Sonarush

Play by ear

Sonarush is a real-time action game played entirely through sound. 3D positional audio and speech replace the screen: you hear where your enemies are, where their shots come from, where the walls, bushes and landmarks of the arena stand, and you fight back. It is designed from the ground up to be fully playable without sight, and it speaks through your screen reader.

Matches are short, a few minutes each, against AI bots that play by the same rules you do.

How it plays

• Move with the arrow keys. By default the controls use fixed directions: up is always north, and the arrows, the audio and the radar all share the same reference. Classic tank controls are available in Settings.
• Attack, super and gadget. Every character has a main attack, a super that charges as you land hits, a gadget and a Star Power.
• Assisted aim locks onto the nearest enemy with a beep and leads moving targets. You choose how strong it is.
• Sonar on the S key sweeps up to twenty metres in front of you and tells you what is there: a wall and its material, a bush, a landmark, the edge of the arena or a clear path.
• An 8-direction radar, fixed landmarks in every arena and footsteps that echo in corridors tell you where you are without a single word.

Characters

22 characters across six classes: Tank, Assault, Marksman, Artillery, Support and Control. Each one has its own weapon, sounds, super, gadget and Star Power, and four rarities (common, rare, epic, legendary) with their own sound. Characters level up with coins and Power Points, and sound skins change how they sound.

Game modes

• Duel: one versus one, best of three rounds, in an arena that shrinks.
• Star Hunt: three versus three. Collect the stars that ring at the center and hold ten of them for fifteen seconds.
• Heist: three versus three. Crack the enemy safe before they crack yours.
• King of the Hill: three versus three. Follow the hum to the zone and hold it with no enemies inside.
• Siege: co-op with two allies. Defend the Core in a bastion with four gates against waves of enemies and their champions.
• Survival: free-for-all with no respawn. Last as long as you can.

Every arena has four maps in rotation, and the map of the day changes at midnight. New modes unlock as you climb.

Progression

• Trophies and the Decibel Ladder: win to earn trophies for each character and climb a ladder of 75 milestones up to 20,000 trophies, with ranks from Bronze to Legend. The first milestones alternate new characters and new modes.
• Sonar Rewards: your first three wins of the day each give a reward. Open it with four taps: each one can raise its rarity, and you hear it rise.
• Echo Chests always hold four items: resources, gems, characters, gadgets, Star Powers or skins.
• Fragments, gems and coins unlock characters, abilities and skins. When your collection is complete, Fragments turn into Resonance, ten levels from Whisper to Sonic Legend.
• Missions and daily streaks give you a reason to come back every day.
• No real-money purchases. The game is free, and everything is earned by playing.

Practice

• A guided tutorial teaches movement, aiming, supers and gadgets step by step.
• The Rehearsal Room: choose mode, map, character and bot difficulty, even characters you don't own yet. No trophies won or lost.
• The Range: try any character on a training dummy and hear how much damage you deal.
• The audio glossary lets you listen to every sound in the game and learn what it means.

The Frequency: a new season every month

The Frequency is the game's season pass, and it is free for everyone.

• One season a month. Each season starts on the first Monday of the month and ends on the Sunday before the next one.
• Sixty steps, each with a reward: coins, Power Points, Fragments, gems, Sonar Rewards, sound skins and, now and then, an Echo Chest. The last step is a legendary Chest.
• You climb with the experience from missions: three daily missions and eight weekly ones.
• After the last step, every 1,600 experience points still give you a Sonar Reward.
• Frequency Plus, bought with 179 gems earned in game, adds a second reward to every step for the whole season, including the steps you already reached.
• Anything you reached but did not claim is claimed for you when the season ends.

Events

• Event of the Day: every day one mode pays double coins and experience. It is the same for everyone.
• Siege Weekend: from Friday evening to Sunday, win five Siege defences to earn a Sonar Reward of rare rarity or better.
• Special events dress up the game for the holidays, with a limited-time mode, event missions, exclusive skins and new music. Whatever you earn during an event stays yours.

Halloween, until Sunday 1 November: the arenas play at night, with new music and landmarks in costume. The event mode is Pumpkin Harvest, three versus three: find the pumpkins by the sound of the candle inside, carry up to three and deliver them to your team's cauldron. Five event missions lead to a legendary reward, Sonar Rewards become Pumpkin Rewards, and five exclusive Halloween skins are on sale. And if a Pumpkin Reward gives you a legendary character you don't own yet, it is Morgana the witch.

Accessibility

• Built for blind and visually impaired players first, playable by everyone.
• Announcements through your screen reader, with adjustable verbosity by category.
• Separate volume controls for music, combat, ambient sounds and interface, plus options for aim strength, controls and audio cues.
• Headphones are strongly recommended: stereo and front-and-back cues are part of the gameplay.

Languages

Sonarush speaks 18 languages: Italian, English, Spanish (Spain and Latin America), Portuguese (Portugal and Brazil), German, French, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Turkish, Arabic, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Simplified Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

On first launch it starts in your system language, and you can change it at any time in Settings.

Player guide

A complete player guide covers controls, combat, every mode and character, progression and accessibility settings. It is included with the game and can also be downloaded on its own from this page, in English and Italian.

Platforms

Windows and macOS, with the same sounds on both.

• Windows: Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit.
• Mac: Apple Silicon (M1 or later) with macOS 11 Big Sur or later. Intel Macs are not supported.

On first launch, Windows may say the app is unrecognized (normal for an unsigned game): choose More info, then Run anyway. Your progress is kept when you update.

What's next

Sonarush is played against AI bots today. If enough players join, the plan is to bring the same modes online, human against human.

Feedback and support

Feedback and bug reports are welcome in the comments below. If you enjoy the game, you can support its development with a donation here on itch.io or at vabax.it.

Made by Vabax.