Re: [Audyssey] why i build the games the way I do

[goshawk on horseback]

nice one, am looking forward to it.

Simon


- Original Message - 
From: "Marty Schultz" 
To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Tuesday, April 26, 2016 5:26 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why i build the games the way I do


Great idea.  I am also adding sailing trip, with ripped sails,broken
rudder, waves, etc.




On 4/26/2016 11:51 AM, Phil Vlasak wrote:
> Marty,
> You could take one of your existing card games and alter the meaning
> of the cards.
>
> You could turn Blindfold Road Trip to
> Pirate treasure hunt.
> You're on a pirate ship sailing from island to island digging up
> treasure.
> Instead of calling them distance cards:
> call them gold pieces
> the object is to collect 1000 gold pieces.
> 25 gold pieces, 12,
> 50 gold pieces, 12,
> 75 gold pieces, 12,
> 100 gold pieces, 14,
> 200 gold pieces, 6.
> Total 56
>
> hazard cards:
> out of wind  2,
> leaking ship  2,
> ripped sale  2,
> storm 3,
> no food  4.
> Total 13
>
> remedy cards:
> wind 6,
> patch hull 6,
> repair sale  6,
> end of storm 6,
> stock up food 14
> total 28
>
>safety cards:
> constant wind 1,
> puncture-proof hull 1,
> non-rippable sales 1,
> no storms 1.
> Plenty of food 1.
> Total 5
>
>
> ---
> 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.
>
>

-- 
*Marty Schultz*
ma...@kidfriendlysoftware.com <mailto:ma...@kidfriendlysoftware.com>

Blindfold Racer - free iPhone/iPad app where you drive with your ears,
not your eyes www.BlindfoldRacer.com <http://www.BlindfoldRacer.com>

Learn about how we built it for blind & visually impaired kids, teens &
adults as a STEM project.
Follow the blog: BlindfoldGames.org <https://blindfoldgames.org>
Follow us: @BlindfoldGames <https://twitter.com/blindfoldgames>

---
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. 


---
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

[goshawk on horseback]

I for one, really like this idea!

Simon


- Original Message - 
From: "Phil Vlasak" 
To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Tuesday, April 26, 2016 4:51 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why i build the games the way I do


Marty,
You could take one of your existing card games and alter the meaning of the
cards.

You could turn Blindfold Road Trip to
Pirate treasure hunt.
You're on a pirate ship sailing from island to island digging up
treasure.
Instead of calling them distance cards:
call them gold pieces
the object is to collect 1000 gold pieces.
25 gold pieces, 12,
50 gold pieces, 12,
75 gold pieces, 12,
100 gold pieces, 14,
200 gold pieces, 6.
Total 56

hazard cards:
out of wind  2,
leaking ship  2,
ripped sale  2,
storm 3,
no food  4.
Total 13

remedy cards:
wind 6,
patch hull 6,
repair sale  6,
end of storm 6,
stock up food 14
total 28

safety cards:
constant wind 1,
puncture-proof hull 1,
non-rippable sales 1,
no storms 1.
Plenty of food 1.
Total 5


---
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. 


---
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

[Marty Schultz]

Great idea.  I am also adding sailing trip, with ripped sails,broken 
rudder, waves, etc.





On 4/26/2016 11:51 AM, Phil Vlasak wrote:

Marty,
You could take one of your existing card games and alter the meaning 
of the cards.


You could turn Blindfold Road Trip to
Pirate treasure hunt.
You're on a pirate ship sailing from island to island digging up
treasure.
Instead of calling them distance cards:
call them gold pieces
the object is to collect 1000 gold pieces.
25 gold pieces, 12,
50 gold pieces, 12,
75 gold pieces, 12,
100 gold pieces, 14,
200 gold pieces, 6.
Total 56

hazard cards:
out of wind  2,
leaking ship  2,
ripped sale  2,
storm 3,
no food  4.
Total 13

remedy cards:
wind 6,
patch hull 6,
repair sale  6,
end of storm 6,
stock up food 14
total 28

   safety cards:
constant wind 1,
puncture-proof hull 1,
non-rippable sales 1,
no storms 1.
Plenty of food 1.
Total 5


---
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.




--
*Marty Schultz*
ma...@kidfriendlysoftware.com 

Blindfold Racer - free iPhone/iPad app where you drive with your ears, 
not your eyes www.BlindfoldRacer.com 


Learn about how we built it for blind & visually impaired kids, teens & 
adults as a STEM project.

Follow the blog: BlindfoldGames.org 
Follow us: @BlindfoldGames 

---
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

[Phil Vlasak]

Marty,
You could take one of your existing card games and alter the meaning of the 
cards.


You could turn Blindfold Road Trip to
Pirate treasure hunt.
You're on a pirate ship sailing from island to island digging up
treasure.
Instead of calling them distance cards:
call them gold pieces
the object is to collect 1000 gold pieces.
25 gold pieces, 12,
50 gold pieces, 12,
75 gold pieces, 12,
100 gold pieces, 14,
200 gold pieces, 6.
Total 56

hazard cards:
out of wind  2,
leaking ship  2,
ripped sale  2,
storm 3,
no food  4.
Total 13

remedy cards:
wind 6,
patch hull 6,
repair sale  6,
end of storm 6,
stock up food 14
total 28

   safety cards:
constant wind 1,
puncture-proof hull 1,
non-rippable sales 1,
no storms 1.
Plenty of food 1.
Total 5


---
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

[dark]

Hi Ken.

Magic the gathering is a ccg, not an rpg. That is, it's a collectable card 
game, albeit one with a fantasy theme (other ccgs exist for everyting from 
pokemon, to wwwe wrestling, to harry potter).


Ccgs work as effectively two or more player battle games. players collect 
cards (usually in unnumbered packagess at random), make a deck comprising a 
specific numbers of cards they've made, and do battle against each other 
attempting to win in statistical, and usually rather complex strategical 
combat, btw, my brother was in the world championships for several ccgs, 
hence where I got to know this sort of thing.


This is not however an rpg, sinse the object isn't to progress a character 
through a story or explore a world engaging in statistical combat or making 
choices as part of that ongong exploration, but for two players to first 
build decks out of these thousands of cards and then play a statistical 
combat game against each other simply to see who wins, sort of like an ultra 
complex version of bridge, indeed "deck building" ie, choosing which of the 
thousands of available ccg cards to have in a player's deck in matches is 
it's own skill, quite aside from actually playing the deck against your 
opponent.


Making a ccg, much less making one from scratch electronically would be 
quite the task. Definitely not impossible, but a rather different project 
from a streight up rpg game, so magic the gathering probably isn't a good 
inspiration to look into, though confusingly enough there are some card 
based rpgs which function in a different way with the cards actually telling 
a story and providing randomized factors, and the player or players all 
playing from the same initial deck rather than collecting and building their 
own decks.


Munchkin is one I've heard of that works this way, as does the more recent 
heroes of the multiverse (a game several of my friends play).


hth.

all the best,

Dark. 



---
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 as I do

[Ken Downey]

In other words people, email Marty and tell him what you want, but make sure 
you put it all in one email so he can get a good database of what it is 
we're looking for.
- Original Message - 
From: 

To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2016 9:50 AM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Why I build the games as I do


I didn't say they didn't like it; I just said that from the email I've 
received, I get far fewer requests for RPGs than other games (about 1 in 30 
is a RPG request).  Sports games abound, but when I push back and ask how 
the game would be played, I usually don't get a response.  A classic 
suggestion is a basketball shooting game; I think it sounds pretty boring, 
after playing it for  a few minutes.


Building out an RPG would take months, and I can't see how to do any 
return on that investment.  Assume that the game would sell for $20, of 
which apple keeps $7.  Assume a programmer earns $40/hour.  A game that 
takes a month to build (and I think an RPG would take far more than that) 
would need to generate 6,400 after apple's cut, or about $9100.  At $20 
per game, 500 people would have to purchase it just to break even.  Given 
that 80% of the people never purchase, I would need 2,500 downloads to 
break even.


I am working with the programmer who built park boss, and I will probably 
port that over to the iPhone.  I've built a framework to mix my 
infrastructure with C++ code, so it might not be overly complex.  Since 
park boss is in the direction of an RPG, or at least closer to a SIMS 
environment, I can see how that game goes to try to project how any RPG 
would go.  Do you think this market could handle an RPG game for $40 to 
$50?




- Original Message - Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Why I build 
the games as I do

From: "dark" 
Date: 4/13/16 7:34 am
To: "Gamers Discussion list" 

@Marty, Blind people don't like rpgs? not true.

Go and check audiogames.net and observe the amount of people who reply to
rpg related topics, or indeed post a topic and ask. I suspect the
information you got from that statement was from a local focus group, ie,
society or association for the blind. Unfortunately, such places tend to
have a generally older population who are primarily interested in
traditional type games, however for younger gamers (and indeed those more
likely to own Ios devices), something a little more modern and complex 
would
appeal more, indeed part of the problem with audiogames development is 
that
there is a large amount of traditional games available and not so much 
that

is none traditional, ie, I can think of about 8 versions of blackjack over
the years, but not one single version of a modern fantasy board game like
Talisman, much less a ccg, collectable card game.


I'll also add that rpgs don't need to be as complex as the games produced 
by
companies like namco and squaresoft. dungeons and dragons do very well 
with

basic mechanics, indeed most of what an rpg does mechanically can be
represented by dice rolls and risk assessments, the one difference is that
you have story and atmosphere added to that, as well as player progression
over time.

You might begin therefore by adapting some of the multiplayer fantasy 
themed

card and board games for Ios, games like heroes of the multiverse or
talisman, or creating your own along similar lines if copywrite is an 
issue.

These would be mechanically similar to games like roadtrip, hearts or dice
poker, just with more text involved, eg, a player would encounter a 
monster
with a description of it's stats and be required to roll dice for combat, 
or
a player would encounter a magical object card and decide whether to take 
it

with them or not.

While I do enjoy the games in the collection thus far, I am a little sorry
none are games intended for longer or more complex play. There's nothing
wrong with a game of hearts, blackjack etc or a quick arcade game, however
unfortunately there has already been a lot of that sort of thing produced,
indeed I do wonder if some people are taking the attitude "well there are
several versions of hearts for pc, why should I pay to have one on my
Iphone?"

this isn't meant as an attack, as I said I enjoy the games for what they
are, it just saddens me to see developers now producing exactly the same
sorts of games we were seeing in the community 10 years ago, especially 
with
the greater distribution and easier development inherent on Ios, indeed 
it's
a little ironic that with one exception all of the more complex games 
we've

seen recently for Pc or Ios have been games produced by sighted developers
who have accidently created accessible games, or have included access
requests in games that are %80 accessible such as adventure to fate, where
as games produced with the express intention of writing games for blind
people have intended to be simpl

Re: [Audyssey] why i build the games the way I do

[Ken Downey]

Yes he could have, and I wish for his sake that he would have.
- Original Message - 
From: "dark" 

To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2016 11:07 AM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why i build the games the way I do



Actually Kennith, Swamp wasn't in development that long.

From the initial very simple offline version to the first multiplayer 
server took roughly two months, and in four everything was up and running.
yes, there's been massive expantions with maps and weapons and accounts 
and what not, and yes hacker trouble, but don't mistake that for the 
development time, had aprone been charging for the game earlier he 
could've been earning money on it pretty dam soon.


all the best,

dark.
- Original Message - 
From: "Kenneth Downey" 

To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2016 4:58 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why i build the games the way I do


Yes, but think about how many years Swauk was in development… And it was 
a free game… For a long time anyway, until stupid hackers started messing 
everything up… Can you imagine swab for the iPhone! Anyway, it's back to 
blindfold pinball for me now… I'm addicted!


Sent from my iPad

On Apr 14, 2016, at 6:56 AM, Devin Prater  
wrote:


Why would you need soundscapes and voice acting? A dark room is text, 
and does just fine. Touchmint’s games are mostly text, and do mostly 
fine as well. Nano empire is wonderful, and is text also. I’m saying 
that you don’t need expensive acting and sound do make a good game.

Sent from my Mac.

Devin Prater
r.d.t.pra...@gmail.com



On Apr 13, 2016, at 3:29 PM, Darren Harris 
 wrote:


Hi,

I have 1 thing to say about replayable games,

Swamp. That's a 1 man band doing all that, look at how good a game that 
is?

Now have something like that on the iPhone and that would be awesome.

-Original Message-
From: Gamers [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Jeremy 
Brown

Sent: 13 April 2016 18:36
To: gamers
Subject: 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 profit

Re: [Audyssey] why i build the games the way I do

[Ken Downey]

What about magic the gathering?
- Original Message - 
From: "Marty Schultz" 

To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2016 5:07 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why i build the games the way I do


I would attempt an RPG based around a card game, if someone could point me 
to one.  More often than not, I search for either programming code for an 
existing game, or for extremely detailed instructions, and then rewrite the 
entire thing for the iphone.


---
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.




---
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

[Ken Downey]

It helps for sure!
- Original Message - 
From: "goshawk on horseback" 

To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2016 11:15 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why i build the games the way I do



whilst it may not be absolutely necessary, good soundscapes and voice
acting, does improve a game quite a bit.

Simon


- Original Message - 
From: "Devin Prater" 

To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Thursday, April 14, 2016 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why i build the games the way I do


Why would you need soundscapes and voice acting? A dark room is text, and
does just fine. Touchmint’s games are mostly text, and do mostly fine as
well. Nano empire is wonderful, and is text also. I’m saying that you don’t
need expensive acting and sound do make a good game.
Sent from my Mac.

Devin Prater
r.d.t.pra...@gmail.com




On Apr 13, 2016, at 3:29 PM, Darren Harris
 wrote:

Hi,

I have 1 thing to say about replayable games,

Swamp. That's a 1 man band doing all that, look at how good a game that
is?
Now have something like that on the iPhone and that would be awesome.

-Original Message-
From: Gamers [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Jeremy
Brown
Sent: 13 April 2016 18:36
To: gamers
Subject: 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.


---
Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org
If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to
gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.o

Re: [Audyssey] why i build the games the way I do

[dark]

The problem with most card games is that they're intrinsically multiplayer 
affairs, so games like heroes of the multiverse as far as I know work very 
much by having multiple players.


I don't know if there is anything single player on Ios which works by card 
game mechanics for generation, though it'd be very possible.



The torchlight random adventure system over at http://www.arborell.com/ is 
however probably something like what I was thinking, that uses a pack of 40 
or so cards for the rooms with modifications by rolls on dice tables for 
encountering monsters etc, though because the gm is primarily a gamebook 
author, the system is mostly intended to be printed out and played and is 
thus limited in terms of how many cards and how much on a table is needed to 
generate the dungeon.


it is possible to play the initiatial torchlight game using tables and dice 
and an xl sheet as a map of the dungeon, though the gm of arborell has 
worked on some other smaller games which have changed things a little which 
don't have the access fixes involved, however I could imagine a game created 
using the same sort of mechanics as arborell does, though able to use more 
complex maths being on a computer, eg, percentile roles for gaining skills 
and things rather than basic add point dice ones.


Hth.

All the best,

Dark.
- Original Message - 
From: "Marty Schultz" 

To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2016 11:07 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why i build the games the way I do


I would attempt an RPG based around a card game, if someone could point me 
to one.  More often than not, I search for either programming code for an 
existing game, or for extremely detailed instructions, and then rewrite the 
entire thing for the iphone.


---
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.


-
No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 2015.0.6189 / Virus Database: 4556/12058 - Release Date: 04/18/16




---
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

[dark]

Hi Jeremy.

I agree the wastes took randomness a bit far, and some sort of scaled 
approach might work, but there are examples of games that got it right, 
Angband, despite being a roguelike is one of them.


I do think Fallthru was a good example, because while the challenges were 
the same the ways you completed them differed, ie, where you went and what 
you collected sinse you were unsure what you'd get, and of course Eamon 
rocks.


The problem with If titles as an example of text games, is that generally 
the if community have got so tied up with the idea of puzzles and parza, 
they are stuck for any sort of other challenge, indeed any game with combat 
mechanics gets roundly bashed by if players, not to mention games with 
random descriptions or generation.


Text as a medium has several advantages rpg wise, the first and formost of 
which being that it is! possible to create a lot of randomly generating 
content, for example descripters for weapons or items simply using text 
generation, additionally, while I agree on the difficullties of providing 
full sound and audio, some sounds and background music can be added for 
effect the way games like Smugglers or indeed Kodp do it, thus creating 
something which has both a degree of complexity, and also a good atmosphere.


Entombed is actually a great example of this.

Beware the grue!

Dark. 



---
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

[goshawk on horseback]

whilst it may not be absolutely necessary, good soundscapes and voice 
acting, does improve a game quite a bit.

Simon


- Original Message - 
From: "Devin Prater" 
To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Thursday, April 14, 2016 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why i build the games the way I do


Why would you need soundscapes and voice acting? A dark room is text, and 
does just fine. Touchmint’s games are mostly text, and do mostly fine as 
well. Nano empire is wonderful, and is text also. I’m saying that you don’t 
need expensive acting and sound do make a good game.
Sent from my Mac.

Devin Prater
r.d.t.pra...@gmail.com



> On Apr 13, 2016, at 3:29 PM, Darren Harris 
>  wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I have 1 thing to say about replayable games,
>
> Swamp. That's a 1 man band doing all that, look at how good a game that 
> is?
> Now have something like that on the iPhone and that would be awesome.
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Gamers [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Jeremy 
> Brown
> Sent: 13 April 2016 18:36
> To: gamers
> Subject: 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 man

Re: [Audyssey] Why I build the games as I do

[goshawk on horseback]

given the current cost of other titles, I have to say that it would probably 
have to offer something rather special and/or spectacular for a good amount 
of people to pay out that sort of a price, and would have to be all 
inclusive, no more paying out for any sort of upgrades or subscriptions 
after that sort of outlay.

Simon


- Original Message - 
From: 
To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2016 3:50 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Why I build the games as I do


I didn't say they didn't like it; I just said that from the email I've 
received, I get far fewer requests for RPGs than other games (about 1 in 30 
is a RPG request).  Sports games abound, but when I push back and ask how 
the game would be played, I usually don't get a response.  A classic 
suggestion is a basketball shooting game; I think it sounds pretty boring, 
after playing it for  a few minutes.

Building out an RPG would take months, and I can't see how to do any return 
on that investment.  Assume that the game would sell for $20, of which apple 
keeps $7.  Assume a programmer earns $40/hour.  A game that takes a month to 
build (and I think an RPG would take far more than that) would need to 
generate 6,400 after apple's cut, or about $9100.  At $20 per game, 500 
people would have to purchase it just to break even.  Given that 80% of the 
people never purchase, I would need 2,500 downloads to break even.

I am working with the programmer who built park boss, and I will probably 
port that over to the iPhone.  I've built a framework to mix my 
infrastructure with C++ code, so it might not be overly complex.  Since park 
boss is in the direction of an RPG, or at least closer to a SIMS 
environment, I can see how that game goes to try to project how any RPG 
would go.  Do you think this market could handle an RPG game for $40 to $50?



--------- Original Message - Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Why I build the 
games as I do
From: "dark" 
Date: 4/13/16 7:34 am
To: "Gamers Discussion list" 

@Marty, Blind people don't like rpgs? not true.

 Go and check audiogames.net and observe the amount of people who reply to
 rpg related topics, or indeed post a topic and ask. I suspect the
 information you got from that statement was from a local focus group, ie,
 society or association for the blind. Unfortunately, such places tend to
 have a generally older population who are primarily interested in
 traditional type games, however for younger gamers (and indeed those more
 likely to own Ios devices), something a little more modern and complex 
would
 appeal more, indeed part of the problem with audiogames development is that
 there is a large amount of traditional games available and not so much that
 is none traditional, ie, I can think of about 8 versions of blackjack over
 the years, but not one single version of a modern fantasy board game like
 Talisman, much less a ccg, collectable card game.


 I'll also add that rpgs don't need to be as complex as the games produced 
by
 companies like namco and squaresoft. dungeons and dragons do very well with
 basic mechanics, indeed most of what an rpg does mechanically can be
 represented by dice rolls and risk assessments, the one difference is that
 you have story and atmosphere added to that, as well as player progression
 over time.

 You might begin therefore by adapting some of the multiplayer fantasy 
themed
 card and board games for Ios, games like heroes of the multiverse or
 talisman, or creating your own along similar lines if copywrite is an 
issue.
 These would be mechanically similar to games like roadtrip, hearts or dice
 poker, just with more text involved, eg, a player would encounter a monster
 with a description of it's stats and be required to roll dice for combat, 
or
 a player would encounter a magical object card and decide whether to take 
it
 with them or not.

