There you go Jeremy, let's see pirates try to crack this! I guess there's an
upside to making your own hardware lol.
This is something I'll be saving up for. I was trying to find a way to use
the iPhone in just such a manner, but there's really nothing out there
except custom controllers for specific games, which is a real pity. I can
just imagine mapping the three axes on my iPhone to specific keys, and,
let's say, driving around in Top Speed using it as a steering wheel, or
strapping it to my head and playing Swamp like it's meant to be played. Now
we'll have a way to do some of those things.
Check out my games at
www.ThePionEar.net
and my music, and that of my band, at
www.ThePionEar.net/BlindLabyrinth.html .
If you want to reach me, you can call 419-744-0517, friend me on Facebook,
(KenWDowney,) or write me at kenwdow...@me.com .
Crazy Ken
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeremy Kaldobsky" <jer...@kaldobsky.com>
To: "Gamers Discussion list" <gamers@audyssey.org>
Sent: Saturday, May 04, 2013 7:33 PM
Subject: [Audyssey] Some updates on what I'm up to,since I forget to keep
audyssey in the loop.
Hey guys,
I spend most of my time on the audiogames.net forum, and every now and
then I'm reminded that I've shared news with them but forgot to post it
here as well. My apologies, people of the audyssey list! :D LOL.
After my 2.9 patch for Swamp I began working on a new project. To make
a long story short, I learned I was going to need to get a second job in 2
months so I wanted to make the most of them. I officially ended
development on Swamp and have dedicated myself to getting some stuff
accomplished in the 2 months I have left. After I get the additional job
I will have a lot less time available to work on projects, so I don't know
how that will impact my efforts as a game developer.
The new project can actually be thought of as 2 separate, but linked,
projects. My new game is going to be an RPG based in the
Daytona/Castaways storyline. It will take place many years after the
Daytona game, and you will learn what happened to the leader from the end
of the Castaways game.
The mouse hardware requirement for Swamp was a terribly unpopular move
for a very very long time. Using the word unpopular may even be an
understatement, ROFL! Well that battle was fought and won, and I feel the
audio games community is a better place now that the mouse is an accepted
tool for gaming. This opens up more options for game developers, and that
is always a good thing! Well this RPG is going to follow in those foot
steps and require a new piece of hardware. In a move that will go down in
audio games' history as an epic mistake, or as a revolution, my RPG will
require players to have a 3D head tracking headset I have named the See
Munkey. (I still crack a smile when I say See Munkey out loud.) While
wearing the headset in the RPG you can simply move your head around to
move the head of your in-game character. This will give a more natural
playing experience plus allow you to easily look up or down to get a 3D
feeling of your
surroundings. To determine the locations of sounds in the real world, we
naturally move our heads to see how the sounds will change. This gives us
far more data than we can get from being perfectly still, which is how we
normally are in games. I'm trying to give players that same advantage
inside of the game world.
Development of this device has burned through 3 weeks, which is more
than I planned for. The good news is that I not only have a working
prototype but I've already ordered a shipment of parts to produce 13 more.
More detailed information about the "Munkey" will show up once I'm ready
to sell them but here are the basics:
The device clips on to your existing headphones, or clips on to a
plastic headband that comes with it in case you use ear buds instead of
headphones. It does not produce sound to replace your headphones, which
is a common misconception, but rather tracks the orientation of your head
in all 3 axis. This data can be read by games and programs to customize
the experience. This is similar to how a game can be designed to receive
input from a mouse or a joystick.
The device can be used by other developers! If these do find their way
into the hands of many players, it will be a brand new tool for
developers. It is my understanding that BGT is already set up to handle
serial communications, which means programmers who use BGT will be able to
incorporate the headset immediately into their own projects. Other
developers can easily look up how to read and write to the device using
serial communication, which will give them the same ability.
Games that aren't designed for the headset won't suddenly become 3D
when you use it. This is the same as playing a game that isn't designed
to work with a joystick or mouse. Separate software can be used to map
the See Munkey to the mouse or keys though, which means you can have an
interesting new way to play even those games. As an example, Swamp is not
designed to use the headset yet I was still able to play using it. I
mapped turning my head to the mouse X-axis, forward to tilting my head
down, and backward to tilting my head back. I didn't do it at the time,
but I could have also made tilting my head left or right to perhaps side
step, reload my weapon, or toggle the radar. It wouldn't replace the need
for the keyboard, but it was definitely a new playing experience!
