Brutal and gut-wrenching, but honestly excellent. This is premature to say before the last update, but having passed the climax, I feel confident nevertheless that Arches is the best story Echo Project has put together thus far. Beautiful, morbid, genuinely affecting and memorable. It's found the most distilled essence of the series' themes and executed their exploration and presentation closer to the perfect than any of your previous work, given a real weight with expertly refined prose and aesthetic. The honing of creative strengths and progression of quality is palpable in the succession from Echo to TSR to this. I'm really excited for more.
Mmm Interesting to see a sineario where so called "supernatural" encounters and "extraterrestrial" encounters are not necessarily different phenomenon, but possibly two sides of the same coin. Too bad so many people are rooted either in the "aliens and/or supernatural don't exists" or "they do exists so let's throw out all rational thought" types.
If Echo had at least one real world counterpart it would be Skinwalker Ranch in Utah, where supernatural and UAP events are recorded as happening side by side.
Since the theme of Arches is "breaking cycles" I do hope our dynamic trio far better then the group in Echo did.
Anyways still a good, if not difficult read yet again. Cheers!
I absolutely love your guys' visual novels. When I first played 'Echo' back in mid-December of 2021, I was truly blown away. The writing was amazing, the story pacing was amazing, and the characters were beautifully written. I had never read a furry vn before then. But I know one thing for certain: I'm so glad that your works were some of my first experiences.
All the games by The Echo Project are 11/10, and I highly recommend them!
I have to respect the writing and the world building, as well as the talent latent in it all. BUT.. These stories are nothing short of sadistic. I have to ask.. WHY? Im going to hazard a guess, that there's a really traumatized individual behind the main writing.
These stories effectively suck you in with great character building, only to DESTROY YOU when you're at your most vulnerable. I should know. Echo was one of the main factors behind the big breakdown of my life, a bit over two years ago. Yeah yeah, I have mental issues as well, but it actually broke me, and I'm not the same. Arches is shaping up to be much the same as Echo (and taking place in the same world, of course).
It's impressive that a visual novel can do this, but I guess some of us just wish for anthro people to be real so intensely that this hits exactly in the right spot.
I don't even know the words to describe this VN & my experience with this newest build. This entire VN felt like a roller coaster, and I loved it. Wonderful visuals, story & quality. If you're deciding on if you should give it a try, DO IT.
However, you should heed the warning at the top of the VN description. Trust me on this one.
I didn't, and kinda wished i did. I started reading it at like 3am in my dark mostly empty house and was like WTF am i reading like a hour in. Dont get me wrong I loved it tho, just was a bit blindsided.
On one hand this shit actively hurts me, but on the other, the production and writing consistently builds on itself and the characters are like few other fictions I've ever read. That, along with a spectrum of other thoughts and feelings inbetween the two hands definitely keeps me coming back. Anyone who can make me verbally assault a screen out of the pure frustration and intense pressure because of what I was reading definitely deserves all the praise. It's so easy to stay completely immersed until you feel like you're with the characters, thinking their thoughts alongside them. But it's not just the thriller aspects, trapped inside of the horrors of Echo are some incredibly detailed interpersonal relationships and histories. Arches definitely has some of my favorite development and THE BEST pacing. That next update is gonna hit so hard. My feelings are not prepared.
We haven't gotten a single choice thus far. Considering Build 7 is the penultimate build + the way it leaves off... I'm gonna make a guess here and say the only choice in the game will come at the end and will probably either be between saving themselves, or breaking the cycle. Choose one or the other...
I swear to god please Echo devs this is like Life is Strange all over again. Please don't make me choose😭
The choices in life is strange dont have to change the ending. Thats why its realistic. You can be an asshole to someone and it likely wont cuange the course of your life.
If devs make a choice based game in which choices are irrelevant and inconsequential, the only actual incentive to play said game goes completely out of the window. Realistic or not, that's just awful game design.
i love the story but at the same time this is the only game or anything I've ever seen or read that has made me feel sick to my stomach, not even the strongest rollercoasters in Universal, Disney, or knottsberry farms.
Ah, how can fictional characters give me phantom sympathy pains!? I suppose it's just the graphic description and my ability to imagine it biting back at me... Damn, had me on the edge of my seat for this entire build.
I politely submit a formal request to add the "Dead Dove: Do Not Eat!" Tag to Arches (and Echo, and maybe The Smoke Room depending on how dark it's gonna get in endgame).
I had downloaded Arches and was following along, enjoying the art and the writing if not the terrible choices the characters kept making (Terrible in a 'Oh! You stupid bastard; of course you would do that and it's only going to make things worse!' way not a 'The character is only doing this because the writers are telling them to...' way)... but then it started getting back into some of the grittiest and most uncomfortable concepts of Echo... and I realized I didn't have the ability to go read route-guides and plot synopses to gently spoil myself and gird my psychological loins against nasty surprises like I did with Echo... and then Arches started getting more horrifying than Echo and I had a 'I am not enjoying this' epiphany and just shut down the game, uninstalled it, and deleted my review figuring I could come back when the game was complete and the route guides and synopses were available to peruse so I could be better prepared if I chose to read the rest.
But in the meantime, yeah... Dead Dove: Do Not Eat!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ More info on "Dead Dove: Do Not Eat!"
In Archive Of Our Own (AO3), there is a tag that can be assigned called "Dead Dove: Do Not Eat!" Based on a joke in the show Arrested Development*, the tag has become a catch-all for "No, Really, the dark/disturbing/upsetting themes in the story are *very* dark/disturbing/upsetting, graphic, central to the plot, and relatively unavoidable and irredeemable. Please do not blow past the warnings, open it, read it, and feel dimmed/disturbed/upset, then come and complain in the comments about how dark/disturbing/upsetting the writing was and cast aspersions upon the writers and anyone who was more prepared than you. You were literally warned."
