Re: [Audyssey] manamon control help
Michael, I don't know of a way to do it directly, but it seems that a good rule of thumb is to figure on 6-8 hit points per level of the monster. That seems accurate enough for most situations. Trained manamon are harder to judge, but this seems to be the rough average. It seems to vary by training, type, and level. Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] announcing Manamon from VG Storm
Aaron, Since I blasted you so badly on Psychostrike on list, I wanted to comment here publicly about the game. I played for about an hour this morning and managed to get into the forest beyond the second town. I would have done better if I had read the manual first, but I was pretty happy with my progress. Excellent sound scape. Excellent music. The fights are a bit repetitive at first, but that's often a failing with most rpgs. The spread of the monster abilities over levels was somewhat frustrating as well, but again, given the way it is described in the manual, and the chance to transform monsters later, that is more a grumble from someone who has played too many games with dead levels. The characters are interesting, and the world fun. The game was easy enough that I picked it up with only listening to learn game sounds and going. Obviously I messed up a few things (most notably, not being able to capture any monsters because I hadn't read the manual first lol). Excellent job, and if the demo continues to be as enjoyable as it was at first, I think I'll be buying this one. Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] jungle
Phillip, This is hands down, and by far, my favorite audio game I've seen. The design is simple and elegant, the play is easy to understand, and the strategy is amazing. I've only played 3 games of this, but I'm in love. This is probably the game that the board game Stratego is based on, and I always liked that game a lot. My hat's off for having developed a good, solid, strategy based game. You sir, are my hero. I hope more developers will take notice of this one and emulate it and add to the ideas here. Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] wedding report
>From the San Francisco Daily Listener's StumbleOver page Today, Mr. Dark (no first name) and Mrs. Dark (no first name) were wed in a mysterious ceremony in the First Church of Stereophonix here on Telegraph Hill. Guests were each issued with a blindfold, a joy stick, and a six foot paddle. Guests were instructed to wait until the DarkBeeper was 80% of the way in their right ear before employing the six foot paddle. Unfortunately, a number of guests grew excited and a massive paddle brawl nearly broke out. Mendelsohn's Processional was used as is traditional, but occasional pops signaled when guests were supposed to jump. If the guest failed to jump properly, they were forced to begin once more at the back of the church. As the last chords faded, the voice of the officiant a Professor Audry O Games began delivering the traditional message of unity and joyous celebrations. Guests were encouraged to center the celebrant's voice and to press the button on top of their joysticks repeatedly. If the voice came too close to a guest, they were forced to begin, once more, at the back of the church. At the height of the festivities, Mr Dark and Mrs. Dark exchanged vows by hurling these from opposite sides of the church at each other's audio signature. Reports say that MRS. Dark's hear and obey vows were a perfect hit, while Mr. Dark's love and cherish vows missed by a matter of only tenths of a second. Reportedly, the groom muttered something about bloody reaction tests and stomped off. The celebrant Professor Audry O Games pronounced the Darks man and machine, and the reception began. However, as of yet, no one in the wedding party has managed to pass either the flash photographer nor the whirling fan blades in front of the door to the reception hall. -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] turn based battle system
I know that all of our titles, available at www.valiantgalaxy.com use a turn based system. The Tactical battle game also uses turn based battle sequences. There's several more, have you tried googling audiogames.net+turn-based+combat? Take care, Jeremy --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] more alter_aeon help needed
Bryan, the temptress is on the island with the hornets. it's an up exit so you might not have noticed it. The assassin is in a hidden room on the island with the wererats. If you need more help, email me off list. Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] bandera azul quest
Bryan, There's several down exits in the village. You need to find a manhole in the streets and enter it to locate the pit fiend. Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Alteraeon, classes, utility, and esoterica
At the risk of starting this discussion over again, I disagree about warrior/thief. However, rather than argue about it, I'll let it lie beyond that comment. As to mechanics for either melee or backstab being esoteric, I refer you to the articles on the web site that discuss both issues in a lot of detail. If those articles give too much trouble due to obscure terminology, then perhaps we need to add things to the glossary in order to make them clearer. Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] deck building CCG versus RPG
Dark's comments on Magic and CCG's brought up this as a possible departure point as well: Again, while it's not an RPG, Dominion is a deck building concept that could be adapted fairly easily to an IOS environment and would lend itself to a multi-player or versus the computer style game. You'd have to develop your own knock off using similar concepts, or else, get licensing privileges from the parent company. I suspect this latter would be difficult as they have taken action against several game developers that released versions of their game. In Dominion, you have three types of cards: money, victory points, and action cards. You begin play with 7 coin cards and three victory points. you draw 5 cards at a time, and have three phases, an action phase, a buy phase, and a clean up phase. During the action phase, you may play any action cards you have, during the buy phase you may buy cards from the supply, and in the clean up phase you clear your play area and discard all played cards and all cards in your hand preparatory to drawing your next hand. In Dominion, there's always ten stacks of cards in the supply that are random actions or treasures, and a series of coin or treasure cards and victory points that are always present. Victory conditions vary, but generally if you exhaust three piles of cards in the supply, or buy all of the primary victory point cards, the game ends. The person with the most victory points in their hand at the end of the game wins the game. It's a very fast, very fun, and very neat game as in the original set of Dominion there's I believe 25 or 30 action cards to choose from. Each game is completely different because of the random factor of getting different combinations of actions, and what those actions do. Some give you more actions in your action phase, some give you more coins, some allow you to draw more cards, some allow you to force other players to discard, etc. It's a style of game that hasn't been tackled by any accessible game developer that I am aware of. Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] role playing games, ios development, card mechanics, etc
Marty, You might have a look at how the old HeroQuest board games worked. That might be a model for a roleplaying game that might be a happy medium between your dice/card/board game model of building and the more in depth RPG that people would like. The brief description is this: in the old HeroQuest games, you picked one of four characters a dwarf, a barbarian, an elf, and a wizard. Then your character navigated a board with passages, rooms, doors, traps, and monsters. However, the board was set up differently for each game by placing elements in different configurations. This could be accomplished by a number of methods: 15 or 25 maps for instance, or a random card/corridor placement that uses some simple rules to avoid dumb arrangements. The characters would use dice to move a certain number of spaces on the board, or to resolve combat. There were very few extras such as spells, or monster abilities to fiddle with, and one could create a fun game by varying up the purpose of the quest: sometimes you had to escape the dungeon, sometimes you hunted a large boss monster, sometimes you had to find a specific item. The game was limited by its format, but I know I played many happy hours of it once our school outlawed D groups. This might be a good compromise between Dark's suggestions and something more complicated. It also had a clear set of rules. However, it'd be fairly simple to set up essentially the same system by developing a list of possible traps, spells, monsters, items, etc. Heroes were allowed to keep items from previous adventures. I don't remember if they improved as time went on in some form of experience system, but it would be easy enough to do so. Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] why i build the games the way I do
As to rpg's and replayability, I want to take issue with at least two of your examples Dark. Fallthru was replayable, but the essential shape of the game stayed the same. Once you beat it, the general plan to beat it was the same. Some locations moved a little, but the general challenges were the same, and while individual map features changed, the same strategies won the game. I think using it as an example of replayability is somewhat misleading. The Wastes presents the problem of having everything random. There's no reliability for a player to build on. You don't ever learn the map because the map changes game to game. Your tactics have to change whether you have the super overpowered weapon of death, or are fighting with your bare fist. I myself find that somewhat frustrating. It's a fun game, and I don't detract from the work put into it by any means, but it's replayable only because you're drawing random cards from a deck every time. To me, designing a single person RPG with replayability would demand some randomness of course, but you'd have to put some steady elements in as a place to start from, or you'd lose players who don't like the chaos factor. For myself, I'd want alternate reactions to different options etc for each encounter, each situation. That's a lot of work. A lot of planning. I could slap together a random generator that would produce an ok game that was replayable because of randomness, but to me that's not an RPG. That's the old random dungeon generator at the back of the first ed. dmg that people would use when they couldn't get a group together. That said, I see some ways it could be done, but the problem would be the time expenditure--to do it well. As to several people commenting on cheapness or text in place of audio etc. I agree, one can play text games just fine, but if we're going to do that we can go back to the old IF titles and forget a real rpg. If you want to have real interaction you'll end up having to create a complex interaction engine. The reason why Eamon for instance worked so well was that at the core of it were only about 40 commands, most of which you never used. As to the sounds issue: putting together a cheap game with good sounds, music, and sound scape is difficult unless you have lots of free time, a good recording set up, and plenty of stuff to provide foley effect with. For example, with Interceptor, we purchased a number of the sounds we used. That's another thing that must be taken into account. I think we need more large scale well designed RPG's but I think that we do need to go into that expectation open eyed. Entombed was a decent start and it was $40. Marty's estimate sounds high to me for an IOS app, but it sounds reasonable as a complex Windows platform game. So, we can jettison everything but text, go the random shuffle and draw approach, and produce a mildly amusing but ultimately frustrating game, or we can invest a lot of time, effort, and work into producing a complex game with good acting and music and sounds, and then we have to charge more, or somehow, sell more units. >From a developer standpoint, if you are actually trying to make a profit, the RPG looks like a bad bet. Now, that said, if you had 30 or 40 smaller games that could support you while you did it, it might be doable. If you had a consortium of small developers that could agree on a language, a story, and delegate parts of the game effectively, it might be produced cheaply. Just a few thoughts as usual. I eagerly await disagreement. Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] why i build the games the way I do
In response to Marty's post, I know that this is exactly the sort of situation we have with Valiant Galaxy Associates. Our company consists of two people. We began with a large project that took 3 years to get to commercial release and which is due to have an update relatively soon in our schedule. Our next two games were much simpler and rolled out quickly, but only because we could reuse and centralize a lot of the code. We're still in the process of making a centralized platform so we can roll out more of the smaller games as well as work on more ambitious games. Our hope is to eventually have more games in play, let the smaller ones carry the load while we develop long term bigger games. I disagree with you about the RPG as being simple to convert Dark: You can convert the mechanics relatively easily, but then you have to have the mechanics integrate with a group of player actions and possible results. Essentially you write an Choose Your Own Adventure novel on top of the mechanics, get it all to integrate, and then have to still work out why it's not working over 60,000-250,000 words of text and god only knows how much mechanical issues. This doesn't take into account sound scape or voice acting. It's not undoable, and I think we should see more of those types of games myself, but the question is how much complexity can you build from a small production standpoint and still stay sane, productive, and on top of customer service. It's not like you release a game and it's a never go back to proposition. Further, if you want to keep the costs reasonable, you have to make choices. You can't release a professionally produced sound scape, voice acting, music background, story, proofreading, and fully tested and stable code and charge only 10 dollars for it. A lot of the sorts of games that people cite when they mention this genre are games that originally retaled for well over $35 or 40 U.S. or, have monthly subscription charges that come to the same thing. While Marty's assessment that most blind people don't like RPG's might be skewed, he is right that most blind people will not pay for the kind of quality that most would like to demand. Not in my experience in any case. That said, I know all the developers on list attempt to put out as professional and interesting a game as they can. Remember too, that by moving his company to an IOS focus, Marty is not breaking new ground in terms of style of game perhaps, but by moving into the mobile app market he has broken ground for blind people and audio games in terms of providing well received simple games that are inexpensive. That is a huge step from the any audio game is either cheap and developed as a labor of love by one programmer or $40 and developed to be profitable, or at least, hopefully profitable. As usual, my two cents. I'll expect change from that please :) Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] a few old space games
Jeremy here. I'm the design half, so i'm the stupid half as far as code goes. Thanks for all the feedback. We appreciate it. As to Interceptor, as Aaron pointed out, Interceptor has a plan to go forward which will change the options for the game. One thing we want to do there is to change up the fighter some, and have enemies play smarter. We hadn't considered changing what form of ship you fly, but that is certainly a possibility worth tihnking about. Right now, we have two other projects in process though. As to TKS being a multiplayer possibility, that's an interesting idea. If we went that route, we'd probably go the network route just to help justify the GDG connection. You're not the only person in the world with wonky internet that dislikes that issue. However, that said, we also want to move forward with making GDG more interesting as an option by adding some sort of leader boards or the like as well. Any work in that direction will have to wait until Dentin has more time, so while we liked your ideas, it'll be a while before GDG gets a major overhaul. Our primary reason for using GDG, though many people seem to think it's the security, is also to avoid a lot of the hassal from the player's side about getting product keys, paying for games, and having access to a game years after the fact. Dentin requires companies that use GDG to submit copies of the current stable code, so that he has a way to continue providing product to customers who have legitimately purchased a game. As we have all seen on this list, sometimes real life interferes with a developer's life or other issues come up that make getting game keys or buying an old game impossible. This system avoids some of that. Don't get me wrong, we want to protect our work, but for us the ability to have a quick, easy, and safe credit card set up and a way for our customers to retain the rights to the games they have purchased outweighed the security issues. If GDG is not allowing you to continue the game once you reestablish contact, then something may be acting weird. It was supposed to allow you to continue the game once it had reestablished that you were playing a legitimate copy. That said, we'll look into it. We hope to be releasing our current project later this year, and we hope, it will continue to live up to the comments we've received about the current crop of games. Keep the critiques coming, they help us improve the games, and we appreciate your input. Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] monkey term issues
