2011-01-06 01:24:29

Hi Aprone,
This is just me being picky but why to you always put the worrd gold in brackets?

Best Regards,
Hayden

2011-01-06 01:35:58

Hayden, why do you?  Lol I'm just messing with ya.  big_smile  For some reason this message board automatically puts brackets around the word gold and I have no idea why.

- Aprone
Please try out my games and programs:
Aprone's software

2011-01-06 02:41:56

hi aprone. that's right, i'm using a trackpad
my problem now is not the small size of it, it's just the movements that i'm doing wrong.
ok, so when it says to curve down to the right, i have to go a bit down,right,then up?
and what about when it says curve down only? it's the last movement in the "claw".
onse i manage to understand these instructions i think i'll completely understand this game.
thanks!

contact info
email:
matrheine at gmail . com

2011-01-06 02:54:09

drg, the second curve in the "claw" is actually the exact same shape as the first curve.  You head down, right, and then back up again.  I agree though, grasping the first few shapes is the hardest since this is a completely new game style for you guys.  I made the game and I struggled a lot at first but after a while I got really good and I've now beaten the game 2 times!

- Aprone
Please try out my games and programs:
Aprone's software

2011-01-06 03:51:42

Great you got it out of the door. Sadly I don't think it's worth me trying on these less than dynamic laptop speakers and with a track pad to boot, so I'll have to wait until next monday, ---- by which time I'm guessing the game will have 30 levels, a bonus stage, a break with ice cream in the middle and a special unlockable cheat where if you sing the song money money money while playing you magically turn into aba and get a million extra coins for each shape, ----- only joking of course ;d.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2011-01-06 03:57:24

Haha, I look forward to your posts Dark.  I saw you came online and specifically waited for you to respond to 4 topics before getting to mine.  big_smile

I've already started planning out another little game.  It is still early enough that I'll keep it secret.  I'm busy gathering sounds to use and I'll probably share the idea once I start working on the actual code.

Dark, since I'm on vacation I don't want monday coming any faster than it needs to, but I do look forward to your opinion of the game when the time comes.

- Aprone
Please try out my games and programs:
Aprone's software

2011-01-06 07:47:47

Hello !
Your game is very interesting, and is really bringing a new gameplay, unexplored until now.

I'm sorry, but I still fail in doing the clawd. The up arrow is much easier.
AS I understand the clowd, I have to :
1 - Go north west
2 - Go south and then progressively change direction to south east and  full east
3 - Go full north, so that step 2 and 3 make a shape like a capital U.
4 - Go south again. Now I should have something like a lower a or a lower d.
5. And then make the final line to the east.

Please correct what I missunderstood.


I would report two other things: you should make sure that it is impossible to click outside of the game window. During the tutorial, I unexpectedly did it and it just activated another window. I did it a second time and it opened the start menu. That should never happen.

There is also like a sound bug in the tutorial. Even if I'm doing nothing, including during your explanations, I can sometimes hear some noise. You seem not having closed a looped sound stream or something like that.
IF this is for showing the shape in the space, I find that this not explicit enough... That's perhaps because I tried the game with speakers not headphones.

There are 10 kinds of people : those who know binary, and those who don't.

2011-01-06 08:02:28

Hayden wrote:

Hi Aprone,
This is just me being picky but why to you always put the worrd gold in brackets?

It does it to the word "wow" too. I think it's a filter to work against the spambots that try to sell wow gold.

看過來!
"If you want utopia but reality gives you Lovecraft, you don't give up, you carve your utopia out of the corpses of dead gods."
MaxAngor wrote:
    George... Don't do that.

