I think the issue is how we convert games that are sighted to the blind.
I know that compaired to the sighted games our games are probably
of no real interest to the sighted.
they lack scope and other concepts that they are used to.
However its not like we have much choice.
There are only so many sounds we can have active at once before we
overload our ears.
How do we convert the games from the poor low grade to what the
sighted are used to.
Ofcause the truth of the matter, is that the blind can't design games.
Ok we can design games but a totally blind person really does not
know what the sighted play or how it will work.
I was born blind and when I started I heard a sound, if it was
correct good good but really I had no idea and randomly bashed the board.
Ofcause for those with consoles you may have been able to have some
insite and for those that grew up with mainstream games that would
give you a grounding or if you were hard core enough to upskill
yourself in such things.
I wager though that for those that never saw like me or were not in
the right setting or had the equipment to experiment that mainstream
concepts are as alien as well seeing.
Even I don't understand all of them though I am trying.
I must admit I still like the blindy games because I can play them easily.
Now if it ever became the norm, maybe but still.
There is left right up and down, nothing in between.
swamp does open up bits as does a game like tactical battle. However
we havn't progressed that much for the last 5-10 years.
its only in the last 3-4 years that we have been able to get a head.
I don't blaim anyone for this, blind games were after all started by the blind.
At first there were not to many players both blind and sighted that
were interested and even now there are only a few.
So will we grow?
probably but it will be in spirts and vellys where we wait for the
next eruption.
Right now we are in one of those vallys, with most of the stuff bar a
few games slogging along.
we started in a big rush and now we wait for the next one and that is
probably how it will be till more devs go on board.
Right now we need blind but also sighted devs willing to convert.
myself I would dearly like to see some of those games I missed with
propper sfx and music of the time.
the retro shadowgate and mario and sonic games are quite good but
probably because we havn't got to them yet ourselves still good.
We have far to many arcaders, card games and board games though I'd
still like to see ulsas and risk myself.
Then there is battle chess which was a game I played with friends on
an amiga its the same as chess except pieces do battle.
bits are cut off etc.
I never learned the rules of that but even then it was still entertaining.
The games I like a lot to are those like silent steel.
you have a story, a full story and where some things need to be done
you take over as a char in that story and can choose your path.
At 05:03 PM 3/27/2013, you wrote:
Hi Dark,
Sure. I do understand your point of view as it is rather distressing
to know how many V.I. gamers assume that something like Q9 is the be
all and end all to side-scrollers when guys like you and I know
better.
Fact of the matter is that for better than a decade side-scrollers
were the primary style of games for Nintendo, Sega, and PC and it gave
rise to such popular series as Megaman, Super Mario, Donkey Kong,
Castlevania, and so on. Since I figure the majority of blind PC users
were unable to fully enjoy the original side-scrollers they are
lacking some huge conceptual differences between a simple
side-scroller like Q9 and say Mario Brothers.
There are a whole bunch of conceptual differences that just haven't
been fully realized by the blind gaming community. For far too long a
lot of games have you push the up arrow key and the left or right
arrow key x time to jump a pit etc. This is not only very unrealistic,
but lacks the skill and grace of games with a traditional analog jump
system in place. Games where how high and far you jumped were based on
a number of factors like if you were running before you jumped,
weather or not you were jumping off a ledge,and how long you held
down the jump button while using the directional cross to control the
characters movement. Even when you landed you would occasionally
bounce or slide which made it difficult for a precision pinpoint
landing. Such things haven't been the norm in audio games, and I
suspect it is because a true analog jump system requires good hand and
eye coordination so yes we could use a few good side-scrollers of that
type to at least introduce the V.I. community to what they are
missing.
At the same time I am personally equally conscious of the fact we
haven't had many FPS games that lives up to mainstream standards. Yes,
Shades of Doom is good, and yes Swamp introduces us to the online FPS
type affair, but I've seen a lot of features that have never been
introduced in any audio game for one reason or another.
Let's take a Third Person Shooter like the infamous tomb Raider for
example. In that series you can get Lara Croft to perform a wide range
of acrobatic maneuvers above and beyond just jumps. She can do
summersaults, flips, rolls, and swan dive off a ledge into a lake. She
can safety drop from ledges, swing from ropes and vines, army crawl
under swirling blades, as well as run up to a ledge etc and vault over
it. In Tomb Raider Legend and Anniversary Lara carries a grappling
hook which she uses to swing over traps and to climb up to areas of
the tomb inaccessible through any other means. Point being that there
are a lot of aspects to a full on 3d game that no 2d side-scroller can
quite compare to.
Regarding nav systems I have to agree here. Monkey Business was
imprecise, and I'm not quite sure why that was. However, I do know of
the issue you speak of where you would here the beep, beep, beep of
the object locator only to walk past the item, or walk around it
several times before picking up the coin, sword, or whatever it was
you were trying to pik up. Oh, that use to bug the heck out of me.
Cheers!
On 3/26/13, dark <d...@xgam.org> wrote:
> Hi Tom.
>
> Well this is again why I'd like to see side scrollers introduced to audio
> gamers, since the amount of fun I've had with turrican, metroid, mega man
> and such games over the years is just staggering, and it's a shame that
> there are so many people who believe a 1D game like q9 is the be
all and end
>
> all.
>
> That being said, something full 3D would be good too, provided the nav
> system was there. Personally, what I found irritating in monkey business
> wasn't so much that the navigation system was lacking, but that it was
> simply imprecise. You'd hear something in front of you, walk forward and
> then walk straight past it, or be told something was to your right, turn
> right and then miss it. Shades, and the gma engine generally, ---- not to
> mention technoshock which was heavily based on it, uses a very precise
> system in it's audio to identify where objects are, so that if you turn so
> that something is centered in the sterrio field, you are! facing it, which
> to me is as much a contributing factor to shades success as it's various
> tools.
>
> i might also add though that on this front, swamp is pretty awsome too,
> letting you explore very large maps with things appearing at
random and even
>
> collection missions too.
>
> Beware the grue!
>
> Dark.
>
>
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