It occurs to me that that might be exactly the same issue you were having with monkey term as well. Just a guess though. Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] newest PC games
David, Our games might fall outside what you're looking for, and we are unfortunately available only on windows, but check out http://www.valiantgalaxy.com. The games are inexpensive and easy to play. Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
[Audyssey] Alter Aeon and finding things
Grace, As to players not giving out info, that's possible, though it doesn't seem to be nearly as common as it once was. However, I'll freely admit, I like to encourage people to explore myself. However, that said, there's a number of ways to handle your navigation issues: 1. One friend of mine writes down notes about where he is whenever he accepts a quest and what the text of the quest is so he knows where to go back. 2. Alter does have a coordinate system. While i'ts not super useful for every situation, it can give general ideas of where areas are. If a quest gives a location you think you recognize, looking in the area list for that area name and is coordinates can at least give a general direction. 3. Asking people where a specific mob or town is usually gets results or at least a general direction. 4. You can map A.A. on excel, but you just have to take into account that room sizes vary a lot. A far better way that I found was to use a series of directions (something like the speed walk instructions on aardwolf) but include landmarks. So something like this: go all west from Ralnoth until you encounter a biomantically enhanced tree, go around the tree to the north or south and get back on an east west line til you see a lamp post. Then go south and trend west til you're on a fading road. Go all west then north then one east and you're 1 room south of the green dragon. Landmarks, the nearby command, the various map commands map -old, map -explored, map -blind, all help as does the coordinate system. No one of them is perfect, but combined they can make a powerful set of ways to find places again. Lastly, you can if you have people who are interested in it form direction maps to areas. My clan actually did this, then the mud map changed significantly. We started again, and while it's an ongoing and frustrating process (the map keeps changing:)) it does help. I hope that helps, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] alter-aeon
Justin, Everyone is entitled to their opinions. I'll address some of my own responses to yours below. Sometimes, it's a matter of your play style or your expectations. Coming from a long term roleplaying game background like Dark, a mud is never going to live up to my own personal standards of what i'd like from this style of game; but that said, I feel that alter does better than a lot of muds I've tried. I'm going to quote and respond below: Jeremy, I get that Alter is staffed by volunteers and that Dentin and Shadowfax have real-life issues to deal with. I get it, I really do, but some of the recent changes/skill additions have been mind-bogglingly awful. (Jeremy: A lot of awful is very subjective. One change that has angered a lot of people is the charisma changes for clerics. It has made charisma an important stat for now five classes. However, because charisma was everyone's dump stat, it has caused issues. The ability to swap stats has alleviated some of this problem, and some other issues with other awful changes are answered in similar ways. I wouldn't want to pay for a stat swap either if I could help it, so I sympathize with those who don't see that as an option, but saying this change is awful because there's no recourse just because you don't like the recourse is probably not the way to procede.) Take, for instance, the change where lightcatchers will now have a chance to break when they are used. Why? Why has Dentin felt the need to make this adjustment? There is no call to do this? On the other hand, (Jeremy: I disagree. Druid is the youngest class in terms of development, and this is part of limiting the class' power and making it more in line with other powers and abilities on the game. Light catchers and spell staves make druids one of the most dangerous classes, and causing these abilities to possibly have other repercussions helps to limit that power. To build new staves or sun catchers takes gold a limited resource, mana and time that the character might have used elsewhere. It makes sense. Necromancers run into this problem when soul stones are sucked down to the underworld with a summoning etc.) Warriors and Thieves need some serious overhauling as there are entirely too many stat dependencies, (Warrior and thief require at most four stats like any other class. Primarily either strength or dexterity, constitution and charisma. If a thief is to be successful intelligence is important, but since any sane person will want spells, intelligence will be one of the stats being trained fourth, fifth, or sixth anyway. I don't get this particular argument, but i'll attribute it to play style.) but most of all, the equipment selection is not terribly strong? (When I first started playing, a super powerful warrior could hit 40/40 and was limited to hitting. Now, a super powerful warrior can expect to hit 50/50 without intrinsic hitroll or damroll and more than likely regens mv, has intelligence or wisdom on their hit gear so they can cast mor e of their own spells, can carve many pieces or have a druid friend carve them, and can often do other things while hitting. Again, I am not sure I follow this argument. In terms of gear, I honestly think warrior and thief have it far better in many ways than other classes. No, most hit gear does not carry mv regen which would be a warrior equivalent to the manaregen on caster level gear but refresh is a second level spell requiring only a wisdom of 14 or 15 and a chr of 11 or 12. Again, i'll have to attribute this one to difference in play style and expectations.) With the various spellcasting classes, as a direct comparison, the latter's equipment is fairly straight-forward in what is optimal. (Hmm, i'm not sure i'd agree. All casting classes have to decide whether to go with cast level or regen. Necromancer is the only class where the two often are conjoined nicely and even there, many necromancers can increase their regen by going full bore regen set. However, iagree with you that most of the casting gear is easier to understand once you learn the differences between cast ability, caster level, mana regen, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma boosts, aging, age, and how all of those interact.) Warriors and Thieves, on the other hand have lousy selections. (Why? There are a number of 3/3 pieces in the game now, there's a number of lower power pieces with str/dex on them. Ther'es pieces with mv regen and hit or dam. I'm not seeing this one, i'm sorry.) If Dentin/Shadowfax are being overwhelmed by the workload involved, they can always reach out to veteran members of the community and enlist their support. (Yes, if they are willing to deal with the possible fall out and issues with how changes are implemented. Dentin is very careful who has access to and is able to change the code and how much for a reason. He has a vision for the game and how it should be balanced, and past issues with
Re: [Audyssey] Alter-Aeon
Just for a little balancing opinion here. I've been playing Alter for 10 years now. I have phases where I go play other things, or get busy rl, but I usually come back. I've found the easiest two ways for me to get re-interested in playing are to either a. start a new character from scratch with new classes or old classes with new abilities or b. find a few friends who'd be willing to play at the level of the character I want to develop. Both of these help to kill the I've not gotten anywhere bug. At higher levels, if you have limited time or are not interested in the sort of high tension high angst player interaction, Alter can be grinding. The need for fame, better eq, and more exp can feel like a never ending cycle. Jobs have helped somewhat with this, as have a number of other changes. One thing to keep in mind about Alter it has two coders: Dentin who does what he can when he can (He's had an eventful rl year, and so hasn't been able to contribute as much) and Shadowfax who is still learning how the code works (he also has had an eventful year). This limits how fast changes can be made. In Terms of world builders there are essentially three full time builders and a number of part timers. All of the staff are volunteers and have things that interfere so the game doesn't always get the sort of attention all players would like. That said, the game improved from 2005 to 2010 immensely, and since 2010 it's hardly the same game. There's been a number of issues with the newbie experience cleared up, the classes have been given many more abilities and over all are well balanced. I take issue with the accusation that classes are not balanced, and I'll attribute that to the opiner's lack of experience. One can be successful on Alter with almost any class combo depending on how you approach it. Some combos take much more work or preparation to make effective, but they're all valid and all work. As to the rp issue. If you want rp on Alter there's a very simple solution: collect a bunch of friends and strangers who want rp. Found an rp only clan. Within your clan in your clan groups and clan runs rp as much as you like. That way you get what you want from the game, but you don't bother the rest of the player base. When I first began the game I roleplayed being female for a number of years so that I could indulge in rp, but not bother other players. It worked well. I've known at least one woman who has done the reverse. I know one blind player who has rped as a sighted player. Alter will never be a PVP paradise. It will never be a RP paradise. However, of all the muds I've tried, it has the best help system, the best support from staff, and the best support from higher level players who genuinely try to help new players. The multi class system works well, and if a player truly catastrophically feels they aren't getting anywhere they can reset, build a new char, or work at releveling an existing char to correct such issues. Ok, i'm climbing down off my soap box. I was just seeing a lot of criticism, some of which is fair if you accept the person's premises, and some of which I felt was somewhat negative without sufficient reason. Alter is not perfect by any means, but given its limitations, I think it's one of the better options around. Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] the wastes
I have to second Dark's comments about the game. I had no problems downloading the zip file, and it is a fun game. I wish the town information didn't scroll so much, in larger towns, I was reduced to guessing about where shops were as most of the buildings I could see were shacks:) Still, it's a lot of fun, and I was glad to see a game like this still being developed and supported. Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
[Audyssey] selling potions on alter aeon
Denny, Most times shop keepers won't buy most things. Potions are specifically banned, I believe, from being bought from players. Some players sell potions in shops, and you might be able to arrange with the owners of such a shop to supply them with your potions for a share in the profits. Another possibility is trying to sell them on boards especially board 7 2 s from waypoint 99. The real problem with most potions is that unless the spells are exceptionally high level, they're generally not better than what most people can cast, so your primary market is those who cannot cast for themselves. HTH, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Alteraeon question
Ron, There's six classes in Alter Aeon: mage: elemental spell slinger and artillery Cleric: healer, protector, buff caster and able to curse enemies Thief: stealthy, light combat, able to use shadow disciplines to walk from one point to another, hide in shadows on their own plane etc Warrior: main line combatant, tank, hits things to death Necromancer: uses minions to protect themselves and others, can summon demons to accomplish tasks, and has some very powerful spells for offense. Druid: can summon tank minions and animals to aid them, can control weather and produce some devastating effects, able to brew salves and tinctures to protect and aid people None of those is a 100% good description of the classes, but it gives flavor. I personally think mage or warrior are the easiest to play if you've never played on the game before, but there's no wrong decision. You will progress in one class until 6th level. At that point it becomes cheaper to begin leveling a second class. Eventually you will have levels in all 6 classes, and you will want skills or spells from all six. Dentin has prepared a very good getting started help page, help advice, and there's articles for just starting out on the web site at http://www.alteraeon.com/articles Hope that helps. BTW, you mentioned the client. There's the custom client which is not accessible to a screen reader. You might be referring to the mush-z pack sponsored by the site, in which case you're ready to go. Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
[Audyssey] sizes of muds
Dark, Alter Aeon actually has closer to 45,000 rooms last I checked the world stat command. The average area there is around 100-200 rooms. Most of the truly large areas are actually smaller 100-200 room chunks hooked together. As to Aardwulf, I agree. It might be huge, and I know it is, but it feels small because of the reasons you outlined. Several other muds I have played have been far smaller than Alter Aeon but felt large because of very sparing use of waypoints, portals, etc. Probably a good rule of thumb is figure that anything above 15,000 rooms is pretty big ish, while 30,000 and up seems a lot rarer. Course, with odd linkages an area can seem much bigger than it is by dumping you back in the same rooms repetitively. I don't think I really added materially to this, but while I enjoy mudding, I admit I almost always end up back on Alter Aeon when I've been unfaithful:) Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
[Audyssey] downloading puzzles for BG Crossword
Ann, There's several sites and processes for downloading new puzzles in the documentation for the game itself. Apparently the Guardian recently changed the way their online puzzles are formatted, but the game can handle this with some tweaking. Ian sent out an email about it not too long ago. I believe any puzzle that can be downloaded as an html file can be used, but don't quote me on that. Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
[Audyssey] what to do once you finish the newbie island on Alter Aeon
This might be a good place for an article for A.A.'s web site, but here goes some thoughts: 1. While things are still in flux, the areas near Ralnoth, especially the areas directly east of the town and directly west of the town are less scary than some farther out. Wallachia for instance west of Ralnoth has difficult bits, but is doable for a lower level character or characters. The same is true of the upper levels of the termite hive to the north and east. The admin staff is working to try and bring areas into line so that the transition from the islands to the mainland isn't such a jump. 2. Ask on gossip or chat. While you'll get a lot of differeant answers, these can give you a place to start from. Look at the area list and compare the levels of the area suggested to what you were last running. If it's more than 3 levels difference, give that a pass for a while. The area level estimation system is not perfect, but it's better than it used to be, and the admin staff is working hard to bring it into line. 3. Mooch some off larger groups, then go back and explore in the direction of areas you've been to. 4. Explore. For about 100-150 rooms in any direction from Ralnoth, a level 30 can make it solo. It might be difficult, and preparation might be in order in some cases, but part of exploration is knowing when to run away. 5. Use the area list on the web site and make a list of likely places. The coordinates given in game can help. 0,0 if I remember correctly is just south of the baker's shop in Ralnoth. The rest of the grid is Cartesian. That at the very least gives you a direction to go. 6. Use nearby. 7. Use the profile command, look at higher level character's deeds, especially the end of the list, and see what they did when they were your level. All of these are possibilities that help you figure out what to do and where to go. Further, some areas, such as Old Thalos or Castle Dragnock are areas that you might visit and revisit at different levels for different purposes. If you are someone who hates talking on public channels, find a player who will answer questions via tell. I'm one such, my main char on game is Lexie. As long as you aren't rude and approach the problem understanding that not every player has a rat trap memory for directions, areas, mobs, equipment, fame, levels, etc, then you're in business. Hope this helps some. Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
[Audyssey] braille/large print/other media etc