2011-01-06 09:28:33

Oh! This sounds wonderful but I am so far from that dazzling impressive speed of your recording, aprone. LOL
In fact, yeah, I am still having problems with the claw myself. Actually, I find the sounds more confusing than helpful, I mean the extra sounds of the beacon and some weapon clashing while I move the mouse. I agree with Aminiel that you should definitely prevent the mouse from being able to move or click outside the game window, this adds to the challenge even more, yeah, but a somewhat unwanted bit. :-)
Anyway, it's good to know that the game does not care about the size of my drawing unless it can detect what i am attempting in the first place. LOL this should help me out as I was trying everything from tiny movements within the span of a few inches to huge portraits over my entire desk. Grin
It might also help to know a recommended mouse sensitivity or speed (or whatever it is called in the English version of windows) setting in its control pannel, if there is such a value at all.
If I understood the workings of the code, I might be able to tell what I am doing wrong or what should be changed in the game itself, but right now I am somehow uncertain. I really don't feel it appropriate to suggest anything, and neither do I know what strategy to try next, but I'll keep trying anyway as this is a really appealing concept. you got me with this one, I'll most likely spend a few days and nights in front of the computer now while my work will be pending. :-D
And, by the way, is there actually a menu with choices to scroll over? When the game says that I am in the main menu, no arrow keys or mouse movements seem to change anything. I just press enter and I hear "consult the book of gold". so when I enter that one and press enter once more, I hear the claw. If I do not press enter at this point and try to move with the arrow keys instead, i only get "previous menu", no matter what I press. Yes, and I almost forgot, if I start moving with the arrow keys right after the game says "main menu", and then eventually press enter, I get a "runtime error 9: Subscript out of range". Hopefully my description is not as confusing as I feel about the claw. Grin
That's about it for now. Keep up the great work though, this is in deed absolutely unique and innovative!
Lukas

I won't be using this account any more or participating in the forum activity through other childish means like creating an alternate account. I've asked for the account to be removed but I'm not sure if that's actually technically possible here. Just writing this for people to know that I won't be replying, posting new topics or checking private messages until the account is potentially removed.

2011-01-06 13:04:02

Actually, I find the sounds more confusing than helpful, I mean the extra sounds of the
beacon and some weapon clashing while I move the mouse.

NO, they are very useful. They prove that the game has well taken your move into account.

That's perhaps because I'm currently using a laptop trackpad, but sometimes, some moves are simply ignored...

The claw is a rather difficult shape for a first level. Perhaps should you begin by easier ones. I have managed to do it only once til now.

There are 10 kinds of people : those who know binary, and those who don't.

2011-01-06 13:43:45

Is it possible to make the game fullscreen?
If not, maximizing the window is probably a good idea, at least...

看過來!
"If you want utopia but reality gives you Lovecraft, you don't give up, you carve your utopia out of the corpses of dead gods."
MaxAngor wrote:
    George... Don't do that.

2011-01-06 13:50:10

All right, then I probably have a problem with the main menu where it just doesn't read tome as I arrow over the items, so I choose what I first land on. :-)
Lukas

I won't be using this account any more or participating in the forum activity through other childish means like creating an alternate account. I've asked for the account to be removed but I'm not sure if that's actually technically possible here. Just writing this for people to know that I won't be replying, posting new topics or checking private messages until the account is potentially removed.

2011-01-06 14:33:52

hello all.
aprone: thanks again, i think it would be useful to know these curves in the readme or
something.
also, when scrolling between the different types of spells, it would be good to press a key(for
example a) to know just what are the directions for doing the spell,
so you don't have to go through all the training process , waiting for "and then it begins"
and doing everything just to remember one litle direction that you forgot for example.
lukas, instead of the arrow keys, you use the tab and shift tab to navigate through the menus,
just like with the towers of war game.
aprone, i have a idea for the game, actualy it sounds like a mod, but it would work like this:
instead of these spell names, what about the actual letters a trhough z?
i'm for example totaly blind, but i know most of then, so it would be really good for
educational purposes. i suppose it would be not all that easy to implement, actualy it would
have to be a mod of the game, but it would have to be programmed. what you think?

contact info
email:
matrheine at gmail . com

2011-01-06 14:54:41 (edited by drg 2011-01-06 14:56:46)

yeah, no matter what i do i can't master this "curve" to make the claw.
i think that there should either be a different tutorial, explanation in the game, i'm rea
not sure. i know that it's a completely new concept, with time i'll learn it.
as i said in my previous post, if you can describe all of the spells in the readme just like
you describe with your voice it would be good.
thanks very much and sorry for double post.
btw, you're bringing games in a time that no one never did before,
it's just wow, i don't have the right words to sa how happy i'm.
i can't wait to see this new project that you're developing as well as the combat game.

contact info
email:
matrheine at gmail . com

2011-01-06 15:10:27

Hi aprone, Drk and all,
yeah, I am stupid. sory about that. I realized I should probably use tab and shift+tab as soon as I sent that post out, and yeah, it worked. now, I have mastered the retreat so that I am able to perform it whenever I want to, and I have also had quite a few successes with the arrow, although not every time. I am starting to like this a lot! the wonderful thing about the training is that you can perform any shape you want, even when you are listening to the directions for a different one, and the game will still recognize what you drew. I only wish I knew how to hold the mouse properly or something, cause I think i got the right picture for the arrow in my mind but still am not able to model it with the mouse every single time.
Lukas

I won't be using this account any more or participating in the forum activity through other childish means like creating an alternate account. I've asked for the account to be removed but I'm not sure if that's actually technically possible here. Just writing this for people to know that I won't be replying, posting new topics or checking private messages until the account is potentially removed.

