Re: [blind-gamers] james north and developer stress
Hi, We had a lot of developers seemingly take spaceships to Mars lately. My frustration is currently with VIPGamesZone, since I bought every one of their PC games and now I can’t play any of them. They don’t respond to emails, and since they stopped selling the games they just seem to have reverted back to demo mode...Now their website isn’t even online. That’s not to mention the stringent DRM protection they implemented that forced you to unregister machines before registering others, and god help you if you couldn’t do that. If your machine crashed, you were pretty much stuck to the flypaper since they refused to reset your reg count. I mean, I do kinda get why, since you can’t really prove your machine has crashed...But hell. Even devs like BSC and GMA had key counter timeouts. Don’t get me wrong. Having developed software myself and pretty much had people unknowingly admit to me that they had obtained decrypted copies of my sounds and cracks etc, boy do I understand the need for copy protection. But there’s copy protection and then there’s just inconvenience that later has the potential to turn nasty. Let’s face it, the VGZ collection must have easily reached $100. I hate to come across as a complainer. Generally, that’s not me at all. But where money’s involved, naturally I’m very sensitive. I don’t expect things for free. But I certainly expect to be able to get what I pay for. I know software is somewhat different to this, but I feel like I’ve just paid for a house, had it snatched from me by the owner because they changed their mind, and not been given my money back. Cheers. Damien. From: Jason Milyo Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2018 4:17 PM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] james north and developer stress Hi, Sean I do agree with you on this matter also developers you shouldn't be selfish with your products either, you should be fair with your customers and also communicate with your customers as well, as Sean said most of our experienced developers are gone now, or got other thins that came up inlife it is your duity as a new developer to make sure your customers are happy and that your product is doing the job that you inteneded it to do.
Re: [blind-gamers] Oh dear. I can't get hero's call working
Hi, Can't speak for virtual machines, as mine is a real one. Grin. So yeah. If it has problems under real machines I would be very surprised if it doesn't under virtual. Cheers. Damien. -Original Message- From: Jack Falejjczyk Sent: Sunday, December 31, 2017 1:07 PM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] Oh dear. I can't get hero's call working I'm guessing it must hate virtual machines under all cases, then? Can't get it running under, of all things, a windows 10 virtual machine on the mac. And Wine is giving me problems over here too. On 12/31/17, Damien Sykes wrote: Hi, That's one of the things I hate about CSharp, and the .NET platform in general. You really have to make an effort to obfuscate. Don't worry, your copy isn't the only demon in the dark. I'm getting: System.PlatformNotSupportedException: MonoGame requires either ARB_framebuffer_object or EXT_framebuffer_object.Try updating your graphics drivers. at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics.GraphicsDevice.PlatformInitialize() at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics.GraphicsDevice.Initialize() at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics.GraphicsDevice..ctor(GraphicsAdapter adapter, GraphicsProfile graphicsProfile, PresentationParameters presentationParameters) at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GraphicsDeviceManager.Initialize() at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GraphicsDeviceManager.CreateDevice() at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GamePlatform.BeforeInitialize() at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game.DoInitialize() at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game.Run(GameRunBehavior runBehavior) at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game.Run() at Ian.MGGameWindow.Ian.IGameWindow.Run() at Ian.RPGStartup.RunMainLogic() in C:\Data\Recent\Games\RPG\RPGStartup.cs:line 114 at Ian.RPGStartup.PerformStandardStartup() in C:\Data\Recent\Games\RPG\RPGStartup.cs:line 21 It may be worth noting that Windows Update has a tendancy to update my graphics drivers, which I never generally need, whether I want it to or not. Disable it, hide it, try as I might. So it's quite obviously not that. Lol. Plus...Graphics access in an audio only game? That suggests that there is an underlying game engine involved, and I reckon it's the game engine itself that is throwing a tantrum before the game itself even initialises. I don't even get a menu. Just a piece of music, that error, then it completely boots me off. Having said that. A lot of people are successfully playing it. So it must just hate my system for whatever reason. I would hope that it's not because I don't have a dedicated graphics card. Just your bog standard on-board thingumajig. Cheers. Damien. -Original Message- From: Stephen Sent: Sunday, December 31, 2017 5:51 AM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: [blind-gamers] Oh dear. I can't get hero's call working System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException: Length cannot be less than zero. Parameter name: length at System.String.InternalSubStringWithChecks(Int32 startIndex, Int32 length, Boolean fAlwaysCopy) at System.String.Substring(Int32 startIndex, Int32 length) at Ian.RPGStartup.SetWorkingDirectory() in C:\Data\Recent\Games\RPG\RPGStartup.cs:line 235 at Ian.RPGStartup.RunMainLogic() in C:\Data\Recent\Games\RPG\RPGStartup.cs:line 34 at Ian.RPGStartup.PerformStandardStartup() in C:\Data\Recent\Games\RPG\RPGStartup.cs:line 21 ps: doesn't having the name of the file from the game's sourcecode referenced in an error make it vulnerable to hackers? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#118303): https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/message/118303 View All Messages In Topic (4): https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/topic/7728634 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/7728634/21656 New Topic: https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/post Change Your Subscription: https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/editsub/21656 Group Home: https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers Contact Group Owner: blind-gamers+ow...@groups.io Terms of Service: https://groups.io/static/tos Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/leave/607459/1071380848/xyzzy -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Re: [blind-gamers] Oh dear. I can't get hero's call working
Hi, That's one of the things I hate about CSharp, and the .NET platform in general. You really have to make an effort to obfuscate. Don't worry, your copy isn't the only demon in the dark. I'm getting: System.PlatformNotSupportedException: MonoGame requires either ARB_framebuffer_object or EXT_framebuffer_object.Try updating your graphics drivers. at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics.GraphicsDevice.PlatformInitialize() at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics.GraphicsDevice.Initialize() at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics.GraphicsDevice..ctor(GraphicsAdapter adapter, GraphicsProfile graphicsProfile, PresentationParameters presentationParameters) at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GraphicsDeviceManager.Initialize() at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GraphicsDeviceManager.CreateDevice() at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GamePlatform.BeforeInitialize() at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game.DoInitialize() at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game.Run(GameRunBehavior runBehavior) at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game.Run() at Ian.MGGameWindow.Ian.IGameWindow.Run() at Ian.RPGStartup.RunMainLogic() in C:\Data\Recent\Games\RPG\RPGStartup.cs:line 114 at Ian.RPGStartup.PerformStandardStartup() in C:\Data\Recent\Games\RPG\RPGStartup.cs:line 21 It may be worth noting that Windows Update has a tendancy to update my graphics drivers, which I never generally need, whether I want it to or not. Disable it, hide it, try as I might. So it's quite obviously not that. Lol. Plus...Graphics access in an audio only game? That suggests that there is an underlying game engine involved, and I reckon it's the game engine itself that is throwing a tantrum before the game itself even initialises. I don't even get a menu. Just a piece of music, that error, then it completely boots me off. Having said that. A lot of people are successfully playing it. So it must just hate my system for whatever reason. I would hope that it's not because I don't have a dedicated graphics card. Just your bog standard on-board thingumajig. Cheers. Damien. -Original Message- From: Stephen Sent: Sunday, December 31, 2017 5:51 AM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: [blind-gamers] Oh dear. I can't get hero's call working System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException: Length cannot be less than zero. Parameter name: length at System.String.InternalSubStringWithChecks(Int32 startIndex, Int32 length, Boolean fAlwaysCopy) at System.String.Substring(Int32 startIndex, Int32 length) at Ian.RPGStartup.SetWorkingDirectory() in C:\Data\Recent\Games\RPG\RPGStartup.cs:line 235 at Ian.RPGStartup.RunMainLogic() in C:\Data\Recent\Games\RPG\RPGStartup.cs:line 34 at Ian.RPGStartup.PerformStandardStartup() in C:\Data\Recent\Games\RPG\RPGStartup.cs:line 21 ps: doesn't having the name of the file from the game's sourcecode referenced in an error make it vulnerable to hackers? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#118297): https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/message/118297 View All Messages In Topic (2): https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/topic/7728634 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/7728634/21656 New Topic: https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/post Change Your Subscription: https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/editsub/21656 Group Home: https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers Contact Group Owner: blind-gamers+ow...@groups.io Terms of Service: https://groups.io/static/tos Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/leave/607459/1071380848/xyzzy -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Re: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games
Hi Shaun, Yeah. Much as I hate to admit it, I was diagnosed with autism myself, near the aspergers end. I say I hate to admit it, but only because people judge me harshly for it. I'm not ashamed of it, it's who I am. But I am ashamed of some of my childhood attitudes. Whether that was my autism, or whether I was just full of hatred anger and bitterness, I don't know, and I don't particularly care to go back there neither. That was a very dark time for me. To be honest, I think I was possibly more angry with life than I was with any particular person or group of people. I still struggle with my emotions even today, but on a very different level. Cheers. Damien. -Original Message- From: Shaun Everiss Sent: Monday, December 18, 2017 8:25 PM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games I agree damien. I was like this from 15-20 years then from 26-30, but I am ok now. A lot of things did not pan out and I have accepted though I am still bitter about some of those things. I however can't do anything about them. On 19/12/2017 9:18 a.m., Damien Sykes wrote: Hi Justin, Your below message represents almost the exact bitter and prejudiced thoughts of a 14-year-old me. Sighted people probably have a good thousand games to every one of ours. So why should we give a damn? But no. We need to try and include everyone, otherwise we are not only stooping to that level, if indeed they are doing it maliciously, which most don't seem to be. But we are also cutting off our nose to spite our face. Make a well known game, make it for the blind only, have a family game night, fire it up and you'll see what I mean. You're totally isolating yourself from everyone else and that's not fair on you, or them. Recently I've been looking into new languages so that I can start messing around seeing if I can make big grand audio games, but also to see if I can create some online games that I can play with my family. It's lonely when your family are playing without you, or when you're playing a game solo that is meant to be multiplayer. If anything has shown me how important this kind of stuff is, it's the value of family. Cheers. Damien. -Original Message- From: Justin Jones Sent: Monday, December 18, 2017 6:34 PM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games I am going to have to respectfully disagree; for an audio game, for people with no visual acuity, visual elements are both a waste of time and resources. If I were, for example, to try and develop a role-playing game along the same lines as Baldur's Gate, production time would be increased by at least a factor of two. A visual interface is very different than an audio one-especially for role-playing games. This might