Hi Dark, Its funny that you brought this topic up as I think you and I have been thinking on the same wave length lately. I've been considering this same issue for a number of months, and I agree one thing accessible games universally lack is realistic and dinamic movement. In Q9, for example, all you have to do is press the up arrow key and tap the arrow key x number of times to get over the pit. If I'm not mistaken Super Liam has this exact jump system as well. The problem with it is once you remember how many times to tap the arrow key there is little room for error, and you'll just remember to press up and right three times or whatever.
As you say more mainstream games like Super Mario don't have it quite that easy. You really have to time your jumps, figure out where to jump from, and/or decide to do a running jump, etc. How long you hold down the jump button on the controller will determine in part how high and far you can jump. Not only that but there were other factors such as how big Mario was when jumping. If Mario was shrunk he couldn't jump as high or as far as he could when normal size or when he was Super Mario. It is these number of dinamic factors very few accessible game developers have largely ignored or have failed to consider in accessible games. That said, I don't see any reason why we couldn't begin doing this in accessible games. As I've already mentioned I've been updating Mysteries of the Ancients to include a more analogue jump system, and it looks like Philip Bennefall is looking into this as well. So hopefully a new generation of accessible platformers are about to be released in the not too distant future. However, I do agree using sound alone is problematic. It is something I'm working on, experimenting with, but there really is no easy way to identify if a row of spikes is above or below you just by sound alone. You can play around with pitch and things like that, but even then it can be difficult to figure out which is wich. Plus I've discovered if you change the pitch too much on certain sounds they just end up sounding down right weird and that ruins the atmosphere as much as having a game voice speaking the information. Perhaps mmore so in some cases. Cheers! --- 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.
