Hi, if you have problems with silence at the end of the wav files, then why not remove it manually? I mean, you could load each sound into Goldwave, Sound Forge, Adobe Audition, Audacity or another similar sound editing software and just trim the silence. I know there is a command in Sony Sound Forge 8.0 exactly for this purpose: Select auto trim/crop in the process menu, and the last available preset in the list called "trim silence from ends" will do just that. However, it would sound much cooler to have human speech recorded for the game. But I don't mind the current voice at all, as I am used to a really terribly-sounding Czech synthesis for Sapi. When it comes to voiceovers, I really love the idea of having an extra voice for every unit. Even if the same phrases were used for all units, different voices would really mean a significant difference.
Well, I'm not used to strategy games either and SoundRTS is the first ever audiogame of this genre I believe, so more experienced gamers might have more sufficient requirements, but I quite like the keyboard layout. Yes, it's not very standard and it takes a bit of practice to get used to it, but hey, the entire game is not very standard and takes a bit of practice to get used to. I am still struggling to beat chapter two of singleplayer mode so I'm still learning all the odds and ends of the unusual layout and of the game interface in general, but I appreciate its flexibility and intuitivity. I can imagine that I will be able to control my units really quickly when I get used to all the aspects of it. I haven't had problems with the population limit yet, but to make it dependant on the number of players or adjustable in the options menu seems good to me. Hope this helps. I would really like to thank you for a way cool, wonderful, new and revolutionary game. For such a little freebie, you've done one brilliant piece of hard work, and the result is certainly well worth the effort. I didn't know strategy games of this type before but I can see now what makes all the sighted gamers so much addicted to these games. A bit better sound effects could perhaps help the game a great deal. If I find something I consider usable, I might send it to you if you like. Take care for now, Lukas ----- Original Message ----- From: "SoundMUD" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Gamers Discussion list" <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, July 06, 2007 5:08 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] About SoundRTS 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 _______________________________________________ Gamers mailing list .. [email protected] To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. _______________________________________________ Gamers mailing list .. [email protected] To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
