2020-02-14 15:33:23 (edited by missdiggy 2020-02-14 16:06:13)

To anyone that has clicked on, hello! My name is Stevie and I'm currently at uni studying games design. I've got a project to design a games console that does something in an interesting new way. My idea was to design a console that caters to people with visual and auditory impairments. As such I'm doing research into ways that has already been done so I'd like to ask the community some questions.

Are there more efficient systems for audio based games, in your experience? If so what are they? If improvements could be made to the current technology what would you suggest?

Thus far I've found one main system that sounds very interesting, which is the Racing Audio Display, but I wonder if anyone here has anything else I can look into.

Any and all replies are appreciated.

Thank you all in advance!

I've asked this on two of the sections of this forum because id like to receive as many replies as possible.

2020-02-14 17:01:03

Hi and welcome to the forum.
DO you have anything better in mind than this console?
https://sonusinteractive.co.uk/
I look forward to see what you come up with, how there should be developed games for your console, how it'll work, price etc.

Best regards SLJ.
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2020-02-14 19:37:51

I've actually checked that one out! I've sent the developer an email to ask what research they did and what specs they used, things like that but i figured getting opinions and thoughts from a community would help me understand what people are actually looking for. Have you any ideas on what could be improved from current technology?

Also, thank you for the reply!

2020-02-14 19:50:30

Hi and welcome.
Let me just explain the current situation for you.
Right now, we don't have any systems designed to play audio games.
The sonus has been in development for almost six years.
Also, audiogames are rather lacking in what they can do.2
We don't have any fully-fledged racing games for example.
I think you should make one really big game if possible, but please don't make all your games exclusive?
The reason I say this is that many people might not be able to aford the cost of buying, and shipping the hardware.
Again, I don't mean to sound negative, please don't take this the wrong way.

Hopefully, we'll get a fully accessible open world game someday.

2020-02-14 20:05:10

I saw this piece of hardware for the cited a long time ago. It was basically a steering wheel on a stand that had attached petals. Iā€™m pretty sure it also came with a shift stick. If you could build this, and free program a fully fledged racing audio game, That would be amazing.

Is this the real life?
Or is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide,
No escape from reality

2020-02-14 20:38:33

The closest thing to an audio racing game is Top Speed

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2020-02-15 00:44:04

I invite you to read my guide on using the playstation vita and perhaps you may find some inspiration for ideas to improve your physical or user interface design. A rumble feature in your console would also be quite nice.

2020-02-15 09:45:20

I don't know if the market for an audiogames console would be large enough to support the R&D and manufacturing of the hardware. It's a pretty small niche thing. The best things we have is our PCs.
I'll tell you this though, I really, really want a new FPS with both audio and graphics that I can play multiplayer with my brother and some of my boys. That'd be fucking fun. I tried to set up an audioquake server but I could never get it to work and I think we can do better than Quake 1 personally.

NevEd.NDO#4838
My community discord:
https://discord.gg/2duutDtGFa

2020-02-15 15:07:16

Hi,
fps, again and again. You know what? I'd agrea with you if we were talking aboutnew generation fps, like apex or such. But if it's meant to become another redspot, tk, or anything like this, I'm definitly out of it.
  @1 Welcome to the forum ! The idea looks great ! I've always wanted such a consol, but I tend to agrea with some of the previews posts here. I think there's much work to be done with games before starting to think about a consol that could handle them all... The world of audiogames has done in about 15 years the progress videgames made in three. For now I think tere's room for a lot of improvments before we have enough choices to justify the existence of a consol.
But I'll make sure to be one of the first to buy it when it comes out !

Best regard,
Simon

2020-02-15 15:41:16

@1: How are you planning to cater to both visually and auditaurally impaired users? Aren't the two mutually exclusive however? Audiogames are by their very nature, audio based wich presents challenges for hearing impaired people though, correct?

Also good point on the market size, aswlel. That was my thought too, but if the R&D and manufacture is cheap enough however...

Warning: Grumpy post above
Also on Linux natively

2020-02-15 16:48:45 (edited by NevEd 2020-02-16 00:59:06)

No I'd rather it not be like TK and red spot, where the game was controlled by the servers entirely, I'd just rather have a singular game with everything in it where you can connect to others PCs and play with them if they have it. Would be cool to see kind of like a Quake III arena type game. That you can play offline with bots, too.. All the good FPS games are either old or are no longer supported online, or never were online to begin with. Or a boxing game. Like a realistic boxing game, maybe? Anyone else play Fight Night Round 2 before? A racing game would be cool but it'd be neat to see kinda like a audio GTA, not sure how easy that would be to do. Even if theirs no story.

NevEd.NDO#4838
My community discord:
https://discord.gg/2duutDtGFa

2020-02-18 20:27:15

I'd like to reinforce that this is 1- a university project, I'm not able to actually make the console and 2- the brief was that it literally has to be a console, not a game.

2020-02-18 21:17:08

This is just a project, however it is delicious food for thought.. I played video games up until my sight started failing me. Racing games were a challenge for the most part, but some I was able to manage.. I leaned more towards games like boxing, wrestling, Mortal Combat, UFC, and games that allowed exploration of levels. Nintendo's last two consoles were unplayable for me, but I can't speak for other visually impaired people.. I never played anything beyond a PS2 or an Xbox 360. When something seems impossible, I lose interest. I started looking for games to suit my situation. A console for the blind would be so awesome, but we all have very different financial situations, and we may not be a market to support it being manufactured. Sadly there are a lot of skilled and talented people with visually impairments, and that alone is at times what stands between them and a decent living.

2020-02-18 21:59:29

Something like a PS Vita style thing running something based on Linux?

NevEd.NDO#4838
My community discord:
https://discord.gg/2duutDtGFa