I would like to ask the administration, if not difficult, change the name of the blog of this game, or create a new, more complete, under the name Winter voices. Because Those Who has no name This is only one of several episodes of this game, and not even the first … That’s what is strange. Yes, it has a proud name Namber Uan, But this is still the second episode of the first season of the game, the first is the prologue – avalanche (Avalanche). It is impossible to play this episode without a prologue, the game will not give. There are such confusing things ..
Winter voices At the moment, it already has several episodes of the first season and demo version. About the dates of their exit and what they say, a little later.
The journey is just beginning
WV is an interesting game with a difficult fate, which, as they say, "did not go". The genre of this game is not so easy to determine. This is a mixture of fierce tactical (step -by -step, style, for example, Final Tactics) JPRG fighting with a melancholy adventure, but almost without searching for items. “Winter voices” are in places similar to Siberia, the game is related to the work of Benoit Sokal Winter Palette. And general French origin.
An independent Beondthepillars studio was created in 2008 in 2008 in 2008, which began to work on the gaming universe invented by it.
According to the creators, this studio was created not only for the development of a new intellectual role-playing game, but also for conducting a certain research in the field of multiplayer online games.
Therefore, initially the team of the creators of the game Winter Voices gathered around the MMO project. The developers chose the game programming as a language – Air, which was at that time gaining popularity. But this decision turned out to be a mistake and led to a long debugging of the game to save her from the bugs pursuing her. Or programmers were too inexperienced?
But thanks to the choice of this programming language, the game easily supports fashion. In addition to the menu, in the game you can moderate everything if you have a text or graphic editor.
And on October 29, 2010, the prologue Winter Voices is released in Steam: Avalanche (Avalanche).
After a brief presentation of the heroine and scene, the player chooses the appearance, initial characteristics and profession of the heroine. The game begins with the death of the heroine’s father in a tiny village somewhere in the snowy mountains, the subsequent funeral of his burning at the fire. The heroine collects the ashes of her father and, walking around the village, in conversations with fellow villagers a little reveals the previous story and their attitude towards herself and her father. Then, in a dream, she passes through Seid – the other world of shadows and fears. After a few more conversations and battles in a certain semi-million-in-half-final world for his prudence, our heroine, taking with him a raven (or without taking it) leaves his native village.
On November 19, 2010, the first main episode of Winter Voices was released: those who do not have names (Those Who Have No Name).
The heroine leaves the village, having experienced deprivation and struggling with her phobias and memories, goes along the tundra to a neighboring settlement, or rather a small roadside hotel, where she meets with other travelers, faces the remnants of the past.
December 18, 2010, the second episode of Winter Voices was released: Nothing for me. (I’m somewhere? Nowher of me).
In this episode, the heroine goes along the tundra, partly along the mountains, from a roadside hotel to a mountain village. On the way, she meets a lot of ruins that remind her of her house. Here in some ruins, she meets her second satellite – Hunter Vienna.
On January 5, 2011, the Winter Voices updated, in which some changes were made to the game mechanics.
Also, at the beginning of the year, it became known about the release to the game “Secrets of Norns”, which should become available in the summer camp of Steam (Summer Sale) of 2011. It adds a side quest, which goes from the beginning of the first episode “Those without names” to the end of the third episode “Like a crow on the wire”, and one steam-appropriation.
On March 14, 2011, the third episode of Winter Voices was released: like a crow on the wire (Like a Crow on a Wire).
Having reached the mountain village, the heroine rests in it, earns with labor, depending on her specialization, to the pops for travel. Then passing through the burning ceremony, she goes through the mountains. Having passed them, she descends to the river. At the end of this episode there is a very difficult battle consisting of several fights. Very complex battles begin here, when passing which you forget the boredom of the fighting of the first episodes.
On May 27, 2011, the fourth episode of Winter Voices was released: Amethyst rivers (Amethyst Rivers).
Going to the river, the heroine and her companions, short time in monotonous battles, for several days, wait for a large boat. Companions are loaded on it and float to the capital. Along the way they help the crew in its troubles with cargo and passengers. The heroine can start an affair with one of the crew members, or continue romantic flirting with her companion – Hunter Venom.
In the 2011 Skim Summer https://fafabet9casino.co.uk/games/ Camp, players who bought the first episodes of the game received an addition to Norn Secrets, but only after some corrections and explanations, they could play it. Now it is already inaccessible. Perhaps it will be added to the assembly of the first season of the seven episodes?
June 24, 2011 was published by Demo Winter Voices.
It is not so voluminous, occupies a small part of the prologue of the game and only opens the curtain of the history of the game. It is better to play the prologue right away.
When the first episodes of the game, opinions about it were radically divided, many critics remained a dissatisfied game, its external incomprehensibility and initial amusement and placed her quite low marks on Methacritic, but some players fell in love with this art-house, unusual game, despite the strange story of an unusual heroine, and frequent ends and bugs of the game. Subsequently, the developers corrected many mistakes, but the initial impression of the game was already spoiled.
The volume of the game of the game turned out to be low, the sales of the game in the stimin were discontinued. The Beyondthepillars Studio itself was faced with financial problems and was not able to continue to work on the game. Search for money to develop an unusual game by a small unknown company was a difficult thing.
Creative Director of Beondthepillars Kevin Leenaff and about twenty people; Artists, game designers and sound engineers, scriptwriters for several months continued to work for free on the game, trying to straighten the astholic state of affairs.
In October 2011 On its official website, the Beondthepillars Studio announced its bankruptcy and stop working on the game. All property of the studio and the right to the game were sold. And the page of the game was removed from Steam.
