2013-04-14 14:40:22 (edited by Jahed 2013-04-15 14:42:07)

Hi everyone,

For my university project, I've been making an audio game. Since I'm not visually impaired myself, I was hoping to get some feedback on how it's going and if it's playable. If you have some time on your hands, I'd really appreciate some opinions and criticism on it.

You can download it here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/161 … uation.zip

Playing the Game

To launch it, just run the "run.bat" file in Windows. It should work on Linux and OSX too with a similar command (see the README). You'll need Java 7 installed and if you're using an old operating system you'll need OpenAL 1.0 or higher.

In the game, you start in a procedurally generated dungeon which consists of rooms with traps and enemies. You need to go through the rooms and find the teleport to the next level. The levels get longer and harder as you progress and there are items, equipment and spells to help you. The game will end at the teleport in Level 99. There are certain hints to help you find things (traps, monsters, items, doors, teleports, etc.)

More in-depth details on the game are in the provided README file. You can press F1 in-game to view it too.

Feedback

The game records some game-related data for me to analyse later and saves it in the "logs" folder (it doesn't use a network connection). They're small and there's a limit of 50 logs so it won't use up a lot of drive space.

There's also a small questionnaire to fill in after you're done with the game which is in Word/PDF format where you just highlight the answers.

If you can, ZIP/archive the "logs" folder and questionnaire and email it to me at: [email protected]

If that's too much work, I also have the questionnaire on Google Docs and you can just fill that in at (I have a one link limit so can't link directly): docs.google.com/forms/d/1ElXgP0CktnFZBfqI9mH67MFndCWlaqLBR47U-44rvAQ/viewform

A text version of this questionnaire is also below so you can just post your answers in this thread or email them to me. You don't need to answer all the questions.

Of course you can also post your thoughts here. Though, I'd greatly prefer the first option (logs and questionnaire emailed to me) too.


Thanks a ton

Credits: Freesound.org and OpenGameArt.org for providing the free-to-use sound files.

Questionnaire

Which age range do you belong to?
0 - 9
10-16
17-23
24-35
36-50
51 and over

2. Are you visually impaired? If so select whichever applies to you, otherwise select "No".
No
Partially Sighted
Low Vision
Legally Blind
Totally Blind

3. Which sound system did you use to play the game?
Stereo Headphones
Stereo Speakers
5.x Surround Sound
7.x Surround Sound
Other (text answer)

4. How would you rate your skills and experience at using computers?
Beginner
Intermediate
Advanced

5. How would you rate your skills and experience at computer games in general?
Beginner
Intermediate
Advanced

6. How many rounds did you play?
(text answer)

7. How difficult did you find the game at first?
Easy
About Right
Difficult

8. What was most difficult about the game?
Controls
Movement
Combat
Other (text answer)

9. How did the difficulty change as you played?
(text answer)

10. Other comments (how the game felt, problems, opinions, etc.):
(text answer)

2013-04-14 16:06:33 (edited by gamedude 2013-04-14 16:07:20)

Wow! This sounds really cool! I'm downloading it now, and I'd be glad to give some feedback on it!

Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company. - Mark Twain

2013-04-14 16:23:54

Small update: Realised the TAB-key doesn't work for some reason. Moved the scoreboard to F5.

gamedude wrote:

Wow! This sounds really cool! I'm downloading it now, and I'd be glad to give some feedback on it!

Thanks for the support. It's probably not that impressive, I don't really have any experience in this field to go by. Hopefully I can learn enough from it to improve!

2013-04-14 17:38:03

Oo, I'll be definitely checking this out!
As for the one link limit, after a certain number of posts, you can post more links.
I think its 5 posts.

2013-04-14 17:57:59

Hi.
Sounds like a cool game with lots of replay value.
If we can fill out the pdf questionnair using a screenreader I'll do that for sure, but the easiest thing for us might be to just mail you the answers in normal text, or using this forum. well, both solutions are doable with a screenreader, but I'm not sure when it comes to fill out a pdf form.

