The Living Echoes Beta Is Open
The long walk to beta is over — the door is open. Living Echoes, our voice-driven interactive storytelling app, is now in open beta on iOS, and you can sign up today.
If you're new here: Living Echoes is where the convenience of audiobooks meets the immersion of great games. An AI Game Master narrates the story, you decide what your character does — by speaking or typing — and the story changes with every choice. No screen required, no dice math, no waiting for your gaming group to find a free evening.
Before you join — please read this
This is a real beta, and we mean it. You are stepping into a living, unfinished thing, and it will misbehave. Here is what "beta" looks like in practice:
- Things will break. Sessions can stall, responses can come out strange, and occasionally the storyteller will do something that makes you raise an eyebrow. When that happens, you're not doing anything wrong — that's exactly the kind of thing we need to hear about.
- The first response can take a while. When the storyteller has been idle, waking it up can take a minute or two. Later turns are much faster. Please be patient with that very first "Still weaving…" moment.
- The AI narrator is a work in progress. It's already capable of moments that genuinely surprise us — and it still sometimes forgets a detail, mangles a name, or takes a scene somewhere odd. Making it better is the biggest part of what we do every day.
- Content and features will shift under your feet. Worlds get rewritten, scenarios get rebalanced, the app updates often. A story you started last week may unfold differently the week after.
If reading that list made you more curious rather than less — you're exactly who this beta is for. Your feedback in the next few months will shape this game more than anything we can do alone.
One tip before you start: reading is faster than listening
Spoken narration (text-to-speech) is by far the heaviest part of each turn. If you'd rather read than listen, turn audio off in Settings → Audio Settings — server responses arrive dramatically faster. You can flip it back on whenever you feel like listening again.
How to get in
We're letting people in in batches, so the experience stays good for everyone while we scale up:
- Sign up for the beta through the waitlist on our homepage.
- Watch your inbox. We release invites in waves — when your batch opens, you'll get an email from us.
- Follow the TestFlight link in that email. TestFlight is Apple's official beta app — the link installs Living Echoes through it in a couple of taps.
The beta is iOS only for now — iPhone, via TestFlight. Android is on the roadmap; sign up and we'll let you know the moment that changes.
A quick tour — what's where
So you're not wandering blind on first launch, here's the lay of the land.
The home tab
This is where you land. Each card is a full world — its own setting, factions, and storylines. Pick one that pulls at you: Ephilia, Greyhold & Dhom Khar, Navia, or Scarlet Coal. The bar at the bottom jumps straight back into your last session.
Stories, Overview, Factions
Tap a world and you get three tabs: Stories (starting storylines — pick one and create your character), Overview (what this place is), and Factions (the powers shaping this world). This is the longer, deeper way to play: your own character, a big world, dozens of sessions if you want them.
Quick adventures
The Scenarios tab is the fast lane: self-contained adventures with premade characters, built for a single evening (60–90 minutes). No character creation, no homework — straight into the action.
One tap and you're in
Each scenario card tells you exactly what you're signing up for: the setting, the time commitment, and who you'll be playing. One tap on Start Run and the story begins.
The heart of the app
The narrator tells the story; you answer by typing or by voice (the microphone button, bottom right). Say what your character does — in your own words, no menus, no command lists — and the story responds. The turn counter at the top shows how far into the adventure you are.
Out-of-character questions
Confused about a rule, a name, or what just happened? The hand button switches your next message to an out-of-character question — you're talking to the storyteller, not acting in the story. Great for "wait, who is Halina again?" moments without breaking the scene.
Your characters
Every character you've played lives here, with their world and when you last saw them. Long-press for details.
The most important button
Account, audio settings — and most importantly for a beta: Send Feedback. Use it liberally. There's also a bug-report button inside every story session (the little bug icon, top right). Audio Settings is also where you turn narration audio off, which makes turns dramatically faster.
Where to start
Two recommendations from us:
Jutrzenka — The Blizzard of the Century
Scenarios tab. Communist Poland, January 1987, the Bieszczady mountains. A Party official is dead in a locked sauna, you're the only law for fifty kilometers, and the blizzard won't stop. A premade character and a tight mystery — the best first taste of what the narrator can do.
Scarlet Coal
Worlds tab. Our dark industrial fantasy world. Start with the Landfall storyline: nine days at sea, and then Havnfall rises from the shore like a scar. Bigger, slower-burning, yours.
Found a bug? Tell us. Please.
Seriously — bug reports are the whole point of this phase. Four ways, pick the easiest:
- The bug icon in the top-right corner of any story session (best — it attaches the session context),
- Send Feedback in Settings,
- Tell us on Discord, where the rest of the beta crowd hangs out,
- Or write to us directly: contact@the-living-echoes.com.
We read everything.
Thank you
Every beta tester is trusting us with something scarce — your evenings, your imagination, your patience with rough edges. We don't take that lightly. Come tell a story with us, and help us make this game what it deserves to be.