 While I do enjoy the games in the collection thus far, I am a little sorry
 none are games intended for longer or more complex play. There's nothing
 wrong with a game of hearts, blackjack etc or a quick arcade game, however
 unfortunately there has already been a lot of that sort of thing produced,
 indeed I do wonder if some people are taking the attitude "well there are
 several versions of hearts for pc, why should I pay to have one on my
 Iphone?"

 this isn't meant as an attack, as I said I enjoy the games for what they
 are, it just saddens me to see developers now producing exactly the same
 sorts of games we were seeing in the community 10 years ago, especially 
with
 the greater distribution and easier development inherent on Ios, indeed 
it's
 a little ironic that with one exception all of the more complex games we've
 seen recently for Pc or Ios have been games produced by sighted developers
 who have accidently created accessible games, or have included acc

Re: [Audyssey] why i build the games the way I do

[Jeremy Brown]

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

[Marty Schultz]

I would attempt an RPG based around a card game, if someone could point 
me to one.  More often than not, I search for either programming code 
for an existing game, or for extremely detailed instructions, and then 
rewrite the entire thing for the iphone.


---
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

[dark]

Hi Michael.


I actually see a text, or at least text and audio rpg as a much more 
possible thing and probably good for a developer because of the possible 
expantions and such available, I also think it would be very good for 
development of audiogames in general because as I said, I do get a little 
disappoited with seeing the same sorts of games.
this isn't to say there's anything wrong with what we've had, heck I played 
blindfold pinball for a good while yesterday, was very glad to buy the 
upgrade packs and completely enjoyed the game, only that I'd love to see 
something more complex available, and when I look around and consider indi 
games like! Adventure to fate, the wastes or a dark room I really see a way 
forward if people would take it, which would show that it was! possible.


All the best,

Dark. 



---
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

[Michael Feir]

Hi Dark. Excellent points there. You and I agree in most respects. One can 
indeed create great games without needing to incurr vast expense. I think 
there's a very real game between what's possible with one or two individuals to 
create and make accessible versus the expectations. As blind people grow more 
aware of what their sighyed counterparts are playing, they simply don't realise 
what's involved in driving the economics of production. I would absolutely love 
it if a developer created an text or audio rpg made from the ground up to be 
fully accessible. However, I think it far more likely that as with King of 
Dragon Pass, we'll be given access to a game devised for sighted players. I 
guess we'll see going forward.

Sent from my iPhone

> On Apr 18, 2016, at 3:43 PM, dark  wrote:
> 
> Hi Michael.
> 
> I disagree on costs there.
> You can use mostly text for the interface with some sound effects, and use 
> the mechanics of the game to create replay. Look at the way dos rpgs did it, 
> games like fallthru, and more recently a dark room, not to mention the 
> wastes, heck the wastes random generation system is so extreme your unlikely 
> to see the same object or location in two different games.
> Plus, those sorts of games could potentially be far more expandable with new 
> items, quests etc, simply by tweaking the properties and descriptions of 
> certain items, and thus can create far morr prophet through in game sales. 
> Online games manage it all the time with a lot of free players, the principle 
> difference being those are not as focused on story or single player 
> experience as opposed to beating up other people online, though if a 
> developer did it wouldn't be a problem.
> 
> King of dragon pass is hugely complex and took a lot of work and is a massive 
> achievement, but nobody says every rpg needs to be like that, look at some of 
> the tabletop games like talisman which are currently available, or look at 
> how well a simple game like nano empire which had progress, description etc 
> worked, heck the developer of nano empire could easily expand the game quite 
> a bit just using the same framework he created.
> 
> I must confess this is one thing that frustrates me a little. There are indi 
> devs out there creating graphical rpg games. Kings quest, atic adventures 
> etc, just check the ap store and you'll find hundreds.
> 
> Yet whenever someone says an accessible rpg designed for blind people it's 
> "oh no, the cost is too much, stick to the same sorts of games we've had 
> before"
> 
> This isn't to say there's anything wrong with traditional or arcade style 
> games, I just find it considerably frustrating that there isn't more 
> available.
> 
> All the best,
> 
> Dark. 
> 
> ---
> 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.

---
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

[dark]

Hmmm, Charlse, my point wasn't about platforms, it was that we've been 
seeing the same sorts of games again and again on different platforms, even 
though technology has supposedly improved.


All the best,

Dark.
- Original Message - 
From: "Charles Rivard" 

To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2016 5:21 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why i build the games the way I do


To my way of thinking, the more platforms a game is available on, the 
better.  I'm not sure where you're coming up with the fact that the games 
are from the days of DOS, other than the fact that they use text, which is 
what an RPG uses, right?  If that is so, then a game from the days of DOS 
isn't such a bad idea, seeing as this is what you want.





If you think you're finished, you! really! are! finished!!
-Original Message- 
From: dark

Sent: Monday, April 18, 2016 11:04 AM
To: Gamers Discussion list
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why i build the games the way I do

I agree.

Alsoo as I said, building an rpg doesn't take as long as you would think,
heck most of the mechanics as I've said are basic dice ones.


I also suspect an rpg would necessarily sell more copies sinse it is a 
type
of game not available elsewherein the community, while we have a huge 
amount

of traditional and word games, plus of course, rpgs are far more open to
expanttion, not to mention being far more likely to be bought by the 
sighted

public (nano empire and a dark room both did hugely well).

I do like what's been done thus far, but I m finding it a little 
frustrating
that we're still seeing roughly the same amount of complexity from 
dedicated
developers of games intended for blind people we were seeing ten years 
ago,

or heck back to the dos days.

All the best,

Dark.


---
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.

---
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.


-
No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 2015.0.6189 / Virus Database: 4556/12058 - Release Date: 04/18/16




---
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

[dark]

Hi Michael.

I disagree on costs there.
You can use mostly text for the interface with some sound effects, and use 
the mechanics of the game to create replay. Look at the way dos rpgs did it, 
games like fallthru, and more recently a dark room, not to mention the 
wastes, heck the wastes random generation system is so extreme your unlikely 
to see the same object or location in two different games.
Plus, those sorts of games could potentially be far more expandable with new 
items, quests etc, simply by tweaking the properties and descriptions of 
certain items, and thus can create far morr prophet through in game sales. 
Online games manage it all the time with a lot of free players, the 
principle difference being those are not as focused on story or single 
player experience as opposed to beating up other people online, though if a 
developer did it wouldn't be a problem.


King of dragon pass is hugely complex and took a lot of work and is a 
massive achievement, but nobody says every rpg needs to be like that, look 
at some of the tabletop games like talisman which are currently available, 
or look at how well a simple game like nano empire which had progress, 
description etc worked, heck the developer of nano empire could easily 
expand the game quite a bit just using the same framework he created.


I must confess this is one thing that frustrates me a little. There are indi 
devs out there creating graphical rpg games. Kings quest, atic adventures 
etc, just check the ap store and you'll find hundreds.


Yet whenever someone says an accessible rpg designed for blind people it's 
"oh no, the cost is too much, stick to the same sorts of games we've had 
before"


This isn't to say there's anything wrong with traditional or arcade style 
games, I just find it considerably frustrating that there isn't more 
available.


All the best,

Dark. 



---
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

[Bryan Peterson]

It depends on the game. RPG's don't always use text only.

Sent from my iPhone

> On Apr 18, 2016, at 10:21 AM, Charles Rivard  wrote:
> 
> To my way of thinking, the more platforms a game is available on, the better. 
>  I'm not sure where you're coming up with the fact that the games are from 
> the days of DOS, other than the fact that they use text, which is what an RPG 
> uses, right?  If that is so, then a game from the days of DOS isn't such a 
> bad idea, seeing as this is what you want.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If you think you're finished, you! really! are! finished!!
> -Original Message- From: dark
> Sent: Monday, April 18, 2016 11:04 AM
> To: Gamers Discussion list
> Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why i build the games the way I do
> 
> I agree.
> 
> Alsoo as I said, building an rpg doesn't take as long as you would think,
> heck most of the mechanics as I've said are basic dice ones.
> 
> 
> I also suspect an rpg would necessarily sell more copies sinse it is a type
> of game not available elsewherein the community, while we have a huge amount
> of traditional and word games, plus of course, rpgs are far more open to
> expanttion, not to mention being far more likely to be bought by the sighted
> public (nano empire and a dark room both did hugely well).
> 
> I do like what's been done thus far, but I m finding it a little frustrating
> that we're still seeing roughly the same amount of complexity from dedicated
> developers of games intended for blind people we were seeing ten years ago,
> or heck back to the dos days.
> 
> All the best,
> 
> Dark.
> 
> 
> ---
> 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. 
> 
> ---
> 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.


---
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

[Charles Rivard]

To my way of thinking, the more platforms a game is available on, the 
better.  I'm not sure where you're coming up with the fact that the games 
are from the days of DOS, other than the fact that they use text, which is 
what an RPG uses, right?  If that is so, then a game from the days of DOS 
isn't such a bad idea, seeing as this is what you want.





If you think you're finished, you! really! are! finished!!
-Original Message- 
From: dark

Sent: Monday, April 18, 2016 11:04 AM
To: Gamers Discussion list
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why i build the games the way I do

I agree.

Alsoo as I said, building an rpg doesn't take as long as you would think,
heck most of the mechanics as I've said are basic dice ones.


I also suspect an rpg would necessarily sell more copies sinse it is a type
of game not available elsewherein the community, while we have a huge amount
of traditional and word games, plus of course, rpgs are far more open to
expanttion, not to mention being far more likely to be bought by the sighted
public (nano empire and a dark room both did hugely well).

I do like what's been done thus far, but I m finding it a little frustrating
that we're still seeing roughly the same amount of complexity from dedicated
developers of games intended for blind people we were seeing ten years ago,
or heck back to the dos days.

All the best,

Dark.


---
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. 



---
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 as I do

[john]

I write this as someone without an apple device, so this is purely opinion 
and nothing else.
I doubt that I would pay $40-50 for any audiogame, unless it was utterly 
spectacular (I'd pay substantially more than that if somebody wrote an 
accessible mass effect or halo, for example, but I didn't buy entombed, and 
that was purely based on price).
It might be looking into the success of something like 3-d velocity. That 
was a really well done game, with a price of around $43 (originally $50). 
Once again quite a bit more than I was willing to pay, but I do know at 
least some folks did it, so perhaps it would be representative of the 
community's willingness to buy more expensive titles.
I think though, that if you really want a product to sell, you're going to 
have to go beyond the current games we have - provide some new mechanic or 
concept that nobody else has come up with yet.

John

--
From: 
Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2016 10:50
To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Why I build the games as I do

I didn't say they didn't like it; I just said that from the email I've 
received, I get far fewer requests for RPGs than other games (about 1 in 30 
is a RPG request).  Sports games abound, but when I push back and ask how 
the game would be played, I usually don't get a response.  A classic 
suggestion is a basketball shooting game; I think it sounds pretty boring, 
after playing it for  a few minutes.

Building out an RPG would take months, and I can't see how to do any return 
on that investment.  Assume that the game would sell for $20, of which apple 
keeps $7.  Assume a programmer earns $40/hour.  A game that takes a month to 
build (and I think an RPG would take far more than that) would need to 
generate 6,400 after apple's cut, or about $9100.  At $20 per game, 500 
people would have to purchase it just to break even.  Given that 80% of the 
people never purchase, I would need 2,500 downloads to break even.

I am working with the programmer who built park boss, and I will probably 
port that over to the iPhone.  I've built a framework to mix my 
infrastructure with C++ code, so it might not be overly complex.  Since park 
boss is in the direction of an RPG, or at least closer to a SIMS 
environment, I can see how that game goes to try to project how any RPG 
would go.  Do you think this market could handle an RPG game for $40 to $50?



- Original Message - Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Why I build the 
games as I do
From: "dark" 
Date: 4/13/16 7:34 am
To: "Gamers Discussion list" 

@Marty, Blind people don't like rpgs? not true.

 Go and check audiogames.net and observe the amount of people who reply to
 rpg related topics, or indeed post a topic and ask. I suspect the
 information you got from that statement was from a local focus group, ie,
 society or association for the blind. Unfortunately, such places tend to
 have a generally older population who are primarily interested in
 traditional type games, however for younger gamers (and indeed those more
 likely to own Ios devices), something a little more modern and complex 
would
 appeal more, indeed part of the problem with audiogames development is that
 there is a large amount of traditional games available and not so much that
 is none traditional, ie, I can think of about 8 versions of blackjack over
 the years, but not one single version of a modern fantasy board game like
 Talisman, much less a ccg, collectable card game.


 I'll also add that rpgs don't need to be as complex as the games produced 
by
 companies like namco and squaresoft. dungeons and dragons do very well with
 basic mechanics, indeed most of what an rpg does mechanically can be
 represented by dice rolls and risk assessments, the one difference is that
 you have story and atmosphere added to that, as well as player progression
 over time.

 You might begin therefore by adapting some of the multiplayer fantasy 
themed
 card and board games for Ios, games like heroes of the multiverse or
 talisman, or creating your own along similar lines if copywrite is an 
issue.
 These would be mechanically similar to games like roadtrip, hearts or dice
 poker, just with more text involved, eg, a player would encounter a monster
 with a description of it's stats and be required to roll dice for combat, 
or
 a player would encounter a magical object card and decide whether to take 
it
 with them or not.

 While I do enjoy the games in the collection thus far, I am a little sorry
 none are games intended for longer or more complex play. There's nothing
 wrong with a game of hearts, blackjack etc or a quick arcade game, however
 unfortunately there has already been a lot of that sort of thing produced,
 indeed I do wonder if some people are taking the attitude "well there are
 several versions of

Re: [Audyssey] why i build the games the way I do

[john]

Dealing with hackers is development time, very much development time indeed. 
Its just writing a lot of security code, and not game mechanics code.

--
From: "dark" 
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2016 12:07
To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why i build the games the way I do

Actually Kennith, Swamp wasn't in development that long.

From the initial very simple offline version to the first multiplayer server
took roughly two months, and in four everything was up and running.
yes, there's been massive expantions with maps and weapons and accounts and
what not, and yes hacker trouble, but don't mistake that for the development
time, had aprone been charging for the game earlier he could've been earning
money on it pretty dam soon.

all the best,

dark.
- Original Message - 
From: "Kenneth Downey" 
To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2016 4:58 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why i build the games the way I do


> Yes, but think about how many years Swauk was in development… And it was a
> free game… For a long time anyway, until stupid hackers started messing
> everything up… Can you imagine swab for the iPhone! Anyway, it's back to
> blindfold pinball for me now… I'm addicted!
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
>> On Apr 14, 2016, at 6:56 AM, Devin Prater  wrote:
>>
>> Why would you need soundscapes and voice acting? A dark room is text, and
>> does just fine. Touchmint’s games are mostly text, and do mostly fine as
>> well. Nano empire is wonderful, and is text also. I’m saying that you don’t
>> need expensive acting and sound do make a good game.
>> Sent from my Mac.
>>
>> Devin Prater
>> r.d.t.pra...@gmail.com
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Apr 13, 2016, at 3:29 PM, Darren Harris
>>>  wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I have 1 thing to say about replayable games,
>>>
>>> Swamp. That's a 1 man band doing all that, look at how good a game that
>>> is?
>>> Now have something like that on the iPhone and that would be awesome.
>>>
>>> -Original Message-
>>> From: Gamers [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Jeremy
>>> Brown
>>> Sent: 13 April 2016 18:36
>>> To: gamers
>>> Subject: 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

Re: [Audyssey] why i build the games the way I do

[Michael Feir]

In Marty's cost breakdown, he didn't even bring in voice acting and
sound effects. That's just for his efforts making the game so he feels
propperly compensated. To create an rpg takes a whole lot of careful
thought. Writing a scifi, fantasy or mystery story capable of
branching and changing based on the player's actions is hard work and
takes time. Add to that programming and then balancing the system.
Very few individuals would have all the necessary skills to pull this
off well That's why most high-quality rpgs are made by companies
employing many people.

I'd cheerfully fork over $10 for something with the replayability of
King of Dragon Pass even without fancy sound and music. Even that game
had an artist, a music composer, and others involved in its creation.
It was based on an already fully developed world and rpg system.
However, at the level Marty is asking, $40 or $50, my expectations are
very high. The game had better be fully accessible, have music, acting
and sound, offer tremendous replay value. It had better be the holy
grail of games. I'd want extras like a "making of" documentary. After
I paid that much, don't even think about charging a subscription or
microtransactions. It had all better be included. That would be the
second most expensive app I've ever bought. The only thing more
expensive that I'm aware of is KNFB Reader. That app has literally
life-changing possibility and is something I used almost daily to read
my mail. I can look at it as a long-term investment making it
unnecessary to ever update Kurzweil 1000 or buy an OCR scanner. As
long as I have an iPHONE, I'm covered. If I'm going to spend that much
on entertainment, it had better be very polished and very captivating.

The most expensive games I find in the sighted world top out at around
$25 or so. I don't think I've ever come across a game priced higher.
Some games offer the ability to buy expansions and other extra content
in order to help support their production cost. That model certainly
seems to work for companies. Those companies can expect far more
people to purchase what they produce. Especially the ones with good
track records.

On 4/14/16, Devin Prater  wrote:
> Why would you need soundscapes and voice acting? A dark room is text, and
> does just fine. Touchmint’s games are mostly text, and do mostly fine as
> well. Nano empire is wonderful, and is text also. I’m saying that you don’t
> need expensive acting and sound do make a good game.
> Sent from my Mac.
>
> Devin Prater
> r.d.t.pra...@gmail.com
>
>
>
>> On Apr 13, 2016, at 3:29 PM, Darren Harris
>>  wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I have 1 thing to say about replayable games,
>>
>> Swamp. That's a 1 man band doing all that, look at how good a game that
>> is?
>> Now have something like that on the iPhone and that would be awesome.
>>
>> -Original Message-
>> From: Gamers [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Jeremy
>> Brown
>> Sent: 13 April 2016 18:36
>> To: gamers
>> Subject: 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 s

Re: [Audyssey] why i build the games the way I do

[dark]

Actually Kennith, Swamp wasn't in development that long.

From the initial very simple offline version to the first multiplayer server 
took roughly two months, and in four everything was up and running.
yes, there's been massive expantions with maps and weapons and accounts and 
what not, and yes hacker trouble, but don't mistake that for the development 
time, had aprone been charging for the game earlier he could've been earning 
money on it pretty dam soon.


all the best,

dark.
- Original Message - 
From: "Kenneth Downey" 

To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2016 4:58 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why i build the games the way I do


Yes, but think about how many years Swauk was in development… And it was a 
free game… For a long time anyway, until stupid hackers started messing 
everything up… Can you imagine swab for the iPhone! Anyway, it's back to 
blindfold pinball for me now… I'm addicted!


Sent from my iPad


On Apr 14, 2016, at 6:56 AM, Devin Prater  wrote:

Why would you need soundscapes and voice acting? A dark room is text, and 
does just fine. Touchmint’s games are mostly text, and do mostly fine as 
well. Nano empire is wonderful, and is text also. I’m saying that you don’t 
need expensive acting and sound do make a good game.

Sent from my Mac.

Devin Prater
r.d.t.pra...@gmail.com



On Apr 13, 2016, at 3:29 PM, Darren Harris 
 wrote:


Hi,

I have 1 thing to say about replayable games,

Swamp. That's a 1 man band doing all that, look at how good a game that 
is?

Now have something like that on the iPhone and that would be awesome.

-Original Message-
From: Gamers [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Jeremy 
Brown

Sent: 13 April 2016 18:36
To: gamers
Subject: 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, se

Re: [Audyssey] why i build the games the way I do

[dark]

I agree.

Alsoo as I said, building an rpg doesn't take as long as you would think, 
heck most of the mechanics as I've said are basic dice ones.



I also suspect an rpg would necessarily sell more copies sinse it is a type 
of game not available elsewherein the community, while we have a huge amount 
of traditional and word games, plus of course, rpgs are far more open to 
expanttion, not to mention being far more likely to be bought by the sighted 
public (nano empire and a dark room both did hugely well).


I do like what's been done thus far, but I m finding it a little frustrating 
that we're still seeing roughly the same amount of complexity from dedicated 
developers of games intended for blind people we were seeing ten years ago, 
or heck back to the dos days.


All the best,

Dark. 



---
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

[Kenneth Downey]

Yes, but think about how many years Swauk was in development… And it was a free 
game… For a long time anyway, until stupid hackers started messing everything 
up… Can you imagine swab for the iPhone! Anyway, it's back to blindfold pinball 
for me now… I'm addicted!