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/sorenjensen1988
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soerenjensen

2013-04-14 19:23:07 (edited by keyIsFull 2013-04-14 20:03:19)

hmm, I don't seem to hear any speech when playing the game. I am using NVDA.

edit: I suppose you don't realy need speech to play. I managed to get to the second level, but then I encountered a really strong enemy, I think a barbarian, that required like 3 healing potions before I killed it. that was 1 powerful enem. I couldn't find any doors after that. I guess I'll have t play it over again and hope for a better dungeon next time. Great game though, I wish you could side step though. If I want to check for openings I have to turn left,walk forward, turn right, throw a rock, turn left, walk forward, turn right, throw a rock, etc, ad that's kind of slow. Also the radar never seems to work.

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2013-04-14 21:10:52

Wow, 99 Levels? That seems to be a long game. But it sounds cool. I will check this out definately.
Will it be further developed or updated if we find bugs or have suggestions that could be implemented? cool to see such a thing, another question: is it a real time based game or is it turn based?

2013-04-15 01:41:33

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.UnsupportedClassVersionError: audiogame/game/Main : Unsupported major.minor version 51.0
And after the stack trace:
Could not find the main class: audiogame.game.Main. Program will exit.

Hm, I haven't actually updated my java in a while, though it did behave differently after I had my computer devirused a while back, so I was hoping for sake of ease that IT had updated it. Turns out that whatever they did just removed the sound banks I put in the lib/audio folder.
The "could not find the main class" seems to happen to everyone when I try releasing something in java, not that I've been able to find any problems with my manifests. sad

So I suppose I'll have to update and try again.
Still glad that someone's making one of these; Audio Games definitely need games of this style! 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.

2013-04-15 05:46:03

why I can't download this game?

going in to the wilds, collecting pokedex, and capturing them are my kind of thing,
training them, making them evolve, and generally making them stronger is my ultimate goal,
fighting other manamon tamers, winning the tournament, and fighting octoros are what these manamons like to do,
and ultimately, I become the master of mana!

2013-04-15 06:45:46 (edited by Victorious 2013-04-15 06:55:24)

I can't download the file too, perhaps the dropbox account went over its bandwidth limit?

Edit: for some reason download managers have trouble with the link. Disabling mine did the trick for me.b

2013-04-15 06:53:37

Hello. If it have 99 levels, then please why can't we save game?

2013-04-15 07:03:47

Sorry, I want to play it on MAC OS X, I put command from readme file to the terminal, but I deleted windows\linux and I put there only MACOS, but unable something, I don't know, unable jar file I think. Thanks.

2013-04-15 07:28:42

Hmm sounds a lot like kirkerkruip.

“Can we be casual in the work of God — casual when the house is on fire, and people are in danger of being burned?” — Duncan Campbell
“There are four things that we ought to do with the Word of God – admit it as the Word of God, commit it to our hearts and minds, submit to it, and transmit it to the world.” — William Wilberforce

2013-04-15 08:20:27

when I download the file, IDM says that it can't request a download link

going in to the wilds, collecting pokedex, and capturing them are my kind of thing,
training them, making them evolve, and generally making them stronger is my ultimate goal,
fighting other manamon tamers, winning the tournament, and fighting octoros are what these manamons like to do,
and ultimately, I become the master of mana!

2013-04-15 08:36:09

Hi.
I don't get any speech in the game either, and I'm using NVDA. I'm not sure if we should get any speech, but the readme says NVDA is supported, so I assumed to get any speech.
Well, i have to give it an other try. smile

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/sorenjensen1988
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soerenjensen

2013-04-15 14:02:00 (edited by Jahed 2013-04-15 14:07:36)

Wow a lot of replies! I was hoping I'd get email notices for them but I guess I didn't. I'm just going to reply to everyone in this single post. Thanks for your interest, everyone.

