2019-05-22 02:45:28 (edited by lucas_kill_09 2019-05-22 02:46:09)

Hello! I'm a lurker for some time, but this is my first thread! I'm a graduate student and I'm doing my final work on how to make better movement and navigation system for first person audiogames. I'm not blind, but I like audiogames and love 3D sound. Now I'm making my prototype using Unity.

To be more specific, I consider movement the act of moving through the rooms, how fast can i turn, etc., and navigation as the abilities to have clues or indications to where should I go or do.


What I'm trying to accomplish with my project is to create a prototype that has easier and more fluid movement and navigation than in other audiogames, basically merging the best things I've tried in these three games:
*  A Blind Legend: More freely and fast pacing movement, and a simple but very effective navigation system (using Louise, which indicates the exact place you have to go) to simplify navigation;
* Shades of Doom: Good 3D sound, good sound indicators, and the how these features make closed spaces more easy to navigate;
* SWAMP: The use of mouse, which is very common in videogames, but I think would be perfect for a more fluid movement. The rest of the game movement and navigation mechanics confused me very much.


What I'm doing to accomplish these features with this prototype?
* Using steam audio, a 3d audio framework that allows the sound to be binaural. It also has the feature I like the most, is that in closed spaces, the sounds reflects through walls of rooms and corridors until it gets to the player, giving a natural indication of where the player must go to find the sound.
* Implementing a simple assistant to tell to where direction the player should go (like Louise in A Blind Legend), so it's easier to move inside closed spaces;
* With WASD movement and the mouse (W moves forward, A moves backwards, A strafes to the left, D strafes to the right), I hope to bring a more fluid way to move.

Finally, I have a few questions:
1. Do you guys find these things that I've pointed of the other games good?
2. For my purpose, are the mechanics of the prototype any better than the individual games mechanics I mentioned?
3. Do you find difficult to move in a fluid/fast paced manner, specially in games that mix closed and open spaces?
4. In early testing, my blind friend had some difficulties using the mouse, which I understand. But how can I help him adapt better to the mouse? I was thinking about creating a level solely to use the W key and mouse, so he can adapt to the constant mouse movement required.

Thanks a lot for reading! I'm open to any questions!

2019-05-22 11:16:09

Hello, currently I would say the best navigation solution for a first-person interface is A Hero's Call. They utilize a combination of grid and first-person which allows for rapid navigation and planning around different routes. Default is first-person which can be accessed through several modes inputs (mouse and arrow keys), then if you press m, the map or grid shows up. I really don't like A Blind Legend as there is no exploration or complexity in navigation as one would see in Swamp or A Hero's Call. I have a paper that goes into brief detail:
B. Biggs, L. Yusim, and P. Coppin, “The audio game laboratory: Building maps from games,” 2018 [Online]. Available: http://icad2018.icad.org/wp-content/upl … per_51.pdf

If you give me your email, I can send you my Master's thesis as well as a new paper I'm publishing in ICAD 2019 that go into an analysis of audio game interfaces and the features of each interface. In general though, games like AHC are much easier to navigate than something like Swamp that don't allow for a grid view.

I'd also like to know how you are defining "first-person" (let me know before you read my papers, as I would like to have a different perspective).

2019-05-22 11:32:22

As for Swamp, I think you should really spend some TLC with that interface as it is the next iteration after that in Shades of Doom. I use the forward radar a lot to navigate and I use beacons a lot. I also really love the ability Swamp gives you to remap all your key commands.
The radar is an amazing feature and I think it would be fascinating to compare both the earcons present in AHC with the radar in Swamp, and the beacons in AHC with the beacons in Swamp, as they are very different, but still give you the information you need.
I think in Swamp, you should at least get to map 3, participate in several of the different missions and really get to know that interface, as it allows for so much possibility. In AHC, I think you should at least finish the game once.
Researching interfaces means that you feel comfortable using each interface and can give an objective view of each interface and their pros and cons.
For example, neither Swamp or AHC show curves in any way and I was told Audio Quake shows curves, so I am attempting to play Audio Quake so I can really understand what they did.

2019-05-22 22:07:09

Actually I prefer swamp's navigation system. While AHC provides an assistant that helps you to for example turn around the walls to find the opening and then go through it, but swamp is more like mainstream and more challenging. It doesn't tell you go north, then west, then north to pas your front wall. It says the object you are looking for is there, now is your time to find the gaps and enter them which the radar acts just like your eyes and now you're not much different than a mainstream gamer. However, AHC's navigation system makes the player navigate faster in the map if that's what you want.

