Well, Personally, sinse I play games as much for atmosphere as for exploration, I find that even symple rack up the score style games have replay value, let alone something like Shades of doom or Sarah.

As far as games go, I would like to see some more complex things being done, rather than more fast reaction arcade style games like Air hocky or duck hunt, ----- even though it has the original sound effects.

I know I've said this before, ----- appologies.

One thing that is new is that some very interesting projects are in developement at the moment. Sound rts is already fairly awsome, and hopefully it will just get better as it's developed. Audio Mario also has a good deal of potential, especially if the level editer idea comes about.

Then, even though it will be another point scoring game, Monti also appeals to me because of the maze aspects, though I can also see the arguement that Monti will just turn out to be another shor play game once you've explored your way through all the levels and know where the treasure is hidden, but then again, you could say that about any game.

thom ward also has some interesting plans for when monti is finished, and I don't just mean race way, ----- though racing games aren't generally my thing, I'll deffinately give it a go.

I also very much hope che martin will turn his talents to something complex and interesting. I was most impressed with Rail racer, and it'd be a shame if Mr. Martin goes on to just make symple games.

then of course, the Light tech crew are just getting better and better. I know for a Fact Robjoy is eventually interested in producing a more complex game. Though they've been fairly quiet for the last 6 months after the release of treasuremania 1, I think we're likely to get a pleasant surprise from them at some point.

Sadly, the Big 4 as I used to think of them, being Bsc, gma, Vip gameszone and Draconis, all seem to have fallen off a bit recently. I know Draconis were involved with Sarah, but I'm not certain to what extent, they also seem to have gone in more for the myspace and blog style services than games production, as have Vip gameszone with their file hosting thingy.

while this is perfectly fine and a good thing, I would like to see what else they could both do in terms of games developement, given their past successes.

I think though, I'm saddest about the lack of activity from gma, sinse they've come out with some truly fantastic and unique games, but don't seem to have produced anything new for about three years.

so, there are my thoughts. A mix of things, some good, some bad, but in general I'm mostly positive about audio games developement.

To be honest, it's always the exploration and atmosphere of games that's the biggest thing for me. I like the idea of bomb blaster simply because I've heard there will be various different buildings to work your way around, finding different things, encountering different enemies etc.

I never actually care at all what score I get, in fact, I'd much rather have a low score and get to a new area, than spend loads of time going around the old area collecting all the stuff I'd found before in order to get a high score.

for vip gameszone, I'm not a big fan of their sports games, but then sports games in general aren't really my thing. I agree that galaxy ranger is great, even though the computer isn't the most intelegent of opponents, and I can never find another human player online when I am.

I also quite like lords of the galaxy, particularly the different environments and minigames in the game. I just wish they'd revise things so as to make the exchange cash option less open to abuse, and also give you more oppertunities to develope the planets you buy as with buying houses or hotels in monopoly.

Oh, and the computer opponents in that game are also rather dim as well.

Lol yeah, it says board as in a game board, not bored.

Flight Commander did sound to me a little pseudo-arcadeish, but still not bad. A helicopter game would be nice, there was a series of top down copter based games in the mainstream I forgot the name of but that might convert nicely if a little light on detail. A little like Tank Commander but in the air would be fun, naturally with a different gameplay structure and style. I recall the mainstream game gave you options of rescuing people and taking them to your base or base ship, and of destroying targets. Weapons were your gun/cannon, rockets and air to ground missiles. Maybe something like that could be made mixing in some other elements, such as randomising the map a little and additional mission types. I had a lot of fun playing a mainstream copter flight sim called Gunship 2000, oddly from the early 90's or before. You could be given missions to destroy targets, extract a downed pilot or deliver a squad of men or some supplies to a location, or indeed simply recon an area. The destroy missions sometimes involved finding the target, as the rescue missions always did, or even intercepting a moving target such as a group of tanks. It doesn't, and in the case of helicopters perhaps shouldn't or even couldn't be realistic in flight physics but it could be deep and engaging.

