Rather than character portrait sounds, what if menu pop-ups, selections, closes, and activation sounds were customizable, possibly based on a criterion? For example. The food menu of a restaurant might play the sound of paper turning to represent you opening the menu, with a single page turn sound as you navigated to different items. Escaping out of a menu would play the sound of a book closing, and hitting enter on items to activate them might play a quickly scratching pen. The sounds could be based on criteria such as location name, character class, and whatever else you guys think might be a valid argument. This way, with one feature set, you've covered a multiple subset of desires. Various menus for different places can have their own audio environment and music, different navigation and interaction sounds, etc. It'd then let you play a sound to represent your character class.
Lets say you're reviewing the info for your characters. The menu for reviewing your party might have its own music, and open with the sound of several steps landing in time in a march stride (to represent multiple people). You'd then have a default navigational sound assign, say a finger snap. Lets say this game could have characters who hadn't picked a class yet, and so were just citizens. Assuming you have a party with 3 citizens and 3 professional mercenaries, as you arrow over the unclassed citizens, you'd hear the default finger snap. But based on the character class criterion, if you arrow over a warrior, you might hear a sword drawn, while arrowing over an archer would play a quick bow pull. The same would apply for activation -- hit enter on a citizen and a default sound might play, or maybe  a voice may play which requires a gender criterion. hitting enter on a classed professional might play their own voiced entry, etc, etc. Closing the menu could play a mass shuffling sound, as of people leaving.

I don't know if this might get too complex for your engine, and indeed I have no idea in which way you want to progress with the engine, but such a feature, if feasible, would make games created by people more dynamically unique, as they'd all be able to have their own menu sounds, and by design proxy, different sounds for character icons, equipment slots, etc, etc.

As always, loving the work you guys do, and you are also my first like on Youtube. Keep up the good fight.

Kai

I'm suggesting adding scripting as an entirely optional extra feature.
To tell the truth, I'd have fun adding new stuff and maybe making collections of scripts to send out to other people who can't code.
I don't mind if you don't like / add the idea, though.

Hi,

Liam, saw the mention you gave to us on your Channel, really appreciated for that and putting a link to us in your video description too. I hope your 10 hour audio game marathon on your channel goes well today, I’ll be heading over there shortly to check it out. Also on a separate note, loved the stream/play through you did on a hero’s call, great job, plus personally it really helped me out in the mines when I got a little bit lost haha.
We also wanted to say a huge thanks to everyone else too who has shared our video or added a like  to it, its hugely appreciated , we’ve gained over 600 likes in just a few days which is incredible  and the video itself has had almost two thousand views which is phenomenal ,  so huge thanks to you all. If anyone hasn’t seen or liked the video yet there’s also a link to it below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbNOid8rejw

The Ebon Sky Studios Team
email: [email protected]
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/ebonskystudios/
Twitter: @ebonskystudios

I hope you get so many likes and views that youtube almost lags! Lol.
I wonder, how are things looking in combat? I enjoy a complex system, with armor, enemies who can dodge, different attacks and stuff.
Is the combat rpg based or realtime?
Sorry if these questions are in the videos somewhere.

hi !ebonskystudios  !super awsome sound it is  i herd  on youtube . man really cannot wait to  get this thing  plese also  ad  ability to make space  games with it  like  dead

Hi everyone,

We wanted to take this opportunity to say a huge thanks to everyone who liked or shared our Holman prize video, We’ve had a truly phenomenal response, the video only went live last Wednesday and we’ve already gained 921 likes so far, so a huge thanks to you all. One of the other great things to come from all the shares , is that the video has been viewed by almost three thousand people ,   which is a huge exposure for audio games  in general , considering these views were from both the blind  and sighted communities. We’ve had people reach out to us from the sighted community  wanting  more information  on audio games and accessibility . so regardless of how we do in the Holman prize if we’ve managed to create some extra awareness  of the audio games community, as far as the whole team here is concerned that is a win for us. If anyone hasn’t seen the video , and wants to check it out the link to it is below, but again a huge thanks to you all  for your support, it really has been hugely appreciated from us all here at Ebon Sky Studios

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbNOid8rejw           

The Ebon Sky Studios Team
email: [email protected]
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/ebonskystudios/
Twitter: @ebonskystudios

I might be satisfied with one set of random pain sounds for each enemy.
Is the engine supporting 2D, 3D or both?
I'd love for there to be a way to auto generate a random map every time the player restarts a game, like entombed.

It has doors, passages and different staircases at random locations.
That was one thing I really enjoyed about that game.

I kind of think the formulas for calculating damage, at least as described in the various fields as you created weapons, abilities and so on seem a bit limited. I hope in the future, creators would be able to create their own formulas. Note, this isn't scripting per se, just adjusting the math that gets done. For instance, on scaling, rather than tying an ability to the level of the player, it would be nice to add a multiplier to that as well to put it always just a bit more.

Also, I would like to see as much flexibility. I take your no scripting as a hard stance, I disagree with this stance, but do so respectfully, after all it is your project, and if that is the goal, then so be it. However, given that, I would like to see as much customization as possible within the confines that would naturally exist in an engine where coding/scripting isn't an option. Just as suggested by other users, perhaps the user wants to create an RPG set in a different time. Then you might not want to use very obviously fantasy descriptors for your stats like int wis char str and so forth. Or you could define different behaviors. I'm envisioning a creative process that doesn't involve any code, but reacts in such a way as creating Siri shortcuts. You do get to customize your Siri shortcut, yes you will deal with variables and so forth, but no you don't actually write code. You basically drag actions from the tray at the bottom into the main field, then you fill in the parameters, the actions run through in a sequence, where the output of one is piped into the input of the next one down (unless that action doesn't accept the input or is designed to do something else with it instead). I could see something like this where you still could stick with your original premise of the user not writing any code, but which would satisfy a wider array of advanced things. By no means am I suggesting forcing the more advanced aspects on everyone, simply just adding them to a collection of tools that already exist in the Sable toolbox. It would be like if you have the most common wrenches in one tray, then you get into the specialized wrenches for a specific job, or that are a specific size or something like that in another tray.

I think customization is key. In all ways, I would like to make a game that feels like me, if that makes any sense. I've done some web development, at a very amateur level mind, but I've done it. Now, one of the reasons I don't like to use a CMS like Wordpress is because unless I literally want to write my own theme, or modify an existing one, there's not a lot I can do to make my site feel like my site. Oh sure I have a huge array of colors to choose from, I can put the side bar on either side, put whatever I want into it, etc. But the more you dig into wordpress to make it feel more uniquely you, the more inadequate it feels. This is why I feel that Sable could be made even greater by not imposing artificial limitations on the creators, such as hard coding things that really don't need to be hard coded. For instance, let the creator decide how many sounds per action of a particular enemy, object, or player there are. Let the player redefine the mechanics by as much as possible without introducing scripting.

I think hopefully I've made some sense here. I know there's a lot going on with funding and the like, and perhaps some features that can't be put in the initial release can be added at a later date when some of that revenue is recouped after people start to buy Sable. No matter what happens, Sable will still be unique, in that it will be the first product of its kind in the audiogames market. I wish you guys a great deal of success and have liked and your Holman Prize video and subbed to your channel.

Can you do a video showing all menus and how to access them? Also there should be a menu with the list of menus because not everyone can memorize a hundred shortcut keys for menus

can you make cutscenes in the program? like if someone ported a game like FFVIII that just had text that needed to be read via sapi, and will Sable also work with NVDA?

I would for one. I saw the thread.

hmmm. point taken.