Re: [Audyssey] games we'd like to play: circus charlie
Hi Nicol, A few thoughts, comments, and corrections here. While you did a fairly decent job of describing the game I did notice some mistakes, and also wanted to point out some things you missed. I certainly don't hold it against you since I know you could not see the game, and probably base your descriptions on what you have been told rather than firsthand experience. To begin with yes Circus Charlie was for the original Nintendo Entertainment system. While the original Nintendo is no longer available any more commercially Circus Charlie is available for newer Nintendo platforms. I do know for sure it is available for the Nintendo DS as part of the Konami Classics series. So if you want to replace your copy of the game perhaps that is an option for you. As far as stages and levels goes I believe there were actually six not five stages to complete in the original Circus Charlie game. Each stage was broken down into seven levels that Charlie had to complete before he could move onto the next stage. This style of arcade game is known as a platformer, but its more or less what we think of as side-scrollers today. In the first stage Charlie rides on the back of a lion and must jump through rings of fire. The difficulty here is to center Charlie so he could jump through the rings without being burned. As far as accessibility goes providing realistic sounds would be no problem. The problem would be in trying to come up with a way to make sure Charlie is centered in the ring and to guide him through the ring without being burned. It was not easy to do when someone could see it, and it would be even trickier to do using only audio. In stage 2 Charlie has to walk or run along a tightrope with monkeys constantly trying to knock him off. The idea here was to jump over the monkeys or avoid them knocking Charlie off the tightrope. As far as access goes once again coming up with sounds is no problem. My biggest concern with access is jumping over the monkeys. When you jump over the monkeys you had to see where the tightrope was to land on it else poor Charlie went splat on the ground. So knowing where to land on the tightrope was crucial to that stage. Stage 3 was even trickier. Charlie had to jump from trampoline to trampoline while knife throwers tried to hit him with thrown knives and fire breathers tried to scorch him with fire from their mouths. >From an accessibility standpoint I actually find this one easy enough to do purely from audio. I recall the mainstream version was pretty challenging, but since everything here should have an audio equal it might actually be possible to render a fairly accurate remake of that level purely in audio alone. In stage 4 is the rolling balls you mentioned. They are basically huge rubber balls, like giant beach balls of different colors, that Charlie has to jump from ball to ball. The trick here is the balls are constantly rolling, constantly moving, making them hard to land on and you can't stand on them long before Charlie gets flattened by the ball he happens to be standing on. Accessibility wise I have to do some thinking about this one. Representing the balls themselves in audio is no problem. The problem is there is no way to accurately represent the various angles as the ball turns to let you know when to jump and where you landed on the ball etc. That particular stage relied heavily on hand and eye coordination, and isn't suitable for an audio representation that I can see here. Stage five is not as you described it in your message. Charlie is doing some bareback riding on a horse not a donkey. Charlie jumps from the back of the horse onto a trampoline, flips over, and then back onto the horse. Later in that stage Charlie on horseback jumps walls and other obstructions. I suppose from an accessibility standpoint this stage could be done in audio. My concern is trying to identify when Charlie bounces into the air and how to time his bounce so he will land on the horse correctly. Again another one of those things that required hand and eye coordination. In stage 6 Circus Charlie is actually swinging from some trapeze not swings. Although, the stage is more or less as you described it. HTH On 7/10/14, Nicol wrote: > HI all > For those of you who are looking for a new game idea, especially now that > bgt is freeware, there is a game I would very much like to play. > Its called circus charlie. > It might be a nintendo game; I'm not sure. > I played this game as a kid on a small console connected to a television > set > with the help of my sighted friends. > I no longer have this console. > My mom gave it away accidentally and I can no longer find such a console > in > south african shops. > I doubt if the original game was a side scroller but I think for bgt the > easiest way to code it might be to make it a side scroller. > The game had 5 stages. > In stage1 the player is standing on the back of a lion and must jump > across fiery
[Audyssey] games we'd like to play: circus charlie
HI all For those of you who are looking for a new game idea, especially now that bgt is freeware, there is a game I would very much like to play. Its called circus charlie. It might be a nintendo game; I'm not sure. I played this game as a kid on a small console connected to a television set with the help of my sighted friends. I no longer have this console. My mom gave it away accidentally and I can no longer find such a console in south african shops. I doubt if the original game was a side scroller but I think for bgt the easiest way to code it might be to make it a side scroller. The game had 5 stages. In stage1 the player is standing on the back of a lion and must jump across fiery pots and fiery rings. In stage2 the player is running on a rope high in the air. The player must jump across monkeys walking on the rope. The monkeys will try their best to knock the player off the rope, especially an occasional big blue monkey. In stage3 the player have to jump from ball to ball. AS far as I can remember, these are huge balls. They are like gymnastic balls and they are colored. The color does not affect game play . its simply eye candy. The ball on which the player stands is rolling quickly and then the player must make it onto the next ball before the ball on which the player stands rolls from underneath him and knocks him to the ground. In stage4 the player is standing on the back of a donkey and must jump onto a trampoline as soon as the donkey passes the trampoline. Once on the trampoline the player must then again jump back onto the donkey's back once the donkey passes the trampoline. When the player doesn't make it onto the trampoline in time the donkey will throw the player off his back. If the player does not jump onto the donkey's back in time the trampoline will throw the player onto the ground. Then the pattern repeats until the end of the stage. In stage5 the player is on a high swing like a trapeze. IN circus charlie this swing goes up and down like a normal swing. Then the player have to jump onto a trampoline as soon as the trampoline is right underneeth the swing. Else the swing will throw the player onto the ground. Once on the trampoline the player have to jump back onto the swing else the trampoline might throw the player to the ground. I'm not sure how easy this would be to code with bgt. What concerns sounds, I think the sounds of donkeys and a fire sound for the pots and rings would hopefully not be too difficult to get from the web. Also it would hopefully be easy to get monkey sounds from the web for stage2. For the balls in stage3 the best sound would be a sound similar to the rolling ball sound in ten pin alley. This too hopefully shouldn't be too difficult to find on the web. And I think a sound for the donkey would hopefully be quite easy to get from the web too. And for the trampolines and swing screeching sounds would fit. I think circus charlie would fit into the arcade category. The player does not always run to the right. Sometimes the player have to run to the left. AS far as I can remember, from playing circus charlie with sighted friends years ago, the player runs a bit to the right, jump across objects and then runs a bit to the left and again jump and so on. Bfn Nicol --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Looking to take a poll on opinions about game betas