sound a little petty (and if it does, I could not care less), but the mainstream gaming industry has made it very clear that accessibility and inclusiveness for blind players is not anything like a priority. Why should we, as blind gamers/game developers, make any sort of effort to include that group of gamers? Put differently, if a sighted person wants to play an audio game, there is nothing stopping them from doing so, but it is not our problem if they complain over the lack of a visual interface/feedback. This is my chief complaint with A Hero's Call: Out of Sight Games is attempting to prostitute itself to a community that does not give a damn about an indi developer trying to make a game for both blind and sighted people. Unless Out of Sight Games has a hidden art department as a part of their team, no sighted person (other than the curious) will purchase their game. Why would they? They have Skyrim, Diablo III, Path of Exile, Fallout 4, and so on. On 12/18/17, Liam Erven wrote: I disagree. There are times where having visual feedback is important. Especially in a game that you’d want to put in schools. There should never be a reason not to include visual elements. Access for all works both ways. Sent from Mail for Windows 10 From: Damien Sykes Sent: Monday, December 18, 2017 11:09 AM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games Hi, I don’t know why, but I like the fact that there’s no visual element. I know that a UI won’t make or break an audio game, but if there’s no UI then you have no choice but to go fully audio, and it really makes you think about what information needs to be conveyed. Almost like writing your own mini and/or virtual screen reader, I guess. I must say, it was a fun challenge conceptualising and writing the audio form. Cheers. Damien. From: Liam Erven Sent: Monday, December 18, 2017 3:52 PM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games My biggest issues are lack of cross-platform, lack of environmental effects, and no way to do any sort of visual UI. That’s
Re: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games
Hi Justin, Your below message represents almost the exact bitter and prejudiced thoughts of a 14-year-old me. Sighted people probably have a good thousand games to every one of ours. So why should we give a damn? But no. We need to try and include everyone, otherwise we are not only stooping to that level, if indeed they are doing it maliciously, which most don't seem to be. But we are also cutting off our nose to spite our face. Make a well known game, make it for the blind only, have a family game night, fire it up and you'll see what I mean. You're totally isolating yourself from everyone else and that's not fair on you, or them. Recently I've been looking into new languages so that I can start messing around seeing if I can make big grand audio games, but also to see if I can create some online games that I can play with my family. It's lonely when your family are playing without you, or when you're playing a game solo that is meant to be multiplayer. If anything has shown me how important this kind of stuff is, it's the value of family. Cheers. Damien. -Original Message- From: Justin Jones Sent: Monday, December 18, 2017 6:34 PM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games I am going to have to respectfully disagree; for an audio game, for people with no visual acuity, visual elements are both a waste of time and resources. If I were, for example, to try and develop a role-playing game along the same lines as Baldur's Gate, production time would be increased by at least a factor of two. A visual interface is very different than an audio one-especially for role-playing games. This might sound a little petty (and if it does, I could not care less), but the mainstream gaming industry has made it very clear that accessibility and inclusiveness for blind players is not anything like a priority. Why should we, as blind gamers/game developers, make any sort of effort to include that group of gamers? Put differently, if a sighted person wants to play an audio game, there is nothing stopping them from doing so, but it is not our problem if they complain over the lack of a visual interface/feedback. This is my chief complaint with A Hero's Call: Out of Sight Games is attempting to prostitute itself to a community that does not give a damn about an indi developer trying to make a game for both blind and sighted people. Unless Out of Sight Games has a hidden art department as a part of their team, no sighted person (other than the curious) will purchase their game. Why would they? They have Skyrim, Diablo III, Path of Exile, Fallout 4, and so on. On 12/18/17, Liam Erven wrote: I disagree. There are times where having visual feedback is important. Especially in a game that you’d want to put in schools. There should never be a reason not to include visual elements. Access for all works both ways. Sent from Mail for Windows 10 From: Damien Sykes Sent: Monday, December 18, 2017 11:09 AM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games Hi, I don’t know why, but I like the fact that there’s no visual element. I know that a UI won’t make or break an audio game, but if there’s no UI then you have no choice but to go fully audio, and it really makes you think about what information needs to be conveyed. Almost like writing your own mini and/or virtual screen reader, I guess. I must say, it was a fun challenge conceptualising and writing the audio form. Cheers. Damien. From: Liam Erven Sent: Monday, December 18, 2017 3:52 PM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games My biggest issues are lack of cross-platform, lack of environmental effects, and no way to do any sort of visual UI. That’s been an issue in Brain Station unfortunately. This is the problem when you get too comfortable with a scripting language like what was stated earlier. You don’t want to learn anything else. Sent from Mail for Windows 10 From: Damien Sykes Sent: Monday, December 18, 2017 9:39 AM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games Hi Justin, Indeed there are workarounds for these issues, but they are trivial compared to some of the bigger limitations. No 3d. No audio effects (filtering, reverb etc). Not cross-platform. Can't really do anything with binary data unless you do all the calculations and conversions yourself. Tantrums from the garbage collector from time to time, which of course will reduce performance. No real way of totally resetting the state of execution. Of course you can reset all the variables, but the call stack will still show a call to reset... The binary data and reset state aren't big showstoppers for me. Even the cross platform isn't a big deal for me. I only ever use Windows for my main work, only ever use Linux for server admin through SSH and I don
Re: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games
Hi, I can see where you’re coming from. Indeed, now you’ve said that I do seem to have a 15 year history of inner conflicts. When I first got into audio gaming 15 years ago, I remember feeling that, at last, here were some games we (the blind) could play. People have finally taken an initiative. When I realised that the developers were themselves blind, I’m afraid to say I formed attitudes that brought me to the decision that my games would be for the blind, and anyone else who chose to enter a blind world. The blind would provide for the blind, and the sighted would provide for the sighted. That looked like the way the river was flowing. It was only when I planned to add online multiplayer support to X-Wheel that I realised just how important total communal integration was. The reason I actually made plans to do that was because I wanted to be able to play with my mum and brother, both of who, surprise surprise, were sighted. But of course, BGT...yeah. Even now I’ve come through the bitter phases conjured from hell in my childhood, I still find myself thinking, more from curiosity if nothing else, being blind from birth, “but why is vision important? Forget games...If we can live our whole lives purely on sound, then why can’t sighted?” I can’t help thinking sometimes that those who have sight take it very much for granted. All I have to do is show a sighted person two sounds of water drains, and they notice a difference that, they admit themselves, they wouldn’t have noticed in life. But of course, they could say the same about blind people and sound. Of course it’s harder because we haven’t really got a backup sense that is as sensitive, but still. If we were to become deaf tomorrow, would we cope? Certainly not at first. And let’s not forget there is such thing as deaf-blind. So then I come to the argument that you get more from audio than you do from visuals. But when I really think about it, that too is inaccurate. If you hear a bang, oftentimes you can guess what the bang might be (a firework, a gunshot, a door slamming etc), but you could be wrong. I once thought a bang in a film was a gunshot, and it turned out to be a whipcrack. Similarly, when I play or plan out games, I often realise that a lot of objects don’t actually make sound, but yet we have to find a sound that we feel represents that object. When has an egg ever beeped? When has a door made constant banging or clicking noises when you move towards it? Hence the “learn sounds” option in most games that you probably wouldn’t get in a mainstream game. So yes, visuals can in fact describe a hell of a lot more than audio. The people who I used to think were bullies in my childhood, turn out to be right. We live in a sighted world and, hard though it may be sometimes, for whatever reason, we have to meet half way. Let’s face it. The world of production, once spitting over its grave that they wouldn’t adapt things because of money constraints, is becoming more and more accessibility-aware. Even on the audiogames forum, I’m starting to see more and more references to accessible mainstream games now rather than true audiogames. Of course I’m still what you might call an audiogame purist, because if a game is built based on audio alone then you don’t have to worry about accessibility hitches or automatic screen/graphics card adjustments that might send screen readers into panic mode. I’ve had more problems with that than I care to have for the rest of my life. But still. Similarly with films. A catalogue of audio-described films that could once be distributed on a single cassette by the RNIB back in the early 2000’s, has now turned into several television networks and DVD’s with audio-description that might, just might, fit as Daisy text on a CD. Then there are those who can play mainstream games – I often thought they must have a bit of sight, but no, I have known totally blind people to get on a playstation or X-Box and start playing away as if they knew the game inside out...Now if anything makes me jealous, that does. Hahahaha. Seriously though. I think it’s amazing how far the world has come in 15 years. Still has a long way to go, but given how fast things seem to be moving these days, it wouldn’t surprise me if we got twice as much in the next 15 years. Cheers. Damien. From: Liam Erven Sent: Monday, December 18, 2017 5:12 PM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games I disagree. There are times where having visual feedback is important. Especially in a game that you’d want to put in schools. There should never be a reason not to include visual elements. Access for all works both ways. Sent from Mail for Windows 10 From: Damien Sykes Sent: Monday, December 18, 2017 11:09 AM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games Hi, I don’t know why, but I like the fact that there’s no visual element
Re: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games
