2018-11-03 16:17:32

Do you mean audio surround? Yes it does. Both Echoes of Levia and A Blind Legend use it, and probably other games I haven't tried.

When the wandering fire strikes the heart of stone, will you follow? Will you take ... the longest road?
Guy Gavriel Kay

discord: tayo134

2018-11-03 16:47:51

lol echoes of levia doesn't use 3d audio, even though they say it does.

I used to be a knee like you, then I took an adventurer in the arrow.

2018-11-03 17:13:19

No, I'm talking about Immersion, the haptics software. I think they favor Android, though. I gave up on 3d audio as important after playing the games that use it as though that solves everything. (If it did, I probably wouldn't have a 60" piece of fiberglass in the corner. I think that's made of fiberglass, anyway.)
Don't misunderstand me, Kakarrot; I'd like good use of realistic audio. But I have yet to play a game where it didn't feel like a gimmick more than anything useful.

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.

2018-11-03 17:17:21

@Connor142 you're right, of course. Butthe answer to the question is still yes, immersion is available on iOS. I think Echoes of Levia has already been chewed up and spit back out a couple times already on the forum; no need to go into it again.

When the wandering fire strikes the heart of stone, will you follow? Will you take ... the longest road?
Guy Gavriel Kay

discord: tayo134

2018-11-03 17:42:18

@153 I've never heard of it mentioned in connection with iOS gaming, but I'm just  a lay person interested in gaming, so I might have missed it. I think 3D audio shows what it's capable of in well thought out navigation systems. When it comes to combat is when it feels like a gimmick, although a nice one.

When the wandering fire strikes the heart of stone, will you follow? Will you take ... the longest road?
Guy Gavriel Kay

discord: tayo134

2018-11-03 19:04:17

1. For YouTube or Twitch, the simplest graphics, for example text in boxes, would help viewers to understand what a specific audio game is about.

2. Subtitles would also help because TTS is usually set at a very high speed.

3. If the goal is to not look weird in front of a black screen, another solution would be to use a generic module, some kind of screensaver, that would respond to keystrokes with random graphic effects, like a music visualization plugin.

2018-11-03 21:42:25

I really like the visualization idea. A version that can position the graphics according to the stereo position of the sound would be glorious, if ridiculously complex to do based on an audio stream.

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.

2018-11-04 00:14:46

I too rather like the idea of an audio visualizer, informative, but also emphasises the audio aspects of the experience. Hm, you'd probably have to separate the stereo channels and do a comparative analysis, having messed around with stereo sonifier data it could probably be done. Then again a simpler way might be to position the graphics using the sounds 3D positional data before its put in the stream, well depending on whether or not your parsing an existing recording or creating one. I think there are actually a few tools kicking around itch.io that do that.

-BrushTone v1.3.3: Accessible Paint Tool
-AudiMesh3D v1.0.0: Accessible 3D Model Viewer

2018-11-04 03:10:27

wow guys.  have not posted in here, but followed the discussion. Have you looked at the forum statistics as of this moment? I think I am surprised in a good way, and that says something, not sure what the record might be, but 19 guests plus 14 registered users online is pretty epic, imagine probably an online games party with so so many! or a tournament, or whatever, I wonder what the record could be and if there has been a game where this many people could be online at the same time playing something. I know this sounds too enthusiastic, but I would be happy to have something like that, of course I know we would have some players which are not nice, but then again that happens everywhere in the world. For this I like the audio game streams.. they do bring players together.

A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station…

2018-11-04 08:16:15

It has always seemed like people are not a big fan of strategy games on here, and I'm really curious why. Games like swamp and AHC are always mentioned as examples of the best games we have (and I definitely agree they deserve that status), but games like sound rts, tactical battle and castaways don't seem to have a similar appeal even though I feel they are also very good games. The failing of castaways2 is a good example, it was a really good game that I enjoyed playing but apparently couldn't keep enough interest to sustain a sufficient online player base.
I've also wondered about people not working together, but Aprone makes a very valid point. In a work setting there is a degree of standardisation that everyone is made to conform to regardless of their personal preferences. Even if they don't agree, they still keep doing it for the money. But with a hobby project this is not going to work, people need to be invested in what they're doing, it's the only thing that would motivate someone to continue working on it. And it makes sense that disagreements would become much more of a problem and would not really lead to a better outcome. I might be wrong, but it seems like the AHC team was very small, and focused on different roles, like Ian designing the game engine, someone else doing sounds, etc.
Also, there's so much speculation about the Japanese devs, but they're right here on the forum, why doesn't someone just contact them and ask them to participate?