*A character finds a bag with 'Dead Dove: Do Not Eat!' written on it in the fridge... The character pulls the bag out of the fridge, opens it, looks inside... looks away shocked and disgusted... then, after a few beats, says "Well, I don't know what I expected."
"Dead Dove: Do Not Eat is a warning or tag used to indicate that a fanwork contains tropes or elements that may be deemed morally reprehensible without explicitly condemning the sensitive aspects."
i don't think it really fits Arches and Echo, what you described wouldn't fall into the "horror" tag? also is there even a Dead Dove: Do Not Eat tag in this site?
I mean, here's one of the writers justifying why they just HAD to bring back Brian the Rapist Methbear... a really gross polarizing character who seems to exist solely to be shockingly EEeeeEEEeevil but in ways that are super murky about whether The Great Evil Thing lurking nearby makes him that way or just made it easier for his already inherent evil to break through any charades of decency.
I go back to my original point: If the Dead Dove: Do Not Eat were to be introduced to Itch.IO: This is the game to introduce it.
If anything to start nipping the following comment threads in the bud:
"I have a criticism because this game made me feel icky and I wasn't ready for it, and other games tagged 'horror' or 'psychological horror' didn't affect me this badly and I enjoyed them more" (-17) ---- "Well it didn't affect ME that badly so your criticism and feelings are invalid and I am going to be pedantic and nitpicky about it (+5)"
the point i was making is that your definition of Dead Dove :Do Not Eat is not the commonly accepted one, if Arches had this tag most people will assume that the story portrays immoral behavior without condoning it, and for as polarizing as Brian is, you can't deny that the narrative explicitly condemns his actions (also evil in murky ways? the post you link straight up calls his actions sick), what you seem to be wanting are better/more detailed content/trigger warnings
I have a, I think, interesting theory about echo endings. About which ending is real. But before I start, I warn you that there will be a lot of spoilers for Echo and Arches.
Apparently, the developers of the game said that there is no one true ending. Every ending is canonical because it's kind of like a multiverse or a time loop.
The important thing, however, is that Arches exists. Arches is an independent game but is still a continuation of echo and still based on some of its interpretation of the echo game and its endings.
So, answering the question which ending is true, we answer which ending is true for Arches, i.e. for the true echo continuation.
The second important thing for a game where we have a time loop is running in circles.
An often repeated line in the game is that "you are running in circles". Of course, this refers to the player and the spirit of Samuel who controls the fate of Chase. Each time we make different choices and we have different endings but in the end nothing changes. We're still in a circle.
I'll start with the Arches events and Echo events.
In Arches, two characters important for the plot appear. This is Brian and Duke. If they're alive, that means they couldn't die in the echo.
Brian dies in Leo's route, killed in a cave. This is what happens if we pick up a gun in the fight scene with Brian. This makes the two final endings (good and bad) false. This, however, means that the ending where Brian kills us may (but does not have to) be true.
Brian also dies in Jenna route. This makes both endings of this Route false.
In other Routes, Brian does not die. This makes Carl's 3 endings, Leo's 1 Ending, Flynn's Ending and TJ's Ending possible to be true.
The second character is Duke. His death is always linked to the theft of Chase's car. He gets killed by the socket man every time he tries to escape.
In Carl Route, if Jenna stabs us, we see a car and a dead person. It's probably duke. The events of this Route are probably an illusion. Our death breaks this illusion. This means Duke is probably dead in Carl's other endings, but we don't see that.
Duke dies in Flynn and Jenn's ending in exactly the same way.
That leaves us with two endings. End of TJ route and our death by Brian in Leo route.
Now we're going to look at the second important issue, which is running in circles. There is another repeated phrase on this point. That is: They always come back.
Where are they going back to? To the loop. What is a loop? Chase keeps returning to echo. Or otherwise, Sam's return to Echo. Sam is the real main character of the game but he is hidden. This is us as a player.
We as players come back over and over again. And we can do it all the time, but our control ends when it comes to the ending.
For Samuel, the goal is to get out of the echo. However, the death of chase will not result in an escape. How do we know that? Samuel had previously possessed Sydney and Sydney's father. They are both dead, but Samuel's soul continues to circle and possess other characters. Duke also says in one of the Routes that killing doesn't fix things, so he doesn't want to kill Chase but learn from him how to stop the madness. Samuel's soul will just pass on to another person.
The only way to stop everything is for Samuel to escape. It was he who caused evil to appear in the echo. Escape is his goal in every Smoke Room Route. Escape will stop evil.
Therefore, the real ending must be TJ route.
This is the only ending where Chase escapes from Echo before being attacked by mass hysteria. This is the only ending where Brian and Duke live. Duke's death is linked to Chase's car theft and an escape attempt. He can't do it because chase has left. Brian never goes to the mine and he never kidnaps Chase so he stays alive too.
Sam broke free from the echo and Chase did not return to the echo. We know this because in the epilogue after TJ's ending, Chase does not appear. Chase also does not appear in arches.
However, mass hysteria continues to echo after Chase's escape. Why? Here comes another sentence: this city needs secrets.
I believe in the bathroom scene, Chase is talking to the city and the city's bad guy himself. The figure in the mirror is the essence of what this city is. The secret that Sydney was killed by Chase has never been revealed. Brian's brutal murders were never revealed either. Secrets are the thing that keeps this city alive and this city is trying to make sure we don't know the secrets.
Escaping the wheel saved Chasea and Samuel. It led to the fact that the city almost completely died after his departure and was almost forgotten. Only crazy ghost hunters remember this cursed place. Evil, however, lives on because the secrets have not been revealed. Revealing secrets is our goal at arches.
