Dark wrote: 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. (end of quote)
I agree with you here. Uncertainty mechanics of this sort, as well as analog movement uncertainties, take some time to analyze and evaluate. I think that doing it the way I suggested, while not the same, might provide a possibility, but I see your point viz a viz versus the style of an analog controller. Dark wrote: 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. (end of quote) Agreed. I think we're touching on the same issue here. I wonder if the problem with this isn't more a problem of underestimating the capabilities of audio to demonstrate this kind of movement, and the ability of audio gamers to make these kinds of analyses and act accordingly. No offense to our developers. Most of the games I have played have been very well constructed, but movement, targeting, and other aspects have been very smooth and easy to predict for the most part. At least, in my experience and as I have noted elsewhere, that is probably much more limited than some members of the list. Dark wrote: 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. (end of quote) I wonder about that. I remember in the demo of the Tarzan Junior game that the pits were telegraphed a little before them. If that telegraph was not always a uniform distance ahead, and if there were a way to also telegraph the width of the pits and vary both games with pits to jump would become much more interesting. I haven't played Q9 but I'd be interested in how it handles some of these issues as it seems like Shades of Doom to be a touch stone for some of the design decisions in play here. Dark Wrote (in reference to how Jim Kitchens' monopoly game works with squares) 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. (end of quote) True. However, I think it's possible to give some of this information. reverb, sound shadow, wind noises as in Entombed, and the like can give directional and distance information. Couple with other audio cues it might be possible to give a player an idea of distance traversed and speed. However, I think I should probably retire from the field. I am not a technical person. My position is merely as an eager player and creative designer. 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.
