Hi Thomas, Making text with sound effects games seems like taking two steps back to the old DOS days rather than a step forward. I prefer the ability to use SAPI TTS in games like Jim Kitchen does now. I would also like to have the ability to use non-keyboard input devices like joy sticks track balls and mice.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Thomas Ward" <[email protected]>
To: "Gamers Discussion list" <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2012 3:23 PM Subject: [Audyssey] Text Verses TTS Output
Hello everyone, Got a quick question I thought you might be interested in commenting on. Recently I've began making plans to port a number of audio games to Mac and Linux via Python. Basically, a lot of the games I have in mind are sports, board, and card games such as those byJim Kitchen or Spoonbill Games. In addition to that I'm going to work on my own games such as Final Conflict. Yeah, I know this sounds like more of the same card, board, and other games we already have, but its not really intended to be for Windows users although they will certainly be Windows compatible. The basic idea here behind the project is to port as many games as possible to non-Windows platforms such as Mac OS and Linux since the number of accessible games for those platforms are far fewer than those currently enjoyed by Windows users. It so happens card and board games are the easiest place to begin such a project. That said, I've got a question that will effect everyone who would like to playy them. The question is this. There are two ways I can design the user interface for these games. The first would be the simplist possible interface and that would be to write text based games with text for output plus have sound effects. As Such you would play them in a command prompt window or terminal window using your screen reader and would have very simple Dos style menus like press 1 for new game, 2 to load a save game, 3 to configure settings, 4 to exit game, etc. As a result because of the plane text interface it should be universally accessible using any screen reader on any platform because the interface would be a straight up text based application. However, that isn't the only solution here. The other option is to write a cross-platform GUI application with Pygame, and rather than using text I could wrap Sapi, Speech Dispatcher,and so on using something like PyTTSX. This would allow you to scroll through menus, have automatic speech output using the operating systems native TTS API, and would closely resemble their Windows counterparts in features. The only downside to this I can see is having to install more dependencies to get everything working, but it is certainly an option. So to my question to you is wich format would you rather see? Would you rather settle for a plane text based game with additional sound effects, or do you want a self-voicing application that requires a bit more work but otherwise would have the same features as games from Kitchins Inc, Spoonbill, etc in terms of TTS output, Windows menus, hot keys, and so on? Thanks. --- 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://mail.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]. ----- No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 10.0.1427 / Virus Database: 2441/5336 - Release Date: 10/16/12
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