This theory has several holes. One is the events in the epilogue after the TJ ending are different than in the arches.
However I can explain by simply changing the idea slightly by the developers and not suggesting which ending is real. Another option is that events happen a little differently in the real version of TJ's ending but still similar to what's in the game. This makes TJ's ending not true, but it's closest to the truth. Chase's elopement with TJ could be real.
Tj route being cannon makes so much sense but it's so insane especially regarding that ending and how it involved Flynn... like breaks my heart. I'd love to see connections in Arches about Flynn being part of the socket-face monster and possibly if Cam could ever have a psychic vision of Flynn as the monster
Out of all the VN's I've played this has been the hardest one to get through. It feels like i am underwater and desperatly need air but there just isn't any. I'm glad this is going to be shorter than Echo and The Smoke Room. Not because its bad, quite the opposite this is an amazing read. Its just heavy on the heart.
I love this so much ! I've finished all of echo previously and up-to-date on most routes of TSR and this is such an amazingly unnerving sequel... I am SO intriguied and have so many questions... I can't wait for more
Spoilers below:
I'm so intrigued by this raincoat monster... what connection does it have to Echo? For why else would it suddenly move for the first time when Cam confirms he would visit echo with Dev... AND oh dude, the scene between the socket-face monster and Arturo... the mere gazing between the both of them before Arturo noticed the lights of the cars on the highway...
I'm unsure how accurate my memory is; but wasn't the monster what attacked the car of the main crew in Echo in various routes that disallowed them from leaving? But, when it gazed upon Arturo, it just watched? Perhaps* allowing him to leave Echo? I like to believe Arches takes place most accurately after flynn route in Echo, despite it being a multi verse kind of thing... So i like to think that the monster allowing Arturo to (hopefully) leave was like a part of Flynn's humanity and kindness... BUT LOL not even sure if that was the way I was meant to interpret it ahaha
Another small detail; but I absolutely admire the sheer depth of Cameron's backstory, particularly with his mother's psychosis... The odd details like about the fan and stuff make it seems so much realer and the fact it isn't just as simple as "Cam's mum committed suicide "... Like no.... The arches duuuude...
Dude another thing, but The Echo Project is so fucking good at altering my view of just random things like... The fragrance of lavender or wall sockets or now the shapes of arches in general... And the fact arches are just half of a circle? Everything *circles* around its amazing, hahaha. I fucking love you, Echo Project.
Also, when Cam said "This is about someone who got murdered and some piece of shit got away with it!" Ohhhhh Cam wouldn't you love to know more...
As for what's coming next... I am praying that the Flynn Echo route was cannon and we get an explicit Cameron psychic vision of Flynn... I await Cam and Dev to encounter the socket face monster with excitement, I hope they can talk or something. Idk, assuming it is Flynn, i just miss Flynn so much I would love to hear anything from him...
Love you Echo Project <3 praying that Cam and Dev are endgame, I don't think I'll ever recover if they don't stay together wahaha
Agree! And for the arch shapes, it reminds me of the “slogan” of the game: “Breaking cycles…”. An arch is kinda like a broken circle.
And hilariously (context: I’m not a native english speaker), I only today learned what “arch”/“arches” meant and I’m now, in a way, seeing it in other places (as in, the word) :P
This is a very deep and very powerful dive into issues of drug addiction, trauma, and mental health issues. Powerful and harrowing and, if I'm being completely honest, clearly the product of very deep research if not personal experience in what it's like to trip on substances.
Yeah buddy. I know what it's like too. I've always had positive experiences myself, but once again Howly knocks it outta the park by holding a black mirror up to super real shit.
Love ya Howly you're doing amazing! Cameron is probably beating out TJ for precious smol bean now!
...I experienced the same thing in the beginning of the game. Some guy roofied my drink and I spent seven days in his house. I will not go into detail on account of some people being immature and saying "That's inappropriate" when we [should be] all adults here. I'm still traumatized after four years, and I'm 26 now. What's crazy is the fact that every time I go to a bar or a club, I have the bartender watch my drink, and I'm still wary of drinking.
What happened to Cameron's buldge?! Now I'm bummed out... :( It may have been distracting but it sure was a pleasant one! XD Anyways, I love the update so much it just got me hype for Echo again in years! Good job! :D
:/ I can't play the newest version of Arches everytime I start the story/side story it keeps closing out the game? Anyone have any suggestions on how to fix it?
So I played the 6th build of Arches on the 14th and I have a major problem with the way the story going.
It was amazing for the majority of the build until Cameron was canonically confirmed as a psychic. Basically, the last 10 minutes or so were dogshit cuz of this reveal. Ah yes, let's have the ex-drug addict realize he is a psychic and that taking hallucinogens and other drugs is a way to increase his powers......excuse me, what the actual fuck?
Aside from the obviously fucked-up message, the problem with this reveal is that is can lead to terrible writing very fuckin' quickly. Cameron's in a bind and needs to get out? Just use his Deus ex Machina psychic powers to escape!
I trust Howly as a writer and he's given me some of the most impactful moments in fiction I've ever experienced, but I'm not about to sit back and ignore his decrease in writing quality like a sheep chewing cud laced with poison. I really hope he manages to find a way to fix this aspect of the story before it destroys any good will I have for this game entirely.
[P.S. I know for a fact the Echo Project simps will attack me for this comment saying bullshit mantras like:
"Stop being so negative!"
and
"It's a free visual novel made by a small team!".
So to address those sniveling simps, I'm being critical because I fuckin' love The Echo Project and don't want to see it go downhill and become bad. I've been reading their VNs since before Adastra was even a thing, and I have immense passion for some of their games. I'm so fucking sick of people thinking being critical of something you love is inherently a bad thing. It's not and if you think it is, you have the mental maturity of an 8th grader snorting glue. Sorry, not sorry.]
