{"id":25960,"date":"2024-07-22T10:40:05","date_gmt":"2024-07-22T10:40:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4fcbf4c4-b19b-41d0-b747-f1007cbf724012"},"modified":"2024-07-22T10:40:05","modified_gmt":"2024-07-22T10:40:05","slug":"echoes-of-the-emergent-a-hauntingly-beautiful-playdate-exclusive-sold-me-on-visual-novels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/echoes-of-the-emergent-a-hauntingly-beautiful-playdate-exclusive-sold-me-on-visual-novels\/","title":{"rendered":"Echoes of the Emergent, a hauntingly beautiful Playdate exclusive, sold me on visual novels"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Somehow in all these years, I\u2019ve never gotten into visual novels, despite being a person who loves both reading and video games. The idea has always intrigued me in some way, but I\u2019ve never really felt compelled to actually pick one up. That changed when I first saw the announcement for <span class=\"waslinkname\"><em><ins>Echoes of the Emergent<\/ins><\/em><\/span> a few months ago. Described as \u201ca personal journey through a shattered post-apocalyptic world,\u201d all it took was a glimpse of <em>Echoes of the Emergent<\/em>\u2019s gritty aesthetic and melancholic atmosphere to get me to preorder it. And now that I\u2019ve finally gotten around to playing (reading? experiencing?) it, I\u2019m kind of blown away.<\/p>\n<p><em>Echoes of the Emergent<\/em> is a Playdate-exclusive title from RNG Party Games, the same team that made <span class=\"waslinkname\"><em><ins>Bloom<\/ins><\/em><\/span>. It opens with its main character, Ayumi, on a tense scavenging trip to find any food she can in a ruined city. She\u2019s alone, afraid and increasingly concerned about her dwindling resources. As the story progresses, it bounces between Ayumi\u2019s bleak new reality and flashbacks to a time when things were normal. Her panicked efforts to stay alive, to keep going, are interwoven with memories of her family and friends \u2014 some of them happy, some painful. And there\u2019s a cat.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"caas-figure\">\n<div class=\"caas-figure-with-pb\">\n<div>\n<div class=\"caas-img-container caas-img-loader\"><img class=\"caas-img caas-lazy has-preview\" alt=\"A still from Echoes of the Emergent showing a girl (viewed from behind) looking out at dilapidated buildings. The text reads: It was all gone\" data-src=\"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/echoes-of-the-emergent-a-hauntingly-beautiful-playdate-exclusive-sold-me-on-visual-novels.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A still from Echoes of the Emergent showing a girl (viewed from behind) looking out at dilapidated buildings. The text reads: It was all gone\" src=\"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/echoes-of-the-emergent-a-hauntingly-beautiful-playdate-exclusive-sold-me-on-visual-novels.png\" class=\"caas-img\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><figcaption class=\"caption-collapse\"><span class=\"caption-credit\"> RNG Party Games<\/span><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The narrative is illustrated with haunting backgrounds of Ayumi\u2019s dilapidated surroundings, and these move ever so slightly to create a really unsettling effect. If you press the down arrow on the D-pad, you can collapse the text box to get a full view of the backgrounds. It takes a few hours to get through the entire story, but it\u2019s definitely worth carving out some time for. You can save your place by pressing \u2018B\u2019 to pull up the menu.<\/p>\n<p><em>Echoes of the Emergent<\/em> is the kind of experience that will stick with you for a little while even after it\u2019s over. It\u2019s available on the Playdate Catalog for $8, but you can also get it \u2014 and its captivating <span class=\"waslinkname\"><ins>soundtrack<\/ins><\/span> \u2014 on <span class=\"waslinkname\"><ins>itch.io<\/ins><\/span>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Somehow in all these years, I\u2019ve never gotten into visual novels, despite being a person who loves both reading and video games. The idea has always intrigued me in some way, but I\u2019ve never really felt compelled to actually pick one up. That changed when I first saw the announcement for Echoes of the Emergent &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25961,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-25960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gadgets","has-thumb","has-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25960"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25960"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.worldtechguide.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=25960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}