Danielle, Everyone's input is welcome. My only objection is to the idea of limiting the message. With the possible exception of audio, none of the proposed formats have necessarily been a big expenditure with volunteer help from the community. We have at this moment roughly the following resources: Dark writing the leaflet Eleanor and I offering editing and developer support of various sorts. This also includes Valiant8086 as well though he hasn't spoken publicly on this topic. We have had the offer of two operational braille embossers and about 4,000 pages of braille paper for said embossers. Even if you assume 10 pages/leaflet that's 400 leaflets. No one has volunteered printer capabilities for a large print edition yet, that I remember, but I am sure several of us could contribute. Web site space has been offered by multiple parties for electronic distribution. Scott has offered to investigate getting cheaper audio copies pressed in the U.k. John and some others have volunteered to burn CD's. For an idea that was only a mere suggestion a little over a week ago, that's a lot of progress. We are almost, as you suggested, at the point of needing to really organize. However, as Scott pointed out earlier, we need to thrash out the issues first before we get to that stage. By airing concerns and issues now, by having suggestions that are less workable torn apart now, we save time and wasted effort when it counts. In a community effort like this the opinions, criticisms, and resources of the entire community are important. Personalities might clash, but each challenge to an idea makes it firmer and gives it a better shape. That said, not every idea that every member contributes is always good in the form it's submitted in. Sometimes people misspeak themselves. Sometimes their idea just isn't workable for reasons they haven't considered. Also too, We have to remember that at this point we have only a nebulous plan. No plan survives contact with reality. No doubt portions of it will have to be modified. We're just trying to anticipate those bumps as much as possible. Thanks for your input, don't crawl under a rock. Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] audio files (was large print/braille/other media etc)
Dark, All good points. One thing that has been left off this calculation is not burning a CD at all. If we went this route, having an alternative format oculd be as simple as a business card with a web address. Go there, read the leaflet, or have it read to you. Have links to developers who have supported the leaflet and other developers who have good audio game sites. A nicely done site with the leaflet and audio file would avoid a lot of this problem. Course, then we run into domain costs, but there's going to be cost involved somewhere in this process at some point. Right now it's a matter of deciding how much, most efficient use of funds, and how to move forward. Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
[Audyssey] braille chauvinism and the golden rule
Dear all, First, braille is a format that I use whenever possible. Second, not all visually impaired people do so. Three, the blind community is very quick to complain, loudly, about inaccessibility of governmental documents, business materials, restaurant menus, and other forms of media used by the mainstream world to communicate in written forms. Fourth, unless something changed when I wasn't looking, audio games are not called braille games, games for blind people who read braille, or games that are on computers but would be better in braille format. Fifth, if I as a business person wish to reach the widest circulation and the widest possible market share of a potentially new market, I would be an absolute fool to limit myself to one segment of that market by only submitting materials in one format. Sixth, while some people do not understand it, redundancy of message is never a lost cause. Having large print means that sighted individuals who might donate to kick starter programs, or other ways of providing more funding to accessible gaming, might have access to this material. It is not only blind people who belong to and participate in events that cater to the visually impaired. Im willing to lay odds that for those of you who went blind as children, your sighted parents found out about programs and got you items through programs that you never knew about. Seventh, the amount of sheer chauvinism demonstrated on this point has been amazing. If you wish for equal access to anything, you shouldn't begin your conversation by limiting access for others to materials you wish to be available to anyone, and I repeat anyone, who might have an interest in your community. Finally, and I think this is the most important point of all: whether or not this project does materialize, if it is decided that it is only going to be supported in limited braille or audio only formats, I'm not for one going to support it. It's bad practice, not only from a business standpoint, but from an example setting standpoint. The way to conquer prejudice against blind people is not to display equal and opposite prejudice. Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] audio games leaflet
John, All good points. One of the things we need to do once we have a draft in hand is then organize how we're going to accomplish the goal. There's parts of this, that like you, I'm not sure exactly how to pursue, but, given the knowledge base we have on list, I think we either have the knowledge somewhere, or have enough people, that if we spread it thin enough we can learn what we need to. A lot of my job with VGA has been learning how to do things that needed to be done that Aaron didn't have time to do because he (cough) does the real work. As to the expenses, agreed, we should try to spread this so that no one individual or company is in for a lot. We want to make this as economical and as high return for the investment as possible. If it seems to succeed in a first run, we can always expand beyond that point. Also too, we'd want to get more supporters as well. A direct email to developers is probably a good place to start. Even if many are connected, they might not read all threads. Take care, Jeremy --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
[Audyssey] braille/large print/other media
Thomas, Hence the subject heading. I think you're right. While we shouldn't limit such an attempt to just blindness awareness organizations, we shouldn't limit the message to just braille either. Eleanor, excellent. That's a good thing to have multiple checks and inputs. Braille folks: While I personally sympathize with your position, if this is a serious effort to expand the audio games market, then it needs to pursue all media we can. As Dark pointed out, adding an electronic copy to a document being produced electronically is zero cost. Though to some of us who do not have low vision sufficient to read large print or play games, the idea might seem ludicrous, I'm sure there are low vision people who probably take advantage of some audio materials. Even if they do not now, there are people with degenerative disorders that might be interested. The point here, in gaining sponsors, pursuing leads, and casting our bread on the waters, is to use as wide a net as possible. We lose nothing by a little pre-planning and outreach now. We might gain a lot. It's all too easy for this sort of effort to flop if people get too territorial or single-minded. Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] large print/braille/other media
Dark, If others are game, I'm totally game for trying this. I can't promise that our company can contribute a huge amount to the cost, but we'll do what we can if others are interested. I also can help with the writing/editing of any material: got to put this almost PH.D. in English to use somehow. One issue would be to figure out the best large general categories of play style for audio games to discuss, how to present the information in an ordered fashion, and how to economize the language to reach your goal of 1000 words or so. I think that's a good maximum length and it makes things as stripped down as possible. The next step, as I see it, is first see who of the currently connected developers would be interested in such a project. Find out if others, not connected, would be interested. Work out a central point for collecting funds (if a list member were embossing, I think the majority of the funds would be going for paper and shipping). Find out who would do the embossing since we've had several lines on that. Find out which organizations we would want to talk to, and figure out the best line of attack on each. I'm sure there are organizational, logistical, and administrative details that would have to be worked out all along this chain. I think Thomas' suggestion of talking to resellers is a good idea as well. Further, I know some of us are more familiar with one nation's organizations more so than others. We'd need to decide where and who we would be starting with. While it's easy to think in terms of home country, I've noticed from our own sales and from watching demographics on Alter Aeon and in other venues, that the composition of the audio game community is rapidly expanding, so we might run into the issue of possible translation necessities in future. It's way too early to go there, but it's something worth thinking about. In all honesty, it might be necessary to form some sort of organizational structure and create a separate forum to discuss this, or, at least, agree on a subject heading or name, so that people who are not interested in this line of discussion can avoid it in future:). Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
[Audyssey] braille/large print/other media (was audio games, game engine)
Dark, I understood your original intent, but I think you misunderstood mine somewhat. What I was proposing was just such an introductory pamphlet. It would be defrayed by a consortium of developers, distributed free through the organizations (assuming they would do so) and would have a list of contributors and their home page link. That's all. No hard sale, just a list of contacts. If I read such a piece as you describe I'd want to know how to find such things. Such a brief description and a list of contributors could be perhaps no more than 5 pages of braille, would be relatively inexpensive to produce, and would give each contributor a chance to get their name out. I have to admit, I said ad space, but I was thinking more in lines of contact info. Anything much more than that, and you'd be likely to either lose your audience or never get it to them through the organizational roadblocks. I think Dentin's comments earlier are an important indicator in this line: we'd have to sell this to the organizations as both a. helping visually impaired entrepreneurs and b. providing a quality of life improvement to some of their members in terms of accessible recreation. While the organizations for the blind generally promote political action and/or community support for visual impairment, most of them also pay lip service to both of the above goals. Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] large print/braille/other media (was audio games, game engine)
Dark, I think we're actually meaning roughly the same concept, just coming at it differently. If I were to write such a beastie, I would want to be as large and inclusive as possible. First off, as you point out, different tastes run to different games. Also too, if I understood your original concept correctly, I wouldn't even get into genre of game, except where it is directly impacting the play experience: i.e. first person shooter games use audio to denote the location of enemies, movement through an environment, hazards and landmarks, and are most often used in action games centered around violent confrontation. I'm not contemplating something that would only sing the praises of the people who contributed. While that would help a few people in the short term, it would be less likely to be distributed, and it wouldn't serve the community as a whole. Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] large print/braille/other media (was audio games, game engine)
Thomas, I see your point. It's a very good point as far as it goes. Perhaps, what is needed, would be a different approach to the problem. Many of the blindness organizations, as well as those that do work with the visually impaired, such as the Lions, and others, use email newsletters or web sites and the like. I wonder if it wouldn't be possible to somehow get some mention that way. Again, we run up against the business attitude versus an audio game as a frivolous activity issue. I'm not convinced that Dark's point isn't well taken. I know I had no idea audio games existed when I first started playing muds and interactive fiction games. I am not a member of any of the major blindness organizations, but unlike your projected isolated blind person, I was relatively in tune with the web and searching for things, I just hadn't ever thought to try searching with the idea of an audio game. In fact, it was through Audyssey that I encountered the idea of the audio game, and it took me a long while to warm to it. I might have gotten interested sooner if I had encountered some general informative info. Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
[Audyssey] info: games engine
I know when Aaron and I set out to design Interceptor, one item I had wanted to use was recorded speech from other fighters in your Interceptor wing and have that random chatter be something of a back ground event that would add to the realism of the game. However, we considered our options and we ran up against several things that were brought up earlier. The legal issue was one that put us off honestly. Further, the variance in recording quality and volunteer commitment was another put off. Some of the recordings in the release copy were made by me with a very bad desk mike. This actually works to our advantage in this case because we were using static and other background noise to interfere with the recordings so that the quality issue was not bad. But it would become problematic in a different game environment. We were also trying to complete Interceptor by a personal deadline, and we were not sure we would get timely responses. In terms of Nick's suggestion of having one person to manage a volunteer team who is not primary coder, we are lucky that I could take on that role while Aaron coded, but that's not possible for every independent developer. I actually would like to use community volunteers in future, but for our first few games, we wanted more control, so we could make sure that what came out at the far end was what we had intended. Thomas touched on that, and it is a form of selfishness or pride, or at the minimum self-actualization. I think a volunteer open source type project could work very well if the developer went into it with open eyes and realized that using a large base of people to accomplish goals might not get all goals accomplished when and where and how he or she wanted. I know with us though, timing is an issue. Aaron lives on a farm, and he must help his family get in crops and do other farmy things. I work, and so I have to work around my schedule. That doesn't nix a volunteer element by any means, but it means that we have to have the right game, and the right game environment for it. Just sharing another small developer perspective. However, on the other side, both Swamp and Entombed used volunteer efforts did they not? We might learn something from that experience. Jeremy On 6/14/15, gamers-requ...@audyssey.org gamers-requ...@audyssey.org wrote: Send Gamers mailing list submissions to gamers@audyssey.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to gamers-requ...@audyssey.org You can reach the person managing the list at gamers-ow...@audyssey.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than Re: Contents of Gamers digest... Today's Topics: 1. game engine (Marvin Hunkin) 2. Re: info AudioGames Game Engine (Thomas Ward) 3. Re: info AudioGames Game Engine (dark) 4. Re: info AudioGames Game Engine (Thomas Ward) 5. Re: info AudioGames Game Engine (Nick Adamson) -- Message: 1 Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 09:55:28 +0930 From: Marvin Hunkin startrekc...@gmail.com To: gamers@audyssey.org Subject: [Audyssey] game engine Message-ID: 001601d0a638$a0371c10$e0a55430$@gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Hi. Well. Will look how to get the audio. A sighted friend is doing images and will record audio clips, that's the way to go, and also music background. Also how to get keyboard focus or keyboard short cuts or gestures. Any tips. Thanks. -- Message: 2 Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 02:24:30 -0400 From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Subject: Re: [Audyssey] info AudioGames Game Engine Message-ID: caafbg10zsvkjwvav3rjcwcnmsf3zb4xb80bbq-xl3abn2+n...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Hi Dark, You bring up a very good point, and to be honest I'm not quite sure why the community hasn't been more active in supporting our developers with sounds,music, scripts, whatever. It could be as simple as developers haven't asked or developers have been closed to support from outside help. One issue I need to bring up is while volunteer work is wonderful it also can be a bit sticky from a legal point of view. Copyrights aren't necessarily designed for content to freely be given away so there has to be written contracts that turns a license or the sharing of a license over to a developer else it can be legally entangling if the owner of a specific sound, music, script, whatever later decides they want exorcize their rights as the owner of said copyrighted material and that puts the developer in a bit of a bind. So it is possible that some developers and community designers are hesitant of collaborating from some legal standpoint.