2011-01-06 15:35:33

Well I'm not exactly looking forwrd to monday either, sinse it means I'll actually have to start working on my thesis again, but at least I'll have this to look forward to.

I must admit I like Cae's suggestion of have a menue where you can get the directions for each shape described, ---- perhaps by describing them in cumpus directions, eg, nw, se, w, to draw a triangle.

Interestingly enough, this isn't the first time such a game has been tried. Back in I believe either late 2007 or early 2008, a chap called Brian smart wrote an artical with three short, example games about the possible uses of the mouse in audio games.

two were sterrio targiting, but the last was a game called gestures which actually had a slightly similar idea to daytona. You were a wizard batling various sorts of monsters and using the mouse to perform gestures and cast spells.

the tricky thing, was that the monsters appeared either left, right or streight ahead, so you had to vary the direction of your gestures. so for instance one spell (I believe lightning bolt), would be back forward back forward when the monster was in front of you, or left right lft right when it was on your right.

the lightning bolt was fairly symple, bt the problem I found mainly was with the other spell, cause serious wouns, which required a sort of double arrow, and could be rather complicated to rotate, ---- or at least I found it that way.

The artical (and maybe the example games), might stil be kicking about on the game accessibility.com website if you wanted a look, though game accessibility.com did have a virus at one point and I'm not sure if that's been cleared up or not so you might want to Treat this link with extreme caution

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2011-01-06 15:48:23

Wow, Dark, this whole article and the games have eluded me completely. sounds interesting enough!
Aprone, I have a question and a suggestion.
the question: are the shapes in the trainimg menu presented in the order in which you are gonna encounter them in the actual game, as they are added in each new level? If not, I suggest to reorganize them that way so that we'll have a better idea of what to expect next and what we should start learning first.
And the suggestion: What about stopping the beacon for as long as you hold down the left button during the training and instead playing a sound that would represent how you actually move the mouse? I suppose there is a minimum and maximum border for the coordinates that the mouse cursor can reach both on the x and y axis. if that is true, then the sound could sort of represent the actual position of the mouse by having corresponding panning and pitch, if you get what I mean. So, if I were to draw a straight upwards line, it would start increasing in pitch as I moved the mouse. then, if I were to draw a line to the left, it would start panning towards the left while staying at the same pitch as before. and if I accidentally moved the mouse down a little, the sound would fall down in pitch to represent this. This could give us a better idea as to what the mouse is actually doing on the screen. :-)
What do you think about this?
Lukas

I won't be using this account any more or participating in the forum activity through other childish means like creating an alternate account. I've asked for the account to be removed but I'm not sure if that's actually technically possible here. Just writing this for people to know that I won't be replying, posting new topics or checking private messages until the account is potentially removed.

2011-01-06 16:18:22 (edited by Aminiel 2011-01-06 16:27:09)

I think you should even do what lucas propose when you are showing the shape in the tutorial. The sound you have currently is not explicit enough.

I think that for the tutorial, the shapes should be shown in audio in a 3rd person / global-view perspective, not in a 1st person / local perspective as it is currently.

For example for demonstrating the arrow, at the beginning the sound is centered and low. Then the sound keeps centered but getting higher in pitch. Then it goes to the left and goes a bit down in pitch in the same time, etc. I think it's easier to understand what you have to draw that way rather than trying to follow a clic clic sound going away from you. IN fact, the clic clic sound is going away from you up or down ? If you don't listen to the verbal explanations, you are lost.
For me who am not a native english speaker, it's hard to rely only on verbal explanations to understand precisely what I'm supposed to do, it's better if I can have two channels in the same time.

If the sound is well made, you could even turn off all verbal shape explanations, as it would be understandable by itself.

There are 10 kinds of people : those who know binary, and those who don't.