Yes, I am aware that Echo as a town is a paranormal hotspot, but it still doesn't excuse poor writing which, as I said in my comment, this update is not poorly written. In fact, I enjoyed the majority of it. My problem is that I can foresee a potential fatal flaw in the writing. Psychic powers are notorious for being used in a Deus ex Machina type way. I trust Howly and hope he doesn't fuck it up big time, but I'm not a blind Consoomer who gobbles up whatever cud is given to me for supper.
As for the second part of your comment, I genuinely chuckled when you mentioned my reviews. Yes, I called Virginia what I did cuz it's true. She's an entitled spoiled bitch who complains about being born into a rich and powerful family despite a large portion of Adastra being in major poverty. She's a feminazi at worse, and a Karen at best. As for the "sLuR" part, grow the fuck up. It's the Internet and you will see this shit all the damn time.
This doesn't excuse bad writing, and I'm beginning to think quite a few Echo Project fans are illiterate. That's the only way I can think of that explains this lack of critical thinking skills when it comes to writing quality. Yes, the world these games are set in is full of paranormal events, but that doesn't mean you forget to write a coherent and logical story in said world. Flynn's route is my favorite in the original game not only because I love Flynn, but also because the writing quality skyrocketed during it. McSkinny, who wrote Flynn's route, is an amazing writer, sometimes better than Howly.
In conclusion, a story having unrealistic elements doesn't excuse it from having bad writing. I will still point it out and hope the creator listens to my advice. That's the entire point of critique: to improve an artist's work.
That has t be the dumbest shit I have ever heard. Your criticism is neither constructive, nor is it necessary. Let them write the stories the way they want to. This isn't the way to go about "critiquing an artist's work."
While I agree with Cameron obtaining psychic powers from drugs is incoherent and illogical to the rest of the echo series, I don't agree with how this compromises Howly's writing in the future.
Of course, I get this is all up for speculation and we'll only be able to fully criticize this further once the plot continues on.
I love the story and I think it's better than the smoke room. It's no better than the original Echo, and probably nothing will be better than the first game. But I'm still very excited about the sequel in the form of Arches. The game very well shows the relationship of two people, where one struggles with a serious mental problem that affects both of them. Where both people genuinely love and care for each other. The game also has something of philosophy. It's not a philosophy I particularly support, but it's just shown in a good way. I can really feel the relationship between the main characters. They are just credible to me. The game can also scare me, not only with monsters, but also with good tension. But back to what you're talking about.
The psychic powers theme itself is acceptable in the story based on the events of the echo. In the first game, it was normal for a character to see things they shouldn't. Chase sees a ghost fox hanging himself. All over the Carl route, everyone sees ghost stuff they shouldn't. They literally talk to spirits in this part of the game. Every now and then something paranormal happens.
However, you're kind of right about taking drugs to see ghosts. Characters in the previous game didn't have to do this to interact with spirits. So something has been added. Something new in the game.
We can discuss whether that's a good thing. I think the final punch line of the story is important. We can't evaluate it now.
In Echo, drugs were shown rather as something negative. Theoretically, in Arches, it is mentioned that the main character has a problem with the drugs he was given to fight his mental illness. There is a moment of criticism of this, as the main character talks about unpleasant experiences in the past related to drugs. He also says that the treatment of mental illness should not consist of stuffing patients with powerful mental drugs.
However, there is also the thread you are talking about. That is, taking drugs to communicate and perhaps get out of a bad situation in which the characters are. This may suggest that the game says: "drugs are good because they help you escape from a bad situation where the lives of the characters are really in danger." Cameron, however, does not want to take drugs. They are given to him by Brian. He is aware that drugs are hurting him.
Much depends on how the thread will be continued. If the game shows that in the end, taking drugs is not the solution to the problem of two main characters, everything is fine. However, if it helps to get them out of bad situation, we have a problem here. A very bad message in my opinion.
Ultimately, we don't know the ending of the story and a lot of the story is probably ahead of us, so I don't think we can judge anything at this point.
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WOW!!!! I loved every piece of this. I hope there will be more sprites and art during the fights!
Spoilers:
Keep Brian alive, I want more drama
No
Yes! 😭
No-
Just curious before i start reading, but which parts of this are unfinished?
The game's like 90% finished now. The last update comes in a month or two. Might be a polish update later too but who knows.
Brutal and gut-wrenching, but honestly excellent. This is premature to say before the last update, but having passed the climax, I feel confident nevertheless that Arches is the best story Echo Project has put together thus far. Beautiful, morbid, genuinely affecting and memorable. It's found the most distilled essence of the series' themes and executed their exploration and presentation closer to the perfect than any of your previous work, given a real weight with expertly refined prose and aesthetic. The honing of creative strengths and progression of quality is palpable in the succession from Echo to TSR to this. I'm really excited for more.
It has one bad thing though...
.
.
.
.
It's too short. sobs
Mmm Interesting to see a sineario where so called "supernatural" encounters and "extraterrestrial" encounters are not necessarily different phenomenon, but possibly two sides of the same coin. Too bad so many people are rooted either in the "aliens and/or supernatural don't exists" or "they do exists so let's throw out all rational thought" types.
If Echo had at least one real world counterpart it would be Skinwalker Ranch in Utah, where supernatural and UAP events are recorded as happening side by side.
Since the theme of Arches is "breaking cycles" I do hope our dynamic trio far better then the group in Echo did.
Anyways still a good, if not difficult read yet again. Cheers!
I'm starting to think the reason why samuel and arturo somehow surviving their demise is because of their "cat ancestral privileges".
Having nine lives sure must be fun...
