Hi jeremy.
Again both fatigue in movement and uncertainty in amount moved are mechanics
that would work extremely well in some games, indeed I can see how in
interceptor that will make for an interesting battle element, but not really
for action games to replicate mainstream mechanics, because the point of the
analogue movement in a game like Mario is that the player Could! move as
he/she wants if his/her grasp of the mechanics was up to the task.
Actually the reason I mention this movement mechanic in so much detail is
that there is absolutely no earthly reason why it could not be replicated in
audio. Even if you couldn't show as much detail with respect to ledge
configurations and vertical movements, there is no reason why the horizontal
movement of the characterand indeed what jumps you do need to make could not
have this analogue quality. A game like Q9 or superliam would be much harder
and much more addictive, sinse you could not just instantly stop and line
yourself up with an oncoming enemy, or jump precisely over one pit, indeed
many simple atari 2600 or Nes games like pit fall had such rock hard
difficulty precisely for this reason, sinse the player needed to master and
become experienced in the use of the game mechanics much as you'd need to
learn to play a musical instrument or a sport before they could be any good
at the game.
The other reason I am explaining this is because manifestly, if people have
not played graphical games, this is something people will not know, and it
might not be clear why there is so much of a major difference between say
marrio and Q9 or original Montizuma's revenge and the Usa remake.
Thinking about this I do wonder if part of the issue is the audio
representation itself. After all in a graphical game it is necessary to have
an actual, measurable distance between the player and a given object and
thus need to calculate how long it takes the player to get there and what
scrolling the screen needs to do, where as in audio sinse most audio games
always show things from the player's perspective exclusively the way the
game shows the distance to the player and the actual speed of distance
traveled are the same thing.
I don't know if I'm explaining this very well, but imagine Jim's monopoly
game vs having a physical tactile board in front of you. On the tactile
board you can at the same time know the player's position and easily count
the number of squares around the board by having one hand on where the
player is and the other checking the squares, in Jim's monopoly however at
any time you just get the clomp clomp of your peace moving and are told what
square you get to (let's forget about using the board review feature for
now).
That difference in information is the type of difference in the view between
audio and graphical games, indeed Packman vs packman talks is very much this
way.
Now if you imagine instead of having predefined squares you just have a
smooth board to slide your peace around, where as in the audio game you
press the arrows and get a movement sound. Well on the physical board the
speed of your hand moving the peace relative to the overview will give you a
clear impression of the movement speed involved and at any give time you
know say how far the distance between your peace and the corner of the board
is, where as in the audio game, sinse you don't get a complete view of the
hole board you can't relate your speed to object movement.
I hope some of this analogy about views makes some degree of sense.
if not, well suffice it to say that I think there is a reason more analogue
movement mechanics got missed in audio games, however there is nothing
stopping them being put into a game in the future, after all it's no
different from creating a racing game or a vehicle based game like gma tank
commander.
Beware the grue!
Dark.
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