2020-01-30 21:45:10

Hi, I am a 1st year student of Informatics and I've learnt the basics of the iOS development. Audio Rush is one of my first efforts.

My goal was to offer the best experience to the blind and visually impaired users I can. Enjoyability by the sighted players was also a thing. Here is how I've done:

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/audio-rus … 60110?ls=1 (link to the Apple App Store)

The game doesn't include any in-app purchases neither advertisements. The goal is to avoid the moving obstacles by moving finger left and right and to get the highest score, of course. Players are able to compete with others thanks to the Apple Game Center integration.

Could you please give me some feedback if you wouldn't mind? I would really appreciate hearing your opinion.

2020-01-30 23:27:16

Downloading it now. Will try it a bit later today.

A winner is you!
—Urban Champion

2020-01-31 05:37:24

I’m going to check this out.

Audio game king

2020-01-31 06:01:12

I tried it out, it’s not bad at all. I like how you have to find things quickly on the screen. I also like the leaderboard’s. Really really good for a quick game to pick up and put down when you have a spare moment.

Audio game king

2020-01-31 12:37:45

Nice idea for the game, and congrats on getting something complete.
the idea of an audio version of a fast action avoidance style game is a nice one, especially with leader boards etc. it is a little unusual to use speed of sequence to denote direction, usually in audio that comes with stereo, though I can see the advantage of this if your also thinking of people with hearing issues, likewise, I didn't really notice the indicators increasing in volume as the obstacles got closer, which is perhaps something to consider, both to give players an indicator as to the speed of the falling obstacles, and also to give a sense of urgancy to the game.

I do have a couple of thoughts.


Firstly, the game's audio information just told Firstly, the instructions state "falling objects", this made me think the game was more a sort  dropping bombs, space invaders affair. Only when I looked on the screen did I  the obstacles are large bars that almost cross the entire screen and only have some small gaps (luckily the graphics were simple enough for my remaining vision to work on).

I would suggest making this a bit clearer in the instructions, since when starting the game playing by sound, I wasn't quite getting why I would hear the "move right" indicator,  the move left one.

similarly, you might consider also including a sound for when the player is in the correct position, since this I initially found a bit confusing, that silence was a good thing and the game was still progressing big_smile.

Lastly, you might consider adding some sort of progressive stats sort  achievements or unlocakbles, as the game Feer did, since there's nothing better to make an arcade game fun playing to unlock newer trophies or complete missions.

I'll be itnerested to see where this one goes 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.)

2020-01-31 13:22:59

#4 Thank you. It's really nice to hear that!

#5 Thanks for your feedback. All of your ideas are great and I'll take them into account.

I will definitely try to make the instructions more clearer.

I'm not sure about that obstacles getting closer thing. Increasing volume is already used for getting near the correct position. I've tried to make the game as simple and accessible as possible. I don't use stereo sound neither vibrations to make sure it can be played by any person without using headphones even on iPad.

Nonetheless, I don't have any other indicator available to indicate the distance from the obstacle. I feel like changing of the sound speed could be pretty confusing and hard to recognise.

Do you think it is really important for the player? Unfortunately, it's the only inaccessible part at the moment.

Some kind of achievements and missions are definitely planned.

2020-01-31 13:33:24

This is a cool game and I look forward to future updates. It took me a little while to figure out how far to move on the screen, but once I figured things out my score increased significantly.

2020-01-31 13:37:56

Thanks! I appreciate you like it smile

2020-01-31 13:54:19

This was worth my time. Explanation given right as you open the app, well done.
I have some suggestions for future updates of this game. Perhaps scenery, where you can hear your character dashing through a street, jungle, etc. Or when it runs into something? I don't know, these are just my suggestions, but besides that, I could see myself playing this in my spare time.

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Discord: @tunmi13#1880

2020-01-31 23:32:40

another possible indicator is pitch. You can use a sliding scale for one of the values, whether it be obstacle distance or positioning accuracy.
It doesn't need to be drastic or anything, just recognizable.

2020-02-01 11:02:52

Thank you. I had totally forgotten about pitch. I will try to implement it in some way.

2020-02-01 14:42:31 (edited by Dark 2020-02-01 14:43:08)

I agree with defender on this one, moving pitch might be nice as an indicator of velocity of the obstacles.

you might also consider changing score values for different difficulties to give advantages to playing on hard, or disadvantages to playing on easy.

oh and btw sorry that post 5 was a little confused, I was having to rush rather whilst writing it due to needing to catch a train.

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.)

2020-02-01 19:22:10

Hi Dark, thanks for you notion. My approach is to keep the game as simple as possible. To be fair, adding many different sounds could negatively affect those who aren't experienced in audio games playing. But I will try to do something about that pitch.

There already exist 6 leaderboard. Two for every difficulty - one with visibility and one without visibility. So I think current system is supposed to be pretty fair and there's no need for giving advantages at the moment.

2020-02-01 19:31:52

Visibility is just for graphycs right? Great  job, the game is certtainly very addicting.

2020-02-01 20:27:23

Audio Rush has an option to show the moving obstacles on the screen. Due to its inaccessibility there are special leaderboards for it.