Sent from my iPad

> On Apr 14, 2016, at 6:56 AM, Devin Prater  wrote:
> 
> Why would you need soundscapes and voice acting? A dark room is text, and 
> does just fine. Touchmint’s games are mostly text, and do mostly fine as 
> well. Nano empire is wonderful, and is text also. I’m saying that you don’t 
> need expensive acting and sound do make a good game.
> Sent from my Mac.
> 
> Devin Prater
> r.d.t.pra...@gmail.com
> 
> 
> 
>> On Apr 13, 2016, at 3:29 PM, Darren Harris  
>> wrote:
>> 
>> Hi,
>> 
>> I have 1 thing to say about replayable games,
>> 
>> Swamp. That's a 1 man band doing all that, look at how good a game that is?
>> Now have something like that on the iPhone and that would be awesome.
>> 
>> -Original Message-
>> From: Gamers [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Jeremy Brown
>> Sent: 13 April 2016 18:36
>> To: gamers
>> Subject: 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.

Re: [Audyssey] why i build the games the way I do

[Devin Prater]

Why would you need soundscapes and voice acting? A dark room is text, and does 
just fine. Touchmint’s games are mostly text, and do mostly fine as well. Nano 
empire is wonderful, and is text also. I’m saying that you don’t need expensive 
acting and sound do make a good game.
Sent from my Mac.

Devin Prater
r.d.t.pra...@gmail.com



> On Apr 13, 2016, at 3:29 PM, Darren Harris  
> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I have 1 thing to say about replayable games,
> 
> Swamp. That's a 1 man band doing all that, look at how good a game that is?
> Now have something like that on the iPhone and that would be awesome.
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: Gamers [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Jeremy Brown
> Sent: 13 April 2016 18:36
> To: gamers
> Subject: 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.
> 
> 
> ---
> 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/ma

Re: [Audyssey] Why I build the games as I do

[marty]

I didn't say they didn't like it; I just said that from the email I've 
received, I get far fewer requests for RPGs than other games (about 1 in 30 is 
a RPG request).  Sports games abound, but when I push back and ask how the game 
would be played, I usually don't get a response.  A classic suggestion is a 
basketball shooting game; I think it sounds pretty boring, after playing it for 
 a few minutes.
 
Building out an RPG would take months, and I can't see how to do any return on 
that investment.  Assume that the game would sell for $20, of which apple keeps 
$7.  Assume a programmer earns $40/hour.  A game that takes a month to build 
(and I think an RPG would take far more than that) would need to generate 6,400 
after apple's cut, or about $9100.  At $20 per game, 500 people would have to 
purchase it just to break even.  Given that 80% of the people never purchase, I 
would need 2,500 downloads to break even.  
 
I am working with the programmer who built park boss, and I will probably port 
that over to the iPhone.  I've built a framework to mix my infrastructure with 
C++ code, so it might not be overly complex.  Since park boss is in the 
direction of an RPG, or at least closer to a SIMS environment, I can see how 
that game goes to try to project how any RPG would go.  Do you think this 
market could handle an RPG game for $40 to $50?
 
 
 
- Original Message ----- Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Why I build the 
games as I do
From: "dark" 
Date: 4/13/16 7:34 am
To: "Gamers Discussion list" 

@Marty, Blind people don't like rpgs? not true.
 
 Go and check audiogames.net and observe the amount of people who reply to 
 rpg related topics, or indeed post a topic and ask. I suspect the 
 information you got from that statement was from a local focus group, ie, 
 society or association for the blind. Unfortunately, such places tend to 
 have a generally older population who are primarily interested in 
 traditional type games, however for younger gamers (and indeed those more 
 likely to own Ios devices), something a little more modern and complex would 
 appeal more, indeed part of the problem with audiogames development is that 
 there is a large amount of traditional games available and not so much that 
 is none traditional, ie, I can think of about 8 versions of blackjack over 
 the years, but not one single version of a modern fantasy board game like 
 Talisman, much less a ccg, collectable card game.
 
 
 I'll also add that rpgs don't need to be as complex as the games produced by 
 companies like namco and squaresoft. dungeons and dragons do very well with 
 basic mechanics, indeed most of what an rpg does mechanically can be 
 represented by dice rolls and risk assessments, the one difference is that 
 you have story and atmosphere added to that, as well as player progression 
 over time.
 
 You might begin therefore by adapting some of the multiplayer fantasy themed 
 card and board games for Ios, games like heroes of the multiverse or 
 talisman, or creating your own along similar lines if copywrite is an issue. 
 These would be mechanically similar to games like roadtrip, hearts or dice 
 poker, just with more text involved, eg, a player would encounter a monster 
 with a description of it's stats and be required to roll dice for combat, or 
 a player would encounter a magical object card and decide whether to take it 
 with them or not.
 
 While I do enjoy the games in the collection thus far, I am a little sorry 
 none are games intended for longer or more complex play. There's nothing 
 wrong with a game of hearts, blackjack etc or a quick arcade game, however 
 unfortunately there has already been a lot of that sort of thing produced, 
 indeed I do wonder if some people are taking the attitude "well there are 
 several versions of hearts for pc, why should I pay to have one on my 
 Iphone?"
 
 this isn't meant as an attack, as I said I enjoy the games for what they 
 are, it just saddens me to see developers now producing exactly the same 
 sorts of games we were seeing in the community 10 years ago, especially with 
 the greater distribution and easier development inherent on Ios, indeed it's 
 a little ironic that with one exception all of the more complex games we've 
 seen recently for Pc or Ios have been games produced by sighted developers 
 who have accidently created accessible games, or have included access 
 requests in games that are %80 accessible such as adventure to fate, where 
 as games produced with the express intention of writing games for blind 
 people have intended to be simpler.
 
 This isn't to say "where's audio final fantasy", only that some change and 
 advancement would be nice, especially if kidfriendly software are doing so 
 well as a company.
 
 All the best,
 
 Dark. 
 
 
 ---
 Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audy

Re: [Audyssey] why i build the games the way I do

[Darren Harris]

Hi,

I have 1 thing to say about replayable games,

Swamp. That's a 1 man band doing all that, look at how good a game that is?
Now have something like that on the iPhone and that would be awesome.

-Original Message-
From: Gamers [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Jeremy Brown
Sent: 13 April 2016 18:36
To: gamers
Subject: 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.


---
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

[Justin Jones]

Torchlight would like a word with you, vis-a-vis complex games
released for cheap.

On 4/13/16, Jeremy Brown  wrote:
> 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.
>


-- 
Justin M. Jones, M.A.
atreides...@gmail.com
(254) 624-9155
701 Ewing St. #509-C, Ft. Wayne IN, 46802

---
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

[Jeremy Brown]

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] Why I build the games as I do

[Darren Harris]

Hi,

I like complex games. Not necessarily a complex interface but a complex game
never the less. I like it to have a lot of replayability, lots to discover
within the game. Something that's persistent.

-Original Message-
From: Gamers [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of rajmund
Sent: 13 April 2016 17:03
To: Gamers Discussion list
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Why I build the games as I do

Hi,
I want games, where I can play against people.  I sometimes do try the games
as they come out, but I always go back to dice world, and things of the
nature.
Sent from a BrailleNote

 - Original Message -
From: "dark" 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.

---
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.


---
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 as I do

[rajmund]

Hi,
I want games, where I can play against people.  I sometimes do 
try the games as they come out, but I

always go back to dice world, and things of the nature.
Sent from a BrailleNote

- Original Message -
From: "dark" Go and check audiogames.net and observe the amount of people who 
reply to
rpg related topics, or indeed post a topic and ask.  I suspect 
the
information you got from that statement was from a local focus 
group, ie,
society or association for the blind.  Unfortunately, such places 
tend to

have a generally older population who are primarily interested in
traditional type games, however for younger gamers (and indeed 
those more
likely to own Ios devices), something a little more modern and 
complex would
appeal more, indeed part of the problem with audiogames 
development is that
there is a large amount of traditional games available and not so 
much that
is none traditional, ie, I can think of about 8 versions of 
blackjack over
the years, but not one single version of a modern fantasy board 
game like

Talisman, much less a ccg, collectable card game.


I'll also add that rpgs don't need to be as complex as the games 
produced by
companies like namco and squaresoft.  dungeons and dragons do 
very well with
basic mechanics, indeed most of what an rpg does mechanically can 
be
represented by dice rolls and risk assessments, the one 
difference is that
you have story and atmosphere added to that, as well as player 
progression

over time.

You might begin therefore by adapting some of the multiplayer 
fantasy themed
card and board games for Ios, games like heroes of the multiverse 
or
talisman, or creating your own along similar lines if copywrite 
is an issue.
These would be mechanically similar to games like roadtrip, 
hearts or dice
poker, just with more text involved, eg, a player would encounter 
a monster
with a description of it's stats and be required to roll dice for 
combat, or
a player would encounter a magical object card and decide whether 
to take it

with them or not.

While I do enjoy the games in the collection thus far, I am a 
little sorry
none are games intended for longer or more complex play.  There's 
nothing
wrong with a game of hearts, blackjack  etc or a quick arcade 
game, however
unfortunately there has already been a lot of that sort of thing 
produced,
indeed I do wonder if some people are taking the attitude "well 
there are
several versions of hearts for pc, why should I pay to have one 
on my

Iphone?"

this isn't meant as an attack, as I said I enjoy the games for 
what they
are, it just saddens me to see developers now producing exactly 
the same
sorts of games we were seeing in the community 10 years ago, 
especially with
the greater distribution and easier development inherent on Ios, 
indeed it's
a little ironic that with one exception all of the more complex 
games we've
seen recently for Pc or Ios have been games produced by sighted 
developers
who have accidently created accessible games, or have included 
access
requests in games that are %80 accessible such as adventure to 
fate, where
as games produced with the express intention of writing games for 
blind

people have intended to be simpler.

This isn't to say "where's audio final fantasy", only that some 
change and
advancement would be nice, especially if kidfriendly software are 
doing so

well as a company.

All the best,

Dark.


---
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.

---
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 as I do

[dark]

@Marty, Blind people don't like rpgs? not true.

Go and check audiogames.net and observe the amount of people who reply to 
rpg related topics, or indeed post a topic and ask. I suspect the 
information you got from that statement was from a local focus group, ie, 
society or association for the blind. Unfortunately, such places tend to 
have a generally older population who are primarily interested in 
traditional type games, however for younger gamers (and indeed those more 
likely to own Ios devices), something a little more modern and complex would 
appeal more, indeed part of the problem with audiogames development is that 
there is a large amount of traditional games available and not so much that 
is none traditional, ie, I can think of about 8 versions of blackjack over 
the years, but not one single version of a modern fantasy board game like 
Talisman, much less a ccg, collectable card game.



I'll also add that rpgs don't need to be as complex as the games produced by 
companies like namco and squaresoft. dungeons and dragons do very well with 
basic mechanics, indeed most of what an rpg does mechanically can be 
represented by dice rolls and risk assessments, the one difference is that 
you have story and atmosphere added to that, as well as player progression 
over time.


You might begin therefore by adapting some of the multiplayer fantasy themed 
card and board games for Ios, games like heroes of the multiverse or 
talisman, or creating your own along similar lines if copywrite is an issue. 
These would be mechanically similar to games like roadtrip, hearts or dice 
poker, just with more text involved, eg, a player would encounter a monster 
with a description of it's stats and be required to roll dice for combat, or 
a player would encounter a magical object card and decide whether to take it 
with them or not.


While I do enjoy the games in the collection thus far, I am a little sorry 
none are games intended for longer or more complex play. There's nothing 
wrong with a game of hearts, blackjack  etc or a quick arcade game, however 
unfortunately there has already been a lot of that sort of thing produced, 
indeed I do wonder if some people are taking the attitude "well there are 
several versions of hearts for pc, why should I pay to have one on my 
Iphone?"


this isn't meant as an attack, as I said I enjoy the games for what they 
are, it just saddens me to see developers now producing exactly the same 
sorts of games we were seeing in the community 10 years ago, especially with 
the greater distribution and easier development inherent on Ios, indeed it's 
a little ironic that with one exception all of the more complex games we've 
seen recently for Pc or Ios have been games produced by sighted developers 
who have accidently created accessible games, or have included access 
requests in games that are %80 accessible such as adventure to fate, where 
as games produced with the express intention of writing games for blind 
people have intended to be simpler.


This isn't to say "where's audio final fantasy", only that some change and 
advancement would be nice, especially if kidfriendly software are doing so 
well as a company.


All the best,

Dark. 



---
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 can't I create an account on rise of chaos?

[Thomas Ward]

Hi Dark,

I'm in full agreement with you. I have no problems with Audiogames.net
on Windows or Linux with any of the major screen readers so I can
conclude that David's problem is due to what he is using rather than
Audiogames.net etc being at fault.

Cheers!


On 11/26/14, dark  wrote:
> Well David, as I said I am %100 certain that the audiogames.net forum is as
>
> accessible as web pages get and in full working order, so I'm afraid your
> braille display is obviously not doing the job, and if you want to play
> games like rise of chaos you probably will need a pc or at least something
> with a more standard web browser.
>
> All the best,
>
> Dark.
>
>
> ---
> 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.
>

---
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 can't I create an account on rise of chaos?

[dark]

Well David, as I said I am %100 certain that the audiogames.net forum is as 
accessible as web pages get and in full working order, so I'm afraid your 
braille display is obviously not doing the job, and if you want to play 
games like rise of chaos you probably will need a pc or at least something 
with a more standard web browser.


All the best,

Dark. 



---
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 can't I create an account on rise of chaos?

[David Bartling]

I know, it usually is~. I forget what happened cuz I was able to sign
up perfectly on my pc but I no longer have that cuz it's broken. I
think the button couldn't execute for some reason.

On 11/26/14, dark  wrote:
> I David.
>
> Well I can personally tell you that the ag forum signup process doesn't use
>
> anything whacky, in which case there definitely is a browser problem at your
>
> end as Piotre said.
>
> All the best,
>
> Dark.
> - Original Message -
> From: "David Bartling" 
> To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
> Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2014 2:17 PM
> Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why can't I create an account on rise of chaos?
>
>
>>I can look at the ag forum, I just can't create an account.
>>
>> On 11/26/14, David Bartling  wrote:
>>> riseofchaos.com
>>>
>>> On 11/26/14, dark  wrote:
>>>> No idea david, however I don't know if this is something the admins
>>>> could
>>>> fix because I know several people (myself included), have signed up
>>>> without
>>>>
>>>> trouble, plus it coudl be that your braille display is missing a field
>>>> on
>>>> the page which screen readers don't, so you didn't actually complete
>>>> the
>>>> entire form.
>>>>
>>>> All the best,
>>>>
>>>> Dark.
>>>> - Original Message -
>>>> From: "David Bartling" 
>>>> To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
>>>> Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2014 10:26 PM
>>>> Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why can't I create an account on rise of chaos?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Hi
>>>>> I did it several times with no results. Is there a way I can contact
>>>>> the admins to see if they can do it? I can't see anything on the page
>>>>> to do it.
>>>>>
>>>>> On 11/25/14, dark  wrote:
>>>>>> Hi David.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> No idea, all I can think of is you didn't fill in all the boxes with
>>>>>> your
>>>>>> hero name, e-mail address and password. It worked fine for me when i
>>>>>> tried
>>>>>> and I don't think there is anything too unusual on the page.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Beware the grue!
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Dark.
>>>>>> - Original Message -
>>>>>> From: "David Bartling" 
>>>>>> To: 
>>>>>> Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2014 1:49 PM
>>>>>> Subject: [Audyssey] why can't I create an account on rise of chaos?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>>>> I am using a braillenote and I want to play rise of chaos. I realize
>>>>>>> that the braillenota is really bad at playing web games but the site
>>>>>>> looked pretty accessible. The buttons worked however, when I tried
>>>>>>> creating an account, it didn't confirm it. I typed in the required
>>>>>>> information and clicked the create button but when it loaded, the
>>>>>>> checkbox the said this is my only account was unchecked and the
>>>>>>> combo
>>>>>>> for my civilization was back to chose even though I put it on
>>>>>>> chinese.
>>>>>>> The other fields were what I had typed. What is going on? I don't
>>>>>>> see
>>>>>>> any way of contacting the admins.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> ---
>>>>>>> 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 can't I create an account on rise of chaos?

[dark]

I David.

Well I can personally tell you that the ag forum signup process doesn't use 
anything whacky, in which case there definitely is a browser problem at your 
end as Piotre said.


All the best,

Dark.
- Original Message - 
From: "David Bartling" 

To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2014 2:17 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why can't I create an account on rise of chaos?



I can look at the ag forum, I just can't create an account.

On 11/26/14, David Bartling  wrote:

riseofchaos.com

On 11/26/14, dark  wrote:
No idea david, however I don't know if this is something the admins 
could

fix because I know several people (myself included), have signed up
without

trouble, plus it coudl be that your braille display is missing a field 
on

the page which screen readers don't, so you didn't actually complete the
entire form.

All the best,

Dark.
- Original Message -
From: "David Bartling" 
To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2014 10:26 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why can't I create an account on rise of chaos?



Hi
I did it several times with no results. Is there a way I can contact
the admins to see if they can do it? I can't see anything on the page
to do it.

On 11/25/14, dark  wrote:

Hi David.

No idea, all I can think of is you didn't fill in all the boxes with
your
hero name, e-mail address and password. It worked fine for me when i
tried
and I don't think there is anything too unusual on the page.

Beware the grue!

Dark.
- Original Message -
From: "David Bartling" 
To: 
Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2014 1:49 PM
Subject: [Audyssey] why can't I create an account on rise of chaos?



Hi all,
I am using a braillenote and I want to play rise of chaos. I realize
that the braillenota is really bad at playing web games but the site
looked pretty accessible. The buttons worked however, when I tried
creating an account, it didn't confirm it. I typed in the required
information and clicked the create button but when it loaded, the
checkbox the said this is my only account was unchecked and the combo
for my civilization was back to chose even though I put it on 
chinese.

The other fields were what I had typed. What is going on? I don't see
any way of contacting the admins.

---
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.




---
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.




--
Play unification wars today
http://uc.gamestotal.com/?in=2551372

---
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.




---
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.




--
Play unification wars today
http://uc.gamestotal.com/?in=2551372




--
Play unification wars today
http://uc.gamestotal.com/?in=2551372

---
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-

Re: [Audyssey] why can't I create an account on rise of chaos?

[David Bartling]

I can look at the ag forum, I just can't create an account.

On 11/26/14, David Bartling  wrote:
> riseofchaos.com
>
> On 11/26/14, dark  wrote:
>> No idea david, however I don't know if this is something the admins could
>> fix because I know several people (myself included), have signed up
>> without
>>
>> trouble, plus it coudl be that your braille display is missing a field on
>> the page which screen readers don't, so you didn't actually complete the
>> entire form.
>>
>> All the best,
>>
>> Dark.
>> - Original Message -
>> From: "David Bartling" 
>> To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
>> Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2014 10:26 PM
>> Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why can't I create an account on rise of chaos?
>>
>>
>>> Hi
>>> I did it several times with no results. Is there a way I can contact
>>> the admins to see if they can do it? I can't see anything on the page
>>> to do it.
>>>
>>> On 11/25/14, dark  wrote:
>>>> Hi David.
>>>>
>>>> No idea, all I can think of is you didn't fill in all the boxes with
>>>> your
>>>> hero name, e-mail address and password. It worked fine for me when i
>>>> tried
>>>> and I don't think there is anything too unusual on the page.
>>>>
>>>> Beware the grue!
>>>>
>>>> Dark.
>>>> - Original Message -
>>>> From: "David Bartling" 
>>>> To: 
>>>> Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2014 1:49 PM
>>>> Subject: [Audyssey] why can't I create an account on rise of chaos?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>> I am using a braillenote and I want to play rise of chaos. I realize
>>>>> that the braillenota is really bad at playing web games but the site
>>>>> looked pretty accessible. The buttons worked however, when I tried
>>>>> creating an account, it didn't confirm it. I typed in the required
>>>>> information and clicked the create button but when it loaded, the
>>>>> checkbox the said this is my only account was unchecked and the combo
>>>>> for my civilization was back to chose even though I put it on chinese.
>>>>> The other fields were what I had typed. What is going on? I don't see
>>>>> any way of contacting the admins.
>>>>>
>>>>> ---
>>>>> 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.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ---
>>>> 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.
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Play unification wars today
>>> http://uc.gamestotal.com/?in=2551372
>>>
>>> ---
>>> 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.
>>>
>>
>>
>> ---
>> 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.
>>
>
>
> --
> Play unification wars today
> http://uc.gamestotal.com/?in=2551372
>


-- 
Play unification wars today
http://uc.gamestotal.com/?in=2551372

---
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 can't I create an account on rise of chaos?

