Sounds from Beyond, a narrated noir for iPhone. What would you call this format?

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My brother and I released our first game on Saturday. It is called Sounds from Beyond.

Jack Holloway’s fiancee vanishes the morning after he proposes. What follows is his account of the two years after: the drink, the obsession, the memories that will not stay where he puts them. Five chapters, linear, one ending, about an evening long.

David wrote the first script draft in Spanish, in Buenos Aires. I read it in Atlanta and started building. We used AI to carry the noir register into the narration and to translate the text into English, so it ships in both. The narration is English only at the moment.

The look took the longest. We ran style tests until we landed on something we call cinematic ink: dark, part photograph and part drawing, held together with brush strokes. The illustrations are generated.

The voice took almost as long. Several passes on synthetic narration before we had something we could stand to listen to for an hour, and then I paced the delivery by hand, beat by beat, because the timing a model gives you is not the timing a scene wants.

The first chapter is free, so there is nothing to buy to find out whether it works.

The thing I would most like help with is what to call it. Narration and on-screen text are separate systems rather than one serving the other. With the sound off it reads as a short graphic novel. Without looking at the screen it plays as a narrated audiobook. We think of it as sitting between the two, or as an evolution of both, but I have not found a name for that and I suspect one already exists and I simply do not know it. What would you file this under?

A smaller second question: for a linear piece with no fail state, what makes a choice feel worth making when it changes what the narrator says rather than where the story goes?

Content warnings: alcoholism, a missing person, a car crash.

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Looking for four iPhone readers to test an illustrated noir mystery [Sounds from Beyond]
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I have been playing this Game and loved It. Writting is polish and diálogs are powerfull and inmersive. The story is intimate and evocative with great images. Good work!

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Hi everyone,

My brother David and I recently released Sounds from Beyond, an illustrated noir mystery for iPhone. We are looking for four people who already enjoy interactive fiction, visual novels, or other story-driven games.

We would like you to play the free first chapter and answer five short questions about your experience. We are looking for candid feedback, not positive reviews.

You must be 18 or older, have an iPhone running iOS 18 or later, and preferably not know the story already.

The story begins when a woman disappears the morning after accepting a marriage proposal. It can be read in English or Spanish, with optional English narration.

After the questions, I can provide a full-game code if you would like to continue. The code is simply a thank-you for your time. There is no expectation to leave a review or post publicly about the game.

If you are interested, please reply here or send me a private message. Thank you!

Carlos

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Hello. I did actually play the demo after your previous post. Here’s some feedback.

Presentation and execution are good. i had no problems with the UI. the audio
and graphics were good. So, from my point of view, and this is personal opinion;

The demo lacked sufficient hook.

After chapter 1, i did not feel compelled to “turn the page” to find out what happens next. And this is quite important for your model of making chapter 1 the demo.

Even before playing the demo, i felt you haven’t sufficiently conveyed two important facts:

  1. What is it about?
  2. What do you do?

(1) I presume your fiancee met with a car crash and killed. But I’m not actually told that. Was she murdered?

(2) A big gap here: I’ve actually no idea what I’ll be doing in this game! Am I avenging her death? Is it a ghost story where i communicate with her spirit? Is it an action plot where i need “a particular set of skills” to get her back?

Sad fact: hooks need to be a bit clickbaity

Good luck.

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Thank you very much for playing it and taking the time to write this. This is exactly the kind of candid feedback we were hoping for.

It is helpful that you separated the presentation and usability from the larger problem. The interface working well does not matter enough if the first chapter fails to create a strong reason to continue.

Your two questions, “What is it about?” and “What do you do?”, are especially useful. I do not want to answer them here and retroactively explain what the opening was supposed to communicate. The fact that you had to guess is itself an important signal.

You are also right that this matters even more because Chapter One is functioning as the demo. It needs to establish a clearer promise and end with a much stronger desire to turn the page.

We will take a close look at both how the game is presented before downloading and what Chapter One leaves the reader with.

Thank you again. I genuinely appreciate the clarity and honesty of your feedback.

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I also wanted to offer you a full-game code as a small thank-you for your feedback. The forum is not allowing me to send you a personal message, so if you would like the code, please email me at contact@sounds-from-beyond.com. There is no expectation of a review or any additional feedback, I simply wanted to show our appreciation for the time you already gave us.

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