Hi, I don’t know why, but I like the fact that there’s no visual element. I know that a UI won’t make or break an audio game, but if there’s no UI then you have no choice but to go fully audio, and it really makes you think about what information needs to be conveyed. Almost like writing your own mini and/or virtual screen reader, I guess. I must say, it was a fun challenge conceptualising and writing the audio form. Cheers. Damien. From: Liam Erven Sent: Monday, December 18, 2017 3:52 PM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games My biggest issues are lack of cross-platform, lack of environmental effects, and no way to do any sort of visual UI. That’s been an issue in Brain Station unfortunately. This is the problem when you get too comfortable with a scripting language like what was stated earlier. You don’t want to learn anything else. Sent from Mail for Windows 10 From: Damien Sykes Sent: Monday, December 18, 2017 9:39 AM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games Hi Justin, Indeed there are workarounds for these issues, but they are trivial compared to some of the bigger limitations. No 3d. No audio effects (filtering, reverb etc). Not cross-platform. Can't really do anything with binary data unless you do all the calculations and conversions yourself. Tantrums from the garbage collector from time to time, which of course will reduce performance. No real way of totally resetting the state of execution. Of course you can reset all the variables, but the call stack will still show a call to reset... The binary data and reset state aren't big showstoppers for me. Even the cross platform isn't a big deal for me. I only ever use Windows for my main work, only ever use Linux for server admin through SSH and I don't see myself getting a mac or phone anytime soon. But performance is definitely important in any product, and since I'm seeing more and more games make use of 3d audio and environmental effects, if I made another game I'd want to be able to use that. Cheers. Damien. -Original Message- From: Justin Jones Sent: Monday, December 18, 2017 3:11 PM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games One example of this sort of limitation is that BGT will only allow for the reading of string data types from a file and nothing else. For example, if you tell BGT to output a series of numbers into a text file, it does this just fine, but if you try to read those numbers back into a piece of code as integers, i.e. assigning the values to an integer data type, BGT kicks back an error. Of course, there is a work-around for this, but you have to use the string conversion functions to convert a string data type to an integer data type. This is an odd limitation, considering that the other programming languages I've worked with in the past do not have this problem. Another example of a limitation for BGT is data validation. If you were to have the user input a number, there is no built-in functionality for the input box function to perform data validation. Again, there are work-arounds for this, but this ought to have been something that is a part of the input box function. I freely admit that I could be wrong concerning both of these examples. On 12/18/17, Liam Erven wrote: > It’s still a scripting language by definition. It’s good for games, but > not > much else. Also has several limitations which could be problematic. > > > > Sent from Mail for Windows 10 > > From: Josh Kennedy > Sent: Monday, December 18, 2017 6:36 AM > To: blind-gamers@groups.io > Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games > > Sam tupy’s elaborate survive the wild game was written entirely in bgt. > > > Sent from Mail for Windows 10 > > From: Justin Jones > Sent: Monday, December 18, 2017 07:31 > To: blind-gamers@groups.io > Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games > > So long as you understand that BGT isn't a real programming language, > as it falls under scripting. > > It's not a bad start though, as it can do plenty of cool things and > also serves as an intro to game programming, but it is only an intro. > > > > On 12/17/17, Josh Kennedy wrote: >> Try the free bgt toolkit. Free blind game makers toolkit. Just google >> search >> bgt blind game makers toolkit. >> >> >> Sent from Mail for Windows 10 >> >> From: Marvin Hunkin via Groups.Io >> Sent: Sunday, December 17, 2017 20:23 >> To: blind-gamers@groups.io >> Subject: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games >> >> Hi. maybe this is too technical. But do you know of any blind deve
Re: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games
Hi Justin, Indeed there are workarounds for these issues, but they are trivial compared to some of the bigger limitations. No 3d. No audio effects (filtering, reverb etc). Not cross-platform. Can't really do anything with binary data unless you do all the calculations and conversions yourself. Tantrums from the garbage collector from time to time, which of course will reduce performance. No real way of totally resetting the state of execution. Of course you can reset all the variables, but the call stack will still show a call to reset... The binary data and reset state aren't big showstoppers for me. Even the cross platform isn't a big deal for me. I only ever use Windows for my main work, only ever use Linux for server admin through SSH and I don't see myself getting a mac or phone anytime soon. But performance is definitely important in any product, and since I'm seeing more and more games make use of 3d audio and environmental effects, if I made another game I'd want to be able to use that. Cheers. Damien. -Original Message- From: Justin Jones Sent: Monday, December 18, 2017 3:11 PM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games One example of this sort of limitation is that BGT will only allow for the reading of string data types from a file and nothing else. For example, if you tell BGT to output a series of numbers into a text file, it does this just fine, but if you try to read those numbers back into a piece of code as integers, i.e. assigning the values to an integer data type, BGT kicks back an error. Of course, there is a work-around for this, but you have to use the string conversion functions to convert a string data type to an integer data type. This is an odd limitation, considering that the other programming languages I've worked with in the past do not have this problem. Another example of a limitation for BGT is data validation. If you were to have the user input a number, there is no built-in functionality for the input box function to perform data validation. Again, there are work-arounds for this, but this ought to have been something that is a part of the input box function. I freely admit that I could be wrong concerning both of these examples. On 12/18/17, Liam Erven wrote: It’s still a scripting language by definition. It’s good for games, but not much else. Also has several limitations which could be problematic. Sent from Mail for Windows 10 From: Josh Kennedy Sent: Monday, December 18, 2017 6:36 AM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games Sam tupy’s elaborate survive the wild game was written entirely in bgt. Sent from Mail for Windows 10 From: Justin Jones Sent: Monday, December 18, 2017 07:31 To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games So long as you understand that BGT isn't a real programming language, as it falls under scripting. It's not a bad start though, as it can do plenty of cool things and also serves as an intro to game programming, but it is only an intro. On 12/17/17, Josh Kennedy wrote: Try the free bgt toolkit. Free blind game makers toolkit. Just google search bgt blind game makers toolkit. Sent from Mail for Windows 10 From: Marvin Hunkin via Groups.Io Sent: Sunday, December 17, 2017 20:23 To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games Hi. maybe this is too technical. But do you know of any blind developers developing an accessible game framework and also an accessible diagramming software. If so, let me know. And also what’s the steps to develop an accessible game say for windows. Thanks. Ps: also for like mobile, ios, android, x box, etc. thanks. Ps: thinking of doing a diploma of interactive gaming from my school,and they have like a few subjects, 3d interactive gaming and designing 3d graphics, etc. any one done these type of courses. Thanks. Virus-free. www.avast.com -- Justin M. Jones, M.A. atreides...@gmail.com (254) 624-9155 701 Ewing St. #509-C, Ft. Wayne IN, 46802 -- Justin M. Jones, M.A. atreides...@gmail.com (254) 624-9155 701 Ewing St. #509-C, Ft. Wayne IN, 46802 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#118109): https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/message/118109 View All Messages In Topic (8): https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/topic/7625742 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/7625742/21656 New Topic: https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/post Change Your Subscription: https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/editsub/21656 Group Home: https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers Contact Group Owner: blind-gamers+ow...@groups.io Terms of Service: https://groups.io/static/tos Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/leave/607459/1071380848/xyzzy -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Re: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games
Hi, While BGT is excellent for simple audio games, it can’t do 3D audio or diagramming, and it is not a cross-platform framework. Also what I’m finding to my cost is that if you start with a limited scripting engine and stick with it for long enough, you’ll pretty much be stuck with that for a long while. Scripting languages in their simplest end-user form don’t require you to think about dependencies, threading, memory management, unit testing, full-scale debugging, automated building, version control and the like. I swore I would move away from BGT two years ago, and I still end up falling back to it even now because I don’t understand these bigboy systems and just keep breaking them. So what I would say is, if you’re a seasoned software developer and you think you can stand up to the boistrous beastly C++, then do it. If not, the best thing is to weigh up the pros and cons of each system. C++ can be hard for beginners, especially given that most software and/or libraries seem to be made for it and need you to understand version control and Make to use them yourself. This is especially true because of C++ being cross-platform, and most of it is built for, you guessed it, Unix systems. Python seems to have a more neutral stance on Windows and Unix based systems, but is still hard to get a newbie head around due to SCons, Pip, virtualenv, distutils and all the python to executable tools that you can get for Windows. Not to mention if you want to close off the source code to your end product you’ll need to find some way of encrypting or obfuscating the python bytecode files. You could choose a simpler programming language like one of the BASICs (FreeBASIC, PureBASIC, PowerBASIC etc), but then know that, although it has headers and API’s converted from C or C++ headers to work with different libraries, you’ve then got to build a good percentage of those libraries, which means again, there’s no way to escape the use of C++ and the dreaded Make... It all depends on your skillset and your target outcome, not to mention your budget. I dread the kind of tools I mention because for the past 15 years I’ve been messing around with simple systems such as Visual Basic 6, AutoIt, and BGT, none of which I’ve really found to be ideal for large-scale projects. I have heard that PureBASIC is good for gaming, but unfortunately it isn’t free. HSP is another good system but you’ll get errors and documentation in Japanese. And I’ve no idea how either of these work with cross-platform, especially if you also want to go down the mobile route. Cheers. Damien. From: Liam Erven Sent: Monday, December 18, 2017 2:23 PM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games It’s still a scripting language by definition. It’s good for games, but not much else. Also has several limitations which could be problematic. Sent from Mail for Windows 10 From: Josh Kennedy Sent: Monday, December 18, 2017 6:36 AM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games Sam tupy’s elaborate survive the wild game was written entirely in bgt. Sent from Mail for Windows 10 From: Justin Jones Sent: Monday, December 18, 2017 07:31 To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games So long as you understand that BGT isn't a real programming language, as it falls under scripting. It's not a bad start though, as it can do plenty of cool things and also serves as an intro to game programming, but it is only an intro. On 12/17/17, Josh Kennedy wrote: > Try the free bgt toolkit. Free blind game makers toolkit. Just google search > bgt blind game makers toolkit. > > > Sent from Mail for Windows 10 > > From: Marvin Hunkin via Groups.Io > Sent: Sunday, December 17, 2017 20:23 > To: blind-gamers@groups.io > Subject: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games > > Hi. maybe this is too technical. But do you know of any blind developers > developing an accessible game framework and also an accessible diagramming > software. If so, let me know. And also what’s the steps to develop an > accessible game say for windows. > Thanks. > Ps: also for like mobile, ios, android, x box, etc. thanks. > Ps: thinking of doing a diploma of interactive gaming from my school,and > they have like a few subjects, 3d interactive gaming and designing 3d > graphics, etc. any one done these type of courses. Thanks. > > Virus-free. www.avast.com > > -- Justin M. Jones, M.A. atreides...@gmail.com (254) 624-9155 701 Ewing St. #509-C, Ft. Wayne IN, 46802
Re: [blind-gamers] MUDs
