Hi Shaun,

Forget it. I definitely don't want a bunch of beeps, boops, bonks, and
other retro arcade effects. I could scrape up some wav files that
sound light years better than that trash without trying very hard.
Plus you don't really understand how difficult it is to make a fully
operational audio game based on 1980's retro sound effects.

Take changes in terrain just as a simple example. In a game like MOTA
there might be dirt, mud, sand, ladders, metal platforms, etc. I have
to use real world sounds for that, because arcade walking sounds
aren't nearly that specific. Instead arcade walk sounds are basically
like boop, boop, boop, boop as you walk left/right. That's useless in
conveying information to a blind gamer who can't see the changes in
terrain on the screen.

Another thing to consider are traps. In video games like the classic
Montezuma's Revenge there were no sounds for fire pits, spikes,
vanishing platforms, etc. Besides even if they were they would sound
very corny compared to a wav file of a blazing fire, a bubbling lava
pit, the sound of spikes scraping together, etc. At least the sounds
for MOTA are easily recognizable without a sound descriptions menu,
but one is provided anyway for clarification.

The same argument could be made for death sounds as well. In classic
arcade games the player would fall into a pit, land on a fire, or land
on some spikes and all you would hear is a little jingle while your
final score and the words "game over" were splashed on the screen. For
a blind player that doesn't  really identify what happened or how the
character died. In MOTA if you hear the character scream and hit the
ground it is pretty obvious he fell off a ledge or fell into a chasm.
If you hear the sound of a spike being driven into  a body and the
character screams you can easily deduce he landed on some spikes. If
you hear a large splash and the character screams he obviously landed
In lava.

Bottom line, I believe in making the environment and sound effects as
realistic as humanly possible. While nobody cared about the
unrealistic boops, beeps, and bonks back in the 80's the technology
exists now to invent some realistic sounding games just buy buying and
using some decent quality effects. I have no desire to go back to the
80's type arcade sounds as they aren't detailed enough for my needs.

Cheers!

On 5/2/13, shaun everiss <[email protected]> wrote:
> well I'd like a retro style with it sounding like you were playing an
> atary unit if it were modern  turning it on loading the cart.
> when you exited the game, pulling the cart putting it away and
> turning off the unit.
>   after shaddowgate I really dig the retro thing ofcause any chippy
> stuff is right up my ally since electronic music is what I like.
>

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