I think my cavern quest is bugged then. I'm using windows 7, and whenever a new turn begins, it just says attack and doesn't say any health. I was facing a centipede during the first zone.

@Dark and Defender: Many thanks for the tips. I've got a lot of thinking to do.
@Aaron: I wrote it on a Windows 7 machine running NVDA. The health value is spoken through the screen reader, or SAPI, if no screen reader is detected. You should hear a figure quoted after it says damage inflicted, or similar. It also announces your remaining life, when hurt. At the start there's a crossroads which is announced through speech, rather than recorded wav files. Do you hear that announced?

Hmm maybe treasure hunt then?

Hi,
Thanks for the clarification regarding announcements. I thought it was actually telling me the amount of damage that was being inflicted, and not the health remaining.

Hi.

@Freman well, while it would be a complicated undertaking indeed, I think you would strike a nerve with the comunity just like with new horizons because what we need are more complex games, and I think you are heading into the right direction with that approach you have.

And hey, Carriers, aircraft, big guns missiles and bombs? Count me in 100 percent.

Greetings Moritz.

I'll admit that modernish military ethos is less my preferd setting, then again there have been games of this sort I've enjoyed in the past such as Gma tank commander, time of conflict and zero site, and I definitely like the sound of random maps and gameplay elements in a more complex world, as Simba said that is the sort of thing we need in audiogame terms, move away from the hear it, hit it style of gameplay and into games that require a bit more judgement by the player.

Actually one thing I'm liking about the compilation, is that even the more arcade style titles like Space invaders have a degree more positional logic and judgement behind them, as opposed to just fast reactions, and require the player to actually master the game's mechanics, EG calculating relative position of the player and speed of bomb or shot when taking out those tanks in Airlift or shooting invaders.

I'd love to see a final fight/streets of rage style game in audio, especially if it could replicate not just the combos and attacks but also the playing field, since thus far no audio 2d games have had that isometric view which let you move up and down as well as jump (even though that would be quite possible in audio). Still, that would be a more major project I susect than a smaller compilation volume would involve.

Myself, if your thinking smaller games, I agree with Aaron about Joust, I've also always wanted to see some audiogames mimmick top[ down arcade shooters like Berzerk, robotron or smash Tv, since while we've had some pretty cool audio collectemups, none have replicated that style of gameplay.

Another thing I'd love to see is an audio tower defense game. We  have one, towers of war, but something along those lines would rock, then again if I start on about games I'd love to see in audio we'll be hear all day .

Hi.

I think the advantage freman has that he is sighted and knows that tad more about how these games like space invaders should be. yes, we had the PCS space invaders back in the day, was it from 97?

Anyway, what I want to say is that we need more sighted developers for the audio gaming comunity, else, no new concepts will come around and games will stay the same.

Greetings Moritz.

Oh, the game now has a DB page, which you can Find here

I might have to update it if there are more updates to the games and things change, but that should hopefully   let people outside this forum find the games more easily.

Reviving an old thread here, but I'm posting to express my own thoughts. I just discovered this collection 2 days ago.

I absolutely love these small arcade games, I really don't know why. So to find a compilation of 4 of them is really awesome! Even though they are experimental, even though I have my critiques, I can see a ton of work went into them, introducing fresh mechanics and a nice sense of balance that I have found lacking in a number of newer games I've tried. I particularly have to praise how well-flushed out they feel. They don't feel like an experimental game where you simply tried an idea and moved on, they feel like ideas which were tried, checked to make sure they were playable, then expanded and tested to see how far they could be taken, and I appreciate that a lot.

I haven't really tried Cavern Quest or the racing game much. The former sounds like it would be on the complex side, so I initially steered away from it. But I'll sit down with them at some point and see what I can make of them. Cavern Quest in particular does sound intriguing, and by reading the readme alone, I have no doubt that lots of tlc went into it.

The Space Invaders game is, interesting? My perceptions are mixed. I don't at all think it is a poor game. On the contrary, it has that same ingenuity behind it I saw in the other games. I just... can't really get into it. Maybe my problem is that my only exposure to games was exclusively through audio games, which of course did Space Invaders way differently and catered better to my simple brain lol.

I'm finding it really awkward to get used to the flow of this one. I think I understand what the sounds mean, but my brain can't interpret them adequately to make me feel like I know what I'm supposed to be shooting at. Actually, shooting constantly and following the tones worked pretty well for me; if tones are on the left, move toward the left and shoot, and if they are on the right, move toward the right and shoot. It doesn't make any sense when I think about it and how the sounds are supposed to work but, yeah. Even with little thought to the groupings or the trajectory of my shots, I managed to get to level 9 or 10, which made me wonder if I actually understood the game or if I was just getting lucky. maybe a bit of both, since I did find myself getting the hang of prioritizing enemies at the bottom once I thinned the swarm out a bit, but it was still kind of weird, like the student who can't explain his thinking but knows just enough to awkwardly fumble into a solution either by chance or by some primitive intuition.

I think what's throwing me is that the enemies are moving but their movement and positions are being represented by group sounds, making it hard for me to visualize what's going on. I'm trying to break down the information about the group, and probably doing a terrible job haha. At the same time, grouping this way is necessary with over 100 aliens on screen!

Overall, I think I prefer the bullet hell of Audiostrike. It's more overwhelming, but conveys things in a way I can more easily follow. Of course, Audiostrike cheats a little by using a radar system to tell you when something is on a collision course, and you have every conceivable option to filter the field down, choose your perspective, and even slow the game down etc. Also, enemies are quite free to land, so long as they don't land on top of you, so that changes the dynamic. Maybe that's why I prefer that game, your main focus is survival of your ship, not survival of Earth, which makes it easier to filter the incoming information.

Finally Airlift. I really, really love this one, and I suspect I'm not alone. I made it to level 4... I make it there every time now, but ultimately end up getting killed trying to avoid those darned aliens. I rarely have one show up, I just run into things when trying to stay below 75 feet. What's worse, I start to get comfortable and something distracts me or throws my concentration for just a second or two, and that's when I get murdered. So I'm not having any problems playing the game, my focus just tires I guess.

Some time soon I'll put on my focusing cap and try again. I doubt anything new shows up after level 4, but maybe i'll be surprised. I'll at least try to shoot for level 5 or 6 if I can.

So yeah, those are my thoughts. Keep up your great work!