Hi, UAC is disabled. When I installed MushZ, it ran two installers, one which wasn’t even relevant to me (JAWS scripts I believe), then it ran some kind of updater program. Then when I launch it, I get such as the following: Run-time error Plugin: AlterAeon (called from world: alter aeon) Function/Sub: OnPluginInstall called by Plugin AlterAeon Reason: Executing plugin AlterAeon sub OnPluginInstall [string "Plugin"]:3178: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value) stack traceback: [string "Plugin"]:3178: in function 'recastdefault_single_spell' [string "Plugin"]:3227: in function 'recastdefaults' [string "Plugin"]:2997: in function 'sanity_check_recast_vars' [string "Plugin"]:6585: in function <[string "Plugin"]:6530> Error context in script: 3174 : return t2 3175 : end 3176 : 3177 : function recastdefault_single_spell(setname, spellname) 3178*: if recast[setname][spellname] == nil then 3179 : recast[setname][spellname]=false 3180 : end 3181 : end 3182 : Cannot open error log file: .\logs\script_error_log.txt WARNING - referencing uninitialized config variable 'randomambience'. WARNING - referencing uninitialized config variable 'enterinterrupt'. WARNING - referencing uninitialized config variable 'tts'. I got no errors during installation to say that files couldn’t be written. Cheers. Damien. From: john Sent: Wednesday, December 06, 2017 7:08 PM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] MUDs Hi Damien, Alright, let's take this from the top. Your class (or class structure, in AA) is sort of like professions or skills in real life. You can be a mage - an academic magic user with a lot of elemental power (think fireballs, lightning bolts, etc), you can be a warrior (think big, burly person with a giant axe or sword), a necromancer (think your own personal army of undead) among others. Your proficiency in each of the six classes is determined by your level, so a high level warrior will be really good at bashing things to pieces, but maybe not so at throwing fireballs. Which class you choose will be determined by what kind of character you fancy yourself as. The person you spoke too was only partially correct. At its core, a mud is a terminal connection to a server, but instead of sending OS commands you're saying what you want your character to do in-game. There are some very, very advanced telnet clients, though. They support aliases (similar to bash), triggers (doing something such as playing a sound when a certain line of text arrives) and even scripting. Mushclient in particular comes bundled with Lua, so anything you can do in that language you can do with the client, plus additional features. Thus, we have something like: You type: >c fir ant (this expands out to "cast fireball ant" after server-side processing) You see: You conjure and throw a bright yellow fireball at A tiny black ant! Because of Mushclient's features, there's a whole bunch of sounds for offensive spells. Thus, you hear your character yell a challenge to the left, and then the explosion of your fireball obliterating the ant. The concern with the documents folder is UAC; if you have it disabled, then you're good to go. The program needs to be able to write to its installation directory. My advice to you would be to re-download the program (mush-z.com), uninstall your current copy completely, install the new one and just try playing. There should be no errors out of the box. Alter Aeon has a really, really good introductory setup, and the help system is exceptional. I hope this clarified some of the confusion. Best, John From: Damien Sykes Sent: Wednesday, December 06, 2017 11:37 To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] MUDs Hi John, Nope, I’m not familiar with Dungeons and Dragons. I’ve heard of it but never played it. So in essence, the classes (are those the character types?) deal with stats rather than game play? Yes, I did think that MUDs (or Muds?) were text-based, but someone told me that they have become more advanced and can provide the realism that an audio game could. You yourself mentioned sounds...How does this work if it is still purely text based? Telnet: I thought that was for commanding operating systems, a bit like SSH? So let me get this straight...Alter Aeon is built on Telnet, connected to by MushZ, built on MushClient? Sounds like it could be part of a never ending chain to me. I don’t run Windows 10, I’m on 7. However it did want to install to the documents folder. I never ever use that folder, and it’s not exactly a conventional place to install something. To me, that’d be like saying a user application should be installed in windows/system32. The first place I look when I want to use a program is Pro
Re: [blind-gamers] MUDs
Hi John, Nope, I’m not familiar with Dungeons and Dragons. I’ve heard of it but never played it. So in essence, the classes (are those the character types?) deal with stats rather than game play? Yes, I did think that MUDs (or Muds?) were text-based, but someone told me that they have become more advanced and can provide the realism that an audio game could. You yourself mentioned sounds...How does this work if it is still purely text based? Telnet: I thought that was for commanding operating systems, a bit like SSH? So let me get this straight...Alter Aeon is built on Telnet, connected to by MushZ, built on MushClient? Sounds like it could be part of a never ending chain to me. I don’t run Windows 10, I’m on 7. However it did want to install to the documents folder. I never ever use that folder, and it’s not exactly a conventional place to install something. To me, that’d be like saying a user application should be installed in windows/system32. The first place I look when I want to use a program is Program Files (I know I know, call me nerdy, but I don’t use shortcuts either. Bite me. Lol). Is there a reason why it works better in the documents folder rather than program files? Is there something I could perhaps change? Or is the documents folder pretty much hardcoded? Also there is the reality factor. I’m guessing if it is still text based that won’t happen. For instance I won’t be using arrow keys to walk, space bar to shoot and hear enemies chasing me getting ready to fire, or in the space of a heart pounding moment with an intense ambience wondering if the security code you’re going to enter will let you pass or electrocute you...Besides the command issue, that’s another reason why I could never really get into text adventures. Again, it’s such a shame since it seems a lot of these types of games are a lot more replayable than standard audio games. Especially since they also seem to be able to be updated a lot more regularly than audio games as well. Cheers. Damien. From: john Sent: Wednesday, December 06, 2017 11:59 AM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] MUDs Hi Damien, There's a lot to cover here, so I'll try to answer a few of your questions and see where to go from there. Muds are, yes, somewhat similar to text adventures. In this case though, there's no "guess the verb" issue, since you can type help and get a description of what it does. On alter Aeon, you play as a combination of the six classes, picking one to be your primary. Which class you choose will determine what style of character you end up with - a mage is going to have a lot of offensive spells but not a lot of health, whereas a warrior will focus on physical skills and be more sturdy. You can apply a bit of Dungeons and Dragons-esc logic to your choice, if you're familiar with that. As for the connection bit, its worth pointing out that this is not an audiogame. Its purely text-based. Muds, in their simplest form, are telnet applications. The reason people recommend mush-z is because MushClient, the program that runs it, is a really, really powerful telnet client. Its where most of the work happens: processing the text you receive from the mud and acting on it, for example to play a sound or tell you that you're injured. If you're running on windows 10, it'd probably be worthwhile for you to install mush-z to your documents folder, rather than program files. This may resolve some of the technical difficulties. I know this hasn't covered all your questions, so let me know what else you need to know, and I'll see if I can help you get up and running. Best, John From: Damien Sykes Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2017 21:39 To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: [blind-gamers] MUDs Hi there. You know, I wasn’t sure if Alter Aeon was discussed on here much any more. Given that updates are still posted here that sends me a clear message that it is still popular. I have been hesitant to try MUDs for a while due to the fact that I always knew them to be mainly textual, leading to a lot of confusion and frustration for beginners of the text gaming world, and a slight sense of anticlimax for those more used to real-time gaming such as myself. However I was recently informed that MUDs have now become more than just the traditional text adventure style game and can now include audio, action hotkeys etc, like any other audio game might. To that end, I have been recommended to, and trying to get into, AA. However so far I have found the whole concept confusing and almost advanced. I know something like Crazy Party is no comparison to something like AA, but this is how clueless I am in that I’ll have to use it to try and conceptualise things in my head, as it is the closest thing I’m aware of. 1. To connect to a Crazy Party server you use Crazy Party and wait for players to connect. With AA, it seems there are v
Re: [blind-gamers] MUDs
Hi, Yes, I think the package I was led to was MushZ. But that was also the one that kept giving me the error messages. Also, it asked me what character type I wanted to create without even really going into detail about what they were. Needless to say it was all very alien to me. Unfortunately I haven't got all the output (to be honest I didn't think to explore the options to see if I could save the logs). Cheers. Damien. -Original Message- From: Oriol Gómez Sent: Wednesday, December 06, 2017 4:17 AM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] MUDs Hi Damien: If you want to try AA, just go to mush-z.org, download the main client and run it. it should connect you. once you create a character, there are man tutorials and helpful explanations inside the game itself, you won't be just sitting around. just try it and let me know. mush-z is currently the most popular option as it has a really good audio environment but there are others. hth On 12/6/17, Damien Sykes wrote: Hi there. You know, I wasn’t sure if Alter Aeon was discussed on here much any more. Given that updates are still posted here that sends me a clear message that it is still popular. I have been hesitant to try MUDs for a while due to the fact that I always knew them to be mainly textual, leading to a lot of confusion and frustration for beginners of the text gaming world, and a slight sense of anticlimax for those more used to real-time gaming such as myself. However I was recently informed that MUDs have now become more than just the traditional text adventure style game and can now include audio, action hotkeys etc, like any other audio game might. To that end, I have been recommended to, and trying to get into, AA. However so far I have found the whole concept confusing and almost advanced. I know something like Crazy Party is no comparison to something like AA, but this is how clueless I am in that I’ll have to use it to try and conceptualise things in my head, as it is the closest thing I’m aware of. 1. To connect to a Crazy Party server you use Crazy Party and wait for players to connect. With AA, it seems there are various applications that will support it and there are people there all the time. Is this because AA is centrally rather than individually hosted? What are people doing and what would I be expected to do? Last thing I want is to find myself logged in, clueless as to what to do and have someone say, “what are you doing just sat there?” or even worse getting killed. 2. In Crazy Party you simply choose a username and host a server or choose one to connect to. AA seems to want character types, skill levels etc, which goes way over my head. Seems like AA is taking real life concepts like priests and crafters and fighters and the like, none of which I’m good at in real life...Are these just game related? What is expected from each profession and how do you learn it? Is this specific to AA or are all MUDs like this? 3. Despite the fact I was told that it was like a regular audio game, I’m still being asked to type in text commands. I always found this a little daunting in offline text adventures, given you have to know all the commands, what you can do with each command etc. Whereas an adventure game like Chillingham gives you a set list, a text adventure could have a whole host of relevant options. While I suppose this gives more replay value to those who are used to such systems, to those who have had little, if any, experience with this form of gaming it can be very confusing. Especially if you don’t know how movement works. To give an example, “Forward is not recognised as a valid exit”? I didn’t get that message on AA, but a text adventure I tried to see if I could get used to the system before deciding whether to try out MUDs. 4. Now for the software...AA seems to guide blind players to something called “MushZ”, which I believe is some derivative of another gaming system that is designed in such a way as to make it easier for us to play. Problem is, I’m getting tons of errors regarding TTS and sounds, and even more warnings about uninitialised variables. There’s nothing in the docs regarding this leading me to assume that I’m one of a few, if not alone, in having these errors. Needless to say. MUDs still seem like a whole planet away from audio gaming and so I feel something a bit more is needed for beginners than, here’s the software, get playing. During the short spell I actually played MUDs several years ago, someone was practically holding my hand and guiding me every step of the way, so that when I lost contact with this person I pretty much had to stop because I still didn’t know what I was doing. Is there something I am missing? Are there thoughts from other beginners in this area? Or is it one of these merky areas where it’s hard for people to get into it unless you were practically brought up with it, kind of thing?
