2020-02-15 13:21:50 (edited by Dark 2020-02-15 15:45:12)

I will be the first to admit, that I haven't exactly been doing much work on the db lately. Partly this has been due to personal circumstances which some will know about, partly it is because there is so much to add I haven't known where to start, partly it is simply lack of direction on my part, for which I absolutely apologise.

Those around back in 2007 when I first took on a lot of responsibility for database management, will remember that for a while, I instituted weekly database updates.

This meant a commitment to try and get something done on the db each week, with a progress report every Sunday. Obviously, given life and everything else, some weeks there was more than others. Some weeks it was just a single game entry added or a bit of link cleanup, some weeks it'd be a lot, however committing to get something! done each week made the db editing process a little like the proverbial tortoise, in that it was slow, but got there in the end, going from being severely outdated by about 4 years, to up to date with the then latest games.

I have begun this process today, adding an entry for Manamon 2, fixing the download link for crazy party, and updating both the links and entry for beatstar pro, tasks which have all rather badly needed doing.

If anyone would like to help, please suggest games that you'd like prioritised in db updates. obviously the db is intended to be a complete guide, equally obviously it can never be an absolutely! complete guide because new games are coming out all the time, however it can certainly be much completer than it is at the moment, and I'm aware we've had a lot of great releases recently, which members would doubtless like to see acknowledged.

The rules concerning accessibility criteria still apply of course.
ditto with any fixes you'd like to see made in terms of none working links etc, indeed thanks to the audiogames archive, these are now less of a problem (at least on Windows), than they used to be.

If any of our other staff would like to help with the project, of course help would be appreciated, since as I've said before, there are lots of games, and only one of me big_smile.

As for new editors, I have contacted Senderman today regarding fixing Pitermach's status. After the awesome entries he provided for Sequence storm, Skull girlss and alt frequencies, I actually thought he was already added.

Once this change is affected, we can then think about adding anyone else who wants to help, indeed it'd be good if we could get someone with access to Android too.

Hope this clears things up, and here's to a more complete database in the future.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2020-02-15 15:02:18

Great job Dark as usual. Um, no, I did not mean that you are doing a dark job. Well, I suppose you are, considering you probably use a screen reader and don't look at the screen while editing the database, so that could make a dark job. Especially so if you turn your screen to black by enabling screen curtain. Anyways, the database of games was always a very good resource, especially when I was just getting started with audiogames and was wondering what to play. Even now, when hearing about a game for the first time I know that in most cases I can visit the database and get a very good description instead of asking what the game is about. So thanks as always to everyone who is working on keeping it up to date.

2020-02-15 15:22:08

Hi,
It's awesome we are getting db updates back. However, I would also like to say that dark seems to be stuck with it. Me and Pitermach seem to have lost our db editing powers, and I've told Dark this. He's informed Sendermen and nothing's happened. So, Dark's stuck editing the db alone... again. I honestly don't like that, that's a lot of responsibility to take.

2020-02-15 15:53:05 (edited by Dark 2020-02-15 15:57:14)

Thanks nidza, I can't say it'll be a great job, but it'll be a dark job, since I usually have my monitor off whilst I'm working on the db big_smile.

@aaron, As I've said before, I'd be happy to have other people working on the db as well, and indeed I was totally unaware that everyone's! permissions were down accept mine.

I've dropped another email to both Sander and richard about this, so hopefully something can get done, since it does sound as if something is seriously wrong.

If worst came to worst, people could email me things and I could copy and paste as I did with Pitermach's entries for sequence storm etc, but I'd rather not do that if I didn't have to, Indeed, that is sort of like doing the boring bit of db editing, copy and pasting links and text, without doing the fun bit, playing games and writing about them big_smile.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2020-02-15 16:01:48

Will the chinese games be added? If not I am willing to write their descriptions and instructions, if somebody is willing to help me with my english

If you want to contact me, do not use the forum PM. I respond once a year or two, when I need to write a PM myself. I apologize for the inconvenience.
Telegram: Nuno69a
E-Mail: nuno69a (at) gmail (dot) com

2020-02-15 16:48:03

I've not experimented with chinese games myself up to now, and as I said I wouldn't be against having descriptions from others.
However, bare in mind that descriptions need to be informative, comprehensive, and make people's lives easier, as indeed bladestorm's original descriptions of Japanese games did, (many of them are still in the db).

I took a look at your translation guide, (firstly having to copy all the text since google docs didn't read properly anyway).

You included no links to the software your talking about, nor information on how to use that software, or even whether they're NVDA addons or what.

I tried locale emulator myself, and it was a down right mess that worked only some of the time, and caused my computer huge amounts of slowdown at startup (another reason I'm not likely to be playing Chinese games at this point).

If you remember Bladestorm's original guide for Japanese audiogames, it was designed to be as user friendly as possible to new users, indeed part of the reason the Japanese audiogames gained such a following, is likely that there were such comprehensive instructions on how to play them.

