscenes :). These are being written after most of the main themes, so I’m able to pull in ingredients from, say, the Bastion or The Big Tree but really ramp up the drama to fit the narrative climax of the cutscenes. [/p][p]Because the cutscenes feature some stillness in the characters themselves, I feel that the music can go that extra bit nuts to amplify their actions, therefore these have been the most creatively pushing I would say :)[/p]

[p][/p][carousel][/carousel][hr][/hr][h3]What do you hope players feel when they hear the music in Fading Echo?[/h3]

[p]I would hope that the music for Fading Echo helps the player instantly feel a sense of place and environment, almost like a compass of sorts.[/p][p]My aim was to create a kind of psychogeography of these beautiful dystopian vistas that the team has created - when the player hears a certain note or tone, they instantly know where they are and have an almost kinaesthetic feeling of the locale. [/p][p]My hope is that there is not just one emotion that the players feel, but many. The system we created, by having multiple emotive layers per track, hopefully allows for the player to quickly latch on to the theme but be guided into the different shades of that state: calm, distress, combat, low health, winning, etc.[/p]

[hr][/hr][p]Huge thanks to Maxwell for taking the time to share this creative journey with us![/p][p]We tried to make the soundtrack of Fading Echo something you don’t just hear. Hopefully, it is something you will also feel. From haunting melodies to rising tension in combat, it’s all designed to pull you deeper into the world.[/p][p]We can’t wait for you to experience it more fully the next playable version of Fading Echo.[/p][p][/p][h3]🌊 Flow with us[/h3][p]✨ Wishlist Fading Echo[/p][p]Steam | Epic Games Store | PlayStation Store | Xbox Store[/p][p][/p][p]💬 Join the Echoverse on Discord[/p][p]And follow the adventure:[/p][p]YouTube | TikTok | Instagram[/p]