[David Bartling]

riseofchaos.com

On 11/26/14, dark  wrote:
> No idea david, however I don't know if this is something the admins could
> fix because I know several people (myself included), have signed up without
>
> trouble, plus it coudl be that your braille display is missing a field on
> the page which screen readers don't, so you didn't actually complete the
> entire form.
>
> All the best,
>
> Dark.
> - Original Message -
> From: "David Bartling" 
> To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
> Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2014 10:26 PM
> Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why can't I create an account on rise of chaos?
>
>
>> Hi
>> I did it several times with no results. Is there a way I can contact
>> the admins to see if they can do it? I can't see anything on the page
>> to do it.
>>
>> On 11/25/14, dark  wrote:
>>> Hi David.
>>>
>>> No idea, all I can think of is you didn't fill in all the boxes with
>>> your
>>> hero name, e-mail address and password. It worked fine for me when i
>>> tried
>>> and I don't think there is anything too unusual on the page.
>>>
>>> Beware the grue!
>>>
>>> Dark.
>>> - Original Message -
>>> From: "David Bartling" 
>>> To: 
>>> Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2014 1:49 PM
>>> Subject: [Audyssey] why can't I create an account on rise of chaos?
>>>
>>>
>>>> Hi all,
>>>> I am using a braillenote and I want to play rise of chaos. I realize
>>>> that the braillenota is really bad at playing web games but the site
>>>> looked pretty accessible. The buttons worked however, when I tried
>>>> creating an account, it didn't confirm it. I typed in the required
>>>> information and clicked the create button but when it loaded, the
>>>> checkbox the said this is my only account was unchecked and the combo
>>>> for my civilization was back to chose even though I put it on chinese.
>>>> The other fields were what I had typed. What is going on? I don't see
>>>> any way of contacting the admins.
>>>>
>>>> ---
>>>> 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.
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ---
>>> 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.
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Play unification wars today
>> http://uc.gamestotal.com/?in=2551372
>>
>> ---
>> 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.
>>
>
>
> ---
> 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.
>


-- 
Play unification wars today
http://uc.gamestotal.com/?in=2551372

---
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 can't I create an account on rise of chaos?

[Piotr Machacz]

Considering the braillenote's browser is essencially internet explorer 
6, which is additionally processed even more by Keysoft, I wouldn't be 
surprised if, like Dark said, you're missing form fields or that the 
site has some javascript which isn't executing because keyweb is trying 
to simplifi the page too much. The pac mate had similar problems which, 
back when I had one, made the web browser mostly useless apart from 
really simple tasks like looking at the ag.net forum and even that took 
30 seconds to load on wifi.


On 11/26/2014 11:17 AM, dark wrote:
No idea david, however I don't know if this is something the admins 
could fix because I know several people (myself included), have signed 
up without trouble, plus it coudl be that your braille display is 
missing a field on the page which screen readers don't, so you didn't 
actually complete the entire form.


All the best,

Dark.
- Original Message - From: "David Bartling" 


To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2014 10:26 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why can't I create an account on rise of chaos?



Hi
I did it several times with no results. Is there a way I can contact
the admins to see if they can do it? I can't see anything on the page
to do it.

On 11/25/14, dark  wrote:

Hi David.

No idea, all I can think of is you didn't fill in all the boxes with 
your
hero name, e-mail address and password. It worked fine for me when i 
tried

and I don't think there is anything too unusual on the page.

Beware the grue!

Dark.
- Original Message -
From: "David Bartling" 
To: 
Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2014 1:49 PM
Subject: [Audyssey] why can't I create an account on rise of chaos?



Hi all,
I am using a braillenote and I want to play rise of chaos. I realize
that the braillenota is really bad at playing web games but the site
looked pretty accessible. The buttons worked however, when I tried
creating an account, it didn't confirm it. I typed in the required
information and clicked the create button but when it loaded, the
checkbox the said this is my only account was unchecked and the combo
for my civilization was back to chose even though I put it on chinese.
The other fields were what I had typed. What is going on? I don't see
any way of contacting the admins.

---
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.




---
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.




--
Play unification wars today
http://uc.gamestotal.com/?in=2551372

---
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.




---
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.



---
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 can't I create an account on rise of chaos?

[dark]

No idea david, however I don't know if this is something the admins could 
fix because I know several people (myself included), have signed up without 
trouble, plus it coudl be that your braille display is missing a field on 
the page which screen readers don't, so you didn't actually complete the 
entire form.


All the best,

Dark.
- Original Message - 
From: "David Bartling" 

To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2014 10:26 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why can't I create an account on rise of chaos?



Hi
I did it several times with no results. Is there a way I can contact
the admins to see if they can do it? I can't see anything on the page
to do it.

On 11/25/14, dark  wrote:

Hi David.

No idea, all I can think of is you didn't fill in all the boxes with your
hero name, e-mail address and password. It worked fine for me when i 
tried

and I don't think there is anything too unusual on the page.

Beware the grue!

Dark.
- Original Message -
From: "David Bartling" 
To: 
Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2014 1:49 PM
Subject: [Audyssey] why can't I create an account on rise of chaos?



Hi all,
I am using a braillenote and I want to play rise of chaos. I realize
that the braillenota is really bad at playing web games but the site
looked pretty accessible. The buttons worked however, when I tried
creating an account, it didn't confirm it. I typed in the required
information and clicked the create button but when it loaded, the
checkbox the said this is my only account was unchecked and the combo
for my civilization was back to chose even though I put it on chinese.
The other fields were what I had typed. What is going on? I don't see
any way of contacting the admins.

---
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.




---
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.




--
Play unification wars today
http://uc.gamestotal.com/?in=2551372

---
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.




---
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 can't I create an account on rise of chaos?

[lenron brown]

what is the web address to this game.

On 11/25/14, David Bartling  wrote:
> Hi
> I did it several times with no results. Is there a way I can contact
> the admins to see if they can do it? I can't see anything on the page
> to do it.
>
> On 11/25/14, dark  wrote:
>> Hi David.
>>
>> No idea, all I can think of is you didn't fill in all the boxes with your
>> hero name, e-mail address and password. It worked fine for me when i
>> tried
>> and I don't think there is anything too unusual on the page.
>>
>> Beware the grue!
>>
>> Dark.
>> - Original Message -
>> From: "David Bartling" 
>> To: 
>> Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2014 1:49 PM
>> Subject: [Audyssey] why can't I create an account on rise of chaos?
>>
>>
>>> Hi all,
>>> I am using a braillenote and I want to play rise of chaos. I realize
>>> that the braillenota is really bad at playing web games but the site
>>> looked pretty accessible. The buttons worked however, when I tried
>>> creating an account, it didn't confirm it. I typed in the required
>>> information and clicked the create button but when it loaded, the
>>> checkbox the said this is my only account was unchecked and the combo
>>> for my civilization was back to chose even though I put it on chinese.
>>> The other fields were what I had typed. What is going on? I don't see
>>> any way of contacting the admins.
>>>
>>> ---
>>> 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.
>>>
>>
>>
>> ---
>> 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.
>>
>
>
> --
> Play unification wars today
> http://uc.gamestotal.com/?in=2551372
>
> ---
> 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.
>


-- 
Lenron Brown
Cell: 985-271-2832
Skype: ron.brown762

---
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 can't I create an account on rise of chaos?

[David Bartling]

Hi
I did it several times with no results. Is there a way I can contact
the admins to see if they can do it? I can't see anything on the page
to do it.

On 11/25/14, dark  wrote:
> Hi David.
>
> No idea, all I can think of is you didn't fill in all the boxes with your
> hero name, e-mail address and password. It worked fine for me when i tried
> and I don't think there is anything too unusual on the page.
>
> Beware the grue!
>
> Dark.
> - Original Message -
> From: "David Bartling" 
> To: 
> Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2014 1:49 PM
> Subject: [Audyssey] why can't I create an account on rise of chaos?
>
>
>> Hi all,
>> I am using a braillenote and I want to play rise of chaos. I realize
>> that the braillenota is really bad at playing web games but the site
>> looked pretty accessible. The buttons worked however, when I tried
>> creating an account, it didn't confirm it. I typed in the required
>> information and clicked the create button but when it loaded, the
>> checkbox the said this is my only account was unchecked and the combo
>> for my civilization was back to chose even though I put it on chinese.
>> The other fields were what I had typed. What is going on? I don't see
>> any way of contacting the admins.
>>
>> ---
>> 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.
>>
>
>
> ---
> 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.
>


-- 
Play unification wars today
http://uc.gamestotal.com/?in=2551372

---
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 can't I create an account on rise of chaos?

[dark]

Hi David.

No idea, all I can think of is you didn't fill in all the boxes with your 
hero name, e-mail address and password. It worked fine for me when i tried 
and I don't think there is anything too unusual on the page.


Beware the grue!

Dark.
- Original Message - 
From: "David Bartling" 

To: 
Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2014 1:49 PM
Subject: [Audyssey] why can't I create an account on rise of chaos?



Hi all,
I am using a braillenote and I want to play rise of chaos. I realize
that the braillenota is really bad at playing web games but the site
looked pretty accessible. The buttons worked however, when I tried
creating an account, it didn't confirm it. I typed in the required
information and clicked the create button but when it loaded, the
checkbox the said this is my only account was unchecked and the combo
for my civilization was back to chose even though I put it on chinese.
The other fields were what I had typed. What is going on? I don't see
any way of contacting the admins.

---
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.




---
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 Android development is not in theforeseeablefuture

[Cara Quinn]

Hi Willem,

I think I may not have been clear.

I wasn't asking how to code for Android. I was asking how you as a user would 
use something like a web view in your daily uses. I'm trying to get an idea 
from a user's point of view.

Also, in regard to the latest info, again, I'm interested in the user 
experience not the development as I can easily access any answers I need for 
that. :)

I'm asking about how a customer would see accessibility as this is very 
important to us and this seems to be the issue that everyone seems to offer 
different answers for or down-play in some way by just saying Android is 
accessible but not offering real tangible examples.

The only examples from visually impaired customers, I see are from the Eyes 
Free list and the questions and abilities of the user-base vary wildly.

So I'm wondering how an experienced user like yourself would use a web view or 
supposedly inaccessible text field?

• How easy is it for you to use?

• What is the process of using it like?

Thanks so much!

Smiles,

Cara :)
---
iOS design and development - LookTel.com
---
View my Online Portfolio at:

http://www.onemodelplace.com/CaraQuinn

Follow me on Twitter!

https://twitter.com/ModelCara

On Feb 24, 2014, at 4:50 PM, Willem Venter  wrote:

On 2/25/14, Cara Quinn  wrote:
> HI Willem,
> 
> Are you actually referring to me here or just speaking generally?
No, I was refering to the article and the methodology he follow.

> As far as our own experience with Android development goes, I can assure you
> that this is not just a simple matter of trying something and not being able
> to do it on Android so we gave up.

> I work with world-class developers who
> are experts in their fields. So when they tell me something is less than
> accessible, I listen. :)
Perhaps you shouldn't jump to conclusions that fast. There was a time
when android and accessibility wasn't mature, but this is changing. I
guess everyone can't be a world-class expert in every field.

> Part of the reason my team chooses not to port our apps to Android at
> present is not just the use of the OS itself, it is also the effort that a
> lay-person must potentially go through in order to either have a device that
> is accessible to them or re-activate that device if it or some part of the
> OS crashes or otherwise fails in some way which may render the device
> inaccessible.
Really? All I need to do was turn on the accessibility shortcut in
settings. 3 presses of the power button always resets accessibility.
> 
> * Can the customer bring the device up talking again by themselves on all
> devices with all OS versions?
Sure, unles your device is as ancient as the mountains. I know I did
this 2 years ago.
> 
> * HOw much effort is involved in setting the device up or re-enabling
> accessibility so the customer can then use it effectively again or for the
> first time?
There's a shortcut, I can't remember what the gesture is now, so I'd
say easy. Even if you somehow couldn't get the gesture to work it only
requires someone to help you turn on 1 setting. It's a once off thing.
> 
> The above concerns along with the lack of a standardized access experience
> across devices and OS versions makes developing on Android a no-go for us at
> least in the immediate future.
> 
> You'd mentioned that web views are now accessible?
> 
Yes. If I'm not mistaken Facebook uses one.
> Would you mind at all describing the process of using one on Android now?
I am by no mean proficient in using web views. I usually use native
controls, but a very quick search gave me this.
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/webkit/WebView.html
I see references to AccessibilityEvents and nodes. There's also a
stackoverflow answer I can't seem to find at the moment.
> 
> As well, if anything I'm saying is in error, please, can you direct me to
> correct info so I have the latest?
The android documentation and examples are a very good source of info.
And Google is your friend if you are searching for ways to do things.
> 
> Thanks so much and have a great day!
> 
> Smiles,
> 
> Cara :)
> ---
> iOS design and development - LookTel.com
> ---
> View my Online Portfolio at:
> 
> http://www.onemodelplace.com/CaraQuinn
> 
> Follow me on Twitter!
> 
> https://twitter.com/ModelCara
> 
> On Feb 24, 2014, at 2:40 PM, Willem Venter  wrote:
> 
> Hi Cara.
> I don't know Chris and I don't know his work, but in this case he
> methods were flawed and his research shoddy and biased. Yes, web views
> weren't always accessible. This is false since (in some cases) android
> 3.0 and others 4.0 as improvements are made in new versions. This
> happened in 2012 already.
> 
> IMO there are much better and debatably easier ways of creating an
> accessible program in Android. Claiming inaccessibility because you
> weren't able to do things the microsoft or IOS way instead of
> following android accessibility guidelines or if you were using an old
> version of android doesn't prove much. Each OS 

Re: [Audyssey] Why Android development is not in theforeseeablefuture

[Willem Venter]

On 2/25/14, Cara Quinn  wrote:
> HI Willem,
>
> Are you actually referring to me here or just speaking generally?
No, I was refering to the article and the methodology he follow.

> As far as our own experience with Android development goes, I can assure you
> that this is not just a simple matter of trying something and not being able
> to do it on Android so we gave up.

> I work with world-class developers who
> are experts in their fields. So when they tell me something is less than
> accessible, I listen. :)
Perhaps you shouldn't jump to conclusions that fast. There was a time
when android and accessibility wasn't mature, but this is changing. I
guess everyone can't be a world-class expert in every field.

> Part of the reason my team chooses not to port our apps to Android at
> present is not just the use of the OS itself, it is also the effort that a
> lay-person must potentially go through in order to either have a device that
> is accessible to them or re-activate that device if it or some part of the
> OS crashes or otherwise fails in some way which may render the device
> inaccessible.
Really? All I need to do was turn on the accessibility shortcut in
settings. 3 presses of the power button always resets accessibility.
>
> * Can the customer bring the device up talking again by themselves on all
> devices with all OS versions?
Sure, unles your device is as ancient as the mountains. I know I did
this 2 years ago.
>
> * HOw much effort is involved in setting the device up or re-enabling
> accessibility so the customer can then use it effectively again or for the
> first time?
There's a shortcut, I can't remember what the gesture is now, so I'd
say easy. Even if you somehow couldn't get the gesture to work it only
requires someone to help you turn on 1 setting. It's a once off thing.
>
> The above concerns along with the lack of a standardized access experience
> across devices and OS versions makes developing on Android a no-go for us at
> least in the immediate future.
>
> You'd mentioned that web views are now accessible?
>
Yes. If I'm not mistaken Facebook uses one.
> Would you mind at all describing the process of using one on Android now?
I am by no mean proficient in using web views. I usually use native
controls, but a very quick search gave me this.
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/webkit/WebView.html
 I see references to AccessibilityEvents and nodes. There's also a
stackoverflow answer I can't seem to find at the moment.
>
> As well, if anything I'm saying is in error, please, can you direct me to
> correct info so I have the latest?
The android documentation and examples are a very good source of info.
And Google is your friend if you are searching for ways to do things.
>
> Thanks so much and have a great day!
>
> Smiles,
>
> Cara :)
> ---
> iOS design and development - LookTel.com
> ---
> View my Online Portfolio at:
>
> http://www.onemodelplace.com/CaraQuinn
>
> Follow me on Twitter!
>
> https://twitter.com/ModelCara
>
> On Feb 24, 2014, at 2:40 PM, Willem Venter  wrote:
>
> Hi Cara.
> I don't know Chris and I don't know his work, but in this case he
> methods were flawed and his research shoddy and biased. Yes, web views
> weren't always accessible. This is false since (in some cases) android
> 3.0 and others 4.0 as improvements are made in new versions. This
> happened in 2012 already.
>
> IMO there are much better and debatably easier ways of creating an
> accessible program in Android. Claiming inaccessibility because you
> weren't able to do things the microsoft or IOS way instead of
> following android accessibility guidelines or if you were using an old
> version of android doesn't prove much. Each OS dictates their own
> terms under which programs should be written. This holds for Windows,
> IOS, Android and many others.
>
>
> On 2/24/14, Cara Quinn  wrote:
>> HI Willem,
>>
>> Chris is one of the most thorough and meticulous researches I know of.
>>
>> For myself, since I am also on the Eyes Free list and work personally
>> side-by-side with Android developers, I find nothing in his article that
>> is
>> stated incorrectly.
>>
>> I know for a fact that web views display all of the atrocious
>> accessibility
>> issues that his article touches on because I've seen other Android users
>> talking about this very same thing on the Eyes Free list themselves.
>>
>> From my own experiences with my coworkers and my own team, developing for
>> Android is an accessibility nightmare if one is looking for some sort of
>> consistency or universal access.
>>
>> Please do not mistake the above for any lack of support for Google or
>> Android. I and my company, both would love to see nothing more than
>> Android
>> be completely accessible and useful across the board. This just is not
>> the
>> case right now. So please perhaps give the article another read and
>> seriously consider what Chris is saying.
>>
>> If people on any platform, decide to pass off a less-than-accessible

Re: [Audyssey] Why Android development is not in theforeseeablefuture

[Cara Quinn]

HI Willem,

Are you actually referring to me here or just speaking generally?

As far as web views go, I've seen discussion even just about three months ago 
or so on Eyes Free about web views not being accessible. This came from a 
visually impaired Android developer who was trying to make suggestions to a 
sighted developer on how to make their app more accessible. The visually 
impaired dev said that web views' accessibility was very poor at best.

Since I have no other info on this I'll not speak on this one any more.

As far as our own experience with Android development goes, I can assure you 
that this is not just a simple matter of trying something and not being able to 
do it on Android so we gave up. I work with world-class developers who are 
experts in their fields. So when they tell me something is less than 
accessible, I listen. :)

Part of the reason my team chooses not to port our apps to Android at present 
is not just the use of the OS itself, it is also the effort that a lay-person 
must potentially go through in order to either have a device that is accessible 
to them or re-activate that device if it or some part of the OS crashes or 
otherwise fails in some way which may render the device inaccessible.

• Can the customer bring the device up talking again by themselves on all 
devices with all OS versions?

• HOw much effort is involved in setting the device up or re-enabling 
accessibility so the customer can then use it effectively again or for the 
first time?

The above concerns along with the lack of a standardized access experience 
across devices and OS versions makes developing on Android a no-go for us at 
least in the immediate future.

You'd mentioned that web views are now accessible?

Would you mind at all describing the process of using one on Android now?

As well, if anything I'm saying is in error, please, can you direct me to 
correct info so I have the latest?

Thanks so much and have a great day!

Smiles,

Cara :)
---
iOS design and development - LookTel.com
---
View my Online Portfolio at:

http://www.onemodelplace.com/CaraQuinn

Follow me on Twitter!

https://twitter.com/ModelCara

On Feb 24, 2014, at 2:40 PM, Willem Venter  wrote:

Hi Cara.
I don't know Chris and I don't know his work, but in this case he
methods were flawed and his research shoddy and biased. Yes, web views
weren't always accessible. This is false since (in some cases) android
3.0 and others 4.0 as improvements are made in new versions. This
happened in 2012 already.

IMO there are much better and debatably easier ways of creating an
accessible program in Android. Claiming inaccessibility because you
weren't able to do things the microsoft or IOS way instead of
following android accessibility guidelines or if you were using an old
version of android doesn't prove much. Each OS dictates their own
terms under which programs should be written. This holds for Windows,
IOS, Android and many others.