A long period of silence and unknown for the players followed. Somewhere, in January 2012, the author of Winter Voices appeared to gamers. In which he announced his ransom of rights to play, create a new studio and renew work on the game. Currently, Winter Voices are developed by a small French company Inner Seas based in Paris. Founded by the author of “Winter Voices”, Kevin Leenuffe, this company continues the work of Beondthepillars studio, over the universe she invented.
Then it was promised that there would be a couple of episodes with a break of six months to finish the first season of the game and a big patch that corrects the bugs. The second season with an improved engine and new skills and game mechanics, and new heroes was also planned. It will end the end of a long journey of the heroine. Depending on sales of the first season, the second season should be either a game or a book.
One of the goals of the team is the release of the book version of each season. But there are also two projects in the distant future: the first, under the code name “Autumn Voices”, which will be the story of another heroine in the Republic of Rosa Gallica. The personality of this heroine will open it in the second season WV. Secondly, it is MMO based on the Winter Voices universe with an unusual idea that distinguishes from other MMO-games.
The design of the developers is a grandiose, in the invented game world of MMO there should be three states – the principality of three rivers in which Winter Voices, the Republic of Rosa Gallika and the nomadic tribes are the action of the ARENITES.)
On November 1, 2012, the fifth episode of Winter Voices was released: overflow (overflow).
The heroine walks along the river along the green lawns under the noise of jets. She meets the third possible member of her team. And, it seems, it begins to unravel a ball of long history, restore it. In his cloth dreams, the heroine has to fight in the desert, in the special mode “desalcination”.
And now almost a year later, presumably in September 2013 a new episode of the game is expected – Falls (Falls).
Sun and fog … You have reached the city, this is the first real city and what city it is. Your true journey is about to begin, the road to the sapphire bay really begins here. There are so many things to prepare, there are so many things to do them before you can leave the fog. Doors open under a close roar of water. What and whom do you choose? What will be your life, where will you want to go and what will you live? Questions and answers, and even more questions.
This will end the first season of the game. Whether the heroine’s journey ends, it is not clear, it is possible that we will play for her and further or it will be another hero (heroine).
Small analysis of the game
What was the failure of the game?
In my opinion, firstly, a strange genre of game, a mixture of different pace of history and tactical battles. Nothing like a tactical role -playing game with a leisurely history and slow gameplay. And in this regard, the misunderstanding of critics and players, nevertheless, developers from the Beond The Pillars studio, it was not worth experimenting with the canons of the genre.
Secondly, the incompleteness and initial amusement of the game (possibly with a connection with the wrong choice of language??).
The idea of the game was magnificent, but alienated from the interests of the bulk of the players. He is strange. Connecting a leisurely journey, story about him, and the fierce pace of action of fighting in the world of dreams, the mystical history and the way of developing the heroine did not suit experienced gamers and people involved in the game industry.
The development team set the first place the story and atmosphere, and not the gameplay. Depressiveness, a feeling of lethargy that wraps you up in the game, sometimes is so strong that you feel immersed in a little depression. On the other hand, during the battles you must act quickly and sharply, if it is applicable in step -by -step battles. You need to clearly know all your skills, what and how is it better to apply.
The game begins with the choice of her appearance, profession, and the definitions of its initial statistics. Instead of the usual characteristics of the role -playing game, such abilities as memory, strength of mind and insight are available to you. Each ability is part of the emotional “field” of the protagonist, at the same time serving as a mathematical basis for the role component of the game.
The game has a lot of text, dialogues, you will have to spend a lot of time in conversations with people met on your path. Dialogue options available to you are based on various emotions, which at such a time have a lonely mourning person; From complaints and tears in the eyes to angry mutter, and even sarcasm. From all conversations you get experience points.
The heroine does not remain on her journey alone, she can have up to three fellow travelers who can be found and annexed to her campaign (raven, hunter of veins and fisherman Chichi), but their help is more likely to be slightly supported, basically, the heroine is fighting alone.
Although the analysis of the good and bad aspects of the game was carried out in a neighboring topic, but still ..
The advantages of the game:
1) Unusual gameplay. If you are looking for a game based on emotions, an interesting character and a slowly told story, it will not disappoint you.
2) an interesting skill tree, in which you can choose a suitable skill for your method of passing battles.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the game is its combat system. Most games in order to fight enemies, gives you weapons and shields. In winter voices, your only weapon- “Srylla”- some mystical spiritual skills. As such, there are no shields in the game, there are defensive protective skills that soften the damage from enemies, or helping to evade them, push them away from themselves. It is also possible to just escape from them.
3) Beautiful music and beautiful design set a properly selected, but somewhat oppressive atmosphere. The mood in the game is presented as a melancholy and cold. But this is rather not peaceful and happy calm and cold, but a proactive feeling that there are secrets in the world of game in large numbers. Excerpts of poems and revelations are poetic and mysterious.
Disadvantages of the game:
The main drawback of the game for me is the discrepancy between the pace of the main story and battles.
1) The battles in the game at the beginning of the game are very sluggish and uninteresting, monotonous, sometimes you have to wait a long time to respond enemies to finish your move, and it becomes boring. The pace of the game is a little slow, which is well corresponded to the story of the story, but when you leave the location or explore the countryside, you get tired of waiting for the character the whole screen passes.
1a) And vice versa, in the middle and end of the game, at times, the excessive complexity of the fighting, of course, can be held without 100% success, this is allowed, but then interest in the game is lost.
Is it a bad balance possible?
2) Read fragments of the poem in the game, bright and poetic and well suitable for the atmosphere of the game, from time to time are too pretentious and incomprehensible.
3) Small bugs remain, sometimes requiring the game. It is advisable to periodically update Adobe Air.
The post is written, or rather, collected from a couple of my own translations and posts, to popularize the game.