So yeah, that's pretty much what I've been doing lately.
I'll answer some questions before they're even asked:
Q: How much will it cost?
A: The device will be $50 plus between $4 and $8 in shipping, depending on
where you live. Since I haven't shipped any out yet I don't know the
exact shipping prices yet. I'll update that once I've sent out a few and
know the exact rates.
Q: Where will you sell these?
A: My website will be set up with a special page to sell these once I'm
ready to do so.
Q: Can I pre-order one?
A: No, I will not accept pre-orders. I've already had a handful of people
ask me about that, but I'm absolutely not comfortable taking anyone's
money until I've got the product in my hands to ship out to them.
Q: What happens if I drop it?
A: The device is completely encased in hard rubber to make it, hopefully,
drop proof.
Q: What happens if I eat it?
A: You'll die. Actually I don't really know that. My friend Steve isn't
being a "team player" so I can't answer this question yet. The device is
about 2.5 inches long, 1 inch wide, and 3/4 inch tall so swallowing it
would be difficult but not impossible. It also has a 6 foot USB cord on
it, so I actually think you'd choke on that after getting the thing down.
LOL!
Q: Will other developers have to pay to use this device in their
games/software?
A: Nope, not at all. I'm definitely not going to get rich from selling
these things, so the entire point is to get a new and useful tool out
there for other developers to take advantage of. This probably isn't the
perfect solution to adding 3D to audio games, but it's far better than
what we're using already.
Q: Will this come with a warranty?
A: I don't know, but probably not. Most places that give you a warranty
are charging everyone extra money to pay for that. I've cut every corner
I could to make these as cheaply as possible, so replacing devices with a
warranty would quite literally be money coming out of my own pocket, and
I'm far too poor for that! HAHA! I do believe I'll at least let people
send back broken headsets to I can see if they can be fixed. I'll feel
terrible if someone gets a broken one, which is why I've encased them in
hard rubber and am sending them in boxes rated as "indestructable". I'm
pretty sure I could step on this prototype without hurting it, but I'd
rather not find out.
Q: Can I get a cordless version?
A: Sorry no. Making this thing cordless would easily double or triple the
price. I searched high and low to get just the right parts to keep this
thing affordable, and wireless just didn't work for that. To give a small
idea of how many corners were cut, just ONE of the parts in this thing
costs $100 when purchased fully assembled! I went with off brand,
unassembled parts, that had to be calibrated manually and run my own
software written from scratch.
Q: What happens if I buy one and then you build a more advanced version?
A: I've actually planned for that. The See Munkey headset is already
packed with all of the accelerometers, gyroscopes, magnetometers,
processing power, and memory it should ever need. Writing software that
turns all of those sensors into reliable Yaw, Pitch, and Roll data is
something groups have invested years into. I've spend about a week coming
up with my own, but I'm sure that will improve quite a bit over time as I
work out more complicated math to improve performance. The headset has
already been designed to grow over time in 2 ways, without you needing to
replace it with a new device. If I wake up in the middle of the night
with some brand new idea for coding the See Munkey, I can release it as a
firmware update that anyone can choose to download. That would improve
the performance of your device while still having it work on every game
and piece of software that it worked on before. It would just work
better! The other option is for
developers to output the raw sensor data instead of just the yaw, pitch,
and roll. So lets pretend that a game developer feels he can do a better
job arriving at yaw, pitch, and roll than the device naturally does. In
his game he can pull the raw data and use his own set of mathematical
equations on it. For developers who are happy with the results provided
by the headset, they can just have their game pull in the 3 processed
values. I like this approach because people are going to come along that
are far smarter than I am. With the ability to read the raw sensor data,
they will be able to make the See Munkey perform in ways far beyond what
it can do at this exact moment, and yet no one would have to go buy a new
one! Yay! :D
Q: What was the third question?
A: That was asking about pre-orders. I don't allow pre-orders.
Q: Does the See Munkey use binural sound to more precicely simulate real
life when sounds are around you?
A: That would be a software thing, and the See Munkey is just hardware.
If a developer is using binural sound in his game or program, then the See
Munkey can easily be used to enhance it, but we are talking about 2
different things.
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