On 2/24/14, Cara Quinn  wrote:
> HI Willem,
> 
> Chris is one of the most thorough and meticulous researches I know of.
> 
> For myself, since I am also on the Eyes Free list and work personally
> side-by-side with Android developers, I find nothing in his article that is
> stated incorrectly.
> 
> I know for a fact that web views display all of the atrocious accessibility
> issues that his article touches on because I've seen other Android users
> talking about this very same thing on the Eyes Free list themselves.
> 
> From my own experiences with my coworkers and my own team, developing for
> Android is an accessibility nightmare if one is looking for some sort of
> consistency or universal access.
> 
> Please do not mistake the above for any lack of support for Google or
> Android. I and my company, both would love to see nothing more than Android
> be completely accessible and useful across the board. This just is not the
> case right now. So please perhaps give the article another read and
> seriously consider what Chris is saying.
> 
> If people on any platform, decide to pass off a less-than-accessible
> alternative as something that is accessible then it is truly a lousy move
> for access tech as a whole.
> 
> Thanks for your note and have a terrific day!
> 
> Smiles,
> 
> Cara :)
> ---
> iOS design and development - LookTel.com
> ---
> View my Online Portfolio at:
> 
> http://www.onemodelplace.com/CaraQuinn
> 
> Follow me on Twitter!
> 
> https://twitter.com/ModelCara
> 
> On Feb 24, 2014, at 5:54 AM, Willem Venter  wrote:
> 
> I find this article extremely biased and badly researched. He starts
> off by saying he doesn't know android, the API or how to use it and
> then tries to show how unusable it is. duh.
> Making controls accessible  works differently compared to  other
> platforms, but does not require "hundreds of lines of code".
> While many things he says might or might not be true his lack of
> proper research makes me cautious to accept any of his findings at
> face value as many o

Re: [Audyssey] Why Android development is not in theforeseeablefuture

[Willem Venter]

Hi Cara.
I don't know Chris and I don't know his work, but in this case he
methods were flawed and his research shoddy and biased. Yes, web views
weren't always accessible. This is false since (in some cases) android
3.0 and others 4.0 as improvements are made in new versions. This
happened in 2012 already.

IMO there are much better and debatably easier ways of creating an
accessible program in Android. Claiming inaccessibility because you
weren't able to do things the microsoft or IOS way instead of
following android accessibility guidelines or if you were using an old
version of android doesn't prove much. Each OS dictates their own
terms under which programs should be written. This holds for Windows,
IOS, Android and many others.


On 2/24/14, Cara Quinn  wrote:
> HI Willem,
>
> Chris is one of the most thorough and meticulous researches I know of.
>
> For myself, since I am also on the Eyes Free list and work personally
> side-by-side with Android developers, I find nothing in his article that is
> stated incorrectly.
>
> I know for a fact that web views display all of the atrocious accessibility
> issues that his article touches on because I've seen other Android users
> talking about this very same thing on the Eyes Free list themselves.
>
> From my own experiences with my coworkers and my own team, developing for
> Android is an accessibility nightmare if one is looking for some sort of
> consistency or universal access.
>
> Please do not mistake the above for any lack of support for Google or
> Android. I and my company, both would love to see nothing more than Android
> be completely accessible and useful across the board. This just is not the
> case right now. So please perhaps give the article another read and
> seriously consider what Chris is saying.
>
> If people on any platform, decide to pass off a less-than-accessible
> alternative as something that is accessible then it is truly a lousy move
> for access tech as a whole.
>
> Thanks for your note and have a terrific day!
>
> Smiles,
>
> Cara :)
> ---
> iOS design and development - LookTel.com
> ---
> View my Online Portfolio at:
>
> http://www.onemodelplace.com/CaraQuinn
>
> Follow me on Twitter!
>
> https://twitter.com/ModelCara
>
> On Feb 24, 2014, at 5:54 AM, Willem Venter  wrote:
>
> I find this article extremely biased and badly researched. He starts
> off by saying he doesn't know android, the API or how to use it and
> then tries to show how unusable it is. duh.
> Making controls accessible  works differently compared to  other
> platforms, but does not require "hundreds of lines of code".
> While many things he says might or might not be true his lack of
> proper research makes me cautious to accept any of his findings at
> face value as many of the things he says seems to be thumb suck and
> conjecture based on heavily biased personal opinion. The fact that he
> bashes apple in another article won't make his research in this one
> better.
>
> Note, weather I agree with him or not is not the issue. From
> programming for android I know many of the things he says are false.
> It's also not even talking android up over IOS as I don't know
> objective C or the IOS API  well enough to comment on it.
>
> ---
> 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.
>
>
> ---
> 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.
>

---
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 Android development is not in theforeseeablefuture

[Cara Quinn]

HI Willem,

Chris is one of the most thorough and meticulous researches I know of.

For myself, since I am also on the Eyes Free list and work personally 
side-by-side with Android developers, I find nothing in his article that is 
stated incorrectly.

I know for a fact that web views display all of the atrocious accessibility 
issues that his article touches on because I've seen other Android users 
talking about this very same thing on the Eyes Free list themselves.

>From my own experiences with my coworkers and my own team, developing for 
>Android is an accessibility nightmare if one is looking for some sort of 
>consistency or universal access.

Please do not mistake the above for any lack of support for Google or Android. 
I and my company, both would love to see nothing more than Android be 
completely accessible and useful across the board. This just is not the case 
right now. So please perhaps give the article another read and seriously 
consider what Chris is saying.

If people on any platform, decide to pass off a less-than-accessible 
alternative as something that is accessible then it is truly a lousy move for 
access tech as a whole.

Thanks for your note and have a terrific day!

Smiles,

Cara :)
---
iOS design and development - LookTel.com
---
View my Online Portfolio at:

http://www.onemodelplace.com/CaraQuinn

Follow me on Twitter!

https://twitter.com/ModelCara

On Feb 24, 2014, at 5:54 AM, Willem Venter  wrote:

I find this article extremely biased and badly researched. He starts
off by saying he doesn't know android, the API or how to use it and
then tries to show how unusable it is. duh.
Making controls accessible  works differently compared to  other
platforms, but does not require "hundreds of lines of code".
While many things he says might or might not be true his lack of
proper research makes me cautious to accept any of his findings at
face value as many of the things he says seems to be thumb suck and
conjecture based on heavily biased personal opinion. The fact that he
bashes apple in another article won't make his research in this one
better.

Note, weather I agree with him or not is not the issue. From
programming for android I know many of the things he says are false.
It's also not even talking android up over IOS as I don't know
objective C or the IOS API  well enough to comment on it.

---
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.


---
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 Android development is not in theforeseeablefuture

[Willem Venter]

I find this article extremely biased and badly researched. He starts
off by saying he doesn't know android, the API or how to use it and
then tries to show how unusable it is. duh.
Making controls accessible  works differently compared to  other
platforms, but does not require "hundreds of lines of code".
While many things he says might or might not be true his lack of
proper research makes me cautious to accept any of his findings at
face value as many of the things he says seems to be thumb suck and
conjecture based on heavily biased personal opinion. The fact that he
bashes apple in another article won't make his research in this one
better.

Note, weather I agree with him or not is not the issue. From
programming for android I know many of the things he says are false.
It's also not even talking android up over IOS as I don't know
objective C or the IOS API  well enough to comment on it.

---
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 Android development is not in theforeseeablefuture

[Jacob Kruger]

Too true, Thomas - current workaround could also be to bring up global 
context menu - default gesture is down and then right, activate talkback 
settings on top right, and turn off explore by touch, and this after 
launching game, but, suppose issue then would also be how to turn it on 
again, easily, if the primary talkback context menu gesture was then being 
ignored - will need to maybe test that one myself at some stage, and this 
would/could then also interfere with standard interface elements, if game 
still used/needed them at times.


But, yes, wish these large, corporate types would open their community eyes, 
but, suppose the primary issue there is target market size - they care more 
about millions of sighted guys with bankrolls than they do about a 
relatively miniscule community whose needs aren't high on their lists of 
priorities.


Stay well

Jacob Kruger
Blind Biker
Skype: BlindZA
'...fate had broken his body, but not his spirit...'

- Original Message - 
From: "Thomas Ward" 

To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Sunday, 23 February, 2014 3:53 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Why Android development is not in 
theforeseeablefuture




Hi Jacob,

Yes, I have noticed that myself. Explore by Touch is necessary for
examining the screen and doing a lot of useful things on an Android
phone or tablet, but it hijacks the touchscreen so it makes it
difficult to implement various gestures and commands for games etc. An
alternative is to simply turn off Talkback while playing and use TTS,
but as I have discussed in a previous post that is not always the most
desirable option.

Let's take for example a game that could be made universally
accessible like Hangman. If designed with a decent text display it
could be accessible to someone sighted, deaf, deaf-blind, and blind
through that text display. However, the minute developer chooses to
get rid of that text display and depend exclusively on audio output
such as TTS automatically they are making the game inaccessible to
both deaf and deaf-blind end users, and there is no need for that to
happen. What needs to happen is Google needs to get their collective
heads out of their collective butts and have a way to bypass Explore
by Touch in certain apps, and of course to fix their text controls so
they are more accessible.

Cheers!



On 2/22/14, Jacob Kruger  wrote:
Some of them have tested are, and some are not perfect, but, will also 
say

it comes down to rather a lot of variant versions of hardware interface
making all of them seem different from handset to handset, etc.

Certain aspects like implementing TTS seem simple enough to implement - 
got


a fully usable/accessible interactive fiction interpreter on my android
units, for example, but, when it comes down to actually 
implementing/making


use of gestures, etc., part of the issue is talkback's explore by touch
hijacking interface access to a certain extent...

Stay well

Jacob Kruger
Blind Biker
Skype: BlindZA
'...fate had broken his body, but not his spirit...'



---
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.




---
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 Android development is not in the foreseeablefuture

[Thomas Ward]

Hi Jacob,

Yes, I have noticed that myself. Explore by Touch is necessary for
examining the screen and doing a lot of useful things on an Android
phone or tablet, but it hijacks the touchscreen so it makes it
difficult to implement various gestures and commands for games etc. An
alternative is to simply turn off Talkback while playing and use TTS,
but as I have discussed in a previous post that is not always the most
desirable option.

Let's take for example a game that could be made universally
accessible like Hangman. If designed with a decent text display it
could be accessible to someone sighted, deaf, deaf-blind, and blind
through that text display. However, the minute developer chooses to
get rid of that text display and depend exclusively on audio output
such as TTS automatically they are making the game inaccessible to
both deaf and deaf-blind end users, and there is no need for that to
happen. What needs to happen is Google needs to get their collective
heads out of their collective butts and have a way to bypass Explore
by Touch in certain apps, and of course to fix their text controls so
they are more accessible.

Cheers!



On 2/22/14, Jacob Kruger  wrote:
> Some of them have tested are, and some are not perfect, but, will also say
> it comes down to rather a lot of variant versions of hardware interface
> making all of them seem different from handset to handset, etc.
>
> Certain aspects like implementing TTS seem simple enough to implement - got
>
> a fully usable/accessible interactive fiction interpreter on my android
> units, for example, but, when it comes down to actually implementing/making
>
> use of gestures, etc., part of the issue is talkback's explore by touch
> hijacking interface access to a certain extent...
>
> Stay well
>
> Jacob Kruger
> Blind Biker
> Skype: BlindZA
> '...fate had broken his body, but not his spirit...'
>

---
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 Android development is not in the foreseeablefuture

[Jacob Kruger]

Some of them have tested are, and some are not perfect, but, will also say 
it comes down to rather a lot of variant versions of hardware interface 
making all of them seem different from handset to handset, etc.


Certain aspects like implementing TTS seem simple enough to implement - got 
a fully usable/accessible interactive fiction interpreter on my android 
units, for example, but, when it comes down to actually implementing/making 
use of gestures, etc., part of the issue is talkback's explore by touch 
hijacking interface access to a certain extent...


Stay well

Jacob Kruger
Blind Biker
Skype: BlindZA
'...fate had broken his body, but not his spirit...'

- Original Message - 
From: "lenron brown" 

To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Saturday, 22 February, 2014 9:14 AM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Why Android development is not in the 
foreseeablefuture




I have seen the accessible games there is for android and the are
awesome so I still think it is possible.

On 2/21/14, Draconis  wrote:

Hi all,

I wanted to revisit this topic for those who may still be perplexed on 
why
developers, such as Draconis and USA Games, have little interest in 
writing

accessible games for Android.

The below link is an article that outlines the problems with Android in
particular, and with developing accessible software for Android, in an
extremely clear and concise way. It is the best summary of the state of
Android accessibility I've seen, and it does a great job of explaining
things in a simple and easily understood way.

http://chrishofstader.com/testing-android-accessibility-the-programmers-perspective/

I hope this is of interest.

Draconis Entertainment
"...feel the power...wield the magic..."
http://DraconisEntertainment.com
http://twitter.com/DracoEnt




---
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.




--
Lenron Brown
Cell: 985-271-2832
Skype: ron.brown762

---
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.




---
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 Android development is not in the foreseeable future

[Thomas Ward]

Hi Lenron,

Yes, it is possible to create accessible games for Android. Nobody is
disputing that. The problem is weather or not it is practical to do
so. The answer in many cases is that it is not practical to do so for
a lot of reasons. Possible is not always practical which is the point
being discussed here.

For example, assume I wanted to write a quick and dirty text
adventure. Let's call it Super Cave Adventure. On Windows, OSX, Linux,
iOS, or almost any modern os all I have to do is create a standard
text control to display my text on screen. On Android the text
controls are not accessible and now I have to spend extra time and
effort creating my own accessible text control just so the screen
readers can read it. I of course could get around that issue by
outputting my text directly to Espeak or another synth, but we are
only digging the hole deeper because that is a hack to get around an
access issue in Droid OS's accessibility API. Outputting directly to
speech might be an acceptable alternative to you personally, but it is
considered to be bad practice simply because the app or game should be
accessible to everyone regardless if they are blind, sighted,
deaf-blind, whatever, and by outputting directly to speech you are
excluding the deaf and deaf-blind users of that device in deference to
blind users only.

So the point here is in order to offer universal accessibility, which
should be the goal of any game developer, I'd have to do much more
work onDroid OS to make a game like Super Cave Adventure accessible
all because Google is not doing their job by offering up an accessible
text control in the first place. My time is limited as I am sure
Josh's is too, and while it might be possible to make an accessible
game for Android it is not as practical to do so. Not when we can
easily create a standard text control using the Windows API on
Windows, standard text control using GTK+ 3 on Linux, a standard text
control in Cocoa on OSX, etc without having to go making our own hacks
to get around the broken APIs on Android. That is why some of us won't
consider it until things improve on Android.

Cheers!


On 2/22/14, lenron brown  wrote:
> I have seen the accessible games there is for android and the are
> awesome so I still think it is possible.
>

---
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 Android development is not in the foreseeable future

[Michael Taboada]

Hi,
No-one's saying it's impossible, just that it's more impractical for 
those wishing to get money and use their time wisely.
For those who don't mind not making as much money, or making less money 
per amount of time put in, sure, they can make great games. But did it 
take them more effort than on iOS? Probably.

Hth,
-Michael, Speed of Sound Gaming.



On 2/22/2014 1:14 AM, lenron brown wrote:

I have seen the accessible games there is for android and the are
awesome so I still think it is possible.

On 2/21/14, Draconis  wrote:

Hi all,

I wanted to revisit this topic for those who may still be perplexed on why
developers, such as Draconis and USA Games, have little interest in writing
accessible games for Android.

The below link is an article that outlines the problems with Android in
particular, and with developing accessible software for Android, in an
extremely clear and concise way. It is the best summary of the state of
Android accessibility I've seen, and it does a great job of explaining
things in a simple and easily understood way.

http://chrishofstader.com/testing-android-accessibility-the-programmers-perspective/

I hope this is of interest.

Draconis Entertainment
"...feel the power...wield the magic..."
http://DraconisEntertainment.com
http://twitter.com/DracoEnt




---
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.






---
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 Android development is not in the foreseeable future

[Thomas Ward]

Hi Josh,

Thanks for posting a link to this article. I get this question quite
frequently, and while I seriously looked into developing games and
apps for Android devices I decided it was not in my best interests as
a developer in the long term. It is not so much that it can not be
done, it certainly could, but it requires more time and research
developing hacks to get around Google's broken accessibility. That
doesn't even begin to discuss the problem with support given that
Android comes on a huge number of devices ranging in hardware and
there is no consistency between Android OS versions. One device might
be running 4.0, another 4.2, maybe another is up to date running 4.4.
That's just a technical support and testing nightmare. On the flip
side say what you want about Apple their iOS devices are stable and
consistent. I could say a game requires an iPhone 5C or 5S and can be
reasonably sure the end user is running iOS 7. If not they can easily
update to iOS 7 without having to wait for their manufacturer to make
an update available for their phone as is often case for Samsung,
Motorola, LG, and other Android phones. That more than anything else
makes Android too much trouble for a developer with limited resources.

Cheers!



On 2/21/14, Draconis  wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I wanted to revisit this topic for those who may still be perplexed on why
> developers, such as Draconis and USA Games, have little interest in writing
> accessible games for Android.
>
> The below link is an article that outlines the problems with Android in
> particular, and with developing accessible software for Android, in an
> extremely clear and concise way. It is the best summary of the state of
> Android accessibility I've seen, and it does a great job of explaining
> things in a simple and easily understood way.
>
> http://chrishofstader.com/testing-android-accessibility-the-programmers-perspective/
>
> I hope this is of interest.
>
> Draconis Entertainment
> "...feel the power...wield the magic..."
> http://DraconisEntertainment.com
> http://twitter.com/DracoEnt
>
>
>
>
> ---
> 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.
>

---
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 Android development is not in the foreseeable future

[lenron brown]

I have seen the accessible games there is for android and the are
awesome so I still think it is possible.

On 2/21/14, Draconis  wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I wanted to revisit this topic for those who may still be perplexed on why
> developers, such as Draconis and USA Games, have little interest in writing
> accessible games for Android.
>
> The below link is an article that outlines the problems with Android in
> particular, and with developing accessible software for Android, in an
> extremely clear and concise way. It is the best summary of the state of
> Android accessibility I've seen, and it does a great job of explaining
> things in a simple and easily understood way.
>
> http://chrishofstader.com/testing-android-accessibility-the-programmers-perspective/
>
> I hope this is of interest.
>
> Draconis Entertainment
> "...feel the power...wield the magic..."
> http://DraconisEntertainment.com
> http://twitter.com/DracoEnt
>
>
>
>
> ---
> 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.
>


-- 
Lenron Brown
Cell: 985-271-2832
Skype: ron.brown762

---
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 SAPI Output is Superior

[Thomas Ward]

Hi Clement,

That's true, but the point I was making that it is all relative. If
someone has the money or the desire to buy a number of SAPI voices
they can usually find one for each type of game that sounds
appropriate for the type of ambiance they want. Its certainly not a
perfect solution, but then again nothing ever is.

I agree that inflection is definitely a problem, and no matter how
high a quality the voice is inflection will always be a problem with
TTS systems. Although, I think some of the Apple voices do a pretty
good job at faking it. Its just a shame Apple hasn't ported them to
Windows platforms. :D

However, as has already been said from a cost analysis getting real
world actors to read every menu, button, status message, item, and
monster in the game can get quite expensive. Between the fact that we
are dealing with a very small community of gamers and the rate of
piracy a developer such myself has to weigh the costs of paying for
high quality voice acting verses what I will earn in sales. There is
no assurance if I pay out say two or three hundred in professional
voice actors that gamers will be lining up to buy the game at $30
each. However, if I use SAPI and lower the price to $20 people will be
less likely to pirate it so its a question of cost analysis and trying
to get the most effective solution for your dollar.

Cheers!


On 5/4/13, Clement Chou  wrote:
> Well, then you also have to assume that the gamer in question has that many
>
> voices in the first place. lol It would be nice to be able to find a voice
> for each situation, but I find the issue then lies in inflection. Even with
>
> a deep voice, tts can only read things a certain way... and if a player in
> an rpg is streaming or giving commands, I'd much rather hear it with good
> feeling and inflection. But that's what I get for being a voice-acting
> nerd... lol. But of course, that's all my personal taste... and I do
> understand the cost implications and all the rest of it as well.

---
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 SAPI Output is Superior

[Clement Chou]

Well, then you also have to assume that the gamer in question has that many 
voices in the first place. lol It would be nice to be able to find a voice 
for each situation, but I find the issue then lies in inflection. Even with 
a deep voice, tts can only read things a certain way... and if a player in 
an rpg is streaming or giving commands, I'd much rather hear it with good 
feeling and inflection. But that's what I get for being a voice-acting 
nerd... lol. But of course, that's all my personal taste... and I do 
understand the cost implications and all the rest of it as well.
- Original Message - 
From: "Thomas Ward" 

To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Saturday, May 04, 2013 10:33 AM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Why SAPI Output is Superior



Hi Charles,

That's definitely an advantage of SAPI output. Now, I happen to really
like Ivona Amy, she is probably the best British female SAPI voice
I've ever heard, but given your dislike for foreign accents it
wouldn't be ideal for you personally. The way those British voices say
things are slightly different than American voices and that is a turn
off for some people. The best solution therefore is to let people use
whatever they want.

