Here are some answers. To limit the size of the message I will reply
to other questions in another message.
1. The voices are not good.
I'm really sorry for the poor intelligibility of the voices. I used
ESpeak instead of MS Mary or Mike because there was silence at the end
of each wav file, and I didn't find quickly a solution to
automatically trim the silence with Sox (Sox is the command line sound
utility I use for batch processing of the sounds). I will solve this
problem and use MS Mary or Mike instead. I prefer using a freely
available voice anyway for now.
The voices are in wav sound files that are assembled at runtime. In
the first versions I recorded my voice and the result was quite
intelligible, but then I managed to automatically build sound files
from text to speech, and it was less intelligible but more flexible.
When the program stops evolving, a recorded human voice will be great
of course.
2. Why not directly use a TTS?
I wanted the game to be playable with a standard Windows computer, and
even in Windows XP there is no SAPI 5 default French voice provided.
This is not a sufficient reason because the gamers interested by this
game have at least one SAPI 5 voice installed in their computer.
Another reason is that the voice synthesis takes in some cases to much
CPU time on some computers (in fact I added Mbrola to SoundMUD in
version 0.10 and removed it in the next release!).
Anyway using a TTS (with SAPI for example) may be a solution. But I
will have to keep the possibility to record the voices, for example
automatically using TTS only if the wav file doesn't exist.
3. The keyboard layout could be better.
I tried to find a not too horrible keyboard layout. There is probably
a better layout. I may put the layout in a separate file so you can
modify it. You can give suggestions too, but try to use for a while
the current layout first. I'm not familiar with audiogames, so tell me
if something is nonstandard.
4. Google translation: Audio-games.net, A site entirely dedicated to
the games adapted for defective visual ones.
Yes, automatic translation gives funny results. In fact "déficients
visuels" probably means "visually impaired". By the way the comment
was not about Audiogames.net but about "Jeux access", which is a
French web site and a mailing list with about the same topic than
Audiogames.net or Audyssey. The ideas behind SoundRTS came from
reading gamers wishes in the "Jeux access" mailing list, and from my
own gaming experience of course.
Anyway I will translate the comments of the links section of the
SoundRTS webpage.
5. to move, you have to hit go to, and then hit enter on one of those paths
In fact there is a much faster solution: Select the path you want to
go to (with tab), then press backspace for the default action!
There is another even better solution if you are in map mode: Select
the square you want to go to (with the arrow keys), then press
backspace for the default action!
6. About the 20 food population limit.
I added this limit so that even a multiplayer game with 4 players
doesn't become too laggy. I will raise this limit each time I succeed
in making the game go faster. For now I will do the following
improvement, if you don't mind: the population limit will depend on
the number of players. For example in a game with 2 players (or 1
player against the computer), the limit will be 40 food. The limit
will probably be recomputed when a player is defeated.
The limit could be set in the options menu too.
7. Where are the dragons?
If you want to play with dragons as soon as possible, play one of the
map against the computer ("versus computer 1, quiet computer" for
example).
8. To work the mine, you first have to use the 'go to' command then
tell them to 'exploit' the mine.
In fact, if the gold mine is in a square you have already explored,
you can skip the "go to" command and tell the peasants to "exploit"
the mine. You can even select the gold mine and use backspace (the
default action of a peasant targetting a gold mine is to exploit it).
9. The blacksmith is not in the manual.
Ooops! I'll add it, thanks.
10. Can python be used to make good audio games with direct-x?
I don't know because I didn't try it, but there is DirectPython, "an
open source C++ extension to the Python programming language which
provides basic access to DirectX (9.0c) API, including Direct3D,
DirectSound, DirectShow and DirectInput". But the samples are
essentially 3D graphics examples.
In SoundRTS, for now, I don't use a 3D sounds library. I only use the
sound mixer provided with Pygame/SDL. SoundRTS can probably work on
Linux or on a Mac without much changes, but I don't know if
portability is important for audiogames.
If I wanted to use a 3D sounds library, I would rather use
pySonic/FMOD. FMOD works on many platforms and is used by example in
World of Warcraft (maybe because this game has to work with the Mac
too?). One problem is that FMOD is free of charge only if your
software is non commercial.
More answers in the next message.
-- SoundMUD
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