2011-01-06 16:41:57

That article Dark referenced is what brought me here in the first place. smile
Unfortunately none of the games accompanying it work with Vista... which annoys me, as I rather liked the sword game and wanted to give gestures a try. I actually based a system of my own off of the sword game, but even though I tried to match how it worked with some enhancements, the feels are different enough that mine still seems inferior.

I did try making a version that caught different mouse directions, but it was actually difficult enough to keep the thing moving straight that I usually just resorted to using jaws' mouse movement commands. I still haven't tried the Book of Gold yet, but I imagine it has a much more effective interface. smile

看過來!
"If you want utopia but reality gives you Lovecraft, you don't give up, you carve your utopia out of the corpses of dead gods."
MaxAngor wrote:
    George... Don't do that.

2011-01-06 18:32:48

Aminiel, you are close on the "Claw" shape except for the ending.  After reading everyone's troubles with the shape I went back to adjust the instructions it plays in the training section.  Hopefully the update will help everyone.  The old instructions don't explain it well, but the second curve it identical to the first one where it starts out heading down, gradually curves right, and then gradually curves back up again.  I'd recommend downloading the game again since I've just uploaded the fixed version.

In addition to the improved Claw instructions, I have also updated the game so that the arrow keys can also be used to navigate through the menus.  Tab still works of course.  The problem with the mouse leaving the game area is completely my fault!  For some reason I intended to set that up but never finished the code, so that fix is now in place and the game's window fills the entire screen even covering the start menu.

I agree, Aminiel, that I must have failed to close a sound stream somewhere and I am still hunting it down.  Once I find it I'll be sure to fix it.

I'm not sure if everyone is using the beacon or not.  During the training portion the beacon will slowly trace out the shape while the instructions are being read.  This was that idea I mentioned earlier where I didn't know if it was a great idea or a terrible one, lol!  Imagine the beacon as a bug on your table, as you move the mouse over it you can hear it louder.  As the bug slowly travels the path you can move the mouse around to feel where it is going.  I thought this might be good a good combination to go along with the spoken instructions.

Lukas, my wife also suggested that I add an options section where you can adjust the volume levels of the music and other sounds, or disable them all together.  Let me know if you think I should go ahead with that idea.  The mouse speed is tricky to suggest but it is another benefit of that beacon.  If your movements are generally matching up in size to the beacon's movements then you know you're golden.  You can be smaller or larger, but it is a good average sized example.  I'm still hunting down the "runtime error 9: Subscript out of range" that you described.  Thanks for letting me know about it.  smile  I'm also glad you appreciate the freedom to make any shape during practice.  I didn't know if people would care but I thought it would be nice to let people basically "play" in there with whatever shapes they wanted.

drg, an in-game hint is an excellent idea.  Since the spacebar is currently not used outside of the training section, I think I'll make that announce the instructions for the current shape.  We are also on the same page with the english letters as shapes, in fact, the game was almost built that way originally!  I am certainly ignorant about many blind topics and I didn't know if it was common for blind individuals to know the actual shapes of the letters.  There would also be some difficulties for players who are not native to the English/Spanish alphabet.  You'd be surprised how easily I could add alphabet shapes into the game though.  Who knows, maybe you've just suggested the basis for an alternate game mode or something.  big_smile  I'll brainstorm a bit.

I will work on adding the shapes' descriptions to the read me file since I can be quite a bit more descriptive than I can be in the game using voice recordings.  As people do start mastering these shapes, I encourage you to post your own descriptions to how they are done.  As a sighted user I am certain there are differences in how we would explain things like this to each other, and I have a feeling that a blind player's explanation would be crystal clear in a way I simply cannot match.

Dark, that is pretty cool to know another guy tried this same concept.  For the record, I didn't steal the idea from him lol!  big_smile  I think using a wizard with this style comes naturally.  Waving the mouse around seems like everyone's descriptions of wizards waving their wands during spells.  Battling monsters was actually a suggestion my wife made, but I opted out of it at the time.  Especially since this concept is new to the community, I wanted to avoid the frustration of being killed by monsters on top of trying to form shapes.  For an expansion to the game though, I do think it would be appropriate.

Lukas, the training section does, in fact, list the shapes in the order you will encounter them as you advance through the levels.  big_smile  Your pitch idea is something I've been working on actually.  During the time I was doing the Towers of War game I wanted to do almost the same idea using pitch but I couldn't pull it off.  If I ever get it working you might see that feature added to this game or to future games I make.

Aminiel, I agree that Lukas' suggestion would make a great addition to the training section.  Unfortunately I haven't been able to get the changing pitch idea to work.