Hi. Jeremy and I with Valiant Galaxy Associates have been using something half way between private alpha public beta. The only difference is we don't really have an alpha stage. Us two code it until it is shaped like we want it, and it is playable enough to get the idea, then our testers get access to it and then here come all the bug reports, suggestions, grypes, etc. Even though we're new at this, we've done it twice so far and both times it seems to have worked really well. For our testers, who are all private by the way, we pick from people we have known personally or online and we are confident they will tell us how it really is. Also though they are people who we have good relationships with, so their opinions can be somewhat biased just on account of they would like to see us do good because that's what friends do right? But it actually seems to work because we still get suggestions and, interestingly enough, the suggestions we got after the one game we have already released was, in fact, released (traders of known space), the public's comments, suggestions, complaints, etc were nearly all exactly the same thing our testers had, and many were already on our to do list so we could respond with "this is in the works". Some would say keeping an impartial team is a good idea. I think keeping biased friends around is better because if they have the same ideas you're good, if they don't necessarily like what you did, they'll want to help you come up with something they like better and they understand what you went through especially if you let them in on a lot of the process you go through before they actually get to test it. V G A's games are those we would play ourselves, so that's another reason it's cool to have friends who may be like minded, because we don't have people turning us into our tails so much we just lose faith in our own efforts and give it up all together from discouragement, something much easier to encounter than I would have thought a year ago. By the same token though, some of our testers are people who do not necessarily like the kinds of games we come out with. Indeed we have actually sat down, Jeremy and I, and put our heads together (online) and dug up a friend who we thought would not be too thrilled about this particular game we wanted tested, and asked them if they would test it. It has resulted in some interesting modifications that weren't too awfully difficult and which made both games more worthy of the data space they take up in our own opinion of course. Aside from that, we find that having a really easy way to provide our games to the friends is very helpful. Automatic updating between versions with minimal time and effort on our parts to make the changes available and on the tester's parts to obtain the updates have been really good for us. We can release new minor updates once a day if need be, and keep on plugging at a couple of tough issues while testers are confirming bugs we did or did not know about in different or the same area we are working on. What to take away from all this is, find a very nice way to provide your updates to testers, use a repository that allows you to push updates which the end user gets via auto updates, or something such as that. Use testers you already know and trust. Our testers never signed an NDA, but to our knowledge the only people leaking details about the games are Jeremy and I ourselves. One tester accidentally gave a beta copy that we didn't want released to a friend of theirs upon our actual release of the TKS game, instead of the actual public release, giving the tester access to any future beta updates and potentially giving way to bad reviews and press based on non release material, but we were able to get the situation fixed to the best of our knowledge. So pick from people you know, enjoy dealing with, who you are pretty sure will like what you're doing and want to be helpful. Cheerful feedback, even if not good feedback, will help you to want to keep kicking butt over your coffee, I know this, the coder is the lawn mower, and it's in low gear and about to run out of fuel, encouragement is the fuel, feedback that means more work, but given in a friendly non confronting manner, is the fuel. on 7/8/2014 11:36 AM, john wrote: Hi all, I'm looking to get the community's opinion on how you feel that the beta process for a game should be handled. I have several different concepts, and I'd like to figure out which the community prefers and why. Below, I'll detail the different strategies I'm thinking of. If you could, please choose the one (or top couple) that appeal to you, and explain why you feel this way. If you have your own thoughts on how betas should be done, I'd love to get more input. The first strategy I'm considering is a public beta. Basically this means that once there's a playable game, it would be released to the public, just as if it we
Re: [Audyssey] Upgrading to Shades 2.0?
Darn it. See I didn't know about this thing until the other day I think over the weekend. I presumed because of this new change I needed to order a new and not a replacement Key. Ar well it was only £12 in the UK anyway. Christopher Hallsworth Student at the Hadley School for the Blind www.hadley.edu On 10/07/2014 02:02, hayden presley wrote: Brian, I'm not sure if you've either gotten a response to this eMail or resolved it yourself, but the reason you aren't getting the $5 upgrade price is probably because you ordered SOD prior to the new account feature. The way to do it is to request a replacement key for SOD 1.2, and that will add the game to your account. Again, sorry if you've resolved this or gotten a reply, but I've been paging through quite a backlog of eMails and just saw this one. Best Regards, Hayden -Original Message- From: Gamers [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Bryan Peterson Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2014 1:09 PM To: gamers@audyssey.org Subject: [Audyssey] Upgrading to Shades 2.0? Ok so I went to GMA to purchase an upgrade for Shades 2.0. I filled out allthe info but I’m not sure what to do next or how to get te current upgrade price of five dollars. I did put UPgrade in the comments section but it still said $19.99. So I’m not sure what to do. Any help would be appreciated. Oh freddled gruntbuggly, thy micturations are to me as plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee. GroupI implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes, And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles, or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon, see if I don't! --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