Re: [Audyssey] braille/large print/other media for audio games (was info games game engines)
Dark's suggestion of an informational blurb or pamphlet is the place where a number of developers could come together directly. If we formed some sort of organization of our own, that worked with, and/or through the more politically minded organizations, it's possible they might take more notice of us. Also too, defraying cost of printing might be easier if each developer contributed x amount and had x amount of space. It would mean you'd be advertising in some cases with your competition, but, if the real issue is that not enough people know about the market at all, then that might be a way to get info into the community. Audyssey might be a good launch point for such an item, since many developers subscribe. Audyssey has a history of helping blind people connect to game developers, and it's exactly the sort of proactive approach that the political organizations attempt to take. Further, we have developers here from multiple nations, so we could approach visually impaired organizations in multiple countries at once, and show that this is a global phenomenon. If it was sold on the grounds of promoting not only independent visually impaired entrepreneurs, but also the gamers who enjoy their work, it might be able to crack the shell where one or two small developers might not. Just a thought, Jeremy On 6/15/15, gamers-requ...@audyssey.org gamers-requ...@audyssey.org wrote: Send Gamers mailing list submissions to gamers@audyssey.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to gamers-requ...@audyssey.org You can reach the person managing the list at gamers-ow...@audyssey.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than Re: Contents of Gamers digest... Today's Topics: 1. Re: info AudioGames Game Engine (dark) 2. Re: tips for playing bg chess (dark) 3. Re: tips for playing bg chess (Ron Schamerhorn) 4. Re: info AudioGames Game Engine (Thomas Ward) 5. Re: info AudioGames Game Engine (dark) -- Message: 1 Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 17:27:27 +0100 From: dark d...@xgam.org To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Subject: Re: [Audyssey] info AudioGames Game Engine Message-ID: 310941689A6043FBA74A76411331CCD7@ownere8ba8066c Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=iso-8859-1; reply-type=original Hi Knick. that is an idea, though reselling is also quite a pain to setup as well, particularly sinse in the past when it's been tried with audiogames it hasn't worked out well. All the best, Dark. There is always more to know, more to see, more to learn. The world is vast and wondrous strange and there are more things benieth the stars than even the archmaesters of the citadel can dream. - Original Message - From: Nick Adamson n...@ndadamson.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, June 15, 2015 4:28 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] info AudioGames Game Engine An alternative is to set up contacts with resellers around the world who go to the conventions already but often they take commission. On 15 Jun 2015, at 16:17, dark d...@xgam.org wrote: Hi Tom. Conventions might be problematic, partiuclarly sinse they only cover certain geographical regions meaning even if the money was raised to send someone the return on new interest probably wouldn't be worth it. I do wonder however if there is an alternative approach. As I have said before, some of my first pc games were the ones I discovered through whitestick.co.uk, web games like Legend of the green dragon and ashes of angels. I found out about those thanks to a small one line paragraph in the rnib braille advertising leaflet with the silly name of welcome to a world of I'm not sure where that add came from, indeed Tom Lorimer the whitestick.co.uk webmaster said he didn't know about it, however it does make me wonder about the uses of promotional literature, particularly for people or organizations who might have reach to people who are only just learning their way around computers. I wonder therefore if it would be worth creating a general audiogames introduction, and paying the smaller amount of money (compared at least to sending someone to a convention), it'd take to get it recreated in braille and large print as well as electronically, and then sending copies of that! to various organizations, conventions etc, for people to pick up, find on a desk etc. such a thing could even be translated into different languages as well. All the best, Dark. There is always more to know, more to see, more to learn. The world is vast and wondrous strange and there are more things benieth the stars than even the archmaesters of the citadel can dream. - Original
Re: [Audyssey] Chess or Mahjong
Thanks Dark, I'll pursue this further. I am interested enough, both as a blind gamer myself, and as a designer in the challenges, that I don't want to totally give this up, but right now, I have several other irons in the fire, and this did not turn out quite as simple a situation as I was hoping. (Is it ever?) Take care, Jeremy On 6/12/15, gamers-requ...@audyssey.org gamers-requ...@audyssey.org wrote: Send Gamers mailing list submissions to gamers@audyssey.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to gamers-requ...@audyssey.org You can reach the person managing the list at gamers-ow...@audyssey.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than Re: Contents of Gamers digest... Today's Topics: 1. chess or mahjong (Jeremy Brown) 2. Re: chess or mahjong (dark) -- Message: 1 Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 12:23:56 -0500 From: Jeremy Brown tyr...@gmail.com To: gamers gamers@audyssey.org Subject: [Audyssey] chess or mahjong Message-ID: CAAhS5Zk4Gh=_fisxlyht2tswvfs8vgdwayva69b5xmqpm2x...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 I actually went and researched Mahjong in response to this topic. A lot of the complexity of coding such a beast would be your definition of what Mahjong is. There's apparently a number of different variations ranging from relatively simple to immensely complex. Our card game Rummy is based on it. I studied a couple of simpler multi-player versions, and had a simpler solitaire set up explained to me by my wife. The game's setup as a solitaire game presents some unique challenges in an audio environment, having multiple levels, some of which you can see only partially that all must be displayed more or less simultaneously. In the traditional games, the challenge is more one of mastering the rule sets well enough to create a game that accurately reproduces the game play. Warning: I did not investigate American Mahjong extensively because it appears much simpler and more derivative from the original versions. That said, it might be a way to progress. If I were to attempt it, with the help of my pet coder (hi Aaron! that's you), I'd lean toward doing a multi-player version based on the Hong Kong old style rules I studied. They seemed simple enough to master relatively easily, complex enough to be interesting, and different enough from card games to present a unique challenge. That said, I don't see it happening any time soon. I need to get a Mahjong set and experiment with it before I could design an AI that played even reasonably well. Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa -- Message: 2 Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 21:07:34 +0100 From: dark d...@xgam.org To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Subject: Re: [Audyssey] chess or mahjong Message-ID: 0E2355132A034E3CBB73E70ED0B1C58A@userec7a90e6b3 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=iso-8859-1; reply-type=original I believe the game toodle tiles from american printing house for the blind was based on the solo version of mahjong, or one of them at any rate, but to be honest between the game's serious repackaging as a gamefirmly and distinctly aimed at children (even the documentation is written to sell to teachers), and the fact I've never got the demo of the bloody thing to work, I can't say for certain either way. Still, you can find links on audiogames.net. Once upon a time there was a podcast about the game which I heard (which is where I know a little from), but god knows where it has gone, I believe it was on the noew defunked blindcooltech. All the best, Dark. - Original Message - From: Jeremy Brown tyr...@gmail.com To: gamers gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2015 6:23 PM Subject: [Audyssey] chess or mahjong I actually went and researched Mahjong in response to this topic. A lot of the complexity of coding such a beast would be your definition of what Mahjong is. There's apparently a number of different variations ranging from relatively simple to immensely complex. Our card game Rummy is based on it. I studied a couple of simpler multi-player versions, and had a simpler solitaire set up explained to me by my wife. The game's setup as a solitaire game presents some unique challenges in an audio environment, having multiple levels, some of which you can see only partially that all must be displayed more or less simultaneously. In the traditional games, the challenge is more one of mastering the rule sets well enough to create a game that accurately reproduces the game play. Warning: I did not investigate American
[Audyssey] chess or mahjong
I actually went and researched Mahjong in response to this topic. A lot of the complexity of coding such a beast would be your definition of what Mahjong is. There's apparently a number of different variations ranging from relatively simple to immensely complex. Our card game Rummy is based on it. I studied a couple of simpler multi-player versions, and had a simpler solitaire set up explained to me by my wife. The game's setup as a solitaire game presents some unique challenges in an audio environment, having multiple levels, some of which you can see only partially that all must be displayed more or less simultaneously. In the traditional games, the challenge is more one of mastering the rule sets well enough to create a game that accurately reproduces the game play. Warning: I did not investigate American Mahjong extensively because it appears much simpler and more derivative from the original versions. That said, it might be a way to progress. If I were to attempt it, with the help of my pet coder (hi Aaron! that's you), I'd lean toward doing a multi-player version based on the Hong Kong old style rules I studied. They seemed simple enough to master relatively easily, complex enough to be interesting, and different enough from card games to present a unique challenge. That said, I don't see it happening any time soon. I need to get a Mahjong set and experiment with it before I could design an AI that played even reasonably well. Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
[Audyssey] Announcing release of Yellowbonnet from Valiant Galaxy Associates
Announcing Yellowbonnet from Valiant Galaxy Associates We are happy to announce the inauguration of our new line of minigames. These games will be priced inexpensively and allow us to explore other genres and time periods from our main line of Valiant Galaxy products. Fresh from the amazing efforts of our beta test team comes Yellowbonnet. Yellowbonnet is the first minigame in Valiant Galaxy Associates’ series of Western games. In the game, the player takes on the role of a new arrival in the western town of Yellowbonnet in the year 1885. As a newcomer, you need income. There are six jobs hidden about the map, as well as objects for the finding that can be sold for money. Complete all six jobs in the shortest amount of time, and gain as much money as possible. But be warned: Yellowbonnet holds dangers as well. Mad bulls, vicious outlaws, and drunken cowboys can all pose a threat as you progress through the town. Yellowbonnet uses a map mode for exploration and movement and a menu mode for interaction and combat. The map is laid out on a simple seven by seven grid and the town has twenty locations, and five main streets. As the player navigates they will find characters to interact with, locations to look at and search, and possibly items to buy or sell. The controls are simple, and the gameplay quick. A typical game can be completed in 15-45 minutes. Yellowbonnet is completely self-voicing. The game is menu-driven, and there is no need to worry about being able to place your mouse in an exact position. Documentation is included with the game itself, and you can access our online documentation from inside the game. The game is forgiving, and if you must take a phone call or step away from your computer, your Wild West adventure will still be waiting. With over three dozen characters, twenty locations, and a high degree of random chance, the game is extremely replayable. Yellowbonnet is our first game to utilize the GuideDog Games service. GuideDog is a revolutionary games distribution service designed to act as an interface between game developers and visually impaired players (similar to Steam). The service is operated by Dennis Towne, owner and operator of Alter Aeon, and uses the same credit card encryption and account management system that Alter Aeon uses. Once you have an account with GuideDog, you can purchase any of our future games through it with no trouble. Account creation is quick and easy, and purchasing a game from start to finish takes about five minutes. Yellowbonnet needs heroes, won’t you step up and be counted? --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
[Audyssey] Mud Sounds
Dark, I played with Telnet on Jaws, and I can assure you, it probably wasn't any better than Supernova:) It was a pain, I often missed things, and it was tricky. Using a client helped some by providing better alias control and some triggers, but essentially, I had something of the same experience, except there are more Jaws users on A.A. or were at the time, than anything else. The problem is the same problem but with screen readers: everyone assumes that people use whatever the most popular or what they think is the best screen reader is:) Also too, again, not everyone uses either their own or multiple screen readers well. I have no idea how to help someone on a different screen reader, and beyond a certain point I have to look up things in a Jaws manual or ask someone more knowledgeable to perform advanced functions with Jaws. As to the introductory text argument. I learned to play Alter, and learned to play it well because I read help pages while I regenned and made extensive use of the help -random feature. However, you and I are in the minority in reading text beyond a certain point. The reason web sites break text into such small chunks is that (pardon me while I display a bias against the handicapped) sighted people are growing unable to read large blocks of text. Blind people are beginning to display this trend more as well. I help out on the newbie channel on Alter Aeon and help out catching questions on other high traffic channels. At least 50% and probably a much higher percentage of questions that get asked could be answered by the askers if they only read carefully. I'm not saying all this to say a disclaimer wouldn't be in order, but I doubt if it would really be effective at combatting the trend at all. When I started playing Alter, I did so because I had played interactive fiction for years, and found Alter on the Audyssey list. I wanted something text based. The kids now playing Alter have grown up in a market where sound is the primary distributor of information, not text, and they want sound. Dennis in choosing to make mush-z the primary way to getting blind players into the game has recognized not only the popularity of the client and its sound pack, but by choosing a main method of connecting blind players that he has helped work on, he has a better control over helping out new players. Not all the admin staff on Alter, nor the player base that help out with questions, know mush well, but if an admin, avatar, or newbie helper knows a person is using mush, there's a channel for questions about mush where we can direct them, and there's usually people online who use it, that we can tap for information. I regret the dying of the text game too, but I don't think it can be reversed by a disclaimer. Take care, Jeremy --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] mud sound
