I just tried it, and I can't really figure out when the zombies are in front of or behind me. Sometimes, I get eaten even though I don't hear a zombie close to me. I rarely ever make to a point where I can hear the beaken.

Thank you for the feedback, guys. I did implement something to make the zombies sound like they were behind you when they were, but obviously this didn't work out quite as well as I'd hoped. I think it should get easier to tell where zombies are with practice, since I got fairly okay at it, but... It should probably be simpler than that.

Can someone explain to me what you mean by 'sonar sound'? It's probably something I can add but I have no idea what you mean.

I thought I had gotten rid of the 'randomly being eaten by a zombie' issue. So this is something I'm going to need to look into further.

If you found it too easy, what would you like to improve it? I'm thinking I could probably add extra maps, etc, with more obstacles and more zombies but otherwise I'm not sure what.

I will note that there is no turning capability in this game. So if you thought you were turning that might be a source of confusion... Imagine you're strafing everywhere.

And yes, this is pretty much my first real game, thanks for the compliment

Dino, congratulations on releasing your first official audio game!    I think we're all glad to have a new developer.

For the game, I believe it is playing the step sounds for the tile you are currently on, and then moving you.  For example, if I am on the edge of the ship and my next step will walk me outside, I hear solid footsteps instead of mud.  Hopefully I'm explaining myself properly, though I don't think I am, haha.

I would guess your code is looking for the correct sound to play based on the tile you are on, but it is happening before the code runs to move you.  If you reverse these, it may be a little easier for people to picture where they are in the environment.

I think I've got the map worked out now. 

That's a good point Aprone. My main problem is, I'm not sure how to tell if a zombie is in front of or behind me. Sometimes, zombies sound like they are sort of outside the conventional left/right stereo field, if I can put it that way, in which case I would assume it is behind. But in other cases, the zombies sound like they are more or less in a conventional left/right stereo perspective, which I would assume is in front. So far as I can tell though, the in/out perspective are reversed from where i would expect, i.e. I hear something that sounds like it's outside, so I walk forward and it seems like it's getting closer. Because the game is laggy, combined with what Aprone said about the actual movement mechanics, I think that all contributes to why the game feels so hard for me. I also don't think the zombies move at all, but given my vague understanding of the mechanics, I'm really not sure.
I remember a few years back, I played a concept demo of a game about cats. I can't remember what it was, but it was similar to this, at least in its environment. You rescued kittens from monsters. It used HRTF for 2d sounds, so you could clearly tell if something was in front of or behind you. It felt so much more intuitive to navigate and know what was going on. I always wished that game were more challenging. I can't remember what the game was called or what it uses for hrtf, but I think Planetary escape could really benefit from mechanics similar to that game. I'll try to find a thread for the cat game later.

Back to Planetary Escape: Maybe it's my obsession with arcade/endless games, but I wonder if Planetary Escape would get a lot more replay value from that kind of gameplay. You have levels, the first of which is easy to get you used to things, the second is a little harder, adding more zombies, adding obstacles, larger distance to reach the ship, etc. And it just keeps getting harder on every level until you eventually dye. You could get creative with items too but you wouldn't need to; it's a horror game after all and we want to keep it simple. That, combined with a more intuitive indication of your environment, would be a game I might pay for.

Just my two cents.

Have you thought about using libaudioverse?

@stewie: I did in fact consider using libaudioverse... the problem was that I couldn't get it working when I wanted to try it out. Since I was also programming this for a college project (and thus had a deadline...) and decided that I'd rather be using a library I developed myself so that I had control over whether it worked or not. I think in the future I would be up for using it especially since it's been developed more since then, though.

I do not want to download the game just yet.
I would rather wait til the next version comes out with sonar sound meaning When a zombie is infront it will increase in pitch but if a zombie is behind me the pitch of the sonar would be lowered.
also, the readme does not include instructions on how to play, nor the keyboard commands.
on top of that, I would not download the game right now and just wait till the next version comes out without the lagging.
I do not want to play the game and have my CPU lagging while playing.

Hello folks. Personally, I like the idea of audio cues being optional, I think there's nothing wrong having them on a more casual game, but a horror game is the kind that may want to put you on the character's skin, so the more unnecessary noise we have, the less imersive the experience tend to be.
Best regards, Haramir.

Hello folks! Indeed, aliens would be more interesting, but there's also the classic concept of the alien virus that turn humans into zombies or something like that. Also, it is alot easier to find zombie sounds
Best regards, Haramir.

wow. this has the potential to be scary. have you checked some mainstream older games like Super Metroid, or the more modern suvival ones like outlast? Some levels would be perfect for that here, it gives the game more dynamics in playing. I would really like to find an audio game that makes me shake uncontrollably from terror and those that I just mentioned do that fine because from the game play to the stress and anxiety and the music and the environment and everything in between they are really nicely crafted. So far the so called horror ones, even comercial audio games of the genre are quite disconcerting and leave a lot to be desired.

Thanks guys for the feedback and advice.

It wasn't aliens because zombies are more recognizable... also I recorded the zombie noises myself, I must be pretty convincing maybe next time I can work out what an alien would sound like though.

Mahmood, the only thing I can think of is that it might not work if you have Javascript disabled. Could you check if it is in your browser settings?