Hi Dark, While I love the concept of working within the audio environment for its strengths rather than trying in essence to make it fit a visual modality, I also personally kind of shy away from games which do this to a large degree.
Visually, one still needs to have some advanced notice of an impending attack otherwise no matter how well a player can see, they still will not be able to address such an attack. Just because people may have sight does not make them instantly have great reaction time based on that. So my point is that even visual games have events which are announced visually. (all be it much quicker than their audio-based counterparts) this tends to be an issue of speed rather than of paradigm. Take for example speech synthesis; many blind people have speech output set at such a high rate of speed that a sighted listener unfamiliar with synthetic speech is many times absolutely and totally lost hearing it and trying to comprehend it. I know this as I, myself cannot stand extremely fast speech. it puts me on edge. :) This is sort of a similar case to the speed of visual games vs audio ones. Make sense?… As far as paradigm goes, to bring up the example of Audio Quake yet again, lol! it is not only absolutely doable for a visually impaired player to perform in the game but really to enjoy it. The speed of the game can even be faster than the original game and blind players can still have a fun experience even though there are not things like audio lead time on attacks and such. There is of course still room for an even more improved player experience. There always is. :) I think though that the audio game developers in this community in general, are really moving the boundaries of what is thought to be possible in audio rendering forward… So I definitely support the idea of using the inherent properties of audio to full advantage without needing to simplify the experience of an audio game to too great a degree. Excellent note! Thanks! Cara :) --- iOS design and development - LookTel.com --- View my Online Portfolio at: http://www.onemodelplace.com/CaraQuinn Follow me on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ModelCara On May 19, 2014, at 1:32 AM, dark <[email protected]> wrote: Hi Tom. I do agree access is an issue, but what I find quite interesting is that many of the very successful audio games have introduced features which incorporate elements of the audio experience into the game, rather than directly trying to adapt mainstream games verbatim. For all swamp borrows from various fps elements, there is a lot in the game that wouldn't exist without the audio. For example zombi footsteps, the need of using rythm to create head shots, even aspects of the mouse targeting system. Audio packman, (as I've said before), is for me a much more intresting play experience than graphical packman, it lacks the total maze overview and management of several elements at once, ie, being able to see where packman and all the ghosts are at all times and tracking movements accordingly. however audio packman instead introduces an exporation and area navigation mechanic, as well as a good degree of split second timing. The same could be said for shades of doom and enemies like the silent walkers or use of audio nav elements to create hazards. This is one reason why it is likely a lot of mainstream gamers got interested in Papasangre from somethinelse, sinse their games represent a lot of use of audio elements for direct challenge, for instance having floor sections that when walked over will mean the enemies come to get the player by noise, or hazards created by things that are harder to hear. I wonder therefore if a good way to considder game design, rather than the method in the past of trying to recreate as much of mainstream games as possible, might be to work on what might create a good game in audio. For example, we have mentioned before the problem of judgement vs reaction and of showing realistic enemy attacks in a side scrolling game. Suppose however, rather than trying to directly model the idea of the player having to avoid attacks, we introduce audio factors which mean the player must use his/her judgement to counter them. So imagine a 1D side scroller ala superliam (or even one with climbable ladders like mota). The player is armed with a sword and shield, and has two buttons, one to attack with the sword, one to block with the shield. Enemies will either initiate a melee attack, which must be parried with the sword, or a projectile attack which must be blocked with the shield. EAch of these attacks is telegraphed, ie, the player hears it coming, however the speed of it landing will depend upon the distance from the enemy, meaning the player must estimate a specific time interval from hearing the sound of the enemy launching the attack and of either parrying or shielding, I'm thinking somehting similar to Jim's golf game though with different sounds). In addition of course, the player is more likely to hit the enemy when the enemy is not attacking. Then of course, if each attack type has specific sounds there are possibilities such as arrows flying out of walls, or even fire balls out of pits which the player needs to shield against (we'll assume it's a magic shield). In a mainstream game, this sort of thing wouldn't work, sinse the player always has access to what the enemy is doing, indeed the original prince of persia was cryticised for using soemthing similar, (though slightly simpler). It is also absolutely obsurd that any mainstream game would telegraph it's attacks before launching them unless for a very specific reason. This would however be a case where audio could be used to create a simple judgement based combat system which would contribute significantly to the playability of the game where as simply having attack sounds the player needs to instantly react to would not. Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected]. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [email protected]. --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected]. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [email protected].
