News Unheard (audio detective game) out now

prudis

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Unheard combines story-driven audio drama with puzzle elements to create a unique experience where players will have to solve crimes by sound only. This game will be releasing on PC (Steam) on March 29.

Unheard, an audio detective game made by Chinese developer NEXT Studio, will launch for PC via Steam on March 29, the studio announced.

Put on your headphones and step back into the past. Use the voices you hear to return to crime scenes, tracking down each individual involved and solving the cases. But where do the voices come from? Can you trust what you hear? And what’s the mysterious thread weaving all of these cases together?

A Unique Case-Solving Experience

Discover the truth hidden in the voices from the past.

Step through time as you use our device to eavesdrop on conversations from past crime scenes. Every clue, every move, and every motive will be presented in the form of audio. Rather than controlling any one character, you only need listen to their conversations, following along as the story evolves. Use the information you hear to match names to voices and determine how everything (and everyone) is related. Can you discover the truth?

Open-Ended Narrative Mystery Game

Explore the story and piece together the puzzle in your own way!

Don’t expect to be “fed” a pile of clues. Rather, take the role of a fly on the wall, observing and listening to the events as they unfold. Anyone could be the culprit; key clues may be revealed at any second; any character’s storyline may cross paths with another at any point in time. YOU be the editor—the order of the story is up to you!

Tributes To…

  • Detective Fiction: In Unheard, all the clues in a case will be presented to players. There’s no hidden information, nor rooms that require a key to enter. Players will be privy to the same information as everyone present at the crime scenes.
  • Immersive Theater: All characters in Unheard have their own storylines; however, each of these storylines will become interwoven in the same space, and at the same time, resulting in complicated cases that force you to meticulously search for and track clues. You can choose to follow one character or move around between multiple characters. You can also replay the audio as many times as you want until you reach a conclusion.
  • Radio Drama: Unheard is, in a way, an interactive radio drama. By combining aural narrative techniques with the type of exploration elements present in video games, Unheard offers a brand-new, non-linear radio drama experience.
Special Thanks

Special thanks to our voice actors and directors in both China and the U.S. Thank you for your continued hard work and support.

 
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Finally, a release date! I'm looking forward to this one.

NEXT Studios has been releasing great, affordable games on Steam, so I'm always keeping an eye on their new releases.
After finishing Bladed Fury (which is well recommended), I have been playing Death Coming between sessions in other games.
 
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Deleted member 113

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Out, cheap, and already with the announcement of a free DLC, to be released in a couple of months. (y)

 
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The game already has more than 2000 reviews, in less than 24 hours.
Most of them are Chinese reviews, but even so, it's nice to see smaller, unusual games such as this one doing well. (y)
 
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lashman

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The game already has more than 2000 reviews, in less than 24 hours.
Most of them are Chinese reviews, but even so, it's nice to see smaller, unusual games such as this one doing well. (y)
it's weird how that's true for pretty much all games that support the Chinese language ... like Chinese gamers understand the importance of reviews

compare that to small (or even mid-size) indie games without the language support - they usually have a few hundred reviews at best (and even that usually after a few months, not few days) ... apparently English-speaking people don't really care about leaving reviews, no matter if they like the game or not

interesting
 
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apparently English-speaking people don't really care about leaving reviews, no matter if they like the game or not

interesting
I'm totally guilty of that.
I never write reviews on Steam. :giggle:

Maybe Valve should consider having a thumbs up/thumbs down system, to make it easier to see how liked, or not, a game is?
 

Alextended

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You can just write a single word with your thumb up or down which is already in place (recommended vs not), stop being so lazy :p

Have "disliked" in your clipboard to paste it in and delete the "dis" part if you like the game :p
 
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You can just write a single word with your thumb up or down which is already in place (recommended vs not), stop being so lazy :p

Have "disliked" in your clipboard to paste it in and delete the "dis" part if you like the game :p
:grinning-face-with-smiling-eyes:

I have thought about it.

Just wondering: if I make a review, and make it private, does my thumbs up/down still count for the game's rating?
 

Ascheroth

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I'm totally guilty of that.
I never write reviews on Steam. :giggle:
I'm guilty of that too....
I feel like if I write a review I want it to be useful and informational and they would end up fairly long and I'm too lazy...
So I only end up writing reviews for games I really, really feel strongly about (but not even all of them, I have 800 games in my library and only 14 reviews, haha).
I should try writing more, and potentially just keep them short for games I don't feel that strongly about...
 

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I'm guilty of that too....
I feel like if I write a review I want it to be useful and informational and they would end up fairly long and I'm too lazy...
So I only end up writing reviews for games I really, really feel strongly about (but not even all of them, I have 800 games in my library and only 14 reviews, haha).
I should try writing more, and potentially just keep them short for games I don't feel that strongly about...
I have 9000+ games, and... 2 reviews. :)

For me, if I'm going to write a review, it has to be informative, and worthwhile.
But, I struggle a bit with what to write, and English being a secondary language means I frequently repeat myself.
 

Wibblewozzer

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I bought this last night. It seems unique and a decent developer to show some support for trying something different. It also didn’t look super long, which anymore is a plus. One review I skimmed said they enjoyed it so much to get 100% completed and they only had like 4.5 hours.

And I’m in the boat of only writing like two reviews and owning around 1,400 games. Maybe I should write more, especially for the small stuff that doesn’t have many reviews.
 

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I bought this last night. It seems unique and a decent developer to show some support for trying something different. It also didn’t look super long, which anymore is a plus. One review I skimmed said they enjoyed it so much to get 100% completed and they only had like 4.5 hours.

And I’m in the boat of only writing like two reviews and owning around 1,400 games. Maybe I should write more, especially for the small stuff that doesn’t have many reviews.
Most games from this developer are exactly as you say: fun, affordable, and last around 4-5 hours.

If you don't own it already, give Bladed Fury, another game by the same developer, a try, next time it's on sale.
It's a lot of fun. It shares some similarities, both in look and in terms of gameplay, with Muramasa: The Demon Blade.

As for Unheard, the game will have free DLC, to extend the length a bit. :)

The games of this developer have been very welcome surprises.
Each has a different genre, are affordable (and usually launch with generous discounts), and I had a lot of fun with them.

I bought it, but I confess I still haven't played Unheard, because I finally started playing Grim Dawn, and got sidetracked. :)
 
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A small bump to mention the free DLC is now out, and the game is now on sale, for a very affordable price:



EDIT: Ops, the English language version of the free DLC was delayed until early July. There was a delay with the voice recording sessions. :giggle:
 
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