///////SPOILERS/////////
IT TOOK ME A MONTH TO PREPARE
I finally finished the update and i have one thing to say
BRIAN IS DEAD YEEEEESSSSSSS
(Seriously devs, KEEP HIM DEAD PLEASE I HATE HIM SO MUCH HOLYSHIT)
Not even just Cameron, I'm worried about Artie.
Duke, you'd better take him straight to the hospital.
I absolutely love your guys' visual novels. When I first played 'Echo' back in mid-December of 2021, I was truly blown away. The writing was amazing, the story pacing was amazing, and the characters were beautifully written. I had never read a furry vn before then. But I know one thing for certain: I'm so glad that your works were some of my first experiences.
All the games by The Echo Project are 11/10, and I highly recommend them!
I have to respect the writing and the world building, as well as the talent latent in it all. BUT.. These stories are nothing short of sadistic. I have to ask.. WHY? Im going to hazard a guess, that there's a really traumatized individual behind the main writing.
These stories effectively suck you in with great character building, only to DESTROY YOU when you're at your most vulnerable. I should know. Echo was one of the main factors behind the big breakdown of my life, a bit over two years ago. Yeah yeah, I have mental issues as well, but it actually broke me, and I'm not the same. Arches is shaping up to be much the same as Echo (and taking place in the same world, of course).
It's impressive that a visual novel can do this, but I guess some of us just wish for anthro people to be real so intensely that this hits exactly in the right spot.
Sigh.. take care out there.
Nakakapangilabot naman sa pukey yung description ma try nga to.
Awesome Work guys, This so good...
[spoiler free]
I don't even know the words to describe this VN & my experience with this newest build. This entire VN felt like a roller coaster, and I loved it. Wonderful visuals, story & quality. If you're deciding on if you should give it a try, DO IT.
However, you should heed the warning at the top of the VN description. Trust me on this one.
I didn't, and kinda wished i did. I started reading it at like 3am in my dark mostly empty house and was like WTF am i reading like a hour in. Dont get me wrong I loved it tho, just was a bit blindsided.
Echo project you are to be congratulated 👏👏👏 this update was amazing! I loved it from the heart 🥺 cameron and devon you were made for each other ❤️
On one hand this shit actively hurts me, but on the other, the production and writing consistently builds on itself and the characters are like few other fictions I've ever read. That, along with a spectrum of other thoughts and feelings inbetween the two hands definitely keeps me coming back. Anyone who can make me verbally assault a screen out of the pure frustration and intense pressure because of what I was reading definitely deserves all the praise. It's so easy to stay completely immersed until you feel like you're with the characters, thinking their thoughts alongside them. But it's not just the thriller aspects, trapped inside of the horrors of Echo are some incredibly detailed interpersonal relationships and histories. Arches definitely has some of my favorite development and THE BEST pacing. That next update is gonna hit so hard. My feelings are not prepared.
Evil? really? .....
We haven't gotten a single choice thus far. Considering Build 7 is the penultimate build + the way it leaves off... I'm gonna make a guess here and say the only choice in the game will come at the end and will probably either be between saving themselves, or breaking the cycle. Choose one or the other...
I swear to god please Echo devs this is like Life is Strange all over again. Please don't make me choose😭
Life is Strange was so awful for having only one relevant choice ever, hated that game
The choices in life is strange dont have to change the ending. Thats why its realistic. You can be an asshole to someone and it likely wont cuange the course of your life.
If devs make a choice based game in which choices are irrelevant and inconsequential, the only actual incentive to play said game goes completely out of the window. Realistic or not, that's just awful game design.
Love the update please keep up the great work
update keeps failing on Android
That was pretty damn intense. Good job.
i love the story but at the same time this is the only game or anything I've ever seen or read that has made me feel sick to my stomach, not even the strongest rollercoasters in Universal, Disney, or knottsberry farms.
Ooo, new update! I'm kinda scared to play it!
Ah, how can fictional characters give me phantom sympathy pains!?
I suppose it's just the graphic description and my ability to imagine it biting back at me... Damn, had me on the edge of my seat for this entire build.
Good Job! FIVE STARS!
back into hell we go
Wasn't build 7 supposed to be released already? I saw TSR got it's update but Arches did not
is it still on going ?
I hope it just ended so baad
I politely submit a formal request to add the "Dead Dove: Do Not Eat!" Tag to Arches (and Echo, and maybe The Smoke Room depending on how dark it's gonna get in endgame).
I had downloaded Arches and was following along, enjoying the art and the writing if not the terrible choices the characters kept making (Terrible in a 'Oh! You stupid bastard; of course you would do that and it's only going to make things worse!' way not a 'The character is only doing this because the writers are telling them to...' way)... but then it started getting back into some of the grittiest and most uncomfortable concepts of Echo... and I realized I didn't have the ability to go read route-guides and plot synopses to gently spoil myself and gird my psychological loins against nasty surprises like I did with Echo... and then Arches started getting more horrifying than Echo and I had a 'I am not enjoying this' epiphany and just shut down the game, uninstalled it, and deleted my review figuring I could come back when the game was complete and the route guides and synopses were available to peruse so I could be better prepared if I chose to read the rest.
But in the meantime, yeah... Dead Dove: Do Not Eat!
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More info on "Dead Dove: Do Not Eat!"
In Archive Of Our Own (AO3), there is a tag that can be assigned called "Dead Dove: Do Not Eat!" Based on a joke in the show Arrested Development*, the tag has become a catch-all for "No, Really, the dark/disturbing/upsetting themes in the story are *very* dark/disturbing/upsetting, graphic, central to the plot, and relatively unavoidable and irredeemable. Please do not blow past the warnings, open it, read it, and feel dimmed/disturbed/upset, then come and complain in the comments about how dark/disturbing/upsetting the writing was and cast aspersions upon the writers and anyone who was more prepared than you. You were literally warned."