Now, Philip has a point about atmosphere, but then again if a person
has a large number of SAPI voices they can often get a voice to suit
the atmosphere they are looking for. For instance,in Entombed I use
Realspeak Daniel, because I think a deep British voice is appropriate
for an RPG. For Jim's Football I use something like Realspeak Tom or
perhaps Ivona Joey because they make good sports announcers. If I were
playing a game like Tomb Raider and it had SAPI support I'd probably
use Ivona Amy since it is a good British female voice. Bottom line,
with the right voices a gamer can find the voice to suit the mood so
to speak. It doesn't have to be as bad as Microsoft Sam trying to be a
play by play announcer in Jim's Football or the narrator in Entombed.
Its all up to the player what they want in the end. :D

Cheers!



On 5/4/13, Charles Rivard  wrote:
This is purely personal, but I hate hearing to "press entuh" instead of 
to
"press enter". or to "stot game" rather than to "start game".  This is 
why I


prefer SAPI, as long as I am selecting the voice to be used.  With
prerecorded speech, this cannot be done.

---
Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second.


---
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.




---
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 SAPI Output is Superior

[Thomas Ward]

Hi Charles,

That's definitely an advantage of SAPI output. Now, I happen to really
like Ivona Amy, she is probably the best British female SAPI voice
I've ever heard, but given your dislike for foreign accents it
wouldn't be ideal for you personally. The way those British voices say
things are slightly different than American voices and that is a turn
off for some people. The best solution therefore is to let people use
whatever they want.

Now, Philip has a point about atmosphere, but then again if a person
has a large number of SAPI voices they can often get a voice to suit
the atmosphere they are looking for. For instance,in Entombed I use
Realspeak Daniel, because I think a deep British voice is appropriate
for an RPG. For Jim's Football I use something like Realspeak Tom or
perhaps Ivona Joey because they make good sports announcers. If I were
playing a game like Tomb Raider and it had SAPI support I'd probably
use Ivona Amy since it is a good British female voice. Bottom line,
with the right voices a gamer can find the voice to suit the mood so
to speak. It doesn't have to be as bad as Microsoft Sam trying to be a
play by play announcer in Jim's Football or the narrator in Entombed.
Its all up to the player what they want in the end. :D

Cheers!



On 5/4/13, Charles Rivard  wrote:
> This is purely personal, but I hate hearing to "press entuh" instead of to
> "press enter". or to "stot game" rather than to "start game".  This is why I
>
> prefer SAPI, as long as I am selecting the voice to be used.  With
> prerecorded speech, this cannot be done.
>
> ---
> Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second.

---
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 SAPI Output is Superior

[Thomas Ward]

Hi Charles,

That's the size of it. I've only been working on the prototype for two
days and I now have a basic menu system in place, have all the basic
status messages in place, and have a very very preliminary test level
written to move around in. A lot of that is due in part to the fact I
am not spending time on recording, editing, and preparing several
hundred speech files before sitting down to code. The usual two or
three days spent on preparing speech files were spent on actual
coding, and the results speak for themselves.

Cheers!


On 5/4/13, Charles Rivard  wrote:
> Let's see:  You're going to cut the cost, cut the size, improve the
> performance, make it more to the gamer's liking as far as speech is
> concerned, and decrease the development time.  No complaint from this end,
> anyway.  (grin)
>
> ---
> Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second.

---
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 SAPI Output is Superior

[Charles Rivard]

This is purely personal, but I hate hearing to "press entuh" instead of to 
"press enter". or to "stot game" rather than to "start game".  This is why I 
prefer SAPI, as long as I am selecting the voice to be used.  With 
prerecorded speech, this cannot be done.


---
Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second.
- Original Message - 
From: "Philip Bennefall" 

To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Saturday, May 04, 2013 10:37 AM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Why SAPI Output is Superior



Hi Thomas,

I just wanted to respond with a few spontaneous thoughts based on my own 
experiences with sapi versus prerecorded audio.


Mostly I agree with your points. But for my own part I find that using 
synthetic speech, whether it be prerecorded or generated on the fly by a 
sapi controlled engine, greatly detracts from the atmosphere. Imagine if 
you will, that you are in a shadowy temple with a faint sound of wind, 
distant screams from the depths of a dungeon far below, haunting music 
with reverberating strings, and an equally dramatic narrative performed by 
Microsoft Mike. A bit of a contrast.


To take a less extreme example, in my upcoming title the atmosphere is 
generally quite dramatic and with a dark undertone most of the time. 
Therefore, when I recorded my speech files I spoke in a very low voice 
even for such trivial things as numbers and status messages. I knew in 
what context my voice was going to be played, and was able to adapt it to 
really blend in with the rest of the scene that I was trying to create. A 
speech engine could never achieve that. So I think that in terms of 
atmosphere and dramatic effect, prerecorded speech is far superior than a 
tts engine. There are, of course, numerous cases where the advantages of 
tts output greatly outweigh the pros of prerecorded material, such as when 
there is absolutely no way for you to know what content that may need to 
be spoken. But if, as in the case of Mota, you are using prerecorded 
speech files that just contain tts generated content anyway then these 
have absolutely no advantage so I would not disagree with your decision to 
use sapi if you aren't interested in getting a voice talent to record your 
files. In short, I feel that prerecorded voice files are only advantageous 
if you actually have a real voice for the game.


As for ease of coding - that has never really bothered me. It is trivial 
to design wrapper classes that can take a number, or a filename etc using 
overloaded methods, and rendering that with the available speech files 
asynchronously in the same thread so that one doesn't have to care about 
synchronization. So with a careful design you can get it down to a one 
liner just like you would with sapi. What I find annoying with sapi is 
that I can never be sure what the final output will actually sound like. 
Many of the commercial voices have quite a bit of delay during their 
initial buffering for each new phrase. When you speak the same phrase for 
the second time they are usually faster, but the fact that there is so 
much variation between voices makes it difficult to judge in advance how 
the game will actually perform if that makes sense. I tend to use sapi 
extensively for prototyping a game, but once I reach a stage where I start 
to consider a potential release date my first priority is to rip out sapi 
and replace it with real human speech.


In summary, I think that if you want to get something out quickly and 
without spending any money then sapi is definitely the right way to go. If 
on the other hand you are interested in maintaining a great atmosphere and 
you want to make sure the game sounds and performs the same everywhere, 
I'd recommend a voice actor. Best of luck, and sorry about the extremely 
lengthy ramble!


Kind regards,

Philip Bennefall
- Original Message - 
From: "Thomas Ward" 

To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Saturday, May 04, 2013 5:07 PM
Subject: [Audyssey] Why SAPI Output is Superior


Hi everyone,

This morning I had some time on my hands so I began really working on
Mysteries of the Ancients, the new version, and decided to add SAPI 5
support to help expedite the development process.  What I discovered
when I compiled and ran this very early prototype is that the SAPI
support works far better than any release before, and I realized to my
amazement it really is the best solution for speaking menus, status
messages, etc for a number of reasons.

1. It takes less development time to call a single function to pass a
string of text to a SAPI speak function than it does to record, edit,
load, and play a speech clip. Basically, if you got a game idea in
mind you can really speed up the process just by using the SAPI voices
installed on the machine.

2. It saves drive space, takes up less CPU power, and less memory.  In
the last beta of Mysteries of the Ancients,beta 22,

Re: [Audyssey] Why SAPI Output is Superior

[Charles Rivard]

Let's see:  You're going to cut the cost, cut the size, improve the 
performance, make it more to the gamer's liking as far as speech is 
concerned, and decrease the development time.  No complaint from this end, 
anyway.  (grin)


---
Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second.
- Original Message - 
From: "Thomas Ward" 

To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Saturday, May 04, 2013 10:07 AM
Subject: [Audyssey] Why SAPI Output is Superior



Hi everyone,

This morning I had some time on my hands so I began really working on
Mysteries of the Ancients, the new version, and decided to add SAPI 5
support to help expedite the development process.  What I discovered
when I compiled and ran this very early prototype is that the SAPI
support works far better than any release before, and I realized to my
amazement it really is the best solution for speaking menus, status
messages, etc for a number of reasons.

1. It takes less development time to call a single function to pass a
string of text to a SAPI speak function than it does to record, edit,
load, and play a speech clip. Basically, if you got a game idea in
mind you can really speed up the process just by using the SAPI voices
installed on the machine.

2. It saves drive space, takes up less CPU power, and less memory.  In
the last beta of Mysteries of the Ancients,beta 22, the Speech
directory was 36 MB. Now, of course, using SAPI it will take up less
drive space as well as be a smaller download.  I also noticed looking
at the over all system performance that it uses less memory so that's
another reason to use SAPI.

3. Its customizable. This probably goes without saying, but using SAPI
voices you can change the voice, pitch, rate, and volume of the
default voice in the Control Panel meaning if you don't like the
default voice you can always switch to a different one or buy a better
one.

This was always a bit of a problem in prior test releases. The voice
was too fast, too slow, it had an accent, or whatever and I was going
crazy trying to find a voice that everyone liked. So using SAPI you,
the end user, can set it up anyway you like in the Windows Control
Panel.

4. Its very inexpensive. If you hire voice actors to read the menus,
status messages, items, etc that can cost lots of money not to mention
require time to edit and use. Even if a developer uses Acapela Heather
or Nuance Tom legally the developer is suppose to pay royalties for
the use of that voice in a commercial product. This way the developer
isn't using the voices directly and the customer fits the bill for any
high quality voices like Ivona, Nuance TTS, Cepstral, etc.

5. Its very dynamic and flexible. With prerecorded speech there is
always the problem of speaking dynamic content like a player's name or
speaking a message with a number of variables involved. Here you just
create a message string using the dynamic content, give it to sAPI,
and forget about it.

For example, in my wrestling game there are a number of messages of
play by play action like this. "John Cena quickly moves forward, picks
up the Rock, and slams him to the mat." In a case like this the speech
output has to be flexible enough to use the same message from match to
match only substituting the name of the performers in the match. You
can't really do that easily with prerecorded speech clips, but you can
easily do it with SAPI just by using a couple of string variables in
place of the performers name. Therefore it doesn't matter who is in
the match it will always speak the information no matter what, and the
developer doesn't have to spend a month writing a bunch of if
statements to load this or that speech clip on demand. :D

So I think after seeing the results in person I think I am going to be
using SAPI output from now on in my Windows games. I only regret I
didn't do this earlier. I could have saved myself a lot of wasted time
and energy trying to make prerecorded speech clips.

Cheers!

---
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. 



---
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 SAPI Output is Superior

[Philip Bennefall]

Yes, that makes perfect sense. I do a similar thing in my games during the 
early stages of development. I prototype with sapi, and then rip it out. 
That works extremely well for my own projects.


Once again, best of luck.

Kind regards,

Philip Bennefall
- Original Message - 
From: "Thomas Ward" 

To: ; "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Saturday, May 04, 2013 6:58 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Why SAPI Output is Superior


Hi Philip,

No, I was talking more about the entire process of creating and
editing the files. The coding itself I have gotten down to a fairly
straight forward process after having been using the engine since the
early days of MOTA and slowly adding to, improving, and building up
the speech functionality of the engine itself.

The nice thing about this is that I have a choice. I can certainly
roll out 1.0 using SAPI, and if I want to invest in a voice actor it
wouldn't be a huge problem to rip out SAPI and use prerecorded speech
later on since all those functions and classes exist to do things like
speak menus, speak numbers,status messages, whatever.  Its more or
less a matter of replacing one with the other. However, I don't have
any good speech files already created, not interested in hiring
someone to do it, and I am not going to take the time to record and
edit speech clips of SAPI voices when I can use those voices directly.
:D

Cheers!

On 5/4/13, Philip Bennefall  wrote:

Absolutely. I thought you were saying that it was easier in terms of code.
If you are refering to the process of creating the files, then I agree.
Though it is relatively easy to automate the splicing, so that all you 
have


to do is fine tune individual files here and there.

Kind regards,

Philip Bennefall



---
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 SAPI Output is Superior

[Thomas Ward]

Hi Philip,

No, I was talking more about the entire process of creating and
editing the files. The coding itself I have gotten down to a fairly
straight forward process after having been using the engine since the
early days of MOTA and slowly adding to, improving, and building up
the speech functionality of the engine itself.

The nice thing about this is that I have a choice. I can certainly
roll out 1.0 using SAPI, and if I want to invest in a voice actor it
wouldn't be a huge problem to rip out SAPI and use prerecorded speech
later on since all those functions and classes exist to do things like
speak menus, speak numbers,status messages, whatever.  Its more or
less a matter of replacing one with the other. However, I don't have
any good speech files already created, not interested in hiring
someone to do it, and I am not going to take the time to record and
edit speech clips of SAPI voices when I can use those voices directly.
:D

Cheers!

On 5/4/13, Philip Bennefall  wrote:
> Absolutely. I thought you were saying that it was easier in terms of code.
> If you are refering to the process of creating the files, then I agree.
> Though it is relatively easy to automate the splicing, so that all you have
>
> to do is fine tune individual files here and there.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Philip Bennefall

---
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 SAPI Output is Superior

[Thomas Ward]

Hi Josh,

That's pretty much what I was considering. Linux has a speech API
called Speech Dispatcher that looks simple enough to support, and is
the closest thing to SAPI on open source platforms. The way I figure
it when I port to Linux and Mac OS I'll simply write wrapper classes
for the various TTS  APIs, and cross compile.

Cheers!


On 5/4/13, Draconis  wrote:
> Hi Tom,
>
> Regarding the cross-platform challenge…
>
> It isn't really that big of a deal. We developed a TTS wrapper in the game
> engine. The Windows and Mac compilations simply hook into the OS's native
> TTS system, which is NSSpeechSynthesizer on Mac and SAPI on Windows. I think
> that part of the engine was developed in about a day. Very straightforward,
> with the main work the pre-planning of the wrapper class.
>
> The main drawback we have found to TTS, is that we're finding that many
> third-party voices have bugs or cases where they do not adhere to the native
> system they are hooking into. Fortunately, the folks over at Assistiveware
> were fantastic about working with us to fix their bugs, which they have now
> done. Not sure how the Windows side will play out, but we know that a few
> TTS voices have issues playing nice with the SAPI system.
>

---
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 SAPI Output is Superior

[Philip Bennefall]

Absolutely. I thought you were saying that it was easier in terms of code. 
If you are refering to the process of creating the files, then I agree. 
Though it is relatively easy to automate the splicing, so that all you have 
to do is fine tune individual files here and there.


Kind regards,

Philip Bennefall
- Original Message - 
From: "Thomas Ward" 

To: ; "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Saturday, May 04, 2013 6:45 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Why SAPI Output is Superior


Hi Philip,

Well, SAPI is easier because I don't have to record and edit a bunch
of new speech clips for the game. I've elected not to port it to Linux
or Mac OS right away so SAPI is ideal for what I am doing. If I do
decide to port it to another platform in the future I can write a
similar wrapper class for Speech Dispatcher etc and use the native TTS
engines for that platform. Make sense?

Cheers!


On 5/4/13, Philip Bennefall  wrote:

Hi Thomas,

I agree with all your points here. As I said in my prior post, if you 
don't


want to invest a lot of money in voices for the game then sapi is 
definitely


the way forward. However, one thing confuses me. You say you have already
written such wrapper classes, and given that, why is sapi any easier in
terms of coding? Sure there is a small amount of time required initially 
but


it's a trivial implementation that benefits you a great deal throughout 
the


entire coding process, especially when you have cross platform in mind. 
What


I mean is, sapi forces you to do less work but if you've already done that
work, that is no longer an issue.

All in all, I think you have made the right decision given the 
parameters -


no money spent, and maximum time efficiency.

Kind regards,

Philip Bennefall



---
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 SAPI Output is Superior

[Thomas Ward]

Hi Philip,

Well, SAPI is easier because I don't have to record and edit a bunch
of new speech clips for the game. I've elected not to port it to Linux
or Mac OS right away so SAPI is ideal for what I am doing. If I do
decide to port it to another platform in the future I can write a
similar wrapper class for Speech Dispatcher etc and use the native TTS
engines for that platform. Make sense?

Cheers!


On 5/4/13, Philip Bennefall  wrote:
> Hi Thomas,
>
> I agree with all your points here. As I said in my prior post, if you don't
>
> want to invest a lot of money in voices for the game then sapi is definitely
>
> the way forward. However, one thing confuses me. You say you have already
> written such wrapper classes, and given that, why is sapi any easier in
> terms of coding? Sure there is a small amount of time required initially but
>
> it's a trivial implementation that benefits you a great deal throughout the
>
> entire coding process, especially when you have cross platform in mind. What
>
> I mean is, sapi forces you to do less work but if you've already done that
> work, that is no longer an issue.
>
> All in all, I think you have made the right decision given the parameters -
>
> no money spent, and maximum time efficiency.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Philip Bennefall

---
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 SAPI Output is Superior

[Draconis]

Hi Tom,

Regarding the cross-platform challenge…

It isn't really that big of a deal. We developed a TTS wrapper in the game 
engine. The Windows and Mac compilations simply hook into the OS's native TTS 
system, which is NSSpeechSynthesizer on Mac and SAPI on Windows. I think that 
part of the engine was developed in about a day. Very straightforward, with the 
main work the pre-planning of the wrapper class.

The main drawback we have found to TTS, is that we're finding that many 
third-party voices have bugs or cases where they do not adhere to the native 
system they are hooking into. Fortunately, the folks over at Assistiveware were 
fantastic about working with us to fix their bugs, which they have now done. 
Not sure how the Windows side will play out, but we know that a few TTS voices 
have issues playing nice with the SAPI system.

On May 4, 2013, at 12:30 PM, Thomas Ward  wrote:

> Hi Philip,
> 
> When it comes to over all atmosphere you are right. A human voice is
> always superior, but I haven't been doing that with any of my games.
> With my original draft of STFC I used Neosspeach Kate, then Realspeak
> Karen, and in many of the betas of MOTA I was using Acapela Heather.
> Since all of these games were essentially using prerecorded clips of
> SAPI voices anyway I was essentially doing a lot of unnecessary work
> recording,editing, and then using the wav files of synth voices when I
> could have used them directly.
> 
> Now, my voice isn't very good, and do to some physical impairments it
> is impossible for me to speak clearly and I would never use it for a
> professional game. Unfortunately, that means I would have to hire out
> to someone else to do the voice clips and I don't really want to spend
> a great deal of money on a game like Mysteries of the Ancients just to
> get realistic human speech. Perhaps if the game sells well I could
> consider reinvesting some of that money in voice acting etc, but for a
> preliminary release SAPI is definitely the best way to go.
> 
> As far as wrapper classes that's pretty much what I was doing from
> betas 1 to 22. I had a function called SpeakNumber() that would take a
> number and do all the loading and processing of number files which
> works pretty well. However, that required some extra work developing
> those wrapper classes in order to get the same functionality I have
> with SAPI right away.
> 
> There is one other issue you didn't mention and that is cross-platform
> support. There really aren't any good cross-platform TTS solutions.
> ESpeak, Festival, etc are all pretty bad and using prerecorded speech
> clips is a great way to support Windows, Linux, Mac, and iOS, etc all
> with the same speech and from that perspective it is easier to deal
> with than a specific API like SAPI.
> 
> Cheers!
> 
> 
> On 5/4/13, Philip Bennefall  wrote:
>> Hi Thomas,
>> 
>> I just wanted to respond with a few spontaneous thoughts based on my own
>> experiences with sapi versus prerecorded audio.
>> 
>> Mostly I agree with your points. But for my own part I find that using
>> synthetic speech, whether it be prerecorded or generated on the fly by a
>> sapi controlled engine, greatly detracts from the atmosphere. Imagine if you
>> 
>> will, that you are in a shadowy temple with a faint sound of wind, distant
>> screams from the depths of a dungeon far below, haunting music with
>> reverberating strings, and an equally dramatic narrative performed by
>> Microsoft Mike. A bit of a contrast.
>> 
>> To take a less extreme example, in my upcoming title the atmosphere is
>> generally quite dramatic and with a dark undertone most of the time.
>> Therefore, when I recorded my speech files I spoke in a very low voice even
>> 
>> for such trivial things as numbers and status messages. I knew in what
>> context my voice was going to be played, and was able to adapt it to really
>> 
>> blend in with the rest of the scene that I was trying to create. A speech
>> engine could never achieve that. So I think that in terms of atmosphere and
>> 
>> dramatic effect, prerecorded speech is far superior than a tts engine. There
>> 
>> are, of course, numerous cases where the advantages of tts output greatly
>> outweigh the pros of prerecorded material, such as when there is absolutely
>> 
>> no way for you to know what content that may need to be spoken. But if, as
>> in the case of Mota, you are using prerecorded speech files that just
>> contain tts generated content anyway then these have absolutely no advantage
>> 
>> so I would not disagree with your decision to use sapi if you aren't
>> interested in getting a voice talent to record your files. In short, I feel
>> 
>> that prerecorded voice files are only advantageous if you actually have a
>> real voice for the game.
>> 
>> As for ease of coding - that has never really bothered me. It is trivial to
>> 
>> design wrapper classes that can take a number, or a filename etc using
>> overloaded methods, and rendering that with the 

Re: [Audyssey] Why SAPI Output is Superior

[Philip Bennefall]

Hi Thomas,

I agree with all your points here. As I said in my prior post, if you don't 
want to invest a lot of money in voices for the game then sapi is definitely 
the way forward. However, one thing confuses me. You say you have already 
written such wrapper classes, and given that, why is sapi any easier in 
terms of coding? Sure there is a small amount of time required initially but 
it's a trivial implementation that benefits you a great deal throughout the 
entire coding process, especially when you have cross platform in mind. What 
I mean is, sapi forces you to do less work but if you've already done that 
work, that is no longer an issue.


