After a long development period, the Everbyte development studio from Furtwangen is back with an innovative game. We're talking about the new fantasy adventure Sound of Magic, which I was able to try out before the official release on December 10, 2018. But why is this game so innovative?
"Audio Book Game" - An acoustic adventure
If we take a look at the App Store, we will find countless games for on the go with - now comes the big and important difference - graphical user interface.
Because exactly in this point it is similar sound of magic not the competition. One relies on a purely acoustic adventure, which is reminiscent of an audio book. But there is also a change to the classic audio book, because it is an interactive story in which the player himself intervenes and acts in the game.
But why is such a game so particularly innovative?
Quite simply, because it is playable for almost everyone. It is characterized by its accessibility, so blind and visually impaired players can immerse themselves in the adventure and experience the story. In addition, it also creates a completely different atmosphere if you only have the background noise, you are not distracted by any graphics and maybe hear away. You listen carefully all the time and thus have an incredibly intense gaming experience.
When you first start playing a game like this you might be a bit afraid that you will understand everything, but the controls are explained to you very well at the beginning. When you learn how to control it, you also get to know a little bit about your character and the environment. Thus, the tutorial starts immediately at the beginning of the story and you are immediately in the storyline. The controls themselves are kept very simple and after a short time you can move very well in the game. This is mainly due to the fact that the controls keep expanding as the game progresses. So you don't have a tutorial at the beginning that explains everything to you immediately, but the controls expand as the game progresses, so you always learn something new and it never gets boring.
Control of the game is limited to just swiping your finger across the screen. There are all kinds of gestures that you gradually learn in the game. You can move around, interact with objects and people, and perform spells later in the game.
Atmospheric sounds as groundbreaking game elements
There's not much to say about the atmosphere other than that it sounds just perfect. The sound mix is really very good and everything is understandable. The voices of the people are in the foreground even with background noises and can be understood without any problems. In addition, the chosen speakers fit perfectly with the characters. To say something about the sound effects, they sound really very good, whether it's the rain or your own steps while running.
The whole story takes place in an ancient and mystical world, but there are also allusions to modern times. In principle, you can also say that the game has a good amount of humor and that I already had to smile one or two times in the beta.
Even puzzles should not be missing in this game, the previous ones were relatively easy to solve and easy to understand, but I think they will get more difficult as the game progresses.
At the beginning of the story we wake up in a dungeon and don't even know what happened to us. Our character doesn't know who we are or where we are right now. That means, we first have to look at the whole environment and soon meet other characters who first explain the whole situation to us. So you can find out relatively quickly who you are or where you are at the moment. At this point I don't want to go into the story much further because I think everyone should get an impression of the story for themselves. A free demo of the game will also be available in the app store from December 10th.
“Everbyte is an indie game studio from the beautiful Black Forest. Jan, Vanessa and Kevin - the three founders of the small game company - met each other while studying at Furtwangen University. After completing their Masters of Science, the three of them took the plunge and set up their own Everbyte. In addition to powerful AR applications for business partners, the focus is currently on developing our own games.”
Source: Everbyte website
Accessible, but innovative for every player
So far I found the game to be really beautiful and designed with a lot of love. I think that the accessibility makes the game innovative, even for players without visual impairments. The story is varied and the atmosphere, as well as the complete soundscape, let the player sink into the world of the character really well and a very intense and gripping gaming experience results from it. I will definitely be playing this game in full length once it's finished, so as to keep up with the story.