2018-11-04 10:53:55 (edited by FEERtheGAME 2018-11-04 10:55:14)

as we did a game, which is fully accessible, so i´d like to share my opinion.
The big market is in the hands of a few companies, on a few devices. For them it is interesting to bring gamers to Playstation, Nintendo, Steam, etc. And here you see completely other prices then on the mobile market for a game. And other challenges, VR, 4K, photorealistic graphics are the mostwanted qualities. Gameplay itself declined. Games out of the 90s where far harder to solve, than games are these days. And with a lot of marketing money the effect is, all go this road.

On mobiles there are limited technical capabilities, Fortnite on mobiles is not more than a nearly unplayable teaser to bring you to other platforms, closed universes. So they give it for free.
For indie developers it is hard to arrive on market, controlled by few. Game Press Reviews you only get paying them, thats what they tell you forthright. So you simply are not visible on market, if your game is not rated and commented on the stores and in case of apple in EVERY country.  i know visibility is not the blind´s biggest concern, but for developers to get people interested in their game is vital.

2018-11-04 19:39:50

I'm curious as to why many people are talking about graphics, even simple ones, being so hard to do with Shadow Line clearly showing that they can be done...people are talking about them like that game isn't an example. lol Yes, I hold that game as at least one standard for audio games... and make no bones about it. There are many reasons why, with graphics being just one of them.

Discord: clemchowder633

2018-11-04 21:08:59

The graphics for the JFIMA made it extremely easy for the sighted person I tested them on. IDR how long it took, but I basically just threw them in at the last minute ... ... wait, was that 2012? I guess it has to be. hmm
I did make adjustments to how characters were drawn to make them easier to identify, so it would be confusing to paste here. That, and my computer isn't booting ATM and I have no idea where the Windows disc is. But as I recall, it was something like:

public static void drawChar (Graphics2D g, GUChar me) {
  if (me == null or g == null) return;
  Paint paint = Color.red;
  if (me.gloc != null and me.gloc.team1.indexOf(me) >= 0) paint = Color.green;
  // (the character-specific paints go here. This was tacked on afterward, so they're handled here rather than as a class property. I'd try to go for class property when possible.)
  g.setPaint(paint);
  Ellipse2D el = new Ellipse2D.Double(me.x*25, me.y*25, 25.0, 25.0); // This gets used at least twice.
  g.fill(el);
  // Since I didn't bother with projection or perspective, make the outline brighter based on z:
  for (int i=1; i<me.z; i++) paint = paint.brighter();
  g.setPaint(paint);
  g.draw(el);
  // The font and stroke should have been set outside this function, to avoid redundancy.
  g.drawString(me.name, el.getX(), el.getY()+12);
  // FTR, this was rushed and even with circles and squares, I'd still rather have done something more interesting for z.
}

public static void drawMap(Graphics2D g, GUMap gloc) {
  // Make sure the Graphics coordinate system matches that of the map:

  if (g == null or gloc == null) return;

  // First, draw tiles:
  for (int x = 0; x<gloc.width; x++) {
    for (int y=0; y<gloc.height; y++) {
      char c = gloc.getC (x, y);
      Paint paint = terraincolor(gloc, c);
      // special cases, such as doors, windows, and trees:
      // else, default:
      g.fillRect(x*25, y*25, 25, 25);
      // indicate traps and NPCs:
      if (c >= 'A' and c <= Z) {
        g.setColor(new Color(25, 25, 25));
        g.drawString("" + c, x*25 + 8, y*25 + 8);
      }
    }
  }
 
  // Set font for items and characters:
  g.setFont(new Font("SansSerif", Font.BOLD, 10)); // the font has to be tiny to fit -_-
  for (int i=0; i<gloc.items.size(); i++) {
   

JLItem jli = gloc.items.get(i);

    g.setPaint(Colors.antique);
    g.fill(new Star(jli.x*25 + 12.5, jli.y*25 + 12.5, 5));
    g.setColor(Color.black);
    g.drawString(jli.name, jli.xinin25, jli.y*25 + 8);

  }
 
  // Chars:
  for (int i=0; i<gloc.team1.size(); i++) drawChar(g, (GUChar)gloc.team1.get(i));
  for (int i=0; i<gloc.team2.size(); i++) drawChar (g, (GUChar)gloc.team2.get(i));
}

Yes, I forgot to set the color for drawing the Char's name. Was doing all this on my phone and going back to add that here is not worth it. Pretend there's a g.setColor(Color.black); before the first drawString.