All in all, I think you have made the right decision given the parameters - 
no money spent, and maximum time efficiency.


Kind regards,

Philip Bennefall
- Original Message - 
From: "Thomas Ward" 

To: ; "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Saturday, May 04, 2013 6:30 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Why SAPI Output is Superior


Hi Philip,

When it comes to over all atmosphere you are right. A human voice is
always superior, but I haven't been doing that with any of my games.
With my original draft of STFC I used Neosspeach Kate, then Realspeak
Karen, and in many of the betas of MOTA I was using Acapela Heather.
Since all of these games were essentially using prerecorded clips of
SAPI voices anyway I was essentially doing a lot of unnecessary work
recording,editing, and then using the wav files of synth voices when I
could have used them directly.

Now, my voice isn't very good, and do to some physical impairments it
is impossible for me to speak clearly and I would never use it for a
professional game. Unfortunately, that means I would have to hire out
to someone else to do the voice clips and I don't really want to spend
a great deal of money on a game like Mysteries of the Ancients just to
get realistic human speech. Perhaps if the game sells well I could
consider reinvesting some of that money in voice acting etc, but for a
preliminary release SAPI is definitely the best way to go.

As far as wrapper classes that's pretty much what I was doing from
betas 1 to 22. I had a function called SpeakNumber() that would take a
number and do all the loading and processing of number files which
works pretty well. However, that required some extra work developing
those wrapper classes in order to get the same functionality I have
with SAPI right away.

There is one other issue you didn't mention and that is cross-platform
support. There really aren't any good cross-platform TTS solutions.
ESpeak, Festival, etc are all pretty bad and using prerecorded speech
clips is a great way to support Windows, Linux, Mac, and iOS, etc all
with the same speech and from that perspective it is easier to deal
with than a specific API like SAPI.

Cheers!


On 5/4/13, Philip Bennefall  wrote:

Hi Thomas,

I just wanted to respond with a few spontaneous thoughts based on my own
experiences with sapi versus prerecorded audio.

Mostly I agree with your points. But for my own part I find that using
synthetic speech, whether it be prerecorded or generated on the fly by a
sapi controlled engine, greatly detracts from the atmosphere. Imagine if 
you


will, that you are in a shadowy temple with a faint sound of wind, distant
screams from the depths of a dungeon far below, haunting music with
reverberating strings, and an equally dramatic narrative performed by
Microsoft Mike. A bit of a contrast.

To take a less extreme example, in my upcoming title the atmosphere is
generally quite dramatic and with a dark undertone most of the time.
Therefore, when I recorded my speech files I spoke in a very low voice 
even


for such trivial things as numbers and status messages. I knew in what
context my voice was going to be played, and was able to adapt it to 
really


blend in with the rest of the scene that I was trying to create. A speech
engine could never achieve that. So I think that in terms of atmosphere 
and


dramatic effect, prerecorded speech is far superior than a tts engine. 
There


are, of course, numerous cases where the advantages of tts output greatly
outweigh the pros of prerecorded material, such as when there is 
absolutely


no way for you to know what content that may need to be spoken. But if, as
in the case of Mota, you are using prerecorded speech files that just
contain tts generated content anyway then these have absolutely no 
advantage


so I would not disagree with your decision to use sapi if you aren't
interested in getting a voice talent to record your files. In short, I 
feel


that prerecorded voice files are only advantageous if you actually have a
real voice for the game.

As for ease of coding - that has never really bothered me. It is trivial 
to


design wrapper classes that can take a number, or a filename etc using
overloaded methods, and rendering that with the available speech files
as

Re: [Audyssey] Why SAPI Output is Superior

[Thomas Ward]

Hi Josh,

That's pretty much how I feel about it myself. If I am going to have a
game character like Arizona Smith say something in the game like "got
it" then obviously I'll hire a voice actor to do the voices since that
is a real person. However, for very generic stuff that would show up
as text in a video game like menus, status messages, level info, etc
I'll use SAPI to speak it. Its a real inexpensive and flexible system
for speaking generic game content. While I take Philip's point about
over all ambiance I still think SAPI is less work and less headaches
to deal with.

Cheers!


On 5/4/13, Draconis  wrote:
> Hi Tom,
>
> Full agreement here. We have started using SAPI in our new game engine as
> well, as has been evident in ChangeReaction 2 and SilverDollar. We use a
> very simple formula for deciding what should or should not be presented with
> TTS. That is, if this was a video game and the information being presented
> would be text on the screen, that information should be presented with TTS.
> Otherwise, human voices should be used.
>
> In the main menus for both CR and SD, we do have a human voice for the main
> options, because we are thinking of these options more as icons.
>
> Likewise, in CR, the coins in a video game would be graphically represented,
> hence they are named by a human voice during game play.
>
> We resisted using TTS for a long time. In fact, we weren't using it at all
> in early betas of CR2. In the end, the dubious benefits are far outweighed
> by the drawbacks of using human voices for every bit of textual output.
>

---
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 SAPI Output is Superior

[Thomas Ward]

Hi Philip,

When it comes to over all atmosphere you are right. A human voice is
always superior, but I haven't been doing that with any of my games.
With my original draft of STFC I used Neosspeach Kate, then Realspeak
Karen, and in many of the betas of MOTA I was using Acapela Heather.
Since all of these games were essentially using prerecorded clips of
SAPI voices anyway I was essentially doing a lot of unnecessary work
recording,editing, and then using the wav files of synth voices when I
could have used them directly.

Now, my voice isn't very good, and do to some physical impairments it
is impossible for me to speak clearly and I would never use it for a
professional game. Unfortunately, that means I would have to hire out
to someone else to do the voice clips and I don't really want to spend
a great deal of money on a game like Mysteries of the Ancients just to
get realistic human speech. Perhaps if the game sells well I could
consider reinvesting some of that money in voice acting etc, but for a
preliminary release SAPI is definitely the best way to go.

As far as wrapper classes that's pretty much what I was doing from
betas 1 to 22. I had a function called SpeakNumber() that would take a
number and do all the loading and processing of number files which
works pretty well. However, that required some extra work developing
those wrapper classes in order to get the same functionality I have
with SAPI right away.

There is one other issue you didn't mention and that is cross-platform
support. There really aren't any good cross-platform TTS solutions.
ESpeak, Festival, etc are all pretty bad and using prerecorded speech
clips is a great way to support Windows, Linux, Mac, and iOS, etc all
with the same speech and from that perspective it is easier to deal
with than a specific API like SAPI.

Cheers!


On 5/4/13, Philip Bennefall  wrote:
> Hi Thomas,
>
> I just wanted to respond with a few spontaneous thoughts based on my own
> experiences with sapi versus prerecorded audio.
>
> Mostly I agree with your points. But for my own part I find that using
> synthetic speech, whether it be prerecorded or generated on the fly by a
> sapi controlled engine, greatly detracts from the atmosphere. Imagine if you
>
> will, that you are in a shadowy temple with a faint sound of wind, distant
> screams from the depths of a dungeon far below, haunting music with
> reverberating strings, and an equally dramatic narrative performed by
> Microsoft Mike. A bit of a contrast.
>
> To take a less extreme example, in my upcoming title the atmosphere is
> generally quite dramatic and with a dark undertone most of the time.
> Therefore, when I recorded my speech files I spoke in a very low voice even
>
> for such trivial things as numbers and status messages. I knew in what
> context my voice was going to be played, and was able to adapt it to really
>
> blend in with the rest of the scene that I was trying to create. A speech
> engine could never achieve that. So I think that in terms of atmosphere and
>
> dramatic effect, prerecorded speech is far superior than a tts engine. There
>
> are, of course, numerous cases where the advantages of tts output greatly
> outweigh the pros of prerecorded material, such as when there is absolutely
>
> no way for you to know what content that may need to be spoken. But if, as
> in the case of Mota, you are using prerecorded speech files that just
> contain tts generated content anyway then these have absolutely no advantage
>
> so I would not disagree with your decision to use sapi if you aren't
> interested in getting a voice talent to record your files. In short, I feel
>
> that prerecorded voice files are only advantageous if you actually have a
> real voice for the game.
>
> As for ease of coding - that has never really bothered me. It is trivial to
>
> design wrapper classes that can take a number, or a filename etc using
> overloaded methods, and rendering that with the available speech files
> asynchronously in the same thread so that one doesn't have to care about
> synchronization. So with a careful design you can get it down to a one liner
>
> just like you would with sapi. What I find annoying with sapi is that I can
>
> never be sure what the final output will actually sound like. Many of the
> commercial voices have quite a bit of delay during their initial buffering
> for each new phrase. When you speak the same phrase for the second time they
>
> are usually faster, but the fact that there is so much variation between
> voices makes it difficult to judge in advance how the game will actually
> perform if that makes sense. I tend to use sapi extensively for prototyping
>
> a game, but once I reach a stage where I start to consider a potential
> release date my first priority is to rip out sapi and replace it with real
> human speech.
>
> In summary, I think that if you want to get something out quickly and
> without spending any money then sapi is definitely the right way to go

Re: [Audyssey] Why SAPI Output is Superior

[Draconis]

Hi Tom,

Full agreement here. We have started using SAPI in our new game engine as well, 
as has been evident in ChangeReaction 2 and SilverDollar. We use a very simple 
formula for deciding what should or should not be presented with TTS. That is, 
if this was a video game and the information being presented would be text on 
the screen, that information should be presented with TTS. Otherwise, human 
voices should be used.

In the main menus for both CR and SD, we do have a human voice for the main 
options, because we are thinking of these options more as icons.

Likewise, in CR, the coins in a video game would be graphically represented, 
hence they are named by a human voice during game play.

We resisted using TTS for a long time. In fact, we weren't using it at all in 
early betas of CR2. In the end, the dubious benefits are far outweighed by the 
drawbacks of using human voices for every bit of textual output.

On May 4, 2013, at 11:07 AM, Thomas Ward  wrote:

> Hi everyone,
> 
> This morning I had some time on my hands so I began really working on
> Mysteries of the Ancients, the new version, and decided to add SAPI 5
> support to help expedite the development process.  What I discovered
> when I compiled and ran this very early prototype is that the SAPI
> support works far better than any release before, and I realized to my
> amazement it really is the best solution for speaking menus, status
> messages, etc for a number of reasons.
> 
> 1. It takes less development time to call a single function to pass a
> string of text to a SAPI speak function than it does to record, edit,
> load, and play a speech clip. Basically, if you got a game idea in
> mind you can really speed up the process just by using the SAPI voices
> installed on the machine.
> 
> 2. It saves drive space, takes up less CPU power, and less memory.  In
> the last beta of Mysteries of the Ancients,beta 22, the Speech
> directory was 36 MB. Now, of course, using SAPI it will take up less
> drive space as well as be a smaller download.  I also noticed looking
> at the over all system performance that it uses less memory so that's
> another reason to use SAPI.
> 
> 3. Its customizable. This probably goes without saying, but using SAPI
> voices you can change the voice, pitch, rate, and volume of the
> default voice in the Control Panel meaning if you don't like the
> default voice you can always switch to a different one or buy a better
> one.
> 
> This was always a bit of a problem in prior test releases. The voice
> was too fast, too slow, it had an accent, or whatever and I was going
> crazy trying to find a voice that everyone liked. So using SAPI you,
> the end user, can set it up anyway you like in the Windows Control
> Panel.
> 
> 4. Its very inexpensive. If you hire voice actors to read the menus,
> status messages, items, etc that can cost lots of money not to mention
> require time to edit and use. Even if a developer uses Acapela Heather
> or Nuance Tom legally the developer is suppose to pay royalties for
> the use of that voice in a commercial product. This way the developer
> isn't using the voices directly and the customer fits the bill for any
> high quality voices like Ivona, Nuance TTS, Cepstral, etc.
> 
> 5. Its very dynamic and flexible. With prerecorded speech there is
> always the problem of speaking dynamic content like a player's name or
> speaking a message with a number of variables involved. Here you just
> create a message string using the dynamic content, give it to sAPI,
> and forget about it.
> 
> For example, in my wrestling game there are a number of messages of
> play by play action like this. "John Cena quickly moves forward, picks
> up the Rock, and slams him to the mat." In a case like this the speech
> output has to be flexible enough to use the same message from match to
> match only substituting the name of the performers in the match. You
> can't really do that easily with prerecorded speech clips, but you can
> easily do it with SAPI just by using a couple of string variables in
> place of the performers name. Therefore it doesn't matter who is in
> the match it will always speak the information no matter what, and the
> developer doesn't have to spend a month writing a bunch of if
> statements to load this or that speech clip on demand. :D
> 
> So I think after seeing the results in person I think I am going to be
> using SAPI output from now on in my Windows games. I only regret I
> didn't do this earlier. I could have saved myself a lot of wasted time
> and energy trying to make prerecorded speech clips.
> 
> Cheers!
> 
> ---
> 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 

Re: [Audyssey] Why SAPI Output is Superior

[Philip Bennefall]

Hi Thomas,

I just wanted to respond with a few spontaneous thoughts based on my own 
experiences with sapi versus prerecorded audio.


Mostly I agree with your points. But for my own part I find that using 
synthetic speech, whether it be prerecorded or generated on the fly by a 
sapi controlled engine, greatly detracts from the atmosphere. Imagine if you 
will, that you are in a shadowy temple with a faint sound of wind, distant 
screams from the depths of a dungeon far below, haunting music with 
reverberating strings, and an equally dramatic narrative performed by 
Microsoft Mike. A bit of a contrast.


To take a less extreme example, in my upcoming title the atmosphere is 
generally quite dramatic and with a dark undertone most of the time. 
Therefore, when I recorded my speech files I spoke in a very low voice even 
for such trivial things as numbers and status messages. I knew in what 
context my voice was going to be played, and was able to adapt it to really 
blend in with the rest of the scene that I was trying to create. A speech 
engine could never achieve that. So I think that in terms of atmosphere and 
dramatic effect, prerecorded speech is far superior than a tts engine. There 
are, of course, numerous cases where the advantages of tts output greatly 
outweigh the pros of prerecorded material, such as when there is absolutely 
no way for you to know what content that may need to be spoken. But if, as 
in the case of Mota, you are using prerecorded speech files that just 
contain tts generated content anyway then these have absolutely no advantage 
so I would not disagree with your decision to use sapi if you aren't 
interested in getting a voice talent to record your files. In short, I feel 
that prerecorded voice files are only advantageous if you actually have a 
real voice for the game.


As for ease of coding - that has never really bothered me. It is trivial to 
design wrapper classes that can take a number, or a filename etc using 
overloaded methods, and rendering that with the available speech files 
asynchronously in the same thread so that one doesn't have to care about 
synchronization. So with a careful design you can get it down to a one liner 
just like you would with sapi. What I find annoying with sapi is that I can 
never be sure what the final output will actually sound like. Many of the 
commercial voices have quite a bit of delay during their initial buffering 
for each new phrase. When you speak the same phrase for the second time they 
are usually faster, but the fact that there is so much variation between 
voices makes it difficult to judge in advance how the game will actually 
perform if that makes sense. I tend to use sapi extensively for prototyping 
a game, but once I reach a stage where I start to consider a potential 
release date my first priority is to rip out sapi and replace it with real 
human speech.


In summary, I think that if you want to get something out quickly and 
without spending any money then sapi is definitely the right way to go. If 
on the other hand you are interested in maintaining a great atmosphere and 
you want to make sure the game sounds and performs the same everywhere, I'd 
recommend a voice actor. Best of luck, and sorry about the extremely lengthy 
ramble!


Kind regards,

Philip Bennefall
- Original Message - 
From: "Thomas Ward" 

To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Saturday, May 04, 2013 5:07 PM
Subject: [Audyssey] Why SAPI Output is Superior


Hi everyone,

This morning I had some time on my hands so I began really working on
Mysteries of the Ancients, the new version, and decided to add SAPI 5
support to help expedite the development process.  What I discovered
when I compiled and ran this very early prototype is that the SAPI
support works far better than any release before, and I realized to my
amazement it really is the best solution for speaking menus, status
messages, etc for a number of reasons.

1. It takes less development time to call a single function to pass a
string of text to a SAPI speak function than it does to record, edit,
load, and play a speech clip. Basically, if you got a game idea in
mind you can really speed up the process just by using the SAPI voices
installed on the machine.

2. It saves drive space, takes up less CPU power, and less memory.  In
the last beta of Mysteries of the Ancients,beta 22, the Speech
directory was 36 MB. Now, of course, using SAPI it will take up less
drive space as well as be a smaller download.  I also noticed looking
at the over all system performance that it uses less memory so that's
another reason to use SAPI.

3. Its customizable. This probably goes without saying, but using SAPI
voices you can change the voice, pitch, rate, and volume of the
default voice in the Control Panel meaning if you don't like the
default voice you can always switch to a different one or buy a better
one.

This was always a bit of a problem in prior test releases. The voice
was too fa

Re: [Audyssey] why worry? - Re: Please No More Contact Requests

[Chris H]

Oh that is a shame and now I can see why people are finding ways to play 
their old favourite games under Windows 8, even if it involves 
virtualization. If you can though I would stick with Windows 7 at the 
latest as I can confirm all games work there.



Christopher Hallsworth
E-mail and Facebook:
challswor...@sky.com
Skype:
chrishallsworth7266
Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/@christopherh40
Find my blog at
challsworth2.wordpress.com

On 28/04/2013 00:52, Thomas Ward wrote:

Hi Chris,

This is not presumption. I have read on the Audiogames.net forum that
a couple of people experienced issues getting some of the BSC games to
run on Windows 8. As to what the problem is we have not determined the
cause, but just because the Draconis games run fine doesn't
necessarily follow that the BSC games should as well. Yes, both were
written in VB 6, but there could be other issues involved than just
that. Anyway, all we know at this point is some people are having
problems.

Cheers!


On 4/27/13, Chris H  wrote:

Hey is it true that the games will actually not work well under Windows
8 or is this presumption? I saw references to Draconis games working
under Windows 8 on their support pages, which is to be expected as they
say Windows 98 or newer in the System Requirements. So the same should
apply to Bsc Games.


Christopher Hallsworth
E-mail and Facebook:
challswor...@sky.com
Skype:
chrishallsworth7266
Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/@christopherh40
Find my blog at
challsworth2.wordpress.com



---
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.



---
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 worry? - Re: Please No More Contact Requests

[Thomas Ward]

Hi Shaun,

Yeah, well all the rules are different when you get into virtual
machines. 512 is fine for a native XP machine, but isn't crap when
running it in a virtual environment. You should double that to a gig
at least for decent performance. Especially, if you plan to run games
and things like that which constantly take input and audio output and
some virtual machines can lag if there isn't enough CPU power or ram
to run the guest OS along side the host operating system.

Cheers!


On 4/27/13, Clement Chou  wrote:
> Well, I would assume under that circumstance that you'd have a beast of a
> machine. A good xp computer had 512 mb of ram back in the day and could work
>
> well... with 4 gb you'd have plenty of room left over to have enough to
> process games, one would think. I'm not exactly an expert with hardware
> though... I just know more than my average joe friends who don't look into
> computers that much. lol

---
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 worry? - Re: Please No More Contact Requests

[Thomas Ward]

Hi Shaun,

The best VM software for a Windows user is VMWare Player. I believe
the latest is version 5. As far as creating a virtual machine you need
to install XP onto the virtual machine from your CD media. While there
are existing virtual machines floating around downloading them isn't
strictly legal so won't be discussed here on list.

