Game News More Winter Voices

[Jason]

Tags: Winter Voices

<p>Another episode of <a href="http://www.wintervoices.com/order" target="_blank"><strong>Winter Voices</strong></a>, "Like a Crow on a Wire", is now available for fans of French indie RPGs and ethereal journeys into the spiritworld with turn-based combat. $5 or 4.49 Euros gets you in.</p>
<blockquote>For the first time in what seems an eternity, a tiny village crushed by the huge mass of mountains indicates the presence of other human beings... Will they be a great help or a danger more deadly than your desperate and icy loneliness? The road to the capital becomes clearer and the river, which crosses inhabited land, is not far behind the last peak and mountain pass. The acceptance of your fate and of potential relief of your inner turmoil seem attainable... As existence appears to be possible again, the fear of death grows more acute, increasing the risk of being sucked into a great void.<br /><br />New features &amp; content:<br />- We've hidden in this turning-point episode several clues... Will you find them?<br />- A new village to explore! But beware: appearances can be deceptive...<br />- Dozen of new NPCs!<br />- Exclusive combats: fight on the Frontier, where only your willpower can defeat<br />- A new offensive game mode to unlock, for those who will overcome the Frontier<br />- The end of the season's first half! Will you triumph over the mountain?</blockquote>
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<p>Spotted at: <a href="http://www.rpgamer.com/">RPGamer</a></p>

 

[FatCat]

Why do they even try....game sucks.

 

[commie]

Will you triumph over the mountain?

 

[meeneque]

Why do they even try....game sucks.

I do not know about the whole game, but demo was really disappointing. One that you can get from Steam i mean.

 

[Ogg]

Why do they even try....game sucks.

You suck. (no, I won't give arguments either)

 

[Quilty]

Haven't tried it, but it sounds terribly pretentious. I've only read a review of part 1 on RPS and the author didn't seem to have enjoyed the mechanics of the game too much, so I skipped it.

 

[Hobo Elf]

It's crap. The mechanics are ass and so are the skills. Very uninteresting combat.

 

[Black Cat]

Though it deserves some cuddles for being the most pretentious game ever.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Does the non-Steam demo work for anyone else? I can't get it to run.

 

[Nael]

Here is my Winter Voice typed out:

"IT IS FUCKING COLD! I AM TIRED OF THIS SHIT! I AM MOVING TO THE TROPICS NEXT YEAR! FUCK!"

 

[poetic codex]

From a design perspective, I think the game does offer some interesting ideas but the shoddy translation leads to some major confusion when it comes to understanding both the story and the game mechanics.

As mentioned above, the writing does come across as over-wrought and pretentious. However, I'm not sure if this is due to it being a poor translation from the French.

Do we have anyone who played the game in Fench and can tell us how it comes across in that language?

If we grant that the poor writing is a result of a bad translation from French, then I don't think the writing could be called that much worse than other "intellectual" RPG's like Arcanum or Torment. The latter especially had many eye-rolling moments for me (like the encounter with O).

The developers of Winter Voices dared to try soemthing different in the RPG realm. Don't we always moan and complain that the big name companies are afraid to be creative because they only care about the bottom line? Well, if they see games like this keep getting poor sales, they won't be encouraged to stop making WOW clones with auto-attacking.

If they could find a better translator, and fine-tune the combat mechanics, it'll be a good game if we keep in mind that this is an indie developer trying soemthing different. The atmosphere and art work are very evocative and quite stunning.

 

[Krash]

Something French being pretentious? Why I never

 

[Ogg]

Do we have anyone who played the game in Fench and can tell us how it comes across in that language?

Some parts (intro for each chapter, the overall story, shadows speaking in your dreams...) are really awful. Trying to be poetic, I suppose, but it's not. It's just gibberish. Even in French. At least, you don't need to pay attention to those walls of text. Just click 'continue'. Dialogues are decent. I even found the relationship with your companions most realistic (despite the very biowarian approval and romance ratings).

That being said, I appreciate the gameplay, which offers a nice change of pace. Sometimes, it's more of a puzzle than a combat, but still, they obviously put much effort in encounter design. The character system is also solid and surprisingly offers some real variety.

Technically, the game's a total mess. I had dozens of game breaking bugs. I guess they didn't know anything about Adobe Air and are still learning how to use it.

Aesthetically, it's quite impressive. Visuals are quite charming, especially for an indie game. And more importantly, the music is great. Very atmospheric.

 

[Charles-cgr]

For the first time in what seems an eternity, a tiny village crushed by the huge mass of mountains indicates the presence of other human beings... Will they be a great help or a danger more deadly than your desperate and icy loneliness? The road to the capital becomes clearer and the river, which crosses inhabited land, is not far behind the last peak and mountain pass. The acceptance of your fate and of potential relief of your inner turmoil seem attainable... As existence appears to be possible again, the fear of death grows more acute, increasing the risk of being sucked into a great void.

Pour la première fois depuis ce qui parait une éternité, un minuscule village écrasé par la masse colossale des montagnes environnantes signale la présence d’autres êtres humains… Seront-ils une aide précieuse ou un danger encore plus mortel que les solitudes désolées et glacées ? Le chemin vers la capitale se précise et le fleuve qui traverse les terres habitées n’est plus très loin derrière le dernier pic et le col d’altitude. L’acceptation de votre destin, la délivrance de vos tourments intérieurs devient possible … mais la peur de la mort s’intensifie à mesure que l’existence redevient envisageable et le danger de se laisser happer par le vide n’en est que plus grand.

It took me a while to realize that the village was an indication of the presence of humans. At first I thought someone from the village had come out of said village for the first time in what seems an eternity to indicate humans had been found in the mountains. In all fairness being familiar with the plot would probably have helped. It was clearer in the French version, but not that much.

I struggled to figure out what the deal was with the road and the river. Apparently the journey's goal is to reach inhabited lands, and those lands have a river, and that river isn't far behind the last peak so the same can be said of the inhabited lands. A convoluted way of saying that they're getting close to the goal. No translation issue - it's just convoluted.

The acceptance of your fate and of potential relief

There's a bad translation problem here. The French version isn't about accepting both your fate and potential relief. There's the acceptance and relief as two separate things (the translator might have been misled by

redevient

which should have been

redeviennent

, a singular that should have been a plural.

I haven't played it but these two snippets that were chosen to depict the game story on the site's front page suggest that I can expect headaches from the reading - which isn't very encouraging. The translation probably didn't help but there seems to be weaknesses in the original text as well.

Still, I'm curious to see the overall mechanics so I'll be trying the demo at least.

 

[Quilty]

i'd rather they'd
wintermute it

 

[curry]

whining

Just because it's turn-based doesn't mean it's good. Stop sucking on the TB dick, son.

 

[zeitgeist]

The developers of Winter Voices dared to try soemthing different in the RPG realm. Don't we always moan and complain that the big name companies are afraid to be creative because they only care about the bottom line? Well, if they see games like this keep getting poor sales, they won't be encouraged to stop making WOW clones with auto-attacking.

What, really bad games?

I have to admit that Winter Voices does offer at least some insight into what's wrong with the indie scene in general, but as a game it's hardly notable. Or playable. Perhaps one should at least get a grasp of the basics of game design and development before "trying something different"?

 

[Ogg]

whining

Just because it's turn-based doesn't mean it's good. Stop sucking on the TB dick, son.

Yeah, go back and play DA2.