Interestingly enough, Yakir Arbib from Lighttech Interactive (although I don't know if he's still part of the team), was the first to express interest in developing an audio Metroid style game. I remember he Emailed me via this forum to ask me for the story to the Metroid saga.
  I tend to agree with Dark as I've said before. A true audio RPG would be most welcome. Of course what I'd really like to see is something along the lines of the Prince of Persia games. Sands of Time is probably my favorite in the series. I wasn't too keen on the SNES version, but then that might just have been because the music in the first level is enough to put you to sleep. But we definitely need a more challenging game, and even a game along the lines of the original Prince of Persia would qualify as such. Thatwas no easy game even in its first form. I mean you had those ledges to climb on and avoid falling off of, guards to fight off, potions of various kinds to drink, and of course, traps. Actually certain of the potions could qualify as traps since instead of healing you they'd actually hurt you or kill you. Then there was even a potion that would flip the entire world upside down (readers of Goblet of Fire might remember a scene in the final task of the Triwizard Tournament where Harry encountered a similar enchantment), and so you'd have to complete the level in up-side-down form or hope the potion wore off before then.
  As to the traps, you had the floor spikes that would shoot up and impale you and, my personal favorite, those smasher jaws that would cut you in half if you walked under them at the wrong moment. Even with a fairly low-quality sound card the sound it made was more than a little disturbing.
  But my favorite aspect of the original POP game was the time limit. If I remember right you had sixty minutes, maybe a little more, to find and slay the Vizeer and rescue the princess, otherwise she would die and the game would end.
  I could see a lot of the Prince of Persia atmosphere being captured with audio alone. It might even be possible to produce a game just as challenging and captivating. I can only hope that someone someday decides to attempt it.

ok,
I would like to see that helicopter and bomber games that were mentioned.
ps: sorry I spelled that wrong

Do you mean Chopper Challenge? That might be out pretty soon, like I'm not gonna give any dates but I'll tell you that the game has been developed and works enough to be tested, but Bomb Blaster will take a lot longer.

Well as i said Brian, imho original Prince of persia could be the most exact conversion of a graphical to audio game we've seen yet, because of the precision in the game design, and because all the action (sword fights, climbing etc), happens very close to the main character and thus would be easy to render using sterrio sound and pitch. a coordinates system would also be incredibly reasonable as well.

As to hellicopter games, as always I'll give chopper challenge a bash, though I'm most looking forward to bomb blaster because of the maze and exploration aspects. I remember Damian Sadler from X site even said something about a level editer for the game, which imho would be cool! I've always been slightly sorry that Draconis never really encouraged people to use the dyna man level editer, by having a levels exchange page etc, the way that Che martin has done for the rail racer tracks.

I'd love to see a full exploration game with a good level editer, so that people could create their own mazes with nasty surprises and monsters and such. It'd be great if tom ward for example, could release a level editer for Monti when the game comes out (though with Raceway to finish and other jobs I don't know if he'll be able to get around to it).

Actually for once i agree. A level editor might not be entirely out of place in a Prince of Persia game. In fact, though I could be completely and utterly mistaken, I seem to remember at least one of the Prince of Persia games featuring such an option. Then you could set up entire stretches of your level consisting only of traps {muahahahaha!} I seem to remember a few occasions in the original POP game where you had several different traps almost right next to each other, so you had floor spikes to jump, then a cutter to avoid.
  Sands of Time had cooler traps though. Not only were there the spikes in the floors and the slicers, but there were also spinning spiked poles, swinging logs and buzzsaws, all of which would either cause you considerable damage or kill you instantly depending on the trap. Then of course there were the guards and other enemies roaming the corridors of the palace.
  I just had another thought for a good audio game, something along the lines of Diablo. I liked the original but since it was mouse only I could never play it. Pity, because the music was cool.

Diablo was good, Diablo II was nothing short of legendary. Anything remotely that fun as an audio game would be incredible.

The Diablo games were indeed PC based, and were classed as "action RPGs" though this is compared to other RPGs on the PC. Most NPC interaction occured in the "town" area, which wasn't necessarily a town since in the first act it was an encampment of besieged Rogues with Rogues being a sisterhood of spiritual warriors in Diablo. Objectives usually involved killing a specific monster, even when you just had to retrieve an item since the monster usually posessed the item. Combat was very involved and required moving to stop yourself from being cornered by the often more numerous monsters and to bring yourself into the best position to attack. Close in fighters would have to move to keep their freedom of movement and often try to deal with the more threatening champion type monsters or Shamans which could resurrect smaller demons first, whereas ranged fighters had to keep back but still where they can get a clean shot.

Perhaps if monsters were grouped they could be moved as a single entity even though they would fight as multiple enemies, just to reduce the clutter of the audio environment. Then something like the FPS games interface for 3D positioning of enemies could be used.

Each act had 6 primary quests, though there were other areas that would give you a reward if you cleared out all monsters. Each act started at the "town" area and the quests had you moving outward through different areas, with randomly placed "waypoint beacons" acting as placemarkers. Once you had triggered a beacon once you could then use the beacon in town to teleport there, presumably across acts in addition to the other methods of transport. The beacons are always placed in the area of the same name, though the location within the area was random. It was stated that each act in Diablo 2 was as big as the original Diablo, which is very possible given all the crypts and caves you can delve into if you want a break from pushing forward on the main line of quests.