Hi Tom.
firstly, not all retroremakes have the original sounds and music. one of my
favourites for instance, a game called millenipeed which is obviously a
remake of the game centipeed, has modern soundes and music, and it's own
graphics.
the graphics are simple as compared to modern console games, but certainly
far more than what've been possible when centipeed was originally released.
It all depends upon how much the individual developer redesignged the game.
speaking of redesign, I personally don't think it'd be a case of modifying
an existing remake to make it audio accessible, both for strictly
programming reasons, and because also the game might need a little rejigging
in speed, enemy position etc in order to make a good audio game.
For example, in the game ice climbers, you are vertically assending a
mountain. You can knock holes in ledges above you by jumping up to hit them,
but also have to cope with things like moving ledges.
Frequently, you'll have to jump onto one horizontal platform, jump onto
another, and then! have to hit blocks above you. This is further complicated
by the flying topies (birds), that fly horizontally across. So, in order to
calculate your jump you need to considder not just your position, but that
of two ledges above you, where the blocks are you can bash out of the way,
and whether any toppies are flying around.
this is a case where perhaps taking in that much information in audio just
would not work as is, so a developer might have to substitute some other
challenge, ---- for example having only one moving ledge to jump onto above
you, but having some spikes at either side that could kill you if you jumped
onto the moving ledge when it was too close to them. Thus, you'd stil need
to use your judgement of moving ledge position and your knolidge of game
mechanics, but not in a way that would require an overload of audio
information.
This is why I think if one or other of the retroremakes devs were to work on
an audio game, it would have to be a case of doing something from scratch,
picking the right game and designing the audio elements to work along with
the rest of the game and graphics.
Afterall, something like prince of persia would require not too much in the
way of alterations to gameplay, just audio kews for pit length, guard
attacks etc, ditto with some of the arena based shooters, or games like
packman (indeed I personally find packman more fun as an audio game than
visually).
Beware the Grue!
Dark.
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