[blind-gamers] MUDs
Hi there. You know, I wasn’t sure if Alter Aeon was discussed on here much any more. Given that updates are still posted here that sends me a clear message that it is still popular. I have been hesitant to try MUDs for a while due to the fact that I always knew them to be mainly textual, leading to a lot of confusion and frustration for beginners of the text gaming world, and a slight sense of anticlimax for those more used to real-time gaming such as myself. However I was recently informed that MUDs have now become more than just the traditional text adventure style game and can now include audio, action hotkeys etc, like any other audio game might. To that end, I have been recommended to, and trying to get into, AA. However so far I have found the whole concept confusing and almost advanced. I know something like Crazy Party is no comparison to something like AA, but this is how clueless I am in that I’ll have to use it to try and conceptualise things in my head, as it is the closest thing I’m aware of. 1. To connect to a Crazy Party server you use Crazy Party and wait for players to connect. With AA, it seems there are various applications that will support it and there are people there all the time. Is this because AA is centrally rather than individually hosted? What are people doing and what would I be expected to do? Last thing I want is to find myself logged in, clueless as to what to do and have someone say, “what are you doing just sat there?” or even worse getting killed. 2. In Crazy Party you simply choose a username and host a server or choose one to connect to. AA seems to want character types, skill levels etc, which goes way over my head. Seems like AA is taking real life concepts like priests and crafters and fighters and the like, none of which I’m good at in real life...Are these just game related? What is expected from each profession and how do you learn it? Is this specific to AA or are all MUDs like this? 3. Despite the fact I was told that it was like a regular audio game, I’m still being asked to type in text commands. I always found this a little daunting in offline text adventures, given you have to know all the commands, what you can do with each command etc. Whereas an adventure game like Chillingham gives you a set list, a text adventure could have a whole host of relevant options. While I suppose this gives more replay value to those who are used to such systems, to those who have had little, if any, experience with this form of gaming it can be very confusing. Especially if you don’t know how movement works. To give an example, “Forward is not recognised as a valid exit”? I didn’t get that message on AA, but a text adventure I tried to see if I could get used to the system before deciding whether to try out MUDs. 4. Now for the software...AA seems to guide blind players to something called “MushZ”, which I believe is some derivative of another gaming system that is designed in such a way as to make it easier for us to play. Problem is, I’m getting tons of errors regarding TTS and sounds, and even more warnings about uninitialised variables. There’s nothing in the docs regarding this leading me to assume that I’m one of a few, if not alone, in having these errors. Needless to say. MUDs still seem like a whole planet away from audio gaming and so I feel something a bit more is needed for beginners than, here’s the software, get playing. During the short spell I actually played MUDs several years ago, someone was practically holding my hand and guiding me every step of the way, so that when I lost contact with this person I pretty much had to stop because I still didn’t know what I was doing. Is there something I am missing? Are there thoughts from other beginners in this area? Or is it one of these merky areas where it’s hard for people to get into it unless you were practically brought up with it, kind of thing? Cheers. Damien.
Re: [blind-gamers] marty's games
Hi, There are plenty of games that are iOS only that I love the sound of and therefore would love to be ported over to Windows. I don’t have an iOS device either. My finger dexterity isn’t all that great so I’ve said goodbye to all touchscreen based devices. Having said that, generally if a game, or any app, is only available for a specific platform, it’s usually because it has been developed exclusively for that platform. Either that or the developer doesn’t have any other platforms that may be able to handle it in order to recompile. This means that making the same software run on another platform would mean not only a total rewrite from the ground up but also maintaining multiple versions. Not the most feasible of options, unfortunately. Cheers. Damien. From: Marvin Hunkin via Groups.Io Sent: Sunday, November 12, 2017 8:26 AM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: [blind-gamers] marty's games Hi. why only for the apple mac and ios. Pity no windows 10 version. Don’t have a mace or ios device. Do have a Toshiba satellite pro laptop running jaws, nvda, windows narrator and windows 10 64 bit pro. Thanks. Virus-free. www.avast.com
Re: [blind-gamers] No more Blindfold Games or Updates
Josh. Firstly, you have sent seven messages pretty much saying the same thing in the space of half an hour. I think we’ve established that there are too many games to simply port everything over. If Apple listen to blind iOS gamers then Marty will hopefully be continuing. Otherwise there will be no further updates. Simple as that. That is as far and as wide as it goes and we all have to respect whatever happens as a result of this. Secondly. I don’t think I have ever seen any application, let alone an accessible game, that is sold under an open-source licence. While I’m sure it is theoretically possible (I believe the GPL allows you to sell your product as open source, though I’m not altogether sure of the legalities), it would be open to all kinds of abuse. Abuse, I might add, that an independent accessible games developer on a small budget or income won’t be able to satisfactorily resolve. Cheers. Damien. From: Josh Kennedy Sent: Thursday, November 09, 2017 3:13 PM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] No more Blindfold Games or Updates open source the games so blind android devs can port them to the google play store. thanks. On 11/9/2017 10:10, Arianna Sepulveda wrote: Marty, I just finished reading your blog post on this issue, and to me, Apple's new rules about apps don't make sense. Don't all apps vary in audio, video, or text in one way or another? I'll be calling Apple tomorrow on my day off about this. They're being unfair not only to us, your loyal user base, but to you, a very awesome app developer, and I'm going to make sure they know that. Thamks, Ari On Nov 8, 2017, at 3:34 PM, Marty Schultz wrote: I just finished talking with an Apple representative, and Apple’s decision is that unless I merge the 80 Blindfold Games into a handful of apps, they will no longer allow new games to be released or allow updates to be make. From a technology perspective, that’s extremely hard and time-consuming. From a business perspective, that would mean spending hundreds of hours recoding the games, with no possible return-on-investment. Most of the games generate sales in the first three months of the game being released, and I’ve been building these games for 4 years. From a usability perspective, that means the main menus would be ridiculously complex, and the settings screens would be confusing and almost unusable. If you are unhappy with this decision, you can express your opinion to Apple. The accessibility desk is at accessibil...@apple.com or you can call 1-800-MY-APPLE. Thanks to everyone for enjoying my games. -- sent with mozilla thunderbird
Re: [blind-gamers] psycho strike
Hi, BGT has had to be recompiled to support Elias. It is both the Elias engine itself and that version of BGT that won’t work on XP. Manamon doesn’t use Elias, and yet that still requires Windows 7 or later. More and more things are ending XP support, NVDA for one. Microsoft itself ended support for XP in 2009, so my opinion is the fact that software still works on XP now is merely coincidence than an outright attempt to support or not support it. Cheers. Damien. From: john Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2017 4:02 PM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] psycho strike Hi Damien, Hmmm, my version of BGT, which is the latest as far as I know, still compiles and runs on xp just fine. That's an interesting point about online manuals which I hadn't considered. I wonder if there's not a happy compromise somewhere? I thought VB6 was for the xp era, if it was for 98 it really is amazing that its lasted as long as it has. Best, John From: Damien Sykes-Lindley Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2017 8:28 To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] psycho strike Hi, That’s not a bug now, so much as a BGT compatibility issue. The fact is, all VG’s titles are made with BGT, and BGT did used to run on XP. It’s an easy mistake to make. I think it was after a Visual Studio update that it just stopped working on XP, and since neither I nor Aaron nor Philip have used XP for a while now it’s not something that actively came to note until it was released to the public. To be honest, I don’t know many people who would rebuild and reupload a game simply for a small update to a manual. I know I’d want to do something with the actual game before I reuploaded a patch. I’m guessing that’s why a lot of devs have started hosting their manuals online and linking to them via the game or a shortcut now. It does make them easier to edit, albeit harder to access should the internet go down... You will note though that the problem has indeed been acknowledged by way of the Manamon manual, which specifically says you need Windows 7 or later, suggesting that the games can’t be fixed for XP compatibility which, to be honest, I can’t say I’m too surprised. I’m actually surprised the VB6 games have lasted as long as they have, seeing as Windows Vista onwards couldn’t even install Visual Studio 6. Yet even Windows 10 can run VB6 apps which in theory were designed for Windows 98...Very bizarre. Cheers. Damien. From: john Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2017 12:17 PM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] psycho strike There was that xp issue that's plagued all of VG's games. They did promise to fix it with Psycho Strike, but its continued into their other titles, and, as far as I know, they've been saying their games run on xp the whole time (which means something's weird if they won't even update the manual). From: Damien Sykes-Lindley Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2017 3:21 To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] psycho strike Hi, Just because a game isn’t updated doesn’t mean it’s been discontinued. As for Psycho Strike, you can still purchase it, it’s still playable, thus to my mind it’s not discontinued. Personally, I don’t see what needs updating. The game is stable enough. I haven’t seen any bugs in the 30 months it’s been on the market. Cheers. Damien. From: mattias Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2017 4:36 AM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: [blind-gamers] psycho strike Are it discontinued? No updates at least 2 years Skickades från E-post för Windows 10
Re: [blind-gamers] psycho strike
Hi, Well, even Windows 7 isn't supported any more, as of 2015. So, though I'm not the world's biggest Windows 10 fan, looks like that's gonna be the way to go, unfortunately. Cheers. Damien. -Original Message- From: Justin Jones Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2017 1:48 PM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] psycho strike Simple solution: don't run Windows XP and update to Windows 7-if for no other reason than XP has security issues that Microsoft will not address, owing to them no longer supporting that particular operating system. On 10/24/17, dark wrote: Hi John. In fairness to Vgstorm, they never actually claimed that their games ran on Xp. What they said is they couldn’t find a reason why their games didn’t! Run on xp, but since they didn’t have access to an xp machine for development purposes they couldn’t investigate fully. The issue actually does not affect all of their games, paladin of the skies and adventure at C: will run fine on xp, though psychostrike, The gate and Manamon won’t. All the best, Dark. Sent from Mail for Windows 10 From: john Sent: 24 October 2017 12:17 To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] psycho strike There was that xp issue that's plagued all of VG's games. They did promise to fix it with Psycho Strike, but its continued into their other titles, and, as far as I know, they've been saying their games run on xp the whole time (which means something's weird if they won't even update the manual). From: Damien Sykes-Lindley Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2017 3:21 To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] psycho strike Hi, Just because a game isn’t updated doesn’t mean it’s been discontinued. As for Psycho Strike, you can still purchase it, it’s still playable, thus to my mind it’s not discontinued. Personally, I don’t see what needs updating. The game is stable enough. I haven’t seen any bugs in the 30 months it’s been on the market. Cheers. Damien. From: mattias Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2017 4:36 AM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: [blind-gamers] psycho strike Are it discontinued? No updates at least 2 years Skickades från E-post för Windows 10 -- Justin M. Jones, M.A. atreides...@gmail.com (254) 624-9155 701 Ewing St. #509-C, Ft. Wayne IN, 46802 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#117838): https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/message/117838 View All Messages In Topic (7): https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/topic/6227670 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/6227670/21656 New Topic: https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/post Change Your Subscription: https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/editsub/21656 Group Home: https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers Contact Group Owner: blind-gamers+ow...@groups.io Terms of Service: https://groups.io/static/tos Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/leave/607459/1071380848/xyzzy -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Re: [blind-gamers] psycho strike
