Thank you Thomas. It seems like we are on the same page here. Of course we are concentrating on different things, the common thread is that we are seeing the importance of pushing forward. You are hoping to push higher standards of development, I am trying to push for some different ideas that I haven't seen here, while I'm sure others are pushing for new interface ideas for existing game types. In the future we need all of these things, and more! We can't expect anyone to work on everything, but as long as we can get people pushing forward in their own unique way, it opens the door for the advancements to be combined. It is inevitable that future developers will use game ideas someone had to pioneer, develop them to a quality standard someone had to push to happen, and use far greater controls which someone took the time to envision. A person pushing advancements down any path, will eventually work its way into everything else.
I wouldn't be qualified to handle this, but if anyone else feels up to it, I know what kind of articles I would be very interested in reading. Pick some style of game that is popular now, I'll use side scroller as an example. Write about the earlier games that used the style, pointing out how each improved the style and raised the bar for the next game. I would love to read about game ideas, control features, level layouts, and so forth that clearly worked well and then showed up in later games. Detailing how changes solved past problems, and bringing attention to what problems still seem to exist today, will help encourage people to theorize their own solutions to the problems. Just off of the top of my head, how pits or raised platforms are handled seems to be something of a current issue. People have tried different approaches in games, and I'm sure there Has! to have been a steady stream of advancement in this area. I'm sure the sidescroller developers have ideas for how to further improve them down the road also. This kind of stuff is very interesting to me, because it would shed light on a puzzle which has been passed from developer to developer. I might learn that my idea has been tried by someone, and I could read about how well or poorly it was received by the players. Hopefully it would breed discussion, and speed up the rate of new advancements. I'm just tossing ideas out there. It is always annoying when someone suggests that a job be done, but doesn't volunteer to do it himself, lol! For that, I apologize everyone! :) > Hi Jeremy, > > Those are some very good points. In many ways when I joined > the audio > games community I had similar observations and I guess > ideas where the > community could go. That was about 10 or 11 years ago. > > I was sighted for the majority of my early life, lost my > sight > officially in the 90's, so I had a pretty good idea of what > had been > available for the sighted mainstream market at the time. > When i > started reading the mag so I could find out what games I > could play or > expect to create I saw that most people were playing text > adventures > or simple Dos games like Monopoly, Hangman, and > things of that > nature. The only developer who captured my immediate > attention was GMA > because they had a real time submarine simulation, Lone > Wolf, and they > were creating the world's first audio based first person > shooter, > Shades of Doom. Coming from a mainstream background as I > had those > were the games I naturally were most interested in because > it wasn't > so different from games I already knew and enjoyed before I > lost my > sight. In other words if we want to communicate and open > dialog with > other mainstream gamers its something like Shades of Doom > or Tank > Commander they will be interested in discussing. Anything > less will > seem to them as not very advanced or worth while. At least > that's how > I see it coming from that background myself. > > It is because of that background I have the opinions and > attitudes I > do have towards audio gaming. There is a reason I spent two > years > developing a 3d game engine I call Genesis 3D, and there is > a reason > I've adopted a number of features seen in the GMA Game > engine. That > reason being over the next five years or so I plan to > create games on > par with Halo, Tomb Raider, Jedi Knight, and any other game > that has > had some commercial success in the mainstream market. Not > necessarily > because it will make a lot of money but because it is a > style and > standard of gaming that is rarely achieved by audio game > developers > accept for a handful like GMA who are trying to reach the > same goal as > I am. > > What you are doing for this community is no less valuable. > Castaways > is the best game I've seen since I don't know when. True it > needs some > better sound effects and things like that, but as Dark said > it is the > closest thing to Dwarf Fortress and games like that we have > at the > time being. It is getting us headed in the right direction > as far as I > am concerned and I'm all forward to bigger and more complex > games of > this nature. > > Cheers! --- 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].