2020-02-01 21:25:03

Yeah, that is what I thought. Thanks for the clarification.

2020-02-01 22:07:43

Hi.

Hmm, saying that you don't want to add in extra ambient sounds sounds abit like you think that blind gamers can't handle more than three sounds at a time.
What one could do is enable or disable the playing of background sounds, the player could then choose if he would like to run through a soundscape or not.

Greetings Moritz.

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

2020-02-01 23:05:33 (edited by smit.al 2020-02-01 23:06:14)

Hi Moritz,

I am sorry if it sounded like this. This was not what I meant. I do not doubt the blind players can handle more than three sounds.

Before creating Audio Rush I have done a little research of the available accessible games. I found out that the most of them are designed exclusively for the blind and visually impaired community.

I don't feel like making game wholly accessible automatically has to eliminate sighted players. This is why I've developed Audio Rush. Everyone is welcome to play it together.

Unfortunately, sighted users could struggle to handle many sounds at a time. And that's the reason why I am so reserved for adding more sounds.

Thank you for understanding.

But it's a good idea to add some soundscapes as optional. I will try to do something about that.

2020-02-02 11:34:30 (edited by Dark 2020-02-02 11:44:57)

@smit.al, I'm afraid I don't agree that keeping the game's audio simplistic or missing audio information is a good thing. Anyone with ears can play an audiogame, irrespective of whether they have working vision or not, after all audio dramas are sold to sighted people, indeed there's nothing that would be better for the community than getting more interested sighted players trying out audiogames and thus getting more exposure generally, rather than just reinforcing the sterreotype that something is "for the blind" and hence not for anyone else, especially in an era of greater audiobook availability when audiogames are being produced for platforms like Alexa, indeed the more people playing audiogames, the better for everyone.

so, I'd personally say, the more sounds in the game the better, and just as with the graphics, so long as there are ways to control the sound effects in the game, so someone feeling overwhelmed could scale things back, just as there are ways to turn off graphical displaying of obstacles, I don't really see the issue myself.

Indeed, I'd personally like to see more sounds in the game to make matters more interesting and give more information, EG perhaps a hole sound for when on target, and stereo pan right and left dictating how far from the hole you were. maybe some background sounds as well, indeed you could use a background sound like the colour change on  screen  show the closeness of the obstacle, and of course all of these things could be disabled or altered to   suit the player's preferences, after all accessibility usually involves giving players more , rather than less.

Either way, looking forward to seeing where this one goes, in particular I'm looking forward to seeing more achievements, stat tracking and the like, since I always think it's great when you have an arcade game which rewards you for playing multiple times or gives you some goals or targets to complete aside from simply competing for high scores.

Hope development goes well.

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.)

2020-02-03 16:51:53 (edited by smit.al 2020-02-03 20:00:42)

Hi Dark,

I am sorry it took so long to respond. I think I can agree with your proposal. I will offer more advanced audio features in the next version for those who are interested in them.

Are you serious that you like arcade games which rewards you for playing multiple times? This is kind of games which I totally hate. I want to play when I have time for it not when the game wants me to.

I would be glad to know what is the demand for this model so I have added a poll to this topic.

Thank you for sharing your opinion with me. I appreciate there are so many people who took their time to contribute to the development of my game.

2020-02-04 09:44:17

Hi.

Great, I'll look forward to seeing development.
In terms of the game, despite growing up in the eighties, I never personally found high score competition that interesting, indeed I always played myself to explore and unlock new content.

What I love about the modern arcade games, is that they give players a way to just earn rewards by simply playing, like levelling up in an rpg.

Take FEER as an example. the game is a basic survive as long as possible dodging zombies in sterreo with power ups to pick up. If it was simply a high score fest I'd probably play until I  I'd done as well as I personally could at the game, and probably not play again too often.

However, the lights you pick up as point boosts in the game are cumulative, and added to a pool of points which can be used to buy bonuses, bonuses which make the power ups more effective.
Also, every time the game starts, your presented with three missions, these are small  tasks or targets to complete during the game, EG avoid a certain total number of zombies, pick up a certain total number of  items, or even die a certain number of times.

Complete the missions, you level up, which means getting   a multiplyer added to your score. So, rather than just being as good as your maximum amount of skill at the game, you can always be progressing, and doing a little  better, which also encourages you to carry on trying.

indeed, if you've not checked out Feer, I'd strongly advise doing so, as it's been one of the most successful audio arcade games on Ios.

I could definitely see these sorts of  being fun for audio rush, EG giving you rwards or stats to track by gaining so many points, playing such and such a number of times, moving so often, or even hitting the right or left edge of the playing field a certain amount of times too.

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.)

2020-02-05 17:33:32

you could serve both groups equally by having an endless mode where you earn achievements, where as the normal game allows you to unlock features.
Just an idea, but that is how I've seen other games do it in the past.

2020-11-14 16:33:20

Hello, any new knews about the game? it has been a while.

2020-11-19 16:44:00

It was taken off the AppStore

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2020-11-19 17:33:51

Hi.
Weird it is taken off the app store. I missed it and was going to give it a try, I thought...

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