*A character finds a bag with 'Dead Dove: Do Not Eat!' written on it in the fridge... The character pulls the bag out of the fridge, opens it, looks inside... looks away shocked and disgusted... then, after a few beats, says "Well, I don't know what I expected."
"Dead Dove: Do Not Eat is a warning or tag used to indicate that a fanwork contains tropes or elements that may be deemed morally reprehensible without explicitly condemning the sensitive aspects."
i don't think it really fits Arches and Echo, what you described wouldn't fall into the "horror" tag? also is there even a Dead Dove: Do Not Eat tag in this site?
https://itch.io/post/7167448
I mean, here's one of the writers justifying why they just HAD to bring back Brian the Rapist Methbear... a really gross polarizing character who seems to exist solely to be shockingly EEeeeEEEeevil but in ways that are super murky about whether The Great Evil Thing lurking nearby makes him that way or just made it easier for his already inherent evil to break through any charades of decency.
I go back to my original point: If the Dead Dove: Do Not Eat were to be introduced to Itch.IO: This is the game to introduce it.
If anything to start nipping the following comment threads in the bud:
"I have a criticism because this game made me feel icky and I wasn't ready for it, and other games tagged 'horror' or 'psychological horror' didn't affect me this badly and I enjoyed them more" (-17)
---- "Well it didn't affect ME that badly so your criticism and feelings are invalid and I am going to be pedantic and nitpicky about it (+5)"
the point i was making is that your definition of Dead Dove :Do Not Eat is not the commonly accepted one, if Arches had this tag most people will assume that the story portrays immoral behavior without condoning it, and for as polarizing as Brian is, you can't deny that the narrative explicitly condemns his actions (also evil in murky ways? the post you link straight up calls his actions sick), what you seem to be wanting are better/more detailed content/trigger warnings
I have a, I think, interesting theory about echo endings. About which ending is real. But before I start, I warn you that there will be a lot of spoilers for Echo and Arches.
Apparently, the developers of the game said that there is no one true ending. Every ending is canonical because it's kind of like a multiverse or a time loop.
The important thing, however, is that Arches exists. Arches is an independent game but is still a continuation of echo and still based on some of its interpretation of the echo game and its endings.
So, answering the question which ending is true, we answer which ending is true for Arches, i.e. for the true echo continuation.
The second important thing for a game where we have a time loop is running in circles.
An often repeated line in the game is that "you are running in circles". Of course, this refers to the player and the spirit of Samuel who controls the fate of Chase. Each time we make different choices and we have different endings but in the end nothing changes. We're still in a circle.
I'll start with the Arches events and Echo events.
In Arches, two characters important for the plot appear. This is Brian and Duke. If they're alive, that means they couldn't die in the echo.
Brian dies in Leo's route, killed in a cave. This is what happens if we pick up a gun in the fight scene with Brian. This makes the two final endings (good and bad) false. This, however, means that the ending where Brian kills us may (but does not have to) be true.
Brian also dies in Jenna route. This makes both endings of this Route false.
In other Routes, Brian does not die. This makes Carl's 3 endings, Leo's 1 Ending, Flynn's Ending and TJ's Ending possible to be true.
The second character is Duke. His death is always linked to the theft of Chase's car. He gets killed by the socket man every time he tries to escape.
In Carl Route, if Jenna stabs us, we see a car and a dead person. It's probably duke. The events of this Route are probably an illusion. Our death breaks this illusion. This means Duke is probably dead in Carl's other endings, but we don't see that.
Duke dies in Flynn and Jenn's ending in exactly the same way.
That leaves us with two endings. End of TJ route and our death by Brian in Leo route.
Now we're going to look at the second important issue, which is running in circles. There is another repeated phrase on this point. That is: They always come back.
Where are they going back to? To the loop. What is a loop? Chase keeps returning to echo. Or otherwise, Sam's return to Echo. Sam is the real main character of the game but he is hidden. This is us as a player.
We as players come back over and over again. And we can do it all the time, but our control ends when it comes to the ending.
For Samuel, the goal is to get out of the echo. However, the death of chase will not result in an escape. How do we know that? Samuel had previously possessed Sydney and Sydney's father. They are both dead, but Samuel's soul continues to circle and possess other characters. Duke also says in one of the Routes that killing doesn't fix things, so he doesn't want to kill Chase but learn from him how to stop the madness. Samuel's soul will just pass on to another person.
The only way to stop everything is for Samuel to escape. It was he who caused evil to appear in the echo. Escape is his goal in every Smoke Room Route. Escape will stop evil.
Therefore, the real ending must be TJ route.
This is the only ending where Chase escapes from Echo before being attacked by mass hysteria. This is the only ending where Brian and Duke live. Duke's death is linked to Chase's car theft and an escape attempt. He can't do it because chase has left. Brian never goes to the mine and he never kidnaps Chase so he stays alive too.
Sam broke free from the echo and Chase did not return to the echo. We know this because in the epilogue after TJ's ending, Chase does not appear. Chase also does not appear in arches.
However, mass hysteria continues to echo after Chase's escape. Why? Here comes another sentence: this city needs secrets.
I believe in the bathroom scene, Chase is talking to the city and the city's bad guy himself. The figure in the mirror is the essence of what this city is. The secret that Sydney was killed by Chase has never been revealed. Brian's brutal murders were never revealed either. Secrets are the thing that keeps this city alive and this city is trying to make sure we don't know the secrets.
Escaping the wheel saved Chasea and Samuel. It led to the fact that the city almost completely died after his departure and was almost forgotten. Only crazy ghost hunters remember this cursed place. Evil, however, lives on because the secrets have not been revealed. Revealing secrets is our goal at arches.
