Agreed Clemment, it's been an interesting discussion.
Now, moving on, other than obviously voiced text for movelists, menues,
tutorials etc, I'd add the following:
1: positional sterrio audio that alters according to the opponent's relative
position to the player, not the relative position of the two characters on a
larger sterrio field.
what I mean here is that at the moment, if both of your characters are on
the left of the arena, you here all their sounds in the left, even if your
opponent comes relatively closer to you. By having the sterrio sounds
related not to the overall position of the players but the relative position
of your opponent, (rather the way objects in 2D audio games work), you could
then be able to judge distance and position far more exactly.
2: different audio versions of the same move.
currently, a light, medium or fierce special has the same sound. If however
pitch alteration or some sort of similar indication was added to that sound,
you could tell which "hadoken" was being used on you. Also needless to say,
the sounds for projectile moves would need to continue altering in relative
horizontal sterrio position until they were off the screen, rather than you
just getting a sound to indicate they'd been launched and having to judge.
this would make such things as knockbacks into projectiles, or walking
behind a projectile to attack the opponent far easier to judge.
3: A universal system of hit sounds to indicate the relative vertical
position of a move.
currently, though there are jump sounds and by listening to the jump of an
opponent you can tell when he/she is in the air and when in the arc of that
jump he/she launches a move, there is no way to tell where that move is
aimed to hit.
for instance, Sagat and Vega used to have a very nasty 30 digree heavy kick
in the air, that could be launched from a jump, but hit fairly deep into
your opponent's sprite, ---- so deep in fact sometimes it could require a
low block rather than a high one.
there is no way in audio of telling the precise targit of such a move. The
same goes for distinguishing sweeps from crouching upwards kicks, uppercuts
from low elbow jabs etc.
therefore, in addition to the voice sample for the sound of the hit, i'd
suggest the accompanying wind sound be played at different pitches to
indicate the vertical targit of the blow. The same could be used to indicate
the path of a spinning or arcing special such as sumo torpedo, cannon ball
spin or even just a slide attack, ---- indeed a series of altered wind
sounds could tell you precisely where your opponent was vertically during
the arcing move.
4: Ducking sound/stand up .
Again like the jumping sound really. Once ducking you wouldn't need it to be
constant, but just an indication that now your oponent was A, a smaller
targit and B, probably would be in a good position to counter high or arial
attacks. no need for something constant, just a hmmm! would do, with a
similar specific double feet tap on floor sound for standing.
5: more obvious footstep and taunt sounds.
Obviously some games have or do not have footsteps, but in an audio fighting
game they'd need to be standard, so you could tell your opponents relative
distance to you even when she/he wasn't actually doing any moves or jumping,
with the relative positional audio mentioned earlier this would be more than
enough.
At the start of the match, indicate distance by horizontally positioning the
taunts of both characters in the relative audio space.
6: Obvious knock down and get up sounds.
same as above really, some games do it, some don't, but it would need to be
there to give you the information of when your opponent was on the ground
and whe he/she got up. Obviously the standing sound could be the same as for
standing from a crouch.
7: hit against corner sound.
No need for a constant sound in the corner, indeed that could be quite
destracting, but some sound when the opponent's body strikes the corner
would be useful, twang of ring ropes, hit against a wall, something like
that.
9: description of moves.
in the movelist, in addition to voicing the buttons needed for the move, a
description would need to be there too, sinse the system i've outlined,
though it could tell you the type, direction, hit area and speed of any
move, couldn't tell you whether it's a punch or a kick, or a headbut come to
that! you could probably play quite adequately without such information, but
A, it's good to know, and B, it would probably help you formulate logical
combos.
9: pre match sequence playing stage ambience and/or description.
Ambient sounds during the game would probably be destracting, so probably it
would be best during the fight to keep just the fight sounds for characters
and music.
however, a sequence at the start with ambience sounds and some sort of audio
stage description to let you know whether you were on a beach, in a night
club, in som e evil sorcerer's thrown room etc.
some of the mortal Kombat games even had such descriptions in text on the
stage select screen for vs battles, but obviously it would need to be
accessible within the game.
10: pre match character descriptions of your opponents.
pretty much the same as the above really. more than a story based cutscene
or dialogue, a description of what your opponent wears, what he/she looks
like, maybe some brief remarks about fighting style and stance etc.
obviously here I was primarily thinking in purely 2D terms of games like
streetfighter, Blazblu Marvel vs capcom etc. While all of this would also
apply to a 3d (or rather 2.5 D as it's sometimes called), game like soul
calibur or tekken, you'd also need sounds to indicate the 180 degree status
of moves, whether they were circular or hit around your opponent, where your
opponent was vertically as well as horizontally etc.
that likely would be possible, but it'd probably require a few more complex
ideas for sound representation that I can't really think of at the moment,
and this post is more than long enough.
Beware the grue!
Dark.
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