So, if you'd like to help with Chinese games, that would be great, but could you please first look at expanding your existing guide to be a little more newbie friendly, a fact you might also want to consider when coming up with descriptions, since it's intended that the db be both informative and welcoming, something which would not be served by terse or less than comprehensible descriptions.

Hope this all makes sense.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2020-02-15 17:04:17

great job dark!

2020-02-15 17:46:33

Makes sense. I will update

If you want to contact me, do not use the forum PM. I respond once a year or two, when I need to write a PM myself. I apologize for the inconvenience.
Telegram: Nuno69a
E-Mail: nuno69a (at) gmail (dot) com

2020-02-15 18:00:59 (edited by Dark 2020-02-15 18:02:20)

@Nuno, when you've expanded the guide, feel free to let me know, or just announce in general game discussion since doubtless other people would find it helpful too.
When you want to send me descriptions and links, please write them up in a text file and email them to me at d r dot lukehewitt at g mail dot com.

That was how bladestorm, Pitermach and others did it, and I'll have a look through them and copy them into the db with you credited on each entry.
I'll also create a new genre category for Chinese games, as I did for Japanese games.

@manamon player, I actually haven't done much yet, also bare in mind I'm not promising that all of the updates will be made instantaneously, just that I'll try and commit to doing at least something! each week and reporting every Sunday, that way hopefully I can chip away at that mountain of new releases and discoveries and have the db better reflect the current state of audiogames.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2020-02-15 20:44:14

I agree about the Chinese games thing. I've tried a few, but it helps to have a well written guide.
@Dark, I recognize that I don't have much of a history around here, but I'm willing to help with the android games. I would however, like to point out I have no db editing experience, so I would probably be best at descriptions and finding the actual games.

"900 years in time and space and I have never met someone who wasn't important." The Doctor.
Come say hi on Twitter

2020-02-15 21:27:20

Thanks crescent.
We'll have to see firstly if we can get the permissions changed,then if we can add new people, and if that doesn't work, to look at getting descriptions from other people and adding them in.

The html part of db editing really isn't difficult, though it can be time consuming adding coding to someone else's text and copying and pasting all the links etc, the hard, part, yet the rewarding part is writing up none biased, enthusiastic descriptions for the various titles, even when they're games you personally dislike.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2020-02-15 21:28:43

That's great news! Thank you for all the work you've done for this site, and all that you will do in the future. smile

When you get a chance, could you please write an entry for Bulwark in the City of Flesh? It's another game from getinthedamnbox, set in the same universe as HEARtREAD. Here's the link:
http://www.getinthedamnbox.com/bulwark/main.php

Yes, I definitely left the forum. Mhm. Why would you have any doubt?
Code 7 tips: https://forum.audiogames.net/topic/4010 … or-code-7/
Don't forget to be awesome!

2020-02-15 21:49:25 (edited by Dark 2020-02-15 21:52:38)

thanks Mayana.

I actually meant to try out Bulwark and the city of flesh since it sounded fascinatingly dark, and I did enjoy HEARtRead, so this is a nice excuse to try the game out, ---- not that I need an excuse big_smile.

It might take me a while, as I'm not sure how well mouse control works on a laptop trackpad and at the moment I can only use my desktop at the weekends because my lady has hospital appointments all week, plus from looking at the topic, it might not be wise to run bcf on a 3 gb ram laptop anyway.

Still, if I don't get to try the game tomorrow, I will give it a go next weekend.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2020-02-15 23:47:25

Hi.

yeah chinese games do sound like a good idea, if someone not beeing as racist as a certain someone on here writes the descriptions.

Bulwark was already suggested so that's done, and even though it's just a public demo right now, I would like to see planet saga added in, you could update the database entry when the full version comes out.

Greetings Moritz.

Hail the unholy church of Satan, go share it's greatness.

2020-02-16 07:10:20

Again, I've not tried planet saga as yet, but as I have the JGT addon running I'll give it a go when I can.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2020-02-16 14:23:10

Awesome to know you have more time to work on the DB now! smile
I have also emailed Sander around new years. It took him a few weeks to notice my message because it apparently landed in spam at first, but he said he'll try to get my permission problem sorted out. Hopefully with you also sending a message this will happen soon.

I have played a couple of the chinese games (Dreamland, ROTK, this rhythm game based on an anime whose name escapes me), and I can try to get descriptions written for those. But I haven't tried all of them, there's a few MMO's that don't have translations, so having descriptions written for them by someone who has played them for more time would be appreciated. And like you said in the first post, getting someone to help with the Android only games would be great especially because unlike with iOS where you have Applevis I'm not aware of any current Android app directories focused on accessibility that are being kept current.

<Insert passage from "The Book Of Chrome" here>

2020-02-16 16:27:52

@pitermach, it's not so much that I have more time to work on the Db, more that if I commit to trying to get at least a small amount of work on the db done each week, it'll be more likely to get done over all.

