Signal & Echo: Iris is Missing (demo)

It's not a typical point and click detective game. It challenging, but in a good way. You need to think like a detective, source information, and figure out next steps when you get to a dead end. Make sure to show the top menu bar, that will save you so much time and "doh! moments". For me, it was hidden and it wasn't until I accidentally moved my cursor to the top and hovered, that I was able to see it. Overall, great demo.

The mechanics are simple and the game makes you feel like you are a detective, who has to establish connections between different texts and conversations. You have to be careful and meticulous to find the clues. It really worth a try.

A very engaging demo. I'm looking forward to the full game.

Really enjoyed this demo and looking forward to the full game. Interesting premise and loved the text parser. Nice reporter/detective elements to the story. Got to the cliffhanger at the end and cant wait to see what happens next!

Not often I leave reviews, but I am too excited about playing the game when it comes out, that I had to share some thoughts; I am admittedly a sucker for proper pixel-style graphics, but I am impressed by not just how Signal & Echo captures an authentic style with clear limitations, but also is able to create an original own art style that is simultaneously familiar. I do also find the music to be quite effective, offering calm melodies that are reminiscent of lounge, yet still diverse enough to be stuck in my head. I was admittedly confused at the lack of sound effects and even jumped when I checked the dumpster at the end, but it was not a big issue as I was still immersed. Though the gameplay is what I was enthralled by. It is somewhat odd to play a point & click where the main protagonist is not a huge cleptomaniac with questionable mortality, but this restriction really paid off. I love that I have to examine the environment even further and take notes on what I discover. (Also, loved the clever joke on why I would need a pen and paper) The intro was also great for setting up how this game was to be approached, while not letting any of the tutorials be a bother to veterans. The latter is something I find often being a problem in newer games to the point of me questioning if I want to continue, so happy about that! I was also surprised by not just how important putting clues together would be and being thorough with your notes, but also that the concept of original point and clicks (writing in commands), was implemented here in conversation and searches with nouns. I really enjoyed it and felt rewarded for seeing that I had the solutions already written down by simply being a notetaker! Though I do wonder if certain words could be added? Perhaps it is my poor English, but I wanted to point at the "poster" hanging on the chip store, though had to write "notice'". A varied assort of names without going overboard I believe could help. However, I do understand that words like "Principal" would have made certain sections too easy, so maybe just alter some wording there to make an excuse in tone with the story? Overall though, I was engaged in finding clues on what was going on, immersed in the presentation, and loved how the simple gameplay demanded me to pay attention and actually use my noggin ^.^ Cannot wait to play the real thing <3

Just wasted hours won't get back, not worth the effort as info is missing you need to search for, shame as this demo showed such promise...

"Signal & Echo: Iris is Missing (demo)" is is not a game. It's an advertisement for a product called "Signal & Echo" (at least that's what I assume that's the name for the full product, which was never made and is presumed abandoned). Signal & Echo is basically a lazy kitbashed retro point and click game slapped together badly with a video game construction kit... and these construction kits are intended just to make small demos and toys to be passed around with friends, not as a substitute for real, actual, professional game development. So it's improper for these construction kit toy products to be published as if they're genuinely made games on Steam. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the construction kit used to make this (Adventure Game Studio) isn't even a good construction kit, so the products it makes are always bad. It's almost as bad as RPG Maker. Anyway at least the EGA graphics aesthetic seems authentic looking, which is a huge problem because it's the year 2025 and EGA became obsolete the instant VGA cards were introduced in the 1980s. Imagine making something look bad, on purpose... setting up for a guaranteed failure before anything even gets dragged and dropped in the construction kit. But this isn't completely relevant because this is not the full Signal & Echo product, it's just an advertisment for it, so it's not correct to try to review that completely distinct product. We must instead review this for what it is... an advertisement. If you enjoy advertisements, you can consume them for free on the web or on Youtube without needing to add them to your game library, download them, and then launch the advertising. It's impossible in a general sense to recommend people should do that over playing real, full games on Steam, and that applies here with "Signal & Echo: Iris is Missing (demo)" too. Usually the purpose of these advertisements is to get you to shell out money to the developer to buy the full product, but the developer hasn't bothered actually making a product you can buy, leaving this as an advertisement for nothing. We must question what value this pointless advertising has for gamers... and the answer is "none". Due to the poor public response amongst gamers for this advertisement, it seems unlikely the developer will go on to make the full product. Now on to pricing and value for gamers. As an advertisement, this is only free in the same way that adverts on Youtube and banner ads in your browser are. This is a game demo that's been dumped on Steam to advertise another Steam store page in the hopes of raking in some cash. Just because advertisements are free, doesn't mean they're worth your time. It's important to understand there's a formal process to create a demo/page for a game which hasn't been followed here: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/application/demos While it might seem like an inocuous mistake, publishing demos and advertisements as if they are full games is misleading and in some ways harmful. This advertisement is taking up marketing space and visibility that would be better made available to a developer that's done the right thing and created a full game. Instead, that visibility is given over to a demo/advert that's been published incorrectly and is polluting the marketplace. It's unclear if this mistake was made through incompetence or a deliberate intent to mislead gamers. Often developers may choose to incorrectly publish demo/advertisements as separate games as a cheap way to bypass paying Valve for marketing presence on the Steam front page, which may seem clever to them, but it's harmful behaviour and it's not good for gamers. In terms of public reception, this failed. There's over 130 million unique gamers visiting Steam every month. SteamDB showed the game peaked at [b]only 5 concurrent players[/b]... this is a dismal public reception. This was so bad they couldn't even give it away. Advertisements and incorrectly published demos don't add +1 to your game collector count, they aren't full games. It's impossible for me to recommend this incorrectly published advertising spam to gamers, you deserve better than adverts.