Dark, You're not the only person to notice or be bothered by this trend either. As a regular player of Alter, I find the mush-z user's assumption that everyone is a. using mush-z or b. wishes to have the numerous sounds included in the game's sound pack disturbing. I began playing Alter on Telnet. I now use the monkey term scripts developed by Valiant8086, but I also worked with Aaron to strip out a lot of the sounds I did not like. The changeover to kxwt strings has eroded my nonsound position somewhat, but that's more a laziness issue on my side. The mush client is a real triumph for the contributors: while much of the work was done by one person, many have now contributed to its success on Alter with plug-ins, scripting workarounds, and the like. The emphasis on the sound environment is the blind player's equivalent of moving from mud to graphics based mmorpg. A lot of current gamers probably don't even read the incoming text. At least, I get that impression often while trying to help them trouble shoot issues. That said, I think it was probably a brilliant move to go this route and adopt the existing sound pack and use it as a flagship method of connecting to the mud. It's brought in a number of players, and introduced them to A.A. When I first started playing, a good day was 30 or 40 players online, many of whom were idle or multies offloading equipment. Now, we have upward of 80 or 90 players on at a time with another 15 or 20 idlers and mules. For a mud in this day and age, that is truly amazing. Is it mudding? Probably not in a traditional sense. Is it keeping the idea alive? Yes. Does that present problems of its own? yes. Can it be solved easily? No, not without dedicated people willing to devote time and effort to developing sound packs, and mud admins willing to give feedback and help by setting up cues in the code to alert the client when to play sounds. Do most muds have this kind of dedicated player base and admin staff in the numbers needed to support the project? Maybe, but probably not. My personal answer to your problem proposal is that I don't a. necessarily see it as a problem, though I do regret its impact on mud play b. I don't see an easy solution. A note in the introductory text won't change anything as most people do not read such, and there's no way to develop such an extensive pack for every mud that someone finds interesting or intriguing. The final issue is this one: Most people don't have the savvy and the knowledge to fiddle with a mud client beyond a very basic level. So providing them a tool such as mush-z gives them a platform from which to expand their play and horizons on Alter at least. Don't think I really extended the discussion, but there's my two cents:) Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] linux mud clients for alter aeon
Edward, There's a pretty devoted crew of Linux users on A.A. One of my clannies for instance uses Tintin on his Linux system. I'd suggest using telnet to connect, ask on gossip or bovine for suggestions and help, and you might get a solution to work arounds or the like if they exist. Might not be any, but in general the A.A. community licks most stuff like that if it's doable. Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] mist games (was first person adventure games)
Mist? lol! I played those with my ex-wife and a friend of ours. I remember there were times when it was tricky to get set up right to pick up things, though my memory might be faulty in this regard. The real thing that made Mist very impressive was that the puzzles were very difficult and different from most adventure style games. There was one that was sort of like Simon where you had to arrange musical tones to open a secret door iirc. There were also some fiendishly devilish word puzzles. One for instance used a short sentence where the only vowel in the entire sentence was y. It made guessing it extremely difficult I only played the first game, that intermittently, and very late at night, so I apologize for not being able to give more details. At the same time we were playing Mist, my friend was playing World of Warcraft and Betrayal at Crondor, so it's quite possible Im mixing things up. I remember the Crondor game had these puzzle locks where you'd have to solve a riddle and flip the lock tumblers to the proper letters to solve it. I always liked that mechanic as well. Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] physical cd's and paypal accounts
to death? Also in the weapon store is there a way to buy a weapon or is there a way to shoot the guy who keeps shooting me. This game is so awesome! --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. -- Message: 2 Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 23:02:51 -0400 From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Subject: Re: [Audyssey] psycho strike some observations Message-ID: CAAfBG11=sqxq2wzh24ofjzzmrur1mlnr7udxxexthk63jsn...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Hello Jeremy, You aren't alone. I do agree with a lot of what you had to say below, and it is a major reason why I in all likelihood won't be buying the game. Yes, while the sounds, voice acting, etc are all fine as it is I just found the senseless violence, murder, and mayhem not to my liking. While fighting and killing in a combat situation usually doesn't bother me I found the idea of just walking into a party and killing 10 people for no reason sick and immoral. Same goes with the farm mission. I love animals, and the sound of killing goats for no reason really bothered me. Bothered me so much I uninstalled the game shortly there after because I just couldn't play the game after that. That is not to say I think the game is a bad game. I just personally dislike the degree of violence and senseless killing involved in the game. It bothered me in away few games do. It is one thing to be killing zombies in a game like Swamp since they aren't real people or can justifiably be called monsters. It is a total and morally different issue to walk into a party, mall, jail, or somewhere and just start killing people at random for little reason. Cheers! On 4/29/15, Jeremy Brown tyr...@gmail.com wrote: So, I read the documentation, and I've played one game. Admittedly, that's a small data sample, but I want to make the following observations: 1. The game sound design and the game play are very nice. The hot keys are for the most part very intuitive, and the movement and menu systems all work as expected. Breaking the game into distinct zones that you get to from a menu and then sidescroll through made a lot of sense and avoided some obvious navigational issues. Some auditory cues could have been perhaps a little more pronounced for my taste, but overall, I got it. 2. I found the character motivation very flimsy. First off, just deciding to homicidally kill everyone at a party as my first action in a criminal career in which I want to amass a gang and get money and better weapons didn't click for me. Good crime bosses avoid entanglements with the police and such situations. Further, mass murderers of the type depicted in the first sequence aren't your buddy film types imo. 3. On a moral ground, I have severe issues with the character motivation, the game scoring, and the presentation of violence. The character motivation as character motivation was discussed above, but giving a player a choice of either body count or cash as a means of keeping score struck me as sort of sick. Further, I have a hard time justifying the developer's decision to release a game with this sort of content that can be downloaded directly and played at least as a demo, with no blocks in place to keep minors from playing it. All such blocks have issues, there's no good way to police such issues, but given that the first sequence is the murder of ten defenseless people for no better reason than you decided to strikes me a socially irresponsible. The game play is awesome, the game design has a lot of good points, but minus several million for good taste and well-thought out character motivations. This game could have been improved immensely merely by introducing more motivation. You're a poor caterer who's about to lose their job, be turned out on the streets and a mysterious man drives up to you, he offers to set you up in comfort if you kill a certain man at the party. Unfortunatley, he does not have any way of identifying the man. While still morally reprehensible, this at least gives the player some reason to be doing this. Further, if more patrons have some means of fighting back other than police, then it might be less objectionable to me. I play violent games: every rpg, mud, etc is essentially no different in terms of raw violence. However, basing a game on killing people who are screaming don't hurt me strikes me, as I said before, as completely
[Audyssey] psycho strike some observations
So, I read the documentation, and I've played one game. Admittedly, that's a small data sample, but I want to make the following observations: 1. The game sound design and the game play are very nice. The hot keys are for the most part very intuitive, and the movement and menu systems all work as expected. Breaking the game into distinct zones that you get to from a menu and then sidescroll through made a lot of sense and avoided some obvious navigational issues. Some auditory cues could have been perhaps a little more pronounced for my taste, but overall, I got it. 2. I found the character motivation very flimsy. First off, just deciding to homicidally kill everyone at a party as my first action in a criminal career in which I want to amass a gang and get money and better weapons didn't click for me. Good crime bosses avoid entanglements with the police and such situations. Further, mass murderers of the type depicted in the first sequence aren't your buddy film types imo. 3. On a moral ground, I have severe issues with the character motivation, the game scoring, and the presentation of violence. The character motivation as character motivation was discussed above, but giving a player a choice of either body count or cash as a means of keeping score struck me as sort of sick. Further, I have a hard time justifying the developer's decision to release a game with this sort of content that can be downloaded directly and played at least as a demo, with no blocks in place to keep minors from playing it. All such blocks have issues, there's no good way to police such issues, but given that the first sequence is the murder of ten defenseless people for no better reason than you decided to strikes me a socially irresponsible. The game play is awesome, the game design has a lot of good points, but minus several million for good taste and well-thought out character motivations. This game could have been improved immensely merely by introducing more motivation. You're a poor caterer who's about to lose their job, be turned out on the streets and a mysterious man drives up to you, he offers to set you up in comfort if you kill a certain man at the party. Unfortunatley, he does not have any way of identifying the man. While still morally reprehensible, this at least gives the player some reason to be doing this. Further, if more patrons have some means of fighting back other than police, then it might be less objectionable to me. I play violent games: every rpg, mud, etc is essentially no different in terms of raw violence. However, basing a game on killing people who are screaming don't hurt me strikes me, as I said before, as completely irresponsible. Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] psycho strike some observations and other related topics bundled together
First, to all of you that have responded thus far, thanks for actually responding. I'm going to address the issues in one mail to try and save time and space. As to Charles' comments that criminals are by definition anti-social and the name of the game basically implies what to expect, agreed on both counts. However, choosing to make a psychopathic killer the hero or main character of a game is a game developer decision. My choice as a consumer is to vote for the game or not by either buying it or not. Gangsters don't interest me as a gamer, so I doubt that this particular concept would have intrigued me even if the handling had been different. In response to some of Dark's points: RE: minors and their definition Besides, what is exactly a miner seems pretty debatable, hay I was watching the alien filmes and nightmare on elm street when i was 10 years old, not to mention playing games like mortal combat and moonstone, and I was quite fine with the idea that these were games and the difference between playing a game where I slice someone up with a big nasty blade and doing the same in reality, likewise violence in and of itself never did, or indeed never does bother me for just being bloody or graphic. Back to Jeremy: I was six when I saw the first Alien film. I don't think it psychologically scarred me for life; that said, I don't think it was responsible of my older brother who had charge of me at the time to allow it. One does not negate the other. Just because minor is somewhat fluid, saying well people see this all the time does not relieve the social responsibility of the producer. RE: warning message In the game's description on the Vgstorm website there is the message: Back to Jeremy: Agreed, and I applaud the developers for including this warning. Further, I agree that there's no good system for keeping minors from buying such a game, however, there are a couple of systems that would be more effective than the current one. Making the game only purchasable with a credit card for instance will exclude many many minors. Itm ight exclude legitimate customers with bad credit as well, but this is the sort of decision one must make. Many games in the past have used a dual system of printed material that is mailed to a consumer in addition to the game disk or download. Such a mailing might get the attention of parents. Neither of these options is a perfect solution, and I don't expect VGStorm to use either. I'm merely pointing out that ignoring the problem completely and going with a warning label and good intentions is not the only way to handle such problems. RE: Violence and motivation (This one responds to Dark and Desree) Jeremy's comments here: I frankly have to just disagree with you on this one Dark. I just can't see a psychopathic criminal who kills people at a party to start their career as a person who would form a gang. First off, for that person to be at that party they have to have been invited. This implies a certain amount of familiarity or intimacy with at least one party goer. Further, as we both agreed, avoiding criminal entanglement with authorities is the best way to be a successful criminal. As to the way the violence is presented, I did not get any bafoon comedy violence vibe. Further, it doesn't strike me as a screw you to society politically correct or not. It strikes me as an excuse to glorify anti-social behavior in the name of providing the blind community with this style of game. Now, first off, I am not opposed to graphic violence as such. However, I think that the underlying story and motivations for this game needed a severe rethink. It doesn't work for me on a hey, this gives me an excuse level, nor on the I have to do this to accomplish this goal level. That said, I'm glad to see developers trying games that are not mere board games nor polite society games. However, this game could have involved the criminal element without being anywhere as graphic nor conflicted in a story sense. Finally, these observations are, my own opinion. I am fairly obviously in the minority here. But, as a reasonably sensitive human being, and a parent, I find the approach to releasing the game in terms of just releasing it without any brakes and the chosen content objectionable. However, I wish VGStorm the greatest of luck with its other titles, and I hope to see other examples of their games using these mechanics but with a more well-thought out character motivator and a less offensive way of tracking character success. I downloaded both Psycho Strike and Paladin of the Sky when I decided to test the former, and I intend to give it a few more plays to see if my initial response was merely a kneejerk reaction. I also intend on fooling with POS and seeing if it lives up to the traffic I've seen on list. However, I suspect that my initial observations as recorded here will probably stand for me. Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the
Re: [Audyssey] psycho strike and responsibility
Dear Aaron, I agree that most games depict violence in far to cavalier a manner. I also give you cudos on both the warning labels, and the use of very gutwrenching and active clues that this is not socially acceptable behavior during game play. However, I do think that this sort of decision needs more justification than everyone else does it. If game developers do not take a stand on such issues, then we end up with a market glutted with games that peddle violence for the sake of unit sales. Now, that said, as I pointed out in both the original post that you are responding to, and in the second post, I'm not necessarily opposed to violence, but I think the opening sequence and motivation for the character are what I find dangerous as concepts for gaming. I hope to see these same game mechanics ideas and use of realism and graphic violence used in a more constructive way in future. I am merely stating an unease with this release, its method of delivery, and its content. You are free as a developer to give the public what it wants, and if this is what the public wants, they are free to buy it. I can buy or not buy, and as I said, vote with my dollars. No offense was meant, nor criticism of anything but the game's kick-off premise. I think the rest could maybe have been worked without this initial sequence and it would not have bothered me one bit. Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] playing Aardwulf