Cheers!


On 4/27/13, shaun everiss  wrote:
> where would I pull a vm of xp,  and what is the best vm software.
> I will be getting a new i5 with 4gb ram and whilst I will  have
> access to a native xp  unit with win7 who knows what I will do.
> being 4gb ram I will probably go 32 bit first and then decide when I
> upgrade the ram not sure though.

---
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 worry? - Re: Please No More Contact Requests

[Thomas Ward]

Hi Chris,

This is not presumption. I have read on the Audiogames.net forum that
a couple of people experienced issues getting some of the BSC games to
run on Windows 8. As to what the problem is we have not determined the
cause, but just because the Draconis games run fine doesn't
necessarily follow that the BSC games should as well. Yes, both were
written in VB 6, but there could be other issues involved than just
that. Anyway, all we know at this point is some people are having
problems.

Cheers!


On 4/27/13, Chris H  wrote:
> Hey is it true that the games will actually not work well under Windows
> 8 or is this presumption? I saw references to Draconis games working
> under Windows 8 on their support pages, which is to be expected as they
> say Windows 98 or newer in the System Requirements. So the same should
> apply to Bsc Games.
>
>
> Christopher Hallsworth
> E-mail and Facebook:
> challswor...@sky.com
> Skype:
> chrishallsworth7266
> Twitter:
> http://www.twitter.com/@christopherh40
> Find my blog at
> challsworth2.wordpress.com
>

---
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 worry? - Re: Please No More Contact Requests

[shaun everiss]

where would I pull a vm of xp,  and what is the best vm software.
I will be getting a new i5 with 4gb ram and whilst I will  have 
access to a native xp  unit with win7 who knows what I will do.
being 4gb ram I will probably go 32 bit first and then decide when I 
upgrade the ram not sure though.


At 08:39 AM 4/28/2013, you wrote:

Hi Chris,

I suspect that is what a number of us will end up doing. I plan to
update at least one of my systems to
Windows 8 over the next year so I'll probably setup a virtual machine
with Windows XP for various audio games that don't run well on Win 8
like the BSC games.

Cheers!

On 4/27/13, Chris H  wrote:
> And how about putting these games in a virtual environment? They should
> run quite well as they are all audio based.
>
>
> Christopher Hallsworth
> E-mail and Facebook:
> challswor...@sky.com
> Skype:
> chrishallsworth7266
> Twitter:
> http://www.twitter.com/@christopherh40
> Find my blog at
> challsworth2.wordpress.com

---
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.




---
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 worry? - Re: Please No More Contact Requests

[Clement Chou]

Well, I would assume under that circumstance that you'd have a beast of a 
machine. A good xp computer had 512 mb of ram back in the day and could work 
well... with 4 gb you'd have plenty of room left over to have enough to 
process games, one would think. I'm not exactly an expert with hardware 
though... I just know more than my average joe friends who don't look into 
computers that much. lol
- Original Message - 
From: "Thomas Ward" 

To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Saturday, April 27, 2013 1:43 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why worry? - Re: Please No More Contact Requests



Hi Clement,

True. Although, a lot of the reason for the input and audio lag is not
enough memory on the virtual machine. The more ram you throw at it and
have to throw at it the better it will run. I often wondered if I
updated this laptop to say 8 GB and then gave an XP virtual machine
say 4 GB how well games and applications would run on it.

Cheers!



---
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 worry? - Re: Please No More Contact Requests

[Chris H]

Hey is it true that the games will actually not work well under Windows 
8 or is this presumption? I saw references to Draconis games working 
under Windows 8 on their support pages, which is to be expected as they 
say Windows 98 or newer in the System Requirements. So the same should 
apply to Bsc Games.



Christopher Hallsworth
E-mail and Facebook:
challswor...@sky.com
Skype:
chrishallsworth7266
Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/@christopherh40
Find my blog at
challsworth2.wordpress.com

On 27/04/2013 21:39, Thomas Ward wrote:

Hi Chris,

I suspect that is what a number of us will end up doing. I plan to
update at least one of my systems to
Windows 8 over the next year so I'll probably setup a virtual machine
with Windows XP for various audio games that don't run well on Win 8
like the BSC games.

Cheers!

On 4/27/13, Chris H  wrote:

And how about putting these games in a virtual environment? They should
run quite well as they are all audio based.


Christopher Hallsworth
E-mail and Facebook:
challswor...@sky.com
Skype:
chrishallsworth7266
Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/@christopherh40
Find my blog at
challsworth2.wordpress.com


---
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.



---
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 worry? - Re: Please No More Contact Requests

[Thomas Ward]

Hi Clement,

True. Although, a lot of the reason for the input and audio lag is not
enough memory on the virtual machine. The more ram you throw at it and
have to throw at it the better it will run. I often wondered if I
updated this laptop to say 8 GB and then gave an XP virtual machine
say 4 GB how well games and applications would run on it.

Cheers!

On 4/27/13, Clement Chou  wrote:
> Part of the problem with a virtual environment is that many people have
> experienced either input lag, audio lag or both. That can prove problematic
>
> even for audio games.

---
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 worry? - Re: Please No More Contact Requests

[Thomas Ward]

Hi Chris,

I suspect that is what a number of us will end up doing. I plan to
update at least one of my systems to
Windows 8 over the next year so I'll probably setup a virtual machine
with Windows XP for various audio games that don't run well on Win 8
like the BSC games.

Cheers!

On 4/27/13, Chris H  wrote:
> And how about putting these games in a virtual environment? They should
> run quite well as they are all audio based.
>
>
> Christopher Hallsworth
> E-mail and Facebook:
> challswor...@sky.com
> Skype:
> chrishallsworth7266
> Twitter:
> http://www.twitter.com/@christopherh40
> Find my blog at
> challsworth2.wordpress.com

---
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 worry? - Re: Please No More Contact Requests

[Clement Chou]

Part of the problem with a virtual environment is that many people have 
experienced either input lag, audio lag or both. That can prove problematic 
even for audio games.
- Original Message - 
From: "Chris H" 

To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Saturday, April 27, 2013 12:45 AM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why worry? - Re: Please No More Contact Requests


And how about putting these games in a virtual environment? They should 
run quite well as they are all audio based.



Christopher Hallsworth
E-mail and Facebook:
challswor...@sky.com
Skype:
chrishallsworth7266
Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/@christopherh40
Find my blog at
challsworth2.wordpress.com




---
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 worry? - Re: Please No More Contact Requests

[Chris H]

And how about putting these games in a virtual environment? They should 
run quite well as they are all audio based.



Christopher Hallsworth
E-mail and Facebook:
challswor...@sky.com
Skype:
chrishallsworth7266
Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/@christopherh40
Find my blog at
challsworth2.wordpress.com

On 27/04/2013 02:15, Charles Rivard wrote:

The reason people worry about the key generator is that they want to be
able to generate keys for products that will run on the machines that
they will still work on.  Not everyone will be moving to Windows 8 until
they absolutely must.  They might even keep these games on a computer
that does work while getting a Windows 8 machine for other tasks.

---
Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second.
- Original Message - From: "Wil James" 
To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Friday, April 26, 2013 6:04 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Please No More Contact Requests



My question is why worry about the key generator at all? These games
are not going to be updated, and technological advances will be made
where these games will not run. Period Windows 8 anyone?


Sent from Wil's iPhone 4S
--
E-mail or iMessage: w...@wilanddenise.com
Twitter: wiljames
zellow: wilcjames


On Apr 26, 2013, at 6:37 PM, Thomas Ward 
wrote:


Hi Charles,

Yeah, I generally hold that policy under normal circumstances anyway,
but these circumstances are hardly normal to begin with. Justin has
made a controversial decision to sell his key gen, as is his right,
and I don't feel I should pass around his personal email address so
people can wine, complain, and beg to him because they don't agree
with this decision. I've experienced that sort of thing firsthand and
it is quite unpleasant. I won't enable that sort of behavior because I
respect Justin's right to some privacy.

Cheers!


On 4/26/13, Charles Rivard  wrote:

Your policy of not giving out such info is a good one.  I follow it
also
when it comes to physical addresses, phone numbers, Email addresses
and all

such info.  I go one step farther.  I ask the person if, for
example, it is

OK for Thomas Ward to have the info.  Unless I get permission to
give it to

whoever would want it, I would not give it to Jim Kitchen.  I only
use these

names as an example.

---
Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second.


---
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.


---
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.




---
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.



---
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 worry? - Re: Please No More Contact Requests

[lenron brown]

dropping these on my win 7 not about to try these in win 8

On 4/26/13, Charles Rivard  wrote:
> The reason people worry about the key generator is that they want to be able
>
> to generate keys for products that will run on the machines that they will
> still work on.  Not everyone will be moving to Windows 8 until they
> absolutely must.  They might even keep these games on a computer that does
> work while getting a Windows 8 machine for other tasks.
>
> ---
> Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second.
> - Original Message -
> From: "Wil James" 
> To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
> Sent: Friday, April 26, 2013 6:04 PM
> Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Please No More Contact Requests
>
>
>> My question is why worry about the key generator at all? These games are
>> not going to be updated, and technological advances will be made where
>> these games will not run. Period Windows 8 anyone?
>>
>>
>> Sent from Wil's iPhone 4S
>> --
>> E-mail or iMessage: w...@wilanddenise.com
>> Twitter: wiljames
>> zellow: wilcjames
>>
>>
>> On Apr 26, 2013, at 6:37 PM, Thomas Ward 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Charles,
>>>
>>> Yeah, I generally hold that policy under normal circumstances anyway,
>>> but these circumstances are hardly normal to begin with. Justin has
>>> made a controversial decision to sell his key gen, as is his right,
>>> and I don't feel I should pass around his personal email address so
>>> people can wine, complain, and beg to him because they don't agree
>>> with this decision. I've experienced that sort of thing firsthand and
>>> it is quite unpleasant. I won't enable that sort of behavior because I
>>> respect Justin's right to some privacy.
>>>
>>> Cheers!
>>>
>>>
>>> On 4/26/13, Charles Rivard  wrote:
 Your policy of not giving out such info is a good one.  I follow it
 also
 when it comes to physical addresses, phone numbers, Email addresses and

 all

 such info.  I go one step farther.  I ask the person if, for example, it

 is

 OK for Thomas Ward to have the info.  Unless I get permission to give it

 to

 whoever would want it, I would not give it to Jim Kitchen.  I only use
 these

 names as an example.

 ---
 Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second.
>>>
>>> ---
>>> 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.
>>
>> ---
>> 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.
>>
>
>
> ---
> 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.
>

---
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 should we?

[Charles Rivard]

That sounds very Grue some.

---
Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second.
- Original Message - 
From: "Thomas Ward" 

To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Monday, May 14, 2012 7:10 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why should we?




Hi Charles,

Nope. I just increased my Linux security by writing antigru software. 
Now, if a gru gets within a 100 feet of my laptop it fires stinger 
missiles at it, and triggers traps set in my house. Muhahahaha!


Cheers!



---
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://mail.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 should we?

[Thomas Ward]

Hi Charles,

Nope. I just increased my Linux security by writing antigru software. 
Now, if a gru gets within a 100 feet of my laptop it fires stinger 
missiles at it, and triggers traps set in my house. Muhahahaha!


Cheers!


On 5/14/2012 5:28 AM, Charles Rivard wrote:
With this in mind, what are you going to be sitting on from now on?  
Your laptop?


---
Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second.



---
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://mail.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 should we?

[Thomas Ward]

Hi Jacob,

Yeah. That was funny. As I said the entire song was a real laugh. :D


On 5/14/2012 1:53 AM, Jacob Kruger wrote:

Cool.

I also like the guy's attitude - joking/singing about attacking a 
midget in the

park since you reckon he must be one of the evil goblins from a PC game,
etc...

Stay well

Jacob Kruger
Blind Biker
Skype: BlindZA
'...fate had broken his body, but not his spirit...'



---
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://mail.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 should we?

[Charles Rivard]

With this in mind, what are you going to be sitting on from now on?  Your 
laptop?


---
Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second.
- Original Message - 
From: "Thomas Ward" 

To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Sunday, May 13, 2012 9:04 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why should we?




Hi Jacob,

Lol! Thanks for sharing. This is great. I'm laughing my butt off at this 
song. :D


On 5/12/2012 7:00 AM, Jacob Kruger wrote:
This song also refers to the Grue, and it's a form of hip hop called 
nerdcore, and pretty much reckon whole song is about PC game 
addicts...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nigRT2KmCE

Jacob Kruger
Blind Biker
Skype: BlindZA
'...fate had broken his body, but not his spirit...'



---
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://mail.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. 



---
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://mail.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 should we?

[dark]

Yep, I heard that.

I'm not really much of a fan of hip hop, though I did rather enjoy that for 
the references to lots of famous if, most of which I got, though a couple of 
which I didn't, though that's vaguely expected not being a big zork fan 
despite being a big fan of the Grue,  or should that be fang?


Beware the grue!

Dark.
- Original Message - 
From: "Jacob Kruger" 

To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Saturday, May 12, 2012 12:00 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why should we?


This song also refers to the Grue, and it's a form of hip hop called 
nerdcore, and pretty much reckon whole song is about PC game 
addicts...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nigRT2KmCE

Jacob Kruger
Blind Biker
Skype: BlindZA
'...fate had broken his body, but not his spirit...'

- Original Message - 
From: "john" 

To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2012 6:34 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why should we?


Have youk, by any chance, played the zork trilogy? If so, you should know 
the origin. For any of you who haven't, it's on the times ashes 
collection, and the grue reference is hard to miss in darkness.


- Original Message -
From: "Charles Rivard" 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://mail.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.

---
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://mail.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.



---
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://mail.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. 



---
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://mail.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 should we?

[Jacob Kruger]

Cool.

I also like the guy's attitude - joking/singing about attacking a midget in 
the

park since you reckon he must be one of the evil goblins from a PC game,
etc...

Stay well

Jacob Kruger
Blind Biker
Skype: BlindZA
'...fate had broken his body, but not his spirit...'

- Original Message - 
From: "Thomas Ward" 

To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Monday, May 14, 2012 4:04 AM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why should we?




Hi Jacob,

Lol! Thanks for sharing. This is great. I'm laughing my butt off at this
song. :D

On 5/12/2012 7:00 AM, Jacob Kruger wrote:

This song also refers to the Grue, and it's a form of hip hop called
nerdcore, and pretty much reckon whole song is about PC game
addicts...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nigRT2KmCE

Jacob Kruger
Blind Biker
Skype: BlindZA
'...fate had broken his body, but not his spirit...'



---
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://mail.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.



---
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://mail.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 should we?

[Thomas Ward]

Hi Jacob,

Lol! Thanks for sharing. This is great. I'm laughing my butt off at this 
song. :D


On 5/12/2012 7:00 AM, Jacob Kruger wrote:
This song also refers to the Grue, and it's a form of hip hop called 
nerdcore, and pretty much reckon whole song is about PC game 
addicts...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nigRT2KmCE

Jacob Kruger
Blind Biker
Skype: BlindZA
'...fate had broken his body, but not his spirit...'



---
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://mail.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 should we?

[Jacob Kruger]

This song also refers to the Grue, and it's a form of hip hop called 
nerdcore, and pretty much reckon whole song is about PC game 
addicts...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nigRT2KmCE

Jacob Kruger
Blind Biker
Skype: BlindZA
'...fate had broken his body, but not his spirit...'

- Original Message - 
From: "john" 

To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2012 6:34 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why should we?


Have youk, by any chance, played the zork trilogy? If so, you should know 
the origin. For any of you who haven't, it's on the times ashes 
collection, and the grue reference is hard to miss in darkness.


- Original Message -
From: "Charles Rivard" 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://mail.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.

---
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://mail.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. 



---
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://mail.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 should we?

[Ken]

Well, that's good. I couldn't say he'd crash NVDA because it's actually 
pretty stable, lol.  Don't know bout the others, but trust me, he's looking 
into it, so be on your toes!

Beware the grue 2.0


- Original Message - 
From: "Thomas Ward" 

To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Saturday, May 12, 2012 5:49 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why should we?




Hi Ken,

Lol! That's a good one. Although, I don't have to worry about it crashing 
Jaws. I don't use that screen reader on any of my computers. :D


On 5/12/2012 11:14 AM, Ken wrote:

And don't forget grue 2.0!
He'll snatch your cane so you you can't run,
he'll eat your guide dog just for fun,
turn off your programs, crash your jaws,
smash your computer with his paws,
break every game you like to play,
and leave your house in disarray,
and right about that time you'll say,
"dang it grue, just go away..."
and that's the time you'll eat you whole,
no need for knife, fork spoon or bowl.
So beware the grue, for can't you see
he'll cause you endless misery:
and then and only then when done
is when you'll eat you--every one!
hahaha



---
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://mail.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. 



---
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://mail.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 should we?

[Thomas Ward]

Hi Ken,

Lol! That's a good one. Although, I don't have to worry about it 
crashing Jaws. I don't use that screen reader on any of my computers. :D


On 5/12/2012 11:14 AM, Ken wrote:

And don't forget grue 2.0!
He'll snatch your cane so you you can't run,
he'll eat your guide dog just for fun,
turn off your programs, crash your jaws,
smash your computer with his paws,
break every game you like to play,
and leave your house in disarray,
and right about that time you'll say,
"dang it grue, just go away..."
and that's the time you'll eat you whole,
no need for knife, fork spoon or bowl.
So beware the grue, for can't you see
he'll cause you endless misery:
and then and only then when done
is when you'll eat you--every one!
hahaha



---
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://mail.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 should we?

[dark]

Well breaking my jaws wouldn't matter, as long as it didn't involve breaking 
my jaw :d.


good one.

Beware the grue!

Dark.
- Original Message - 
From: "Ken" 

To: "Gamers Discussion list" 
Sent: Saturday, May 12, 2012 4:14 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why should we?



And don't forget grue 2.0!
He'll snatch your cane so you you can't run,
he'll eat your guide dog just for fun,
turn off your programs, crash your jaws,
smash your computer with his paws,
break every game you like to play,
and leave your house in disarray,
and right about that time you'll say,
"dang it grue, just go away..."
and that's the time you'll eat you whole,
no need for knife, fork spoon or bowl.
So beware the grue, for can't you see
he'll cause you endless misery:
and then and only then when done
is when you'll eat you--every one!
hahaha
- Original Message - 
From: "Hayden Presley" 

To: "'Gamers Discussion list'" 
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2012 5:04 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why should we?



The Zork Trilogy, sure, but don't forget the Enchanter Trilogy.

Best Regards,
Hayden


-Original Message-
From: gamers-boun...@audyssey.org [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On
Behalf Of john
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2012 11:34 AM
To: Gamers Discussion list
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why should we?

Have youk, by any chance, played the zork trilogy? If so, you
should know the origin. For any of you who haven't, it's on the
times ashes collection, and the grue reference is hard to miss in
darkness.

- Original Message -
From: "Charles Rivard" http://mail.audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org.
All messages are archived and can be searched and read at
http://www.mail-archive.com/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.

---
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://mail.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.

-
No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 10.0.1424 / Virus Database: 2425/4991 - Release Date: 05/11/12


---
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://mail.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.



---
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://mail.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. 



---
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://mail.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 should we?

[Ken]

And don't forget grue 2.0!
He'll snatch your cane so you you can't run,
he'll eat your guide dog just for fun,
turn off your programs, crash your jaws,
smash your computer with his paws,
break every game you like to play,
and leave your house in disarray,
and right about that time you'll say,
"dang it grue, just go away..."
and that's the time you'll eat you whole,
no need for knife, fork spoon or bowl.
So beware the grue, for can't you see
he'll cause you endless misery:
and then and only then when done
is when you'll eat you--every one!
hahaha
- Original Message - 
From: "Hayden Presley" 

To: "'Gamers Discussion list'" 
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2012 5:04 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why should we?



The Zork Trilogy, sure, but don't forget the Enchanter Trilogy.

Best Regards,
Hayden


-Original Message-
From: gamers-boun...@audyssey.org [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On
Behalf Of john
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2012 11:34 AM
To: Gamers Discussion list
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] why should we?

Have youk, by any chance, played the zork trilogy? If so, you
should know the origin. For any of you who haven't, it's on the
times ashes collection, and the grue reference is hard to miss in
darkness.

- Original Message -
From: "Charles Rivard" http://mail.audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org.
All messages are archived and can be searched and read at
http://www.mail-archive.com/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.

---
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://mail.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.

-
No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 10.0.1424 / Virus Database: 2425/4991 - Release Date: 05/11/12


---
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://mail.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. 



---
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://mail.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.