SLJ wrote:

Hi.
I don't get any speech in the game either, and I'm using NVDA. I'm not sure if we should get any speech, but the readme says NVDA is supported, so I assumed to get any speech.
Well, i have to give it an other try. smile

The actual game tries not to use speech at all. It was one of the aims. The NVDA support is just for being able to read the README. I'll edit it to make that clearer.

hanif wrote:

when I download the file, IDM says that it can't request a download link

Yeah, seems like a problem with IDM. Probably because Dropbox redirects the URL to a direct download rather than it being a direct download itself. Dropbox used to have direct downloads but doesn't anymore which is a shame. I'll try to find a host that allows direct links.

vsmiro wrote:

Sorry, I want to play it on MAC OS X, I put command from readme file to the terminal, but I deleted windows\linux and I put there only MACOS, but unable something, I don't know, unable jar file I think. Thanks.

I don't have an OSX installation to check the problem but it should work. Is your Java version up to date? Try running this:

java -Djava.library.path=native/macosx -jar AudioGame.jar

If that doesn't work, do you have OpenAL 1.0 installed? Direct link here:
http://connect.creativelabs.com/openal/ … er_OSX.dmg

Could you tell me your OSX and Java version?

vsmiro wrote:

Hello. If it have 99 levels, then please why can't we save game?

It's a permanent death system. The aim isn't really to reach level 99 but rather to play as much as possible in one go and beat your highscore. Chances are you'll die or at least should before that.

I'm planning to implement a quick save system so when you close the game, it saves it and reloads it on relaunch. That way you can't just load up any save file to cheat the permanent death system. However, since I'm still implement features, I'll end up breaking save files and the lot so it'll be more of a final build thing.

Niklas wrote:

Wow, 99 Levels? That seems to be a long game. But it sounds cool. I will check this out definately.
Will it be further developed or updated if we find bugs or have suggestions that could be implemented? cool to see such a thing, another question: is it a real time based game or is it turn based?

It's a turn-based game. I hope to work on it on the future if it's well-received. Otherwise, I may just use my experience from this to work on a new audio game.

Since it's procedural, I was planning to make it infinite levels but that'd be a pain to test so I just limited it for now.

keyIsFull wrote:

hmm, I don't seem to hear any speech when playing the game. I am using NVDA.

edit: I suppose you don't realy need speech to play. I managed to get to the second level, but then I encountered a really strong enemy, I think a barbarian, that required like 3 healing potions before I killed it. that was 1 powerful enem. I couldn't find any doors after that. I guess I'll have t play it over again and hope for a better dungeon next time. Great game though, I wish you could side step though. If I want to check for openings I have to turn left,walk forward, turn right, throw a rock, turn left, walk forward, turn right, throw a rock, etc, ad that's kind of slow. Also the radar never seems to work.

That's a good point. Can't believe I didn't think about implementing side step! I'll make a hold button like Control so you can hold it and use ESDF to side step.

The radar only plays when there are actual enemies in the room. Rooms can be empty but since there's a lower bound of enemies in each level, that usually means there's one room with a lot of enemies.

In terms of difficulty, one Zombie (the strongest enemy) in level 2 should be doing around 4-6 damage with the default armour and should die in around 5 or less hits with the default weapon. So maybe you were ambushed? If you kill enemies in a level they have a chance of dropping a weapon or armour that's stronger than them.

Out of interest, were you able to tell the difference between health potions and stamina potions?

SLJ wrote:

Hi.
Sounds like a cool game with lots of replay value.
If we can fill out the pdf questionnair using a screenreader I'll do that for sure, but the easiest thing for us might be to just mail you the answers in normal text, or using this forum. well, both solutions are doable with a screenreader, but I'm not sure when it comes to fill out a pdf form.

I'm happy with any method as long as I have some answers. I'll edit my initial post with a text-only questionnaire.

Thanks again everyone. I really appreciate your feedback.

2013-04-15 14:06:54

Wow, thanks a lot for your reply. I'll give the game an other try for sure.
I'll post my experiences as soon as possible.

