ECHOLOCAUTION Ver. 2.00 was released on Oct.31,2021.
Please see here for additional elements.
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1545250/view/3095655347301720887
Also, the translation from Japanese to English is done using a translation tool.
I apologize that some of the sentences may be strange, but please bear with me.
Detailed Adjustments
～Menu UI～
- Main Menu
- After selecting the main mode, the stage selection menu will now open.
- The location of the tutorial has been changed to "Home" and the original tutorial is now contained in the home menu.
- More buttons for the directory menu.
- Due to the increase in the number of elements, we separated the score menu from the achievements menu.
- The UI layout has been adjusted to accommodate the addition of new elements.
- Character Change
- The layout has been revised to make it easier to understand the performance of a character as a playable character. To make it easier to understand the character's performance at a glance, the parameters are represented by the number of stars.
- Character flavor text has been ported over to the dictionary.
- Ranking
- The layout has been changed to separate it from the results page.
- Achievement
- The layout has been changed to separate it from the score page.
- Option
- Operation setting items can now be separated into "Keyboard + Mouse" and "Gamepad", and key configurations can be assigned to each.
- It is now compatible with more types of gamepads.
- Fixed a bug where some sound effects did not support volume adjustment.
～Main Game Adjustment～
- Specification of Echo
- Echoes are now canceled when damage is taken. In the past, when you took damage from a natural enemy, the echoes you had already used would not disappear, but would remain. As a result, in order to perform the next echo combo after taking damage, you had to wait until the remaining echoes were delicately finished, which was a problem that spoiled the game tempo. Now that echoes are canceled on damage, you can use the next echo immediately after taking damage. On the other hand, if you reuse the echo right away, it will be small and weak, but it's cute to see how desperately you are echoing. It also aims to increase the threat of natural enemies by making it impossible for them to make combos by pushing around while taking damage.
- Specifications of Bugs.
- It has been adjusted so that it does not cause too much bias in appearance. Up until now, the positions of 100 insects were drawn completely randomly over a certain period of time, so the appearance of insects was sometimes heavily skewed. In order to avoid spending boring time with no insects at all, we have made it so that the insects appear somewhat evenly. We know that this is one of the most exciting moments of ECHOLOCAUTION, so we've made a rough adjustment to the pop intervals instead of making them strictly even. To be more specific, instead of randomly drawing 100 pops in total, we are now randomly placing 25 pops every quarter of the total time.
- Game Over
- Game over effects have been added. The game over screen used to be simple, but now you can see the failure motions of the characters in the improved game over screen. This makes it a little slower to retry, but since it's not a game where you have to do many game overs, I gave priority to being able to see the cute graphics.
～Character Adjustment～
- Overall Character
- Adjust the amount of time it takes for the echoes to start building up again. The time it takes for echoes to start accumulating again, which was not very unique to each character, has been adjusted. Hina, Usagi, and Hallo have been adjusted to be stronger.
- Hina
- Increased Echo's charge speed. Hina was the most basic of the bats, so while it was easy to use, it was also a bit plain. "The concept was to make her more user-friendly. With this concept in mind, echoes are now recharged quickly after use. The faster the echoes are recharged, the wider you can detect the insects, and the easier it is to determine your route for combos even when using echoes in succession.
- Ohiki
- Enhanced acceleration. Ohiki is a very athletic character, but he has a weakness: his echoes are short in duration, making it difficult to connect combos. In order to keep up with the other bats in the high score game, we need to include enhancements. To emphasize Ohiki's personality as a speedy character, his acceleration has been enhanced while maintaining his maximum speed. In addition to reaching his maximum speed quickly, he can now turn more easily, making it easier for him to eat insects without missing them.
- Usagi
- Enhanced the initial speed of dashes.
- Acceleration adjusted. Because of Usagi's slow speed, she tended to drop down the line and move to the left of the screen. To overcome this weakness, the initial speed of the dash has been increased, and adjustments have been made so that it can move faster than before. As the name "Usagi" implies, you can now use it with a bouncing sensation. It's cute. Instead, it is now difficult to use dash as a quick turn, but I hope you will consider this a trade-off for the enhancement. I hope you'll consider this a trade-off for the enhancements, as Usagi is a strong character to begin with. Also, the acceleration has been adjusted to make the movement more natural, since it used to be a bit choppy and uncomfortable.
- Obake
- Ghost status is now easier to understand by sound and appearance.
- Maximum speed is now increased while in Gshost state. Until now, Obake's Ghost state was represented by a translucent character and a flame effect, but this alone made it difficult to tell if the character was in Ghost state while playing. In order to make it easier to understand, we have changed it so that an afterimage similar to that of other characters' dashes will appear during Ghost. We've also assigned different sounds to "Ghost in use" and "Ghost out of use" so that you can easily see which one you've changed to. Obake is a strong character who can theoretically make a lot of combos, but he lacks mobility due to his inability to dash, which makes him less pleasant to play. In order to solve this problem, we enhanced the character's maximum speed while in Ghost state so that he can simulate a dash. Even though you are accelerating, you still can't catch insects quickly because you are in Ghost, but this makes it easier to break the situation where the line tends to drop and move to the left of the screen. Since there are more things you can do, it can be said that the player's skill has been tested more.
- Hallow
- The combo score is now displayed in orange. One of Hallow's greatest features is the double combo bonus for echoes, but until now it was only explained in the text of the character select, and there were many cases where the strength was not recognized by those who did not read the explanation. Therefore, the color of the combo bonus has been changed to a Halloween-like orange to make the difference in score easier to understand. Hallow has not received any enhancements due to its original strength, so here's a bit of trivia for you instead. Hallow's release condition is to get a certain score, but you have to multiply 10and31, which is Halloween Day, and get 310 points or more. I'm sure Hallow is very excited about this update as it comes out on Halloween, so even if you haven't chosen Hallow so far, please take this opportunity to challenge Hallow to a night hunt.