Re: soundStrider: Exploration game and relaxation tool
@shiftBacktick, good to know that the game was working correctly .
I'm afraid some of the confusion is because "tutorial", implies instructions, not just running across a couple of in game objects kicking around the place in the first few seconds, which is why I thought we might be missing some screen reader output.
Also, generally speaking in audiogames, continuous sounds are used to indicate the direction of travel you should go, not the other way around, which is why the compass sonar confused me so much.
I would personally suggest, either A, making the compass work like a compass and actually give you directions to track which direction your facing, or B, simply having a command to play a single sound once in the direction of highest audio confusion. Indeed, now that I know the purpose of the compass is not to actuallly find your way, I find it's continuous tone rather off putting and have been walking in the opposite direction purely to hear the soundscape more clearly.
I personally love quests and exploring in games, but at the moment finding the way points doesn't quite feel game like enough to count since there is no counter or real reason to find them, or indeed much reason for a player to go back to previously visited way points with the breadcrumbs, meaning that the two modes are fairly similar.
I would suggest personally, making a system whereby a player was actually given more definite tasks to do, with each waypoint a player finds given a number or a name. After a player has found a certain number of waypoints, say 5, have them need to go back to a previously discovered waypoint, before heading out to be able to find new ones.
that way, players could go on discovering, and experiencing the really nice audio landscape, and get the satisfaction of feeling like a real trail blazer and increasing their score incrementally.
Indeed, if you were going to do something like this, you could reconsider the sonar compass as a beacon for player's next quest target.
BTw, I also tried turning on my monitor to see what my vision could make of the visuals. I am not sure I'm getting everything, but I like the crazy purple swirliness, though it would be nice if there was an option for integrating more or brighter colours into the experience, if this is the idea, indeed I was a trifle disappointed that the sounds I heard didn't always get landscape representation, or at least not what I could see anyway.
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