Hi, That’s not a bug now, so much as a BGT compatibility issue. The fact is, all VG’s titles are made with BGT, and BGT did used to run on XP. It’s an easy mistake to make. I think it was after a Visual Studio update that it just stopped working on XP, and since neither I nor Aaron nor Philip have used XP for a while now it’s not something that actively came to note until it was released to the public. To be honest, I don’t know many people who would rebuild and reupload a game simply for a small update to a manual. I know I’d want to do something with the actual game before I reuploaded a patch. I’m guessing that’s why a lot of devs have started hosting their manuals online and linking to them via the game or a shortcut now. It does make them easier to edit, albeit harder to access should the internet go down... You will note though that the problem has indeed been acknowledged by way of the Manamon manual, which specifically says you need Windows 7 or later, suggesting that the games can’t be fixed for XP compatibility which, to be honest, I can’t say I’m too surprised. I’m actually surprised the VB6 games have lasted as long as they have, seeing as Windows Vista onwards couldn’t even install Visual Studio 6. Yet even Windows 10 can run VB6 apps which in theory were designed for Windows 98...Very bizarre. Cheers. Damien. From: john Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2017 12:17 PM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] psycho strike There was that xp issue that's plagued all of VG's games. They did promise to fix it with Psycho Strike, but its continued into their other titles, and, as far as I know, they've been saying their games run on xp the whole time (which means something's weird if they won't even update the manual). From: Damien Sykes-Lindley Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2017 3:21 To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] psycho strike Hi, Just because a game isn’t updated doesn’t mean it’s been discontinued. As for Psycho Strike, you can still purchase it, it’s still playable, thus to my mind it’s not discontinued. Personally, I don’t see what needs updating. The game is stable enough. I haven’t seen any bugs in the 30 months it’s been on the market. Cheers. Damien. From: mattias Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2017 4:36 AM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: [blind-gamers] psycho strike Are it discontinued? No updates at least 2 years Skickades från E-post för Windows 10
Re: [blind-gamers] psycho strike
Hi, Just because a game isn’t updated doesn’t mean it’s been discontinued. As for Psycho Strike, you can still purchase it, it’s still playable, thus to my mind it’s not discontinued. Personally, I don’t see what needs updating. The game is stable enough. I haven’t seen any bugs in the 30 months it’s been on the market. Cheers. Damien. From: mattias Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2017 4:36 AM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: [blind-gamers] psycho strike Are it discontinued? No updates at least 2 years Skickades från E-post för Windows 10
Re: [blind-gamers] bgt exclude components
Hi Paul, While it is possible to implement 3d functionality into the soundpool, there’s a huge limit to what you can do with 2d audio. We’re already having to shift pitch to represent the difference between in front and behind, the last thing you really want to do is to use the same technique to represent above versus below. Also, the BGT pathfinder only works on a 2d grid, presumably for this reason along with memory considerations, meaning that 3D AI is impossible unless the pathfinder is completely rewritten as a BGT script, again adding an unnecessary layer of abstraction. Cheers. Damien. From: Paul Lemm Sent: Friday, August 25, 2017 5:52 PM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] bgt exclude components Hi Damien , So I’ve only ever coded/scripted using BGT and not used an actual programing language for coding , but in your email you mention that BGT is only good for 2D audio games, although I completely understand the BGT includes for things like the sound pool are only based on 2D audio games, since BGT supports 3 dimensional arrays there is nothing that stops people writing their own sound pool class which could support the third axis point which allows people to create 3d maps using BGT if they wish. All the above being said I still fully agree with you though that working with a full on programming language will always give you more control than working with a scripting language. Paul From: blind-gamers@groups.io [mailto:blind-gamers@groups.io] On Behalf Of Damien Sykes-Lindley Sent: 23 August 2017 21:22 To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] bgt exclude components Hi John, I’m afraid there are no public updates to BGT at the moment. To be honest until I hear any different I’m treating it more or less as a dying language. There has actually been an entire topic on Twitter today regarding the suitability of BGT, and I’ll say here, albeit more detailed, what I said there. BGT has its place. But it also has its limits. BGT is very good for creating 2d-based audiogames while being friendly for beginners in the process. BGT is not good for general purpose applications. Its speed isn’t optimised for it, neither is its size. Most importantly, its library support is extremely basic, meaning that in order to use a good 95% of available libraries with BGT, they would need separate wrapper libraries. When I first started to learn game programming, I started with VB6. While that was considered a programming language, it was still very much a limited environment. Tutorials were becoming scarce, examples low on the ground, and the language itself was dying out thanks to the introduction of the .NET platforms. Even DirectX needed it’s own VB-compatible DLL, hence the reason many users are struggling to play older games on Windows 7, 8, or 10. Believe it or not, my journey with VB6 came to an unceremonious finality during the beta testing phase of BGT. From that moment on, anything I wanted to do was done using BGT. So, to clarify. I started with VB6 (a COM/OLE/ActiveX environment), tinkered with AutoIt (a UI automation scripting language which also tried its best to serve a general-purpose environment but was far too specifically designed to do so efficiently), then moved house to BGT (a gaming platform). As much as some people may class these as programming, to me they are very much scripting. All sandbox environments, limited functionality, very specific purposes, and encouraging software development management skills which are not generally encouraged in general programming. It’s unfortunate, but a lot of people go through one of two phases: Either they switch to a general purpose language rather quickly, realise how much better it is, and come to despise the scripting languages they learned as introductory tools, or they treat it with unrestrained reverence, use them forever and a day, and become so reliant on these scripting alternatives that nothing else matters to them, to the point that they will even attempt to push these languages far beyond the boundaries of perhaps even twice their limits. I’m not saying that anyone on this list is at one phase or the other. Personally, I’m stuck sitting on the fence. I realise how much better general purpose programming languages are, in terms of speed and size optimisations. But the sheer size and the tasks that are either possible or mandatory with these languages I find all too overwhelming, to the point that sometimes finding libraries and compiling them can be a challenge in itself, without the extra coding and debugging. So while I appreciate some of the benefits of many general purpose languages, I have myself become all too reliant on the sandbox environment, having used it for the past 16 years. As a consequence, pointers, handles, data structures and callbacks on the coding end, and version control, package
Re: [blind-gamers] bgt exclude components
Hi, BGT is definitely way faster than AutoIt, but not quite as fast as C or even C++ has the potential to be. Cheers. Damien. -Original Message- From: valiant8086 Sent: Friday, August 25, 2017 4:12 PM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] bgt exclude components Hi. Have you found another language that uses angel script for general purpose? I thought bgt was really fast at least compared to my autoit stuff. Cheers: Aaron Spears, A.K.A. valiant8086. General Partner - Valiant Galaxy Associates "We make Very Good Audiogames for the blind community - http://valiantGalaxy.com"; On 8/24/2017 9:16 PM, Damien Sykes-Lindley wrote: Hi, I'll give you my experiences. Of course I wouldn't class myself as an experienced software engineer yet. But I have tinkered around with various scripting environments for the better part of 16 years, and am now attempting to dirty my hands in the mainstream programming world. And yes. I mean dirty. Trying to use Windows for a task which seems to be exclusively linked to, written for, and taught by Unix geeks is not a pretty task. Programming is all about compromise, knowing what you need and what you are willing to sacrifice, and knowing what languages can do that for you. The lowest level, device-independent, most common and manageable programming language happens to be C. C itself is very flexible, accounting for a great deal of code written. Most operating systems are built with a combination of C and Assembly (a lower level language designed to send instructions directly to a processor). Programs written in C have a potential to be quick, compact and durable, not to mention cross-platform. The caveat is that you have to do most of the work. There is no magic "string" datatype. A string is an array of chars, char being a byte - an 8-bit number representing the ascii code of a character. An array is static, there is no magic resize method like BGT offers. For dynamic content, you have to allocate and clear your own memory resources. And of course, if you want to execute multiple tasks at once, you have to take care of your own multithreading. A level above that, and you reach C++. C++ contains object orientation and more desired datatypes, meaning that objects generally deal with their own memory, allowing the coder to concentrate more on logic than system management. Of course, some of the things you will write will need their own system management, but not half as much, and far less often. It's thanks to this though, that C++ introduces strings (std::string), and different data representations such as dynamic arrays (std::vector), associative arrays, trees, linked lists etc. Less work, of course, means less control, and more tasks that have to be done in the background. This will naturally increase the output size and speed, however not too much, hence allowing it to be another common language used in both open source and commercial environments. After that, you can more or less pick your own cheese. Compiled languages obviously provide more flexibility in terms of optimisation control. However, if you start delving into other compiled options, you'll find that your library set is very limited. A language I used to use for a time, FreeBASIC, sounded like the ultimate solution. I was familiar with BASIC, and it compiled its code, using GCC as its backend. However the only libraries that FreeBASIC supported were the libraries that had headers and API's included in its bundle. While FreeBASIC actually included a lot of the most popular (SQLite, ZLib, GMP, MySQL, PCRE, LibOgg, LibVorbis, WXWidgets, SDL, Bass, FMOD, the Windows API and tons more), half the libraries needed to be compiled first, and other libraries that haven't yet been supported would have to be converted using their C interface, meaning that you would of course have to learn to use and compile C and C++ resources anyway. The more higher level you start to go, the more you are looking at interpreted languages, such as AngelScript, LUA, AutoIt, AutoHotkey, Ruby, Python, Java, and the .NET platform. While AngelScript and LUA are in fact embeddable languages which are written in C or C++, Java is a language requiring its own runtime, and AutoIt and AutoHotkey are only suitable for Windows, not to mention extremely bulky and sluggish, other languages like Ruby, Python and .NET are becoming popular alternatives. However, again, thanks to the need for rewritten libraries, you need to factor in the size of the original library plus the refactored library, plus your own code when dealing with the size of the final applications. Bottom line. Garbage in, garbage out. The more you rely on layering, the bulkier and slower your final product will be. Especially if you use something like AutoIt which was originally designed for UI automation but then got too big for its ow
