Re: New games you'd like to see from Ultrocity Audio
(I got here by searching for the wonderfully specific term of "jumping", since I can't seem to stop noticing ways in which jumping is completely different in audio games compared to the mainstream. The only non-fighting mainstream game I can think of where up is used for Jump is Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Subzero, and that's pretty much because it is the Mortal Kombat engine tossed into a 2d platformer. And the controls in that game left something to be desired.)
I'm going to go ahead and second Dark's comments by admitting that I picked a terrible engine to use for Mario. Even with its limitations, I could probably have made the maneuvering a bit more like the NES version had I tried a bit harder--Mario's sliding, for example. The most frustrating part of the NES version of Mario is that giant pit in 8-1, not because you're trying to land on a tiny block that starts out off screen, but because you're more likely to just run right off the edge with momentum. (I've heard sighted people complain about that part, too!)
I think there is one big difference between audio and video that it's easy to forget: brightness and loudness serve different functions. If something's farther away, it's quieter, which makes it harder to hear in many situations. Video-wise, things that are far away aren't any less visible, if they're close enough to be relevant.
The same works the other way--the screen has a distinct boundary, and anything that goes off screen is invisible. Meanwhile, audio has no distinct boundary, even though information gets harder to use with distance.
In real life, distance does make things blurry, visually, but the distance we're talking about is huge--over 100 feet away, someone with less than perfect vision can probably still recognize people.
There's also less ambiguity with distance. Top-down is hard in audio because you can't really get
precision on the y axis. This is sort of a problem in first person as well--good luck guessing when zombies are in melee range in Swamp, for example--but you can at least use small turns to triangulate.
I'm glad someone else noticed the movement thing, though! It took me ages to realize that most audio games are using a system where there is a timer specifically to keep track of when you last took a step, because that just seems so bizarre from a mainstream perspective. The closest I've come to that is actually Mario and the JFIM Adventure, because they use Finite State Machines, where walking is a state just like jumping and attacking, and those could actually have been more mainstream-esque if I used 1 state = 1 frame of animation, instead of one logical action. If I ever separate movement from actions, it's with velocity vectors, and I always fret over whether or not to try and make friction and momentum work realistically (I usually settle on no, just to av oid the headache, but Sonic lives on actual kinematics).
You know what's cool about Mario 2? There's an ice level, where you don't slow down as quickly when you stop, because you're sliding on ice. I keep wanting to make a game that does something like this, but The Demon Lord of Sloth and Lethargy keeps punching me in the gut. (Incidentally, does anyone know where I can find a decent exorcist?)
So... ur... let's combine everyone's suggestions and have Ultrocity make a game where you have to fight Frost Zombies while trying to infiltrate the Ice Queen's palace and convince her to give up her wicked ways (possibly by currying favor with the people of the Queendom along the way).
So... Frozen, but with more violence. ... And sled races, because why not?
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