I played Aardwulf a couple of times over the period of a year or so. I liked its newbie area a lot. It was very developed and gave a lot of information to the player in a manageable format. It has races which makes some people happy. The quests were fun, and as some have said, they're not all assassination style quests. Besides that, there's lot of features such as pets, gambling, and other activities that give you something to do other than just constantly grind for exp. The player base seemed nice for the most part, and the helpers on their newbie channel were very nice and patient. That said, there were some things I didn't like about it. You have to stick with a single class for a ridiculously high number of levels, like 100 or 200 iirc. The races don't have any real well-defined relationships to each other, though that info might be on the wiki. Also too, some of the racial powers seemed out of balance. The shadowy guys for instance at low levels were so much better than some others that it made it sort of weird. Also it's a very spread out map. To find things to do you might be traveling for 100 rooms or more. If those things don't turn you off, it's well worth a play. If those things do turn you off, I still think it's well worth a play. Other than Alteraeon it was the most accessible mud, and the most friendly, I have played. It also had a very large and vibrant player base when I was there. Take care, Jeremy On 3/21/15, gamers-requ...@audyssey.org gamers-requ...@audyssey.org wrote: Send Gamers mailing list submissions to gamers@audyssey.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to gamers-requ...@audyssey.org You can reach the person managing the list at gamers-ow...@audyssey.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than Re: Contents of Gamers digest... Today's Topics: 1. Re: playing aardwolf? (dark) 2. Re: playing aardwolf? (dark) 3. Re: playing aardwolf? (Sarah Haake) -- Message: 1 Date: Sat, 21 Mar 2015 13:59:01 - From: dark d...@xgam.org To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Subject: Re: [Audyssey] playing aardwolf? Message-ID: CBDD57AB97A24505B0C690E309E1E093@userec7a90e6b3 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=iso-8859-1; reply-type=original I've played empire briefly, you can build buildings, roads, harvest plants and such. My problem however is that it was nearly impossible to find any space to setup my empire away from other players and I didn't want to join someone else's sinse I wanted the fun of building from scratch, but wherever I wandered on the map I couldn't find a place that wasn't already claimed. I also suspect rather like wayfar1444, once you have done the build phase the game becomes less fun, where as Clok is all about being out in the wilderness. I'll certainly be back on Clok myself in the future, however I'd had a bad case of the flue for the past few days so haven't really felt like playing anything at all. All the best, Dark. - Original Message - From: Ian McNamara ianmcnamar...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Friday, March 20, 2015 4:32 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] playing aardwolf? Not played that empire mud before. Going to have a good go at progressing in clock over the weekend. Ian McNamara --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. -- Message: 2 Date: Sat, 21 Mar 2015 14:02:26 - From: dark d...@xgam.org To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Subject: Re: [Audyssey] playing aardwolf? Message-ID: 87169DDB52E8497B847DAEE7F2D55665@userec7a90e6b3 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=iso-8859-1; reply-type=original When checking the ardwolf wiki there seemed to be some good information on screen reader access, including maps of some difficult to navigate areas and abilities for doing quests, though the game struck me very much as a combat pounder what with most quests being of the find and kill x number of mobs variety, not that that is a problem. I can't say more about the Ardwolf mud though sinse it's been on my list of things to try but I haven't done so yet. All the best, Dark. - Original Message - From: Keith S
Re: [Audyssey] tabletop rpg (minis)
As to minis, that was something we edged into using. Two of my players liked having them, the rest of us didn't care that much. DD 3.5 tries to heavily encourage use of minis in the literature, but it's not necessary at all. As you noted with Mutants Masterminds, it's not really necessary, and it's not really necessary with DD 3.5 if everyone has a good idea of ranges etc. We started using the board and the minis for a couple of reasons. First, my one player made it for me so I could use minis without causing chaos. Sort of rude to discard his work:) Second, there are times when having a clearer understanding of the battle, or the terrain, is necessary. We don't break out the board for every single combat. Generally, we reserved it for large scale combats or tricky situations. We have used Excel as a recording venue to show where characters were on a battle map so we could save a complex battle until the next week. However, generally excel maps are used more as maps of locations the characters are entering and exploring. I have a GM version that I mark secret doors, traps, etc on and a player version. It cuts out a lot of did you say this was T intersection going east/west/south discussions. It causes some metagaming occasionally, but my players are good about trying to keep character knowledge and player knowledge separate. When I was running, and our game currently, generally only runs about 1.5 to 2 hours. Time is of the essence. If my players tell me they are searching and being careful, I have them search when there's something to find. If a big battle on the board is necessary, I try to lay it out ahead of time. The excel map of an area is another convenience. All of these speed up play, and allow us to enjoy the game rather than arguing over minutiae. I personally can take minis or leave them. There's times when they really clarify a battle, but about 80% of the time they're not really necessary. Take care, Jeremy --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
[Audyssey] tabletop rpg
As to table top rpg as a blind player there's a few things. First I've used GMA dice extensively as well as a PKB dice program that Aaron aka valiant8086 wrote and that is available at his home site http://valiant8086.com I believe it's under pkb projects. For character sheets, I, like Dark, prefer MsWord or a text file so I can write in notes, or make changes on the fly. I generally game with a lap top if I am gamemastering; right now I am playing, and because I have been annoyingly anal about insisting on paper character sheets in the past, I'm using a braille character sheet and having someone read physical dice. That said, the computer is more convenient. As to playing in the game, asking for description and clarification is easiest. After a while, the game master learns what needs to be described in more detail. For battles with minis, we've taken to using homeys, really bad stereotypical plastic figures of ghetto stereotypes, as minis. We also use a home made battle board that a friend made me; it has one inch squares and grooves cut into it so we can set up wall pieces he made to fit them. That's very elaborate, and totally unnecessary. We played with just rough calculations and table space for years. I run games, and to do so I have had to use system reference documents, conversions of pdfs I've bought into MsWord, and um files I have acquired. These I have broken down into a directory by subcategories, so that I can find information quickly. So if I need to know an obscure grappling rule for instance, I go to combat/grappling.doc. I have similar directories for monsters, magic items, etc. This took me several years to prepare, but it was well worth it. For maps, if I need my PC's to have a clearer idea of an area, I prepare maps on Microsoft Excel. I have one player who enjoys coloring these. I send them to him pre-game and he fixes them so they are visually attractive. I hope this helps, if you have more questions, feel free to ask me off list at this email address. Take care, Jeremy --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] 64 ounce games opened for business
FYI, some of these games are popular with a geeky set of the blind community as well. I have brailled Dominion and five of its expansions. I have a sixth sitting around waiting for me and as someone put it, my sighted minions, to work on. I just used a braille writer and didthe work myself, but the accessibility kit is a good idea for people who would rather go that route. There's a lot of text on the cards and it is cumbersome to abbreviate some of them. A few I actually just put the name of the card, the cost, and ask more info at the bottom. Does anyone know if they have plans to produce a full polyhedral set of dice? When I looked all I found was the d20, which granted is the most useful if you're playing d20 based games. Just curious. I didn't see that info anywhere obvious when I was brousing. Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
[Audyssey] TKS
Ishan, If what I suggested earlier isn't working, it's possible (especially if you're using windows 8) that new Microsoft security patches are interfering with the game. Putting your screen reader to sleep for the tks application. I'll notify Aaron in case he has other suggestions. Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
[Audyssey] Traders of Known Space Version 5 (sorry if this arrives twice)
Valiant Galaxy Associates is happy to announce version 5 of Traders of Known Space. This version incorporates a number of player convenience changes, as well as addressing some minor issues. These include: 1. X and Y axes have been fixed. X is now horizontal and Y is vertical as expected. 2. You can change settings so that the map will read both X and Y coordinates when you move. 3. Numerous additional commands to make exploring the map faster and more effective. 4. Numerous informational changes within menus. 5. Addition of the M hot key for more information about hazards, planets, upgrades, and products. 6. The game will now work without internet connection. More changes are available in the change log, accessible with f4 from the game itself. We hope that you will enjoy this iteration of TKS as much as the original release. -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Traders of known Space version 5
Ishan, Planets can only be opened when your ship is positioned on the planet. You have to use shift plus an arrow key to move the ship. At the beginning of the game, the ship is positioned on the planet Earth, and you can open it by hitting enter. This information is also available in the documentation in both the exploration and movement section and under the list of hot keys. HTH, Jeremy On 7/21/14, gamers-requ...@audyssey.org gamers-requ...@audyssey.org wrote: Send Gamers mailing list submissions to gamers@audyssey.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to gamers-requ...@audyssey.org You can reach the person managing the list at gamers-ow...@audyssey.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than Re: Contents of Gamers digest... Today's Topics: 1. Re: testing (Thomas Ward) 2. An IF interpreter for android other than text fiction? (Milos Przic) 3. Re: The blind swordman, an audiogame with tactics (Charles Rivard) 4. Re: The blind swordman, an audiogame with tactics (Thomas Ward) 5. a new game audio speed. (ishan dhami) 6. Traders of Known Space version 5 (Valiant Galaxy Associates) 7. Re: Traders Of Known Space 5 release notice (ishan dhami) -- Message: 1 Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2014 13:31:19 -0400 From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Subject: Re: [Audyssey] testing Message-ID: caafbg12h_djs+drrdnqrn0qdt8bjgk9bpxq+tzm2mndoveq...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Hi John, Yes, the Audyssey List went down over the weekend. We had some technical issues with the server, and since the list went down there was no way to inform the list members of the issues. However, it does appear things are back in working order as of now. Cheers! On 7/21/14, john jpcarnemo...@gmail.com wrote: Also testing; I received three failure notices from gmail over a 72 hour period, but started getting messages this morning. Figured I may as well check and see if I can post. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. -- Message: 2 Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2014 19:47:04 +0200 From: Milos Przic milos.pr...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Subject: [Audyssey] An IF interpreter for android other than text fiction? Message-ID: F248167EA3774BB4A6C6B4018A367600@MilosPC Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Hi all, I wrote here a few days ago and had same issues as the others... So reposting again my question. Is there an IF interpreter other than Text Fiction that is accessible with Talkback, and that can work with glulx and other if formats? Thanks to all in advance, and best regards! Milos Przic Twitter: MilosPrzic Skype: Milosh-hs --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com -- Message: 3 Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2014 13:21:54 -0500 From: Charles Rivard wee1s...@fidnet.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Subject: Re: [Audyssey] The blind swordman, an audiogame with tactics Message-ID: E2309E27A8574CDD9EAE2D81424C58FF@D4FY50L1 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=iso-8859-1; reply-type=original What is meant by anime? This sounds like an interesting game to try. Is it for Windows, Mac, Android, iDevice? Thanks. --- Be positive! When it comes to being defeated, if you think you're finished, you! really! are! finished! - Original Message - From: dark d...@xgam.org To: Gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, July 21, 2014 10:36 AM Subject: [Audyssey] The blind swordman, an audiogame with tactics Now that the list is back I'm going through my sent items and posting any messages that did rubber ball impressions but might be of interest to people, so here you go: Hi. This is to anyone who hasn't seen this one over at audiogames.net It's an action game where you play a warrior who has become blind and is seaking a warlock to help him get his site back. You have a sword and shield, but the game is very much anime enspired with armies of attacking warriors, dagger wielding psychotic women, and archers who's
Re: [Audyssey] info about Interceptor from Valiant Galaxy Associates
Interceptor is a menu-driven space fighter simulator. It consists of ten levels, and you must deal with various types of ships. There's two versions, a quick mode in which damage to your fighter does not have any additional effect in most cases. In normal mode, if systems are damaged they impair the ship in several ways. A good example of this is the navigational computer; if damaged, it puts you closer to death (nav comp is one of the critical systems) and it makes accuracy in distance traveled dicey. There is a small variability built into the distance traveled which damage to the nav computer increases. Currently, we are waiting on distribution architecture to be ready before we release Interceptor. There are also a few legal and business issues to work out before we release the game commercially. If you have more questions, I'll be happy to give you more details within reason. Take care, Jeremy --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] TKS release and Interceptor
Dark, As to TKS this is the original post that I sent to the list the same night I posted on Audiogames.net. It's finally escaped durance vile (Thanks Thomas). As to Interceptor, there are currently two types of drone ships, 3 types of manned fighters, a tanker ship, a command and control ship, and a mother ship in the game. They are not all as unique as purists might like. This was our first game, and is more generic than TKS is. While the documentation makes references to the game universe, the actual game does not have as much of that built in. The game universe concept came along late in the development of Interceptor. If there is a favorable reception to Interceptor, however, I have a number of ideas proposed by the beta test team, Aaron, myself, and from you and the Audiogames.net forum that commented on the original announcement. If we did get enough interest, these changes, and other ideas we've had would lead to a more interesting game. Already, with the work we did on TKS, I could see a possible use of tactical map mode with an Interceptor Redux. I'm excited about it. I replayed the game for the first time in a month or so (most of my attention has been focused on getting TKS bugs worked out) and failed to get past level 7:( So it is a challenge even for someone who has a good idea of the mechanics of the game. If there is more curiosity, I can lecture at even greater length at a future time:) Take care, Jeremy --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] chess and the blind