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.

2018-11-04 21:23:35

Just a thought, but I think code and anything relating to actually how to make graphics should be in the developer's room. lol Again, I'm curious why this discusion has mostly gone down the route of why graphics are so hard and why some in the conversation are ok with simple visual presenters rather than going for actual graphics which Shadow Line has done, and which Planet Saga is also planning to do.

Discord: clemchowder633

2018-11-07 01:40:06

To me, the hardest part of graphics wouldn't necessarily be the code.  It's the concept.  It's never having been able to see, and being asked to try to conceptualize something from a visual perspective.  That's the really hard part, I think.

2018-11-07 02:36:08

Once again. There are tons of free resources and people to pool who would be willing to design graphics for indie games. The creators of Shadow Line are a group of 3 or 4 who are blind or low vision... and the graphics apparently turned out satisfactory for an almost no budget audiogame.

Discord: clemchowder633

2018-11-07 09:32:32

@JLove
I find that issue particularly interesting, from a conceptual standpoint. I know that there are various art classes that generally tend to be more tactile, dealing with pottery or raised lines for example, or different material properties like coarse, soft, smooth, etc. There's various materials and books around on the subject [here] and [here] covering art theory and concepts for the blind, and many of these concepts can translate over to various other mediums, including digital art.

But what I find most facinating is that art, as I tend to interpret it, is a means of expression through abstract means. So, i'm not wholly convinced that you necessarily need, or should, conceptualize things from a visual perspective, though there is the possibility that some methods you find more natural to you may have some overlap with particular existing styles. There's no right or wrong way to do art perse, so conceptualizing and presenting things from your own perspective as someone whos never experienced the visual spectrum on a canvas I think could be a very interesting point of view.

From a more "traditional" art medium though, I find Pixel Art well suited because it works well from a methodical, mathematical, and geometric perspective, being similar in many ways to [needlepoint], looping threads through a grid framework. Artistic techniques like this are things i'd like to cover more indepth in future guides once i've finished with my next update, but i'd look forward to hearing perspectives such as yours on the subject.

But on a more practical note, as assault_freak and others mentioned there are many resources and artists floating around to draw from, like opengameart.org, or using procedural or programmed art, visualizers, etc.

-BrushTone v1.3.3: Accessible Paint Tool
-AudiMesh3D v1.0.0: Accessible 3D Model Viewer

2018-11-07 09:59:04

You know those Chessboards where one color square is raised and the other is lower?
If you understand the concept of a gameboard, simple 2d graphics are like that, but as flat as possible.
Ever seen one of those Braille Monopoly boards? How they separate the spaces with thick lines, have limits to how much text they can fit in a square, etc?
If you want to code particularly good graphics from scratch, you would need some concepts that don't translate well, like projection and perspective and the effects that lines have on how details are perceived. If you just want enough to accommodate, the above covers most of it. Things get trickier if you want to worry about what colors go well together, or accommodating colorblind players, but those can generally be understood mathematically.

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.

2018-11-07 11:10:02

Hey there,
@153 and others: in my experience, creating a graphical representation is not impossible (as a blind developer), but it's hard.
You could use any game engine (monogame, even simpler tools like SFML, whatever), then, using your coordinates system, the same you use for audiopositioning or physics simulation, just bound your game object to a build in shape (a circle, triangle, etc), drow it to the screen and you are done. Well, somewhat done.
In real life, you are dealing with the screen size (in pixels), overlaping, screen borders, colors, textures, collisions and a bunch of other things. So, assuming you want a really poor graphical interface, you would need a lot of help from someone who can see the screen and give you constant feedback.

In my opinion: if the graphics  are too poor, they will not make your game looks better; if they are more advanced, probably you will need sighted help to make it work.

2018-11-07 13:00:47

Most pygame windows seem to want to be 400x300, and I do not know why. I think most screens that aren't on phones or the smallest tablets can handle 800×600. If you just set it to be a full screen window, then you might have issues, and need to find a way to get the screen dimensions. And you also need to worry about if the screen coordinates and game coordinates are using different systems, but most graphics engines will have an easy way to fix that. Ex, if positive y is north, but the screen has positive y as down, you'd need to transform either the screen (Java makes this straightforward) or your coordinates (a function for world_to_screen would be good). In the example where you just need to flip y, it'd return screen.height-y. If we settle on a graphics engine that isn't head-explody (so not OpenGL), someone could probably write something similar to BGT's sound_pool, to simplify it.

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.