Wow that was a lot to respond to, I Love it!  big_smile  I always enjoy having a bunch of new stuff to read through.  Thanks guys!  Also, I suggest you download the game again so you get the fixed "claw" description, fixed full screen, and the ability to use the arrows on menus.

- Aprone
Please try out my games and programs:
Aprone's software

2011-01-06 18:58:20

thanks for the fast response aprone, i'm going to download the game right now!
i don't know if i'll have time to try the new version now, but i'll certain tell if the new
instructions help me.
oh, and this option with the letters instead of spells
for a alternate game mode sounds amazing!
keep it up man!

contact info
email:
matrheine at gmail . com

2011-01-06 20:31:40

Wow, Aprone. You had a lot to respond to and have replied with a lengthy and informative post as well. It might even be longer than everything you were replying to added together. grin
Thanks for the update, I am downloading it right now. You are unbelievable! :-)
Well, your wife is full of suggestions, but as I have not even tried the actual game out yet, I can't judge whether the options menu is a practically useful idea or not. I am still trying to understand the shapes. :-)
Drawing letters would be an excellent alternative mode! I would certainly appreciate it myself, cause it's not either so common among blind people to know the shapes of letters, or I am a poor exception. I would really love learning them this way. Nobody else has ever managed to come up with a concept that would attract me for long enough to memorize the shapes. LOL
It's a pitty that the pitch concept doesn't work for you. didn't seem that hard to code after youve put the entire mouse tracking into place, but that's just me. Or maybe I am just spoiled by being used to BGT's incredibly easy way of manipulating sounds.
Anyway, best of luck and keep this up, you rock! :-)
Lukas

I won't be using this account any more or participating in the forum activity through other childish means like creating an alternate account. I've asked for the account to be removed but I'm not sure if that's actually technically possible here. Just writing this for people to know that I won't be replying, posting new topics or checking private messages until the account is potentially removed.

2011-01-06 21:37:20

Aminiel, I agree that Lukas' suggestion would make a great addition to the training section.  Unfortunately I haven't been able to get the changing pitch
idea to work.

You are using DirectX 7, right ? I remember having read somewhere on the MSDN that adjusting the frequency of a sound  was only really possible since DirectX 8. You may consider upgrading.

I'm not sure if everyone is using the beacon or not.  During the training portion the beacon will slowly trace out the shape while the instructions are
being read.  This was that idea I mentioned earlier where I didn't know if it was a great idea or a terrible one, lol!  Imagine the beacon as a bug on
your table, as you move the mouse over it you can hear it louder.  As the bug slowly travels the path you can move the mouse around to feel where it is
going.  I thought this might be good a good combination to go along with the spoken instructions.

Accompagning speech instructions with sound is a good idea. However, I don't like the point of view that the beacon give.

With a globally panned and pitched sound, you can try to reproduce the shape by trying to reproduce the same sound, as many times as you want, and as fast or slow as you want. IN contrast, you hear the beacon only once and you must exactly fix your speed.

The global sound could also be enabled in game, It can remind a nice help for a while.

This is definitely better than the beacon.

You mentionned having added arrow keys in the menu ? it already worked fine for me in the previous version.
You said nowhere that tab should be used for the menu. BY default when I have no special instructions, I try the arrow keys first.


A thing for the real game: add some so called in game information keys: what is my score, am I far or near the next level ? What is my current level ? etc.

There are 10 kinds of people : those who know binary, and those who don't.

2011-01-06 23:26:06

Wow, aminiel, that's strange. my problem was that I forgot about the tab key and tried to use the arrows instead at first, and thus was able to get nowhere. Grin
Anyway, status keys sound like a good idea to me, but I am not so certain about in-game aid sounds. After all, you should already be able to draw the shapes when you try the game, and it's in fact the point of the whole game. if you make a mistake, you should be able to correct it yourself the next time. Just my thoughts.
Lukas

I won't be using this account any more or participating in the forum activity through other childish means like creating an alternate account. I've asked for the account to be removed but I'm not sure if that's actually technically possible here. Just writing this for people to know that I won't be replying, posting new topics or checking private messages until the account is potentially removed.

2011-01-06 23:40:01

Aminiel, that's probably exactly why I've had problems with pitch since I'm using direct X7.  If I continue to have issues I'll look in to moving over to direct X8.

- Aprone
Please try out my games and programs:
Aprone's software