Keith, There's two forms of notation. Algebraic notation is easier to fathom. In algebraic the files are lettered a through h from White's queen's rook right to white's King's rook. The ranks are then numbered from 1 to 8 counting from white's first rank. So a move of pawn e2-e4 is king's pawn from 2 to 4. As to playing, there are, or were several board game producers for the blind producing peg style chessboards for the blind that used alternating raised and depressed squares to represent the color, and that had pins or bumps on the black pieces to distinguish them from the white. I have such a board and it works well as you can look at board position without messing up the pieces. I hope this helps, Jeremy --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] alter aeon underground chess tournament
The underground chess tournament is a really old area on Alter Aeon. The moves are set up using very old door opening code to make things happen. It's a relic from a more primitive age of building. If the audiogames.net walk through no longer exists for some reason, anyone who is interested can contact me off list and I can provide a walk through, assuming mine's still accurate. I know some changes were recently made to that area to help deal with some of the whacky syntax etc, but revamping the area would be tricky. When I completed the deed myself, I was actually talking to the original builder Islaine. She had me play through all the chess problems on a board. Took me about 3 and a half hours one morning. However, it was something of a rush. Jeremy --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
[Audyssey] Traders of Known Space
Thanks Dark for cross posting. My apologies to the list for a double. Thomas has our company site on moderated status still, so another message will be coming soon. I was afraid that TKS might get compared to Smugglers as well. I only became aware of the existence of Smugglers about two weeks into our design process for TKS. I've never played it, but it sounds intensely interesting. Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
[Audyssey] free windows client for mud Cyberassault
Steven, Monkey term supports cyber assault, and one of the game's admins was working on a sound pack for it. You can download the client and I believe the sound pack at http://valiant8086.com it's under games, under muds iirc. Good luck. Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] a personal challenge and request
Thomas, As to the reasons you gave for not wanting to take on another task at the current time, fully understood. I don't expect anyone to drop current projects or hop to my command (nice though that might be, it's horribly unrealistic). However, I haven't seen much discussion of such conversions in other places, and thought to myself, if no one knows there is a need, there's no reason to pursue it. As to getting you a copy of the manual and cards, I'll do my best. It's possible there is a copy of the manual online, I know I have found such before. I'll look. As to the cards, the main country cards are the first and foremost key, mission cards are a variation, not part of the original classic game. That said, I have copies of those andthey're brailled. I'll just have to dig them out of the closet they're in. As to spin-offs of the game, I'd be fully supportive of these. I think once a classic engine was put into place, it would be relatively easy to mod it to accept a number of other board configurations and/or pieces. Lastly, I don't necessarily feel that Risk is the key factor here. I'd be ok with a game called Conquer the Kingdom that has 42 territories that hook up in odd ways and that allow you to play the same mechanics in a different environment. My main point was that, when game conversions are tried,they are generally different games. Several people have pointed out to me some of the difficulties involved with Risk or similar games, primarily with making computer opponents interesting enough to present an average challenge. I accept that limitation, but if we can get something basic in the mix, then improvement can come afterward. So, please, anyone who did so, do not take the presentation as a demand: it was a notification of a desire. I'll have a hunt for the manual, and the cards I can list from memory. I'll have to double check the appropriate picture on each, but other than that I can provide it. I could also provide a designer with how the countries border etc. Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
[Audyssey] brief description of Risk
Since a number of people haven't encountered Risk or a clone of it, I thought I'd describe it briefly. Also, I'd like to thank everyone who's sent me suggestions both on and off the list. It's much appreciated. Risk is a game for 2-6 players played on a board with 42 countries. These countries are grouped into continents. (The world map is that of our Earth circa 1815, as the original game was supposed to model roughly Napoleonic era warfare). Each country is bordered by certain others, and countries across water from each other are joined by bridges over which pieces can move. All the pieces in the game are generic. There is an army which is a one hit figure. To attack a player moves 1 or more armies to an adjacent territory. One army must always be left in a territory as a marker of possession and as a garrison force. If a territory is conquered, then the player collects a card. The cards mirror the 42 countries, as well as two wild cards. Each card picutres a infantryman, a cavalry man, or a cannon. If you can make three of a kind of any of these, or one of each, then you can trade in the cards for extra armies at the beginning of your turn. At the beginning of the game you are given a certain number of armies based on the number of players playing, and countries are assigned randomly by deal of the cards. You place all your armies before play. At the beginning of your turn you gain armies from three sources: you gain 1 army for every three territories you possess with a minimum of 3 armies no matter what. If you control an entire continent you gain extra armies. larger or more difficult to defend continents give more armies. If you can trade in a three of a kind of cards you can gain extra armies. Combat is very simple. There are five dice with the game, 3 red, and 2 white. The defender has the white dice but may only roll 2 dice as long as he or she has more than 1 army in their territory to defend. The attacker can roll up to three dice, but the attacker can only roll dice equal to or less than his attacking force. I.e. if an attacker uses 5 armies he can roll 3 dice, but once that army drops to 2 armies, he can no longer roll 3 and must use 2 or 1 dice. The defender wins all ties. Otherwise who ever rolls highest wins. The top die of each player is compared then the next highest. If the defender rolls a 6 and 4 and the attacker rolls a 5 and a 4, each player loses one army. Battle is a matter of attrition where you wait for one side to either lose all their armies, or end the attack. There are more small rules about moving and consolidating a position, however, this gets across a basic idea of the game. If anyone has questions they may ask either on or off list. My main interest in it is that I have played this game for a long time, and at one point was involved in a large group of players that met once a week to play. It is a very simple game that can be extremely complex. Thanks and sorry for extra spam for those who have no interest in the game. Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
[Audyssey] brief description of risk
Milos, Risk is actually adaptable to play by someone with a visual impairment. Your sighted friends have to be willing to help you with moves and the like, but once you understand how the countries hook together, you don't need sight to play it. I began playing Risk when I was all but totally blind, and I have continued enjoying it for the last 30 odd years since. The cards can be brailled with an abbreviated country name and a letter code to denote what is on them. One friend of mine even used my brailled cards and puff paints to create a tactile board. Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
[Audyssey] online skip-bo
I don't remember seeing one, but you might search for Spite and Malice. It's the same game but played with regular playing cards. Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
[Audyssey] keyboard inputs, walking speeds, and oh my
Thomas, I don't see any reason why a keyboard input couldn't replicate this. Have different keys for different movement speeds. If you incorporated some form of fatigue to make different movement rates more advantageous in certain situations, it should be at least a comparable problematic even if it does not play exactly the same. Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] analog movement and keyboard movements
Dark, Nod, I know it doesn't work quite the same way the way I outlined. However, the programmer can introduce uncertainties into the movement to somewhat replicate this portion. For instance, in our current first project Interceptor, although you can select or input a distance you wish to travel the program introduces a limited randomness into your move to represent the fact that both you and your enemy's fighter are moving, taking evasive actions, etc. Thus if I choose to move 10,000 meters I might move exactly 10,000 meters, or 8100 meters, or 13,300 meters. As the distance you travel increases, this error increases. If your navigational computer in your fighter gets damaged, this error increases. So I'm aware that while it is not a perfect solution to the problem, I think a three speed select buttons on a keyboard walking game could be done this way with analogous results. By introducing a fatigue mechanic to go with the speeds as well as uncertainty, that would increase the difficulty. It's just something I've never seen in an audiogame myself. Thanks for the correction. It's been years since I played any analog games, and honestly, I couldn't see any of them clearly enough after I was about 7 or 8 to really make out graphics. The ones I played I just played at random for the most part. However, this conversation is interesting because it shows limitations that people regard as insurmountable. Some of them seem very daunting, I'm not so sure about others. Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
[Audyssey] a personal request/challenge
Dear all developers reading the list: I do not wish to cast stones. Developing games for blind players is difficult, time-consuming, and takes a great deal of thankless effort. Few it any developers reap much other than the satisfaction of knowing that their games are played and enjoyed by a grateful community. That said, I would like to throw an idea out there and see if anyone would like to bite. We have a number of Monopolies. There is at least one Scrabble. We have Backgammon, chess, card games, Snakes and Ladders, Life, etc. However, we do not have anything like Risk or other forms of strategy board game. I realize that the AI for such a game would be a very difficult proposition, but, I know, I personally, would be willing to shell out fairly substantial cash for a decent turn-based strategy game even with simple mechanics like Risk. If anyone is willing to pursue such a thing, or else, wants to jump on the request wagon with me, please do so:) Thank you all for the work you do to make games for our community, and I hope that no one takes this as a you guys rock but why don't you get off your lazy posterior and do my favorite game. It isn't meant that way. It's merely an observation. The most common games done are exploration/puzzle/card games. The ones that go outside this area are often more arcade style or reproductions of PC games. If I missed an accessible strategy game that is turn-based etc, please throw it at me off list and I'll be happy to retract what I have said and grovel for a day:) Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
[Audyssey] (no subject)
Dark wrote: Again both fatigue in movement and uncertainty in amount moved are mechanics that would work extremely well in some games, indeed I can see how in interceptor that will make for an interesting battle element, but not really for action games to replicate mainstream mechanics, because the point of the analogue movement in a game like Mario is that the player Could! move as he/she wants if his/her grasp of the mechanics was up to the task. (end of quote) I agree with you here. Uncertainty mechanics of this sort, as well as analog movement uncertainties, take some time to analyze and evaluate. I think that doing it the way I suggested, while not the same, might provide a possibility, but I see your point viz a viz versus the style of an analog controller. Dark wrote: Actually the reason I mention this movement mechanic in so much detail is that there is absolutely no earthly reason why it could not be replicated in audio. Even if you couldn't show as much detail with respect to ledge configurations and vertical movements, there is no reason why the horizontal movement of the characterand indeed what jumps you do need to make could not have this analogue quality. A game like Q9 or superliam would be much harder and much more addictive, sinse you could not just instantly stop and line yourself up with an oncoming enemy, or jump precisely over one pit, indeed many simple atari 2600 or Nes games like pit fall had such rock hard difficulty precisely for this reason, sinse the player needed to master and become experienced in the use of the game mechanics much as you'd need to learn to play a musical instrument or a sport before they could be any good at the game. (end of quote) Agreed. I think we're touching on the same issue here. I wonder if the problem with this isn't more a problem of underestimating the capabilities of audio to demonstrate this kind of movement, and the ability of audio gamers to make these kinds of analyses and act accordingly. No offense to our developers. Most of the games I have played have been very well constructed, but movement, targeting, and other aspects have been very smooth and easy to predict for the most part. At least, in my experience and as I have noted elsewhere, that is probably much more limited than some members of the list. Dark wrote: Thinking about this I do wonder if part of the issue is the audio representation itself. After all in a graphical game it is necessary to have an actual, measurable distance between the player and a given object and thus need to calculate how long it takes the player to get there and what scrolling the screen needs to do, where as in audio sinse most audio games always show things from the player's perspective exclusively the way the game shows the distance to the player and the actual speed of distance traveled are the same thing. (end of quote) I wonder about that. I remember in the demo of the Tarzan Junior game that the pits were telegraphed a little before them. If that telegraph was not always a uniform distance ahead, and if there were a way to also telegraph the width of the pits and vary both games with pits to jump would become much more interesting. I haven't played Q9 but I'd be interested in how it handles some of these issues as it seems like Shades of Doom to be a touch stone for some of the design decisions in play here. Dark Wrote (in reference to how Jim Kitchens' monopoly game works with squares) That difference in information is the type of difference in the view between audio and graphical games, indeed Packman vs packman talks is very much this way. Now if you imagine instead of having predefined squares you just have a smooth board to slide your peace around, where as in the audio game you press the arrows and get a movement sound. Well on the physical board the speed of your hand moving the peace relative to the overview will give you a clear impression of the movement speed involved and at any give time you know say how far the distance between your peace and the corner of the board is, where as in the audio game, sinse you don't get a complete view of the hole board you can't relate your speed to object movement. (end of quote) True. However, I think it's possible to give some of this information. reverb, sound shadow, wind noises as in Entombed, and the like can give directional and distance information. Couple with other audio cues it might be possible to give a player an idea of distance traversed and speed. However, I think I should probably retire from the field. I am not a technical person. My position is merely as an eager player and creative designer. Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to
Re: [Audyssey] Tempest a thought experiment