---
Co-founder of Sonorous Arts.
Check out Sonorous Arts on github: https://github.com/sonorous-arts/
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2019-05-22 23:46:47 (edited by lucas_kill_09 2019-05-23 00:12:24)

Thanks a lot for the responses!
@frastlin first person would be the player is inside the virtual character (like in Counter-Strike, Shades of Doom, Doom, etc.). As in you paper, "First-person 3D". I've enjoyed reading your work and would be very very good in my theoretical part of my work, which I did in early 2018. My e-mail is [email protected], to you and anyone interested in contacting me.


Sadly I'm in the final moments of my project. Although studying other games would be VERY beneficial to me, I don't think I can engage in it as I have more work to do in my prototype and prepare tests for players.


From your responses I've noted that many people will have different tastes in a better system, so let me reintroduce my work:

My focus has been into a fluid gameplay, as I enjoy while playing 3D first-person-shooters videogames, like half-life and such, where the player can get more fast-paced action in movement, what I believe is opposed to audiogames, where you generally take longer times to reach distances, as it's best to do it with more precision. I know it's two very different worlds, but my aim was to make an in-between experience.

I also reformulated my question, remembering that my key elements are:
* Very capable 3D audio framework;
* Assistant to tell 'where should i go';
* Use of mouse for faster response.

Would a audiogame first-person mechanic focusing in fast gameplay, prioritizing speed over precision to reach objectives in closed and open environments, bring anything new to the table?

One thing I wanted to add, is that all the sounds are binaural and have HRTF. So, in case of a player running through corridors, and unintentionally hitting walls with the body due to the fast gameplay proposed, the player can hear exactly where he bumped on the wall. This is mainly what I'm working on, more exploration through making "mistakes" in movement.


Thanks a lot!

2019-05-23 09:19:39

I think this is a perfect time to do an experiment. I don't think anyone has ever compared guided navigation vs fre navigation in Audio Games.
My theory is that actually navigation without a personal guide is less accurate and more general, as depth perception in audio is not the best. If I wanted to run out of a building that is on fire, for example, I would be hitting a lot of walls and trailing them as I would do in real-life. I think a guide would reduce my cognitive load and I would be focusing completely on the guide or beacon rather than the surroundings. It would be faster and more accurate, but I would not build a mental model of where I am going.
Swamp does have beacons that are very useful, but they only tell you the direction from your current location. If you are in the back of a building, the beacon doesn't let you know where to go. The Beacon in A Hero's Call, on the other hand, does tell you exactly where to go. I found that I was very fast navigating in A Hero's Call, but I often times wished for more constant feedback from the beacon because sometimes I would overshoot the destination I wanted to go to while the beacon was in between indicators.
I also like repeated bump sounds against walls or obstacles, as sometimes in Swamp I will hit a wall and need to listen for my footsteps to know if I'm running. When there are other players or zombies around, I sometimes can't tell who's footsteps I'm hearing.
I've seen some research on this problem, I haven't done any reading on it though. Bruce Walker has some papers: Navigation Performance With a Virtual Auditory Display: Effects of Beacon Sound, Capture Radius, and Practice. Cognitive load of navigating without vision when guided by virtual sound versus spatial language - by Roberta L. Klatzky.
These papers suggest that a beeping beacon is faster than one in A Hero's Call that says "Northwest" or the one in A Blind Legend.

2019-05-23 09:20:58

Note that Beacons are amazing and completely an advantage when navigating new areas. This is why so many games use them.

2019-05-23 10:47:47

Just wanted to mention, Aprone posted a video awhile back on a visualization of a CTF match in Swamp showing player movement throughout the match, along with talking about it abit. I think he sped up the results abit, but you might find it quite interesting to see how they navigated the environment in swamp when evaluating its interface.

You can watch the video [here].

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

2019-05-23 12:48:14

Yes, and here is a description of a more complex mission.
The Aprone video is from a 3rd person perspective and the above recordings are from a first-person perspective.

2019-05-29 01:06:57

Thank you all for your help!

My work is now in it's final moments, and the next step is going to be testing with the public. I don't know yet if I'll be able to do testing with people in my city, or if I'll test with internet users, so maybe you'll hear from me again! And of course, if I do something cool I'll upload it somewhere smile