This theory has several holes. One is the events in the epilogue after the TJ ending are different than in the arches.
However I can explain by simply changing the idea slightly by the developers and not suggesting which ending is real. Another option is that events happen a little differently in the real version of TJ's ending but still similar to what's in the game. This makes TJ's ending not true, but it's closest to the truth. Chase's elopement with TJ could be real.
my brain telling me to not read all that but my heart pushed me to read it.. wow that was a great theory
Thanks
Tj route being cannon makes so much sense but it's so insane especially regarding that ending and how it involved Flynn... like breaks my heart. I'd love to see connections in Arches about Flynn being part of the socket-face monster and possibly if Cam could ever have a psychic vision of Flynn as the monster
Out of all the VN's I've played this has been the hardest one to get through. It feels like i am underwater and desperatly need air but there just isn't any. I'm glad this is going to be shorter than Echo and The Smoke Room. Not because its bad, quite the opposite this is an amazing read. Its just heavy on the heart.
I was going to comment in the build 7 thread, where'd it go, i just finished playing it. Good stuff though.
Following their patreon releases, the next public build should have released on January 6. I guess they made a mistake.
Good on you for being able to play it early
Lucky me :p
I love this so much ! I've finished all of echo previously and up-to-date on most routes of TSR and this is such an amazingly unnerving sequel... I am SO intriguied and have so many questions... I can't wait for more
Spoilers below:
I'm so intrigued by this raincoat monster... what connection does it have to Echo? For why else would it suddenly move for the first time when Cam confirms he would visit echo with Dev... AND oh dude, the scene between the socket-face monster and Arturo... the mere gazing between the both of them before Arturo noticed the lights of the cars on the highway...
I'm unsure how accurate my memory is; but wasn't the monster what attacked the car of the main crew in Echo in various routes that disallowed them from leaving? But, when it gazed upon Arturo, it just watched? Perhaps* allowing him to leave Echo? I like to believe Arches takes place most accurately after flynn route in Echo, despite it being a multi verse kind of thing... So i like to think that the monster allowing Arturo to (hopefully) leave was like a part of Flynn's humanity and kindness... BUT LOL not even sure if that was the way I was meant to interpret it ahaha
Another small detail; but I absolutely admire the sheer depth of Cameron's backstory, particularly with his mother's psychosis... The odd details like about the fan and stuff make it seems so much realer and the fact it isn't just as simple as "Cam's mum committed suicide "... Like no.... The arches duuuude...
Dude another thing, but The Echo Project is so fucking good at altering my view of just random things like... The fragrance of lavender or wall sockets or now the shapes of arches in general... And the fact arches are just half of a circle? Everything *circles* around its amazing, hahaha. I fucking love you, Echo Project.
Also, when Cam said "This is about someone who got murdered and some piece of shit got away with it!" Ohhhhh Cam wouldn't you love to know more...
As for what's coming next... I am praying that the Flynn Echo route was cannon and we get an explicit Cameron psychic vision of Flynn... I await Cam and Dev to encounter the socket face monster with excitement, I hope they can talk or something. Idk, assuming it is Flynn, i just miss Flynn so much I would love to hear anything from him...
Love you Echo Project <3 praying that Cam and Dev are endgame, I don't think I'll ever recover if they don't stay together wahaha
Agree! And for the arch shapes, it reminds me of the “slogan” of the game: “Breaking cycles…”. An arch is kinda like a broken circle.
And hilariously (context: I’m not a native english speaker), I only today learned what “arch”/“arches” meant and I’m now, in a way, seeing it in other places (as in, the word) :P
For the Flynn route being canon, I think Jose Forest makes a decent argument about it not being so, but I still wish there’s some Flynn-related visions as well.
This is a very deep and very powerful dive into issues of drug addiction, trauma, and mental health issues. Powerful and harrowing and, if I'm being completely honest, clearly the product of very deep research if not personal experience in what it's like to trip on substances.
Yeah buddy. I know what it's like too. I've always had positive experiences myself, but once again Howly knocks it outta the park by holding a black mirror up to super real shit.
Love ya Howly you're doing amazing! Cameron is probably beating out TJ for precious smol bean now!
...I experienced the same thing in the beginning of the game. Some guy roofied my drink and I spent seven days in his house. I will not go into detail on account of some people being immature and saying "That's inappropriate" when we [should be] all adults here. I'm still traumatized after four years, and I'm 26 now.
What's crazy is the fact that every time I go to a bar or a club, I have the bartender watch my drink, and I'm still wary of drinking.
That's horrific and I'm so sorry that happened to you. I hope you're doing well and are getting help.
Heh... The funny thing is that same guy became my friend after that whole incident.
[I still don't trust him around any drinks given to me.]
What happened to Cameron's buldge?! Now I'm bummed out... :( It may have been distracting but it sure was a pleasant one! XD Anyways, I love the update so much it just got me hype for Echo again in years! Good job! :D
I'm on an Android, and I don't know if the it runs on an old software, or if my phone is just bad
:/ I can't play the newest version of Arches everytime I start the story/side story it keeps closing out the game? Anyone have any suggestions on how to fix it?
spoilers
Splendid update. Absolutely loved how Cameron tied in with the entities of Echo. Hope to see more coming from Howly and Arches characters.
Why is Cam's bulge nerfed...? I don't understand, why....
The devs thought it was distracting.
But it was a pleasant distraction to say the least
Of course, personally I was quite disappointed when they changed it out. It's not like it looks bad though, it looks fine.
I thought I was just going crazy... Thank god I wasn't.
So I played the 6th build of Arches on the 14th and I have a major problem with the way the story going.