Re: [blind-gamers] bgt exclude components
Hi, I'll give you my experiences. Of course I wouldn't class myself as an experienced software engineer yet. But I have tinkered around with various scripting environments for the better part of 16 years, and am now attempting to dirty my hands in the mainstream programming world. And yes. I mean dirty. Trying to use Windows for a task which seems to be exclusively linked to, written for, and taught by Unix geeks is not a pretty task. Programming is all about compromise, knowing what you need and what you are willing to sacrifice, and knowing what languages can do that for you. The lowest level, device-independent, most common and manageable programming language happens to be C. C itself is very flexible, accounting for a great deal of code written. Most operating systems are built with a combination of C and Assembly (a lower level language designed to send instructions directly to a processor). Programs written in C have a potential to be quick, compact and durable, not to mention cross-platform. The caveat is that you have to do most of the work. There is no magic "string" datatype. A string is an array of chars, char being a byte - an 8-bit number representing the ascii code of a character. An array is static, there is no magic resize method like BGT offers. For dynamic content, you have to allocate and clear your own memory resources. And of course, if you want to execute multiple tasks at once, you have to take care of your own multithreading. A level above that, and you reach C++. C++ contains object orientation and more desired datatypes, meaning that objects generally deal with their own memory, allowing the coder to concentrate more on logic than system management. Of course, some of the things you will write will need their own system management, but not half as much, and far less often. It's thanks to this though, that C++ introduces strings (std::string), and different data representations such as dynamic arrays (std::vector), associative arrays, trees, linked lists etc. Less work, of course, means less control, and more tasks that have to be done in the background. This will naturally increase the output size and speed, however not too much, hence allowing it to be another common language used in both open source and commercial environments. After that, you can more or less pick your own cheese. Compiled languages obviously provide more flexibility in terms of optimisation control. However, if you start delving into other compiled options, you'll find that your library set is very limited. A language I used to use for a time, FreeBASIC, sounded like the ultimate solution. I was familiar with BASIC, and it compiled its code, using GCC as its backend. However the only libraries that FreeBASIC supported were the libraries that had headers and API's included in its bundle. While FreeBASIC actually included a lot of the most popular (SQLite, ZLib, GMP, MySQL, PCRE, LibOgg, LibVorbis, WXWidgets, SDL, Bass, FMOD, the Windows API and tons more), half the libraries needed to be compiled first, and other libraries that haven't yet been supported would have to be converted using their C interface, meaning that you would of course have to learn to use and compile C and C++ resources anyway. The more higher level you start to go, the more you are looking at interpreted languages, such as AngelScript, LUA, AutoIt, AutoHotkey, Ruby, Python, Java, and the .NET platform. While AngelScript and LUA are in fact embeddable languages which are written in C or C++, Java is a language requiring its own runtime, and AutoIt and AutoHotkey are only suitable for Windows, not to mention extremely bulky and sluggish, other languages like Ruby, Python and .NET are becoming popular alternatives. However, again, thanks to the need for rewritten libraries, you need to factor in the size of the original library plus the refactored library, plus your own code when dealing with the size of the final applications. Bottom line. Garbage in, garbage out. The more you rely on layering, the bulkier and slower your final product will be. Especially if you use something like AutoIt which was originally designed for UI automation but then got too big for its own boots and slowed down significantly as a result. Again, these are just my personal experiences with programming. I'm sure more seasoned programmers will likely have their own opinions, not to mention factual corrections. But there you have it. Cheers. Damien. -Original Message- From: Justin Jones Sent: Friday, August 25, 2017 12:38 AM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] bgt exclude components I would also be interested in knowing if there is a good briding language away from BGT. BGT is working for our purposes at the moment, but thinking/planning ahead, I can see where BGT will start to fail us. On 8/25/17, Damien Sykes-Lindley wrot
Re: [blind-gamers] bgt exclude components
Hi John, I will reply to you off list, as we are straying away from gaming here. Cheers. Damien. From: john Sent: Thursday, August 24, 2017 3:29 PM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] bgt exclude components Hi Damien, Well said on all counts. I'm in about the same position; I'd like to move to something with more features and support, but BGT does so many of the little things so easily its difficult to not look for ways around the engine's limitations (getting drive information via wmic and batchfiles rather than built-in calls, for example). I've also been struggling to find anything that compiles down to executables easily (java's special at best, python files are huge and have to decompress themselves, C is... C). Have you had any luck finding a language that can bridge the gap at all? Best, John From: Damien Sykes-Lindley Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2017 16:22 To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] bgt exclude components Hi John, I’m afraid there are no public updates to BGT at the moment. To be honest until I hear any different I’m treating it more or less as a dying language. There has actually been an entire topic on Twitter today regarding the suitability of BGT, and I’ll say here, albeit more detailed, what I said there. BGT has its place. But it also has its limits. BGT is very good for creating 2d-based audiogames while being friendly for beginners in the process. BGT is not good for general purpose applications. Its speed isn’t optimised for it, neither is its size. Most importantly, its library support is extremely basic, meaning that in order to use a good 95% of available libraries with BGT, they would need separate wrapper libraries. When I first started to learn game programming, I started with VB6. While that was considered a programming language, it was still very much a limited environment. Tutorials were becoming scarce, examples low on the ground, and the language itself was dying out thanks to the introduction of the .NET platforms. Even DirectX needed it’s own VB-compatible DLL, hence the reason many users are struggling to play older games on Windows 7, 8, or 10. Believe it or not, my journey with VB6 came to an unceremonious finality during the beta testing phase of BGT. From that moment on, anything I wanted to do was done using BGT. So, to clarify. I started with VB6 (a COM/OLE/ActiveX environment), tinkered with AutoIt (a UI automation scripting language which also tried its best to serve a general-purpose environment but was far too specifically designed to do so efficiently), then moved house to BGT (a gaming platform). As much as some people may class these as programming, to me they are very much scripting. All sandbox environments, limited functionality, very specific purposes, and encouraging software development management skills which are not generally encouraged in general programming. It’s unfortunate, but a lot of people go through one of two phases: Either they switch to a general purpose language rather quickly, realise how much better it is, and come to despise the scripting languages they learned as introductory tools, or they treat it with unrestrained reverence, use them forever and a day, and become so reliant on these scripting alternatives that nothing else matters to them, to the point that they will even attempt to push these languages far beyond the boundaries of perhaps even twice their limits. I’m not saying that anyone on this list is at one phase or the other. Personally, I’m stuck sitting on the fence. I realise how much better general purpose programming languages are, in terms of speed and size optimisations. But the sheer size and the tasks that are either possible or mandatory with these languages I find all too overwhelming, to the point that sometimes finding libraries and compiling them can be a challenge in itself, without the extra coding and debugging. So while I appreciate some of the benefits of many general purpose languages, I have myself become all too reliant on the sandbox environment, having used it for the past 16 years. As a consequence, pointers, handles, data structures and callbacks on the coding end, and version control, package managers, bug trackers, unit testing, automated building and dedicated debuggers on the software engineering end, have only entered my programming world very recently – a sad situation for any application, games included. So, the upshot. If you know for an absolute 100% certainty that you only want to concentrate on audiogames, and 2d-based audiogames at that, BGT is a good option. However if you feel you also want to branch out into end product optimisation, 3d-based audio, environmental effects, general purpose applications etc, I would give the advice to skip the scripting stage and go straight to learning general programming and software engineering concepts. As far as
Re: [blind-gamers] bgt exclude components
Hi John, I’m afraid there are no public updates to BGT at the moment. To be honest until I hear any different I’m treating it more or less as a dying language. There has actually been an entire topic on Twitter today regarding the suitability of BGT, and I’ll say here, albeit more detailed, what I said there. BGT has its place. But it also has its limits. BGT is very good for creating 2d-based audiogames while being friendly for beginners in the process. BGT is not good for general purpose applications. Its speed isn’t optimised for it, neither is its size. Most importantly, its library support is extremely basic, meaning that in order to use a good 95% of available libraries with BGT, they would need separate wrapper libraries. When I first started to learn game programming, I started with VB6. While that was considered a programming language, it was still very much a limited environment. Tutorials were becoming scarce, examples low on the ground, and the language itself was dying out thanks to the introduction of the .NET platforms. Even DirectX needed it’s own VB-compatible DLL, hence the reason many users are struggling to play older games on Windows 7, 8, or 10. Believe it or not, my journey with VB6 came to an unceremonious finality during the beta testing phase of BGT. From that moment on, anything I wanted to do was done using BGT. So, to clarify. I started with VB6 (a COM/OLE/ActiveX environment), tinkered with AutoIt (a UI automation scripting language which also tried its best to serve a general-purpose environment but was far too specifically designed to do so efficiently), then moved house to BGT (a gaming platform). As much as some people may class these as programming, to me they are very much scripting. All sandbox environments, limited functionality, very specific purposes, and encouraging software development management skills which are not generally encouraged in general programming. It’s unfortunate, but a lot of people go through one of two phases: Either they switch to a general purpose language rather quickly, realise how much better it is, and come to despise the scripting languages they learned as introductory tools, or they treat it with unrestrained reverence, use them forever and a day, and become so reliant on these scripting alternatives that nothing else matters to them, to the point that they will even attempt to push these languages far beyond the boundaries of perhaps even twice their limits. I’m not saying that anyone on