Oh, and I'm just giving planet saga a try now, it looks interesting, albeit I'm glad I played shadow rine first.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2020-02-16 20:11:12

@14, everyone knows who are you talking about, bear in mind however that I can keep my tone if need be, plus my racism has nothing to do with the descriptions of games, which because of their nature cannot contain my personal opinions, so think a little bit before posting

If you want to contact me, do not use the forum PM. I respond once a year or two, when I need to write a PM myself. I apologize for the inconvenience.
Telegram: Nuno69a
E-Mail: nuno69a (at) gmail (dot) com

2020-02-16 20:11:56

@Dark, I'm good with descriptions, given the proper time. I actually don't like most audiogames, so I've gotten pretty good at writing about them even if I don't like them. I also have an android phone, several actually, so playing android only games is something I do a lot.

"900 years in time and space and I have never met someone who wasn't important." The Doctor.
Come say hi on Twitter

2020-02-16 20:13:05

Plus, funny thing: why do japanese games have their own category? I'm asking out of curiosity cause I find it relatively weird. If I'd make a polish-only game would you create a "polish games" category and same with each other language? What I mean is that the japanese create games like everyone else (RPGs, action, whatnot)

If you want to contact me, do not use the forum PM. I respond once a year or two, when I need to write a PM myself. I apologize for the inconvenience.
Telegram: Nuno69a
E-Mail: nuno69a (at) gmail (dot) com

2020-02-16 20:43:56 (edited by Dark 2020-02-16 20:45:19)

@crescent, one thing at a time. When we've sorted out with Sander adding the people who already should have access to the Db like Pitermach and Aaron, we'll start looking at adding new people, however if you don't like most audiogames, I'd think carefully about db editing, since it involves firstly playing a lot of games, and secondly being at least a little positive about them in descriptions, EG if there is something vaguely good to say, try and say it.

You don't have to say every game is the best thing ever in the history of everything, but obviously since a lot of none audiogame players will browse the db, you don't want the descriptions to sound dull either, since the last thing we'd want to do is put anyone off sound based gaming before they start.

@Nuno, Japanese games get their own genre category for the same reason that muds do, that you need very specific software to play them, you can't just download them and have them just work.

the same will be true of Chinese games, though just as Japanese games like Breed memorial, audio strike or laser breakout don't have a specific genre category since they can be run fine in English, so any chinese games like Night of parasite which can just be freely run won't need a special genre category of their own either.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2020-02-16 20:56:55

It's very hard to say that for me, because I'm such a racist, but de-facto chinese games require the same set of tools as the japanese ones require. Just where it says "japanaese" select "chinese simplified"
This is because the only one problem with all games which use a non-latin alphabet so chinese, japanese, russian, ukrainian, belarussian, geogrian, latvian, polish, italian and many, many more use a different coding sets.
And there's that magic called Unicode, but not all developers do use it because of various circumstances, the most significant one being the lack of experience in the field.

If you want to contact me, do not use the forum PM. I respond once a year or two, when I need to write a PM myself. I apologize for the inconvenience.
Telegram: Nuno69a
E-Mail: nuno69a (at) gmail (dot) com

2020-02-17 08:39:53

Accept that many of the Japanese games will run fine with no other tool but the JGt addon, where as the chinese games require a more complex solution.

I am also uncertain whether the chinese games also do the copying to clipboard thing that Japanese titles do either.

This is why we need a really comprehensive and easy to use guide, similar to that bladestorm provided for Japanese games.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2020-02-17 09:19:35

I am working on it.

If you want to contact me, do not use the forum PM. I respond once a year or two, when I need to write a PM myself. I apologize for the inconvenience.
Telegram: Nuno69a
E-Mail: nuno69a (at) gmail (dot) com

2020-02-17 17:59:02

Hi.

At Nuno I will keep this to one post and be done with it at least in this topic, but good you noticed that I ment you with my post, wonder why that is.

Well, I don't really see that you can hold your anti japanese sentiments in check because a, your guide on how to play 1942 and your beginning post in the 1942 topic were full of anti japanese speach which I consider mild racism.
b, you only decided to change the way you wrote the guide after you got warned by a mod.
c, you said that you still havethe non edited copy of the guide on your harddrive which will be translated into polish, stating that you don't give a flyer on what people were trying to suggest and you still stick to your racism.
d, you won't stop going after japanese products and favor chinese stuff into heaven and beyond.
Seriously, if you so love that cuntry, go there and sidle up to Mr Ping-ying Hsieh or what ever.
And the fact that these games, or most of them are basically pay to win don't make the situation better at all.
Call me a fucking leftist, but I won't just stay silent if some ideot comes around and spews around his dimwhidded bullshit.

but as i said, at least in this topic, I'm done with this.

Greetings Moritz.

Hail the unholy church of Satan, go share it's greatness.