It was amazing for the majority of the build until Cameron was canonically confirmed as a psychic. Basically, the last 10 minutes or so were dogshit cuz of this reveal. Ah yes, let's have the ex-drug addict realize he is a psychic and that taking hallucinogens and other drugs is a way to increase his powers......excuse me, what the actual fuck?
Aside from the obviously fucked-up message, the problem with this reveal is that is can lead to terrible writing very fuckin' quickly. Cameron's in a bind and needs to get out? Just use his Deus ex Machina psychic powers to escape!
I trust Howly as a writer and he's given me some of the most impactful moments in fiction I've ever experienced, but I'm not about to sit back and ignore his decrease in writing quality like a sheep chewing cud laced with poison. I really hope he manages to find a way to fix this aspect of the story before it destroys any good will I have for this game entirely.
[P.S. I know for a fact the Echo Project simps will attack me for this comment saying bullshit mantras like:
"Stop being so negative!"
and
"It's a free visual novel made by a small team!".
So to address those sniveling simps, I'm being critical because I fuckin' love The Echo Project and don't want to see it go downhill and become bad. I've been reading their VNs since before Adastra was even a thing, and I have immense passion for some of their games. I'm so fucking sick of people thinking being critical of something you love is inherently a bad thing. It's not and if you think it is, you have the mental maturity of an 8th grader snorting glue. Sorry, not sorry.]
-Kallier
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLs_BZI-CHxZyPjon4I6N2m_oGb79fHqTY
I totally agree with this. Also, the whole "Woww, I'm communicating to you through my psychic powers." Just... Doesn't fit Echo.
And, the worst of all. Cameron's bulge got nerfed. :(
I may perish./s
I....I cannot fathom this mindset.
Yes, I am aware that Echo as a town is a paranormal hotspot, but it still doesn't excuse poor writing which, as I said in my comment, this update is not poorly written. In fact, I enjoyed the majority of it. My problem is that I can foresee a potential fatal flaw in the writing. Psychic powers are notorious for being used in a Deus ex Machina type way. I trust Howly and hope he doesn't fuck it up big time, but I'm not a blind Consoomer who gobbles up whatever cud is given to me for supper.
As for the second part of your comment, I genuinely chuckled when you mentioned my reviews. Yes, I called Virginia what I did cuz it's true. She's an entitled spoiled bitch who complains about being born into a rich and powerful family despite a large portion of Adastra being in major poverty. She's a feminazi at worse, and a Karen at best. As for the "sLuR" part, grow the fuck up. It's the Internet and you will see this shit all the damn time.
This doesn't excuse bad writing, and I'm beginning to think quite a few Echo Project fans are illiterate. That's the only way I can think of that explains this lack of critical thinking skills when it comes to writing quality. Yes, the world these games are set in is full of paranormal events, but that doesn't mean you forget to write a coherent and logical story in said world. Flynn's route is my favorite in the original game not only because I love Flynn, but also because the writing quality skyrocketed during it. McSkinny, who wrote Flynn's route, is an amazing writer, sometimes better than Howly.
In conclusion, a story having unrealistic elements doesn't excuse it from having bad writing. I will still point it out and hope the creator listens to my advice. That's the entire point of critique: to improve an artist's work.
That has t be the dumbest shit I have ever heard. Your criticism is neither constructive, nor is it necessary. Let them write the stories the way they want to. This isn't the way to go about "critiquing an artist's work."
While I agree with Cameron obtaining psychic powers from drugs is incoherent and illogical to the rest of the echo series, I don't agree with how this compromises Howly's writing in the future.
Of course, I get this is all up for speculation and we'll only be able to fully criticize this further once the plot continues on.
Honestly, I never thought about it this way
I love the story and I think it's better than the smoke room. It's no better than the original Echo, and probably nothing will be better than the first game. But I'm still very excited about the sequel in the form of Arches. The game very well shows the relationship of two people, where one struggles with a serious mental problem that affects both of them. Where both people genuinely love and care for each other. The game also has something of philosophy. It's not a philosophy I particularly support, but it's just shown in a good way. I can really feel the relationship between the main characters. They are just credible to me. The game can also scare me, not only with monsters, but also with good tension. But back to what you're talking about.
The psychic powers theme itself is acceptable in the story based on the events of the echo. In the first game, it was normal for a character to see things they shouldn't. Chase sees a ghost fox hanging himself. All over the Carl route, everyone sees ghost stuff they shouldn't. They literally talk to spirits in this part of the game. Every now and then something paranormal happens.
However, you're kind of right about taking drugs to see ghosts. Characters in the previous game didn't have to do this to interact with spirits. So something has been added. Something new in the game.
We can discuss whether that's a good thing. I think the final punch line of the story is important. We can't evaluate it now.
In Echo, drugs were shown rather as something negative. Theoretically, in Arches, it is mentioned that the main character has a problem with the drugs he was given to fight his mental illness. There is a moment of criticism of this, as the main character talks about unpleasant experiences in the past related to drugs. He also says that the treatment of mental illness should not consist of stuffing patients with powerful mental drugs.
However, there is also the thread you are talking about. That is, taking drugs to communicate and perhaps get out of a bad situation in which the characters are. This may suggest that the game says: "drugs are good because they help you escape from a bad situation where the lives of the characters are really in danger." Cameron, however, does not want to take drugs. They are given to him by Brian. He is aware that drugs are hurting him.
Much depends on how the thread will be continued. If the game shows that in the end, taking drugs is not the solution to the problem of two main characters, everything is fine. However, if it helps to get them out of bad situation, we have a problem here. A very bad message in my opinion.
Ultimately, we don't know the ending of the story and a lot of the story is probably ahead of us, so I don't think we can judge anything at this point.