Kara, This is a tricky one, but I'm not convinced it's completely impossible. Having the ship move around the edge of the screen with the arrows would simulate (roughly) your circular movement around the tube. While pitch and volume are the usual targeting indicators in the audiogames I've played, one key element that might be usable to represent depth in a tube or heighth in a game besides these might be amount of reverb. The further down the tube, the larger the reverb. This might create too much audio interference; without playing with a mixing program, a game designed with the sound effects, and layering it all together to see playability, I'm not positive. However, it's an idea. Thomas' suggestion of having a speech output for the enemies farther off is one suggestion, but I could submit another. Have a long view and a short view. In long view you only see the far end of the tube with appropriate reverb effects. With short view you see only the nearer ships and the tactical situation. One way to eliminate some of the issues that people have discussed would be to eliminate background noise. For instance, though walking noises are cute, they aren't necessary. I know I'm moving, what I need to know is where is the exits, am I bumping into a wall. In ship games, the urge is to have a constant hum in the background. It's atmospheric, but it's not always necessary. Mainstream games often have a lot of background noise in the form of music, ship engine hum, or the like. However, if you are creating an audio environement those are of course things that have to either be muted way down or eliminated entirely. Most games I've seen do this to a greater or lesser extent. The ones that I find most enjoyable eliminate most of the clutter. That said, I'm not every blind person, and this is a matter of taste. I'm sure there's people who would disagree with that assessment. I have to admit that I'm not as broad a player of audio games as many on the list, so it's possible I'm missing an obvious issue with any of these suggestions. Thanks for the experiment. Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] entertainment versus social event
Dark, I guess that pale imitation comment did come off as overly critical. I have to admit though, that for me, the patterns to Entombed levels grew monotonous after a while. I would have liked some challenges such as traps or pits or role playing encounters besides the inevitable varying of monsters. (Note: I think the farthest I've made it in the game is maybe level 12. I remember tons of giant spiders that were horrible to fight). All that said, the game did a lot of things successfully as you summarized quite nicely. I use Entombed as a benchmark of a bare minimum I would want from an audio exploration game. I will address the mud question privately or not at all. With most muds it's a frustrating mess, and with the better ones that help to provide blind support such as Alter_aeon, there are limitations (in content type) if nothing else. As to the social aspect, again, I was not connected to the list for Entombed or any of the forums when they were active. I came to it through a tight group of mudders on Alter_aeon. Amongst us there was quite a bit of commentary, swapping of ideas, and competition. My experience is not universal experience of course. Finally, your comments about the resource management and tactical choices of the game though are telling ones. I agree with you that the more of such options a player is given the more interesting the game is, assuming that such things are limited to a subset of choices within a group. I.e. To use your necromancer example from Entombed, you could aim for head shots and knock them down that way, or just deal so much raw damage that you took them out quickly. With fighters, your point about sleep, charm, etc is also apropos. However, Entombed did one thing very nicely. There are multiple solutions to all of these issues that involved multiple race/class combos. Fairy mages cannot fight, but with shrink and fire bolt they become dangerous opponents in a mixed group. By the same token, though ogres are limited in their magic powers, their raw fighting ability levels the playing field to a certain extent. If you have no characters who charm, perhaps you have a char that can headbutt. Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] game menus
I agree that game menus several levels deep are very annoying and do slow down play. Sometimes too, hot keys are not as obvious as I would like. Your suggestion for eliminating some of this problem is a good one, and I think worth considering. Another would be to assign keyboard commands to common actions. Then you'd only have to use a menu for very specific situations. However, the one issue with assigning too many hot keys is that then you end up with the player going do I have to type control F or alt F to fire? Take care, and thanks for the input, no matter how delayed:) Jeremy --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] holes in shields
Thomas, Not a perfect solution, but perhaps this is a place where that reverb idea would come in handy. Flat nonreflective sound for a whole shield, lot of echo for a hole. It's somewhat similar to what I experience walking along. If a wall or fence or other obstacle is to one side, that area feels blocked or cut off and sounds differently than an open space. It's not a perfect fit, and might get lost in multiple attack noises, but it's a possibility. One other thing that occurred to me would be instead of lining up pitch, line up rhythm. If the alien noise had a certain rhythm and when you lined up your cannon your ship noise matched this rhythm then you would be set to target. Sort of the sonic equivalent of lining up two images of an object to overlap. This is similar in concept to pitch, but would use a slightly different mechanic. This could be used to represent height as well. A more rapid rhythm in the sound might = lower for instance. Just a couple of thoughts, it's late, so it's probable that I'm babbling. Jeremy --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] social event versus mechanics
Hi Dark again, You said: My point on social events was simply that there were more factors involved especially with the popularity of games like monopoly. It is quite possible for a game series like mega man, which never even featured a score system to become extremely popular on mechanics alone, despite having no two player option or even the ability to compete, an audiogames example might be entombed. Indeed as an inveterate solo player myself who loves to explore game worlds, I tend to think that while social factors might explain appeal for some games, they don't for others. (end of quote) There is a different dynamic to human play versus solo play in a multi-player environment, or solo play on a game designed solely for solo play. However, competition still exists. One aspect of Entombed, as least initially, was seeing how your score stacked up against people on the leader board. That feature seems to be disabled now, but I know what you're saying. My point is just that I believe that games become social events due to good game design. Also too, I think one part of that design is a median point between simplistic play and complex strategy. For me Scrabble of Monopoly probably hit the sweet spot in those regards. Both as very mechanically simple: roll dice, move, pay a penalty, gain a benefit, or buy property to inflict benefits or penalties on others; or alternatively, take seven tiles, play them on a board to get the most points and block your opponents from getting more points. While both are play-wise simple, they are complex strategy wise and involve a lot more for a good player than the simple play would suggest. To use your example of solo game, Entombed is similar. On the face of it it is merely an a kick down the door, kill the monster, take the loot game. However, there are strategic choices to make from the very beginning of the game. Do you play a more burly character race that will have more hp and inflict more damage but be more limited in class choices, or do you take a more flexible race that might be faster between attacks? Do you keep your decent branch or do you go unarmed, sacrificing perhaps accuracy for multiple attacks? Do you explore every inch of every floor looking for random equipment or prisoners to join to your party, or do you just try to forge ahead? Do you choose, for one last example, to go through the goblin stronghold in hopes of getting the goblin king's equipment, or do you opt for the mine works and the elemental guardian? Further, with Entombed, you also have the option of taking subpar combinations of races, classes, etc, and trying to make them work. All of these give a certain flexibility to what in essence, though it is well designed, is a pale imitation of muds or of table top roleplaying games. I think that there were a lot of good design decisions made there. Ok, I'm done for now:) Again, always a pleasure debating with you. Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] aesthetics and good game design
Hi Dark, Responding below: Dark said: interesting thoughts, however one fact which distinguishes those games from a lot of computer games is that they are exclusviely uniquely social events. (end of quote) Agreed, however, the question was about the nature of good game design versus mere popularity and crowd appeal. I submit that while these games are social events, they are social events precisely because they incorporate good design. Many early computer games, such as Pong, Space Invaders, etc also had a social aspect. You could go play them solo, but it was more fun to have four friends hanging over the console screaming encouragement or cursing your fate if you were beating their high score. Many online games, while they do not provide the active one-on-one experience of a chess game or monopoly game in the real world do provide a certain level of social interaction. I think you're sort of undermining your initial point here with your counterargument. Dark said: Until the invention of computers that could act as human opponents, all of those games required people to get together. (end of quote) Well, not strictly true. One can play chess problems which is essentially solo chess from a set position. One can also play Scrabble against oneself by logging as high a score as possible then competing with yourself. However, point granted. Dark said: There is a very big difference between a game played face to face with your friends and a game played at odds, even across the internet. This is one reason why, though I love games like muds or browser rpgs or games like entombed that give me a huge world to explore and a character to play, I have no interest in rp on the internet. To mye, roleplaying via text chat, mud character actions etc, particularly when there is no human gm to interact with your characters, insert npcs and give you an over all plot is just a poor second best. (end of quote) Agreed, if you're searching for a replacement for the human experience usually found with friends, in a social setting. If you are looking for a semi-rp experience that can approach such things, they are worthwhile. Just as playing chess against a computer player is not as satisfying. Again though, point granted. As a habitual tabletop GM I enjoy muds and online rpg just to be on the player end of things, but you are right it's not the same. As to the rest of your points about social event versus computer game, and why one type of mechanic succeeds over another, I think you have made the point yourself, and where you failed to make it, Kara made it for you: 1. The game demonstrates good game design or: 2. 2. The game is popular because a number of people push it either socially, through marketing, or by buying it over other titles with more interesting mechanics. I think Supermario succeeded over some other titles because of two facts: it was extremely whimsical so you didn't have to care about the characters, but if you wanted to, there was a story (no matter how inane). Second, the game mechanics were very simple, and it was friendly to a wide range of players from kindergarteners to those of an advanced age who showed an interest. It demonstrated, essentially, several of your points about good design: 1. Characters and a storyline. 2. 2. A world to explore. 3. 3. Unique challenges. 4. 4. Simple mechanics. 5. 5. Presented a challenge. I submit that the reason why it became so popular was that while it initially generated good sales, Nintendo continued to push it by including variations, new versions, sequels, and the like as free games with later releases of their consoles. It was ubitquitous because it was marketed as a first game. Add merchandising in the form of cartoons etc, and it is easy to see how it gained traction. Why other titles flopped is harder to explain, and I think perhaps if we take your criteria and applied them we might find issues. It's only a guess. My points about Monopoly and company is just that I think they are popular for a variety of reasons both merchandising/push and in terms of good game design despite their flaws. Finally, Chess of course is a special case, as is Snakes and Ladders, since both evolved from Medieval games, but Monopoly, Scrabble, and to a lesser extent Sorry, all appeared in eras where board game competition was less sophisticated in some ways. While there were multiple versions of Monopoly style games in play in the early 30s, the guy who designed Monopoly (Charles something starting with a D but the name is eluding me at the moment I wanna say Darrow but that looks wrong) arrived with a good design at the right time and sold it to the right company. Parker Brothers pushed it hard and regularly, and it has gained traction. The Game of Life is an example of a game with a rediculous premise that is popular, but I don't understand why except by applying the common characteristics I outlined in the last
Re: [Audyssey] aesthetics and good game design
I wanted to respond to Kara's points about popularity. While Dark addressed the capitalism's pushing of one system over another equally good system, I think there's another aspect to consider. Kara wrote: I think most of us would agree that regardless of what we ourselves, like, that how 'good' a game is depends on how many people play it and how long it remains popular. These tend to be good indicators of games. (End of quote) Take four examples: Monopoly Scrabble Chess Sorry All four are fairly commonly found games in the U.S. Setting aside the capitalism push and the fact that all four often appear in representations of family gatherings in popular culture, all four have a few things in common: 1. All take roughly 30 minutes to 2 hours or so to play. (please, don't send me your stories of the epic 3 day monopoly games or I'll be forced to send you mine) 2. All involve a mental effort to overcome through strategy, guile, or sheer pluck an opponent or opponents. 3. All have rules that are for the most part complex (I'll come back to Sorry which doesn't follow this pattern). 4. All four have a decent history. Scrabble I think is the newest of the four. (circa 1950s I believe. Sorry itself came out later, but games with the same general principle have been around for hundreds of years) 5. Each of them are games that have very clearly defined victory conditions. Sorry is the simplest, and was designed for kids. The idea is to get all your pegs around a board and back home without getting bumped back to the beginning. I personally hate this game, but it is a lot of fun when played with the right people or right quanities of alcohol. Chess is by far the oldest game in this list. It involves a complex group of rules and takes years and a certain amount of inate ability to be good at. You can improve at it by losing hundreds of games (I'm living proof of that) but it takes perseverance and a lot of losses. I think Chess probably represents the best case of Kara's game with history because it is popular argument. Scrabble involves a lot of different issues: board control, anagrammatic thinking, and optimal use of hooking your words to others. While spelling the word thyme is cool looking, it is likely to score far less points than the word red spelled in the right place above other words to form 3 words. Monopoly is simple enough to play adequately in about 20 minutes. However, the strategy of the game takes years to master, and there's been books written on it, as well as Scrabble and Chess. If there's a Sorry strategy book out there, my apologies to the author. One place where all these games suffer is in length of time played: usually played in social gatherings, they tend to stretch out inordinately long. They also have aspects that cause a lot of acrimony: i.e. the Monopoly players who will not trade, sell, etc or the Scrabble challenges against every word that is not see Dick run. All that said, I think there are commonalities to the games as outlined above. The reasons for their popularity are harder to judge. Very few people name any of those four as their all time favorite game. Most people will wax violently for or against them. However, everyone in the U.S. just about knows how to play one or more of them. Is this a case of the crowd saying yes though these games annoy the crap out of us we like them anyway? Or is it a case of games that have basically sound design gaining traction through careful advertising, marketing, and successful insertion into the popular consciousness? I would submit that while pushing a game thoroughly or with a gimmick can take it a certain distance, to actually become as Iconic as any of those four, it has to have a basically sound basis. Part of that sound basis is in the 5 points I made above. A good game provides challenges, demands forward thinking and innovation, is simple enough to play easily, and can either be put aside and played later or finished quickly. Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