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/sorenjensen1988
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soerenjensen

2013-04-15 14:12:53 (edited by Victorious 2013-04-15 14:13:34)

@Jahed: I was wondering whether receiving no speech in-game was a design decision or whether there was just a bug or something. I personally find a total lack of speech really disorienting. There are lots of sounds that the game plays, and I'm not sure what sounds represents what e.g i'm not sure what the sound that plays when I used the radar meant. If you could add sapi5/screen reader support or use prerecorded voice files to give feedback through speech in addition to sound, I think that it would make the game much easier to play.

2013-04-15 14:25:09 (edited by Jahed 2013-04-15 14:29:43)

Victorious wrote:

@Jahed: I was wondering whether receiving no speech in-game was a design decision or whether there was just a bug or something. I personally find a total lack of speech really disorienting. There are lots of sounds that the game plays, and I'm not sure what sounds represents what e.g i'm not sure what the sound that plays when I used the radar meant. If you could add sapi5/screen reader support or use prerecorded voice files to give feedback through speech in addition to sound, I think that it would make the game much easier to play.

I thought that might be a problem. I'm so familiar with the game myself that I overlooked a lot of ambiguities.

I can have a help menu that implements text-to-speech to help out. So you can go through some examples and hear their sounds. Do you think that might solve the problem?

Example Menu:
Stepped on Armour with Defence 5 -> Armour Identifier, Armour attribute sounds
Stepped on Armour with Defence 10 -> Armour Identifier, higher-pitched Armour attribute sounds
Drink Stamina Potion with Heal 20 -> Flask, Stamina Potion, Drink sounds
Drink Health Potion with Heal 20 -> Flask, Health Potion, Drink sounds
Door 2 forward, 1 left to the right -> Door creaking sound.

Or maybe a tutorial level would be more appropriate? So it can go through certain information step by step with you.

2013-04-15 14:31:25

hi, when I click the download link, IDM says that it can't capture the link. can you help me?

going in to the wilds, collecting pokedex, and capturing them are my kind of thing,
training them, making them evolve, and generally making them stronger is my ultimate goal,
fighting other manamon tamers, winning the tournament, and fighting octoros are what these manamons like to do,
and ultimately, I become the master of mana!

2013-04-15 14:36:36 (edited by Jahed 2013-04-15 14:42:39)

hanif wrote:

hi, when I click the download link, IDM says that it can't capture the link. can you help me?

I found out how to direct link on Dropbox now. This should work with IDM hopefully. Download here:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/161 … uation.zip

2013-04-15 14:45:35

hi jahed, I am downloading the game right now! I hope it will be great and I'll give feedback for you!

going in to the wilds, collecting pokedex, and capturing them are my kind of thing,
training them, making them evolve, and generally making them stronger is my ultimate goal,
fighting other manamon tamers, winning the tournament, and fighting octoros are what these manamons like to do,
and ultimately, I become the master of mana!

2013-04-15 15:07:40

Jahed I sent you an email.

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

2013-04-15 15:33:56

hi jahed, this game is too hard! I can't find the telleporter, and the game has no speech at all! I use jaws as my default screen reader.

going in to the wilds, collecting pokedex, and capturing them are my kind of thing,
training them, making them evolve, and generally making them stronger is my ultimate goal,
fighting other manamon tamers, winning the tournament, and fighting octoros are what these manamons like to do,
and ultimately, I become the master of mana!

2013-04-15 15:48:25

hanif wrote:

hi jahed, this game is too hard! I can't find the telleporter, and the game has no speech at all! I use jaws as my default screen reader.

I'm aiming not to use speech recognition at all other than for the README on how to play.

Could you go into detail about what's difficult? Like, movement, fighting, etc.

There is a looping wind sound to help you find the teleport. It's panned left or right depending on which way you need to move and gets louder as you get closer. If you follow it and you get stuck, you're most likely at a door which you press 'J' to open or there's an enemy blocking your way.