Cara, This is Aaron Spears or rather, valiant8086. I forgot to say as
much in my last message on the thread. Actually, I intended to send that
message from my personal account. Anyway, Only thing I can think of is
an entirely different sound for the little dots off in the distance, and
they would be quiet of course. As for the being able to tell when you or
they are at the top or bottom of the tube rotationally, I'm thinking
pitch. Stereo panning would be used also to figure out whether they are
toward the left or right edge of this tube. So if it's higher pitched,
your own ship this is, and that sound is a tad to the right, you would
have the idea that your own ship is a tad to the right of top dead
center. Maybe this sound would only be heard as you move your ship, and
when you stop, some sort of beep that only was heard occasionally would
replace it, because otherwise, you would have a hard time hearing the
enemies coming along over your own noise. Some sort of other beep sound
would be heard when the ships are about to run into you etc.
On 5/20/2014 7:18 PM, Cara Quinn wrote:
HI Thomas,
Very much agree here. :)
this is really a close topic to my heart in that adapting some earlier arcade
games into audio is something I am really thinking about of late.
Even adapting some of these simple games proves to be a serious task.
As an example, how would we here, consider adapting a game like Tempest?
for those not familiar with this title, you start the game with your view
facing down the length of what is essentially a tube. You are looking down the
inside of this tube. Your ship is also facing down the tube but is located on
the top edge of it, which is the edge nearest to your point of view.
So when you move left or right, your ship actually moves counterclockwise or
clockwise respectively, so it travels around the top edge of the tube.
When you fire, you are firing away from you down the length of the tube.
the enemies which are attempting to dispatch you are traveling up the inside of
the tube toward you. So you need to move clockwise or counterclockwise to
maneuver your ship in front of them, and fire on them.
While you do this, you can see in the distance, at the opposite end of the
tube, several very small dots which are flying around. These dots are actually
the enemies very far away which move to the areas on the tube where they will
then travel up toward you. So it is possible to see and avoid these enemies
before they even begin their ascent.
While it is technically not necessary to see these enemies at that stage to
play the game successfully, I describe all this to present this as an audio
question.
I am trying to think how I would possibly adapt any of this scenario to
preserve any part of this style of gameplay without dumbing it down to the
point of inanity. ;)
I do have some ideas and am very interested in hearing what you all think…
I thought there was a project in the works from a developer on this list over
the years, emulating this type of gameplay, but have heard nothing about this
of late so thought this would be an interesting thought experiment…
For those of us really seeking a particular type of gaming experience, it can
be very important to preserve a proper type of game mechanics. -Or at least be
able to bring something special of that experience over into audio.
Thanks,
Cara :)
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On May 20, 2014, at 2:42 PM, Thomas Ward <[email protected]> wrote:
Hi Dark,
Well, the problem I see with that is simply this. While not precisely
replicating mainstream mechanics might be helpful from an
accessibility point of view it still does not give us a comparable
experience. What we end up with is a different experience or challenge
entirely which may or may not be favorable depending on the game.
Take Montezuma's Revenge for example. That's a game based on a
mainstream video game. I'd assume for authenticity sake a developer
would keep the traps and challenges as much the same as possible.
Changing the behavior of the gems to fall from the ceiling like the
falling items in Q9 is interesting but not necessarily favorable in
that particular game because the original mainstream game had its own
unique and interesting challenges which I for one would like to see
replicated in audio not changed.
I certainly agree with you to a point sometimes if something can't be
done in audio then changing the mechanics to suit an audio game should
be done rather than replicating mainstream mechanics, but I also see
reasons why that should not be done. Its okay if the game is an
original idea written for an audio game market to use new and
interesting mechanics, but if it is a retro remake of a classic game I
think it should attempt to imitate the game it was based upon as much
as possible.
Cheers!
On 5/20/14, dark <[email protected]> wrote:
Hi Tom.
Interesting thoughts and I will agree problems with depicting hight have
provided major issues for 2d games in audio.
That being said, maybe this is a case where adapting some of the mechanics
to be more challenging in audio rather than explicitly trying to replicate
the mainstream ones would be helpful.
For example, instead of trying to make the sound of fireballs which hit the
player out of pits, have the fireballs loop out of pits and land on the
ground creating temporary burning flames that damaged or killed the player.
Effectively this would mean instead of ducking or jumping fireballs, the
player would have a floor hazard (the burning section of floor), to time
their way past in addition to jumping the pits, and a floor hazard who's
appearance was dictated by the different sounds of fireball landings. By
varying the rates you could keep the player needing to take note of when the
fireballs hit and the floors near the pits burned, rather than just timing
things statically
For the gems, well instead of having the gems at different hights, why not
have some of the gems initiate a small rock falling from the ceiling Indiana
jones style which the player needs to dodge, or maybe have some gems on
sliding shelves so that the player needs to grab them at a given point,
(both of these could be varied to provide different challenge).
Noo, this does not address the problem of showing hight in a 2D game, in
audio which is quite another matter, but rather than just missing out the
fireballs, making them static, or having the player grab gems, you insert
another factor for the player to be aware of in the game which will increase
the level of challenge in the audio.
of course, these are just rough ideas and doubtless would need thinking
about, but this is the sort of thing I mean in terms of creating more
challenging and in depth audio games that are not just the simple boppit
affairs, working on the mechanics of what is possible to show in audio and
working to making those mechanics have a similar level of challenge and
interest to the mainstream game rather than replicating it exactly.
Beware the grue!
Dark.
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