this list is at one phase or the other. Personally, I’m stuck sitting on the fence. I realise how much better general purpose programming languages are, in terms of speed and size optimisations. But the sheer size and the tasks that are either possible or mandatory with these languages I find all too overwhelming, to the point that sometimes finding libraries and compiling them can be a challenge in itself, without the extra coding and debugging. So while I appreciate some of the benefits of many general purpose languages, I have myself become all too reliant on the sandbox environment, having used it for the past 16 years. As a consequence, pointers, handles, data structures and callbacks on the coding end, and version control, package managers, bug trackers, unit testing, automated building and dedicated debuggers on the software engineering end, have only entered my programming world very recently – a sad situation for any application, games included. So, the upshot. If you know for an absolute 100% certainty that you only want to concentrate on audiogames, and 2d-based audiogames at that, BGT is a good option. However if you feel you also want to branch out into end product optimisation, 3d-based audio, environmental effects, general purpose applications etc, I would give the advice to skip the scripting stage and go straight to learning general programming and software engineering concepts. As far as I’m concerned, scripting languages are hinkypunks. They lure you into a false sense of security and then watch heartlessly while you’re dragged down by the realisation that programming isn’t as simple as scripting makes it out to be. Cheers. Damien. From: john Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2017 7:48 PM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] bgt exclude components Hi Damien, Thanks for such a detailed response, that gives me exactly the info I was looking for. Unfortunately it is the base size of BGT I'm looking to reduce (an 850kb executable is a lot more than needed for 2kb of code). Do you happen to know if there's any development being done on it at all? I remember Philip had said a while ago he had some updates in the works, but that time to work on them was limited. Again, thank you for such a clear and helpful response. I can't say how refreshing it was to get this email, especially since I've been dealing with Microsoft support recently. Best,
Re: [blind-gamers] bgt exclude components
Hi, Unfortunately this isn’t possible. These components are part of the BGT engine rather than included scripts. Of course since BGT itself is a compiled executable, you can’t tell it to reduce its own size. If it were a C or C++ library that would be different. Also, BGT’s version of AngelScript doesn’t do any size optimisation techniques like removing code that isn’t used. For instance including the sound_pool library and not using it would still include the sound_pool code to your final executable. AngelScript is updated much more regularly than BGT is, however, so later versions of AngelScript may or may not utilise these optimisations. This is one of the reasons I don’t use BGT half as often as I used to. Literally the only way to optimise BGT executable size, is to use less code, and compile in release rather than debug mode. Cheers. Damien. From: john Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2017 5:54 PM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: [blind-gamers] bgt exclude components Hi list, I've recently been trying to find ways to reduce the size of BGT executables. Specifically, I'm looking to exclude unused sections of the engine during compiletime; for example, if I'm writing a program to work entirely offline, then there's no need to include the network subsystem. Does anybody know if something like this is possible? I write a lot of small, single-purpose applications that don't need many features, so it'd be really useful to trim them down to size, per say. Best, John
Re: [blind-gamers] What's up with Draconisentertainment?
Hi, Still having trouble with the helpdesk software? They’ve had this issue, whatever it is, for over three years now. Cheers. Damien. From: Lanie Molinar Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2017 4:49 AM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] What's up with Draconisentertainment? Hi. I had the same problem. I bought the game The Ultimate Soundoku from them and it wouldn’t open after I installed it on my Windows 10 computer. I tried contacting them through their helpdesk and got no response, so I was irritated and contacted them again through PayPal. I got an email from them earlier today that said they’ve been having trouble with their helpdesk software. It looks like the email address they used to contact me is i...@dracoent.com if you want to try emailing them. Sent from Mail for Windows 10 From: michael barnes Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2017 9:30 PM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: [blind-gamers] What's up with Draconisentertainment? Hello. I was wondering what is up with Draconisentertainment? I have tried to contact them and I don't get any responses. Thanks.
Re: [blind-gamers] The following link has bugs in it.
Hi John, The only game I have ever had real issues with is the Classic Pipe, which seems to have had a trojan since around about 2008. Unfortunately, all copies since then seem to have had the same virus. I first discovered it on my ex-wife’s computer when she was having very severe issues with it – after uninstalling Pipe, the only source of a virus on that machine, the issues disappeared, which leads me to believe that was unfortunately a “genuine”, for want of a better word, malware issue. Cheers. Damien. From: john Sent: Saturday, August 05, 2017 8:41 PM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] The following link has bugs in it. I will have access to a windows 10 machine in the next couple days, and will be installing and testing the BSC games on it. Since this is a repeat issue that won't seem to die, I'll be posting my findings here, and probably adding some details to the page on agarchive.net. From: michael barnes Sent: Saturday, August 05, 2017 13:58 To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] The following link has bugs in it. How do you disable windows defender so that individuals can install these games that it keeps saying is a virus but is not? If someone could please walk me through the steps of that that would be awesome. Sent from my iPhone On Aug 5, 2017, at 12:06 PM, Josh Kennedy wrote: if you use windows10 it has built in antivirus and also make sure to keep all web browsers updated. On 8/5/2017 11:47 AM, Jack Falejjczyk wrote: And this is why I just don't use antivirus whatsoever. But I will admit being on a virtual machine adds a bit of protection to a degree, in terms of no catastrophic damage would occur if I was hit by a real virus, but the solution to that is obviously to just be careful what you download, and never use download sites such as download.com and always download software from the developer's website if you can. But back on topic, the antivirus can claim it to be a virus all it wants, but you have nothing to worry about. Your system is safe. On 8/5/17, john mailto:jpcarnemo...@gmail.com wrote: Ron, BSC (and several other accessible titles) have had this issue for years. It is extremely well known in the audiogaming community. They are *not* viruses. -- From: "Ron Kolesar" mailto:kolesar16...@roadrunner.com Sent: Friday, August 04, 2017 19:12 To: mailto:blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: [blind-gamers] The following link has bugs in it. Hello to all and especially to John. I just got off of the phone with the Microsoft Disability hotline. I tried to down load a few games from the BSC archives. The MS operator installed malware bytes and between malware and windows defender found all kinds of viruses. Of course, the link I'm talking about is as follows: https://agarchive.net/pages/devs/bsc.html To let my fellow gamers know, MS tech support took down the link to play with. Who is the owner of the web page for all of the games? May I ship ms tech support their contact info so that we can iron out the viruses in the web page so that we can continues to enjoy our old golden oldies favorite hand to ear windows games. I write this letter so that no one else has several several viruses on their pc like we found on my pc tonight by attempting to down load the old BSC games. I deeply would appreciate it if the web page owner would write me back at kolesar16...@roadrunner.com Many Many Thanks. Ron Kolesar who's a fellow gamer. Many Thanks. -- sent with mozilla thunderbird
Re: [blind-gamers] For anyone who's successfully unlocked any of the older BPC Products games from the regenerator.
Hi Ron, Firstly, those games were made by BSC, not BPC. BPC made games like Tournament, Treasure Hunt and 3D Velocity. As for the access denied messages. That sounds like you need to elevate the registration programs to admin or set some kind of permissions somewhere. Cheers. Damien. From: Ron Kolesar Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2017 6:35 PM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: [blind-gamers] For anyone who's successfully unlocked any of the older BPC Products games from the regenerator. Hello, For those using windows ten on their computer, just was curious if anyone has been able to unlock any of the old classics from the old company BPC Programs? For example, blast Chamber, Hunter and troopanum. I can install the games on a win 10 machine, I can go to the register link and grab the code to the clipboard and since the company no longer exists I say no if I want to go out to the company and purchase the program. I can go to the code generator and generate a new unlock code. But when I go to take the new generated code back within the game to click on the register and attempt to copy the new generated code in the register I keep getting errors like access is denied. So, just was curious if anyone successfully unlocked and are playing the older games from BPC Programs on a win 10 machine? Many Thanks. Ron U.S. Ham Radio Station KR3DOG
Re: [blind-gamers] Self destruct activation.
Hi, I was actually under the impression that Treasure Hunt was developed in the .NET environment. Could be wrong though. Cheers. Damien. -Original Message- From: Jack Falejjczyk Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2017 7:26 PM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] Self destruct activation. No. It looks to the values stored in the registry for the self destruct game only. Yes, they may use the same registration system, but that doesn't mean the keys and their values are necessarily the same. Treasure Hunt is no longer available for purchase, however since Munawar no longer has his copy of vb6, no official registration patch can be made for it. On 6/28/17, michael barnes wrote: Hey, Jack. I was wondering if the key gen could give me a activation key for Treasure Hunt? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#117351): https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/message/117351 View All Messages In Topic (9): https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/topic/5360167 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/5360167/21656 New Topic: https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/post Change Your Subscription: https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/editsub/21656 Group Home: https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers Contact Group Owner: blind-gamers+ow...@groups.io Terms of Service: https://groups.io/static/tos Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/leave/607459/1071380848/xyzzy -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Re: [blind-gamers] Self destruct activation.
Hi there, Unfortunately there seem to be issues with the key generator with all systems later than XP. Since I no longer have access to either the appropriate development environment or the game's source code, there is unfortunately nothing I can do about this. Sorry about that. Cheers. Damien. -Original Message- From: michael barnes Sent: Sunday, June 25, 2017 5:03 PM To: blind-gamers@groups.io Subject: [blind-gamers] Self destruct activation. Hello. Everytime that I try to use the key gen with Self destruct it keeps giving me a error. Does anyone know how I can activate the game? Thanks. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#117341): https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/message/117341 View All Messages In Topic (2): https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/topic/5360167 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/5360167/21656 New Topic: https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/post Change Your Subscription: https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/editsub/21656 Group Home: https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers Contact Group Owner: blind-gamers+ow...@groups.io Terms of Service: https://groups.io/static/tos Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/leave/607459/1071380848/xyzzy -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
