Audio game
Video games |
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An audio game is an electronic game played on a device such as a personal computer. It is similar to a video game save that there is audible and tactile feedback but not visual.
Audio games originally started out as 'blind accessible'-games and were developed mostly by
Audio game history
The term "electronic game" is commonly understood as a synonym for the narrower concept of the "video game." This is understandable as both electronic games and video games have developed in parallel and the game market has always had a strong bias toward the visual. The first electronic game, in fact, is often cited to be
Arcade and one-off handheld audio games – the early years
Based on the popularity of Touch Me, in 1978 Milton Bradley Company released a handheld audio game entitled Simon at Studio 54 in New York City. Whereas Touch Me had been in competition with other visual-centric video games and consequently remained only a minor success, the allure of a personal electronic game allowed Simon to capture a much greater share of the market. Simon became an immediate success eventually becoming a pop culture symbol of the 1980s.
In the decades following the release of Simon,
TTS software and the PC – the second wave
Before
Accessibility for the visually impaired began to change, some time prior to the advent of graphical operating systems as computers became powerful enough to support more video-centric games. This created a gap between electronic games for the seeing and games for the blind — a gap that has by now grown substantially. Due to a strong market bias in favor of the seeing, electronic games were primarily developed for this demographic. While seeing gamers could venture into 3D gaming worlds in such video game titles as Myst, Final Fantasy and Doom, blind gamers were relegated to playing more mundane games such as Blackjack, or Battleship.
As video games flourished and became increasingly common, however, amateur
The website Audiogames.net provides a list of audio games and a forum for the community of audio game developers and gamers. Many of the listed games contain some primitive graphics as to make audio games not only accessible to blind and visually impaired people but also to gamers with vision, who may be unexperienced with TTS, auditory menus and typical keyboard mappings. Examples include Shades of Doom and the CURAT Sonification game.
Console audio games and the modern era
Most audio games are now developed by several small companies (consisting of only a team of one to four people). The main audience remains primarily
Despite the increase in interest in audio games, however, many modern games still lack sufficient audio cues to be considered fully accessible for the visually impaired. Furthermore, the industry still lacks a clear set of accessibility guidelines for their development.[7] Tools such as the once popular Blastbay Game Toolkit engine that aided in the development of audio games are now obsolete, but current game engines like Unity and Unreal that can support audio game development are not specifically designed for doing so, creating an additional hurdle for audio game developers.[8]
In the field of console-gaming, there has been very little in the way of audio-games. One notable exception has been the innovative incorporation of strong audio elements in several of the games produced by the Japanese video game company, Warp. Warp was founded by musician Kenji Eno and consisted of a five-man team including first-time designer Fumito Ueda.[9] In 1997, Warp developed a game called Real Sound for the Sega Saturn which was later ported to Dreamcast in 1999 and renamed Real Sound: Kaze no Regret ("Real Sound: Regrets in the Wind").[10] This game featured no visuals at all and was entirely dependent upon sound.
Discussing Real Sound's production, Eno has stated that
I got tired of [
monitor, both of you are just hearing the game. So after you finish the game, you can have an equal conversation about it with a blind person. That's an inspiration behind this game as well. So Sega was asking for exclusive rights to the game, and I said, 'OK, if you'll donate a thousand Saturns to blind people, then I'll donate a thousand [copies of the Real Sound] game along with the Saturns.' And my condition was that if Sega would go for this idea, I would make that game Sega exclusive. So, that's how this happened.[11]
Following the release of Real Sound, Warp again made use of a novel employment of audio elements in the Saturn game Enemy Zero (1997), in which the enemies are invisible and can only be detected through auditory clues.[10] Audio-specific elements used in gameplay have been recognized in Warp's D2 (2000).[12]
In 2008, MIT students collaborated with the government of Singapore and a professor at the National University of Singapore to create AudiOdyssey, a game which allows both blind and sighted gamers to play together.[17]
Apple's iPhone platform has become home to a number of audio games, including Papa Sangre.[18] Other examples include Audiogame.it's Flarestar (a space-themed exploration game that features combat against training drones and other spacecraft)[7] and Sonic Tennis (a game which simulates a tennis match and features a multiplayer mode).[19]
With the rise in popularity of
TTS-enabling video games
The rise of text-to-speech (TTS) software and steady improvements in the field have allowed full audio-conversion of traditionally video-based games. Such games were intended for use by and marketed to the seeing, however they do not actually rest primarily on the visual aspects of the game and so members of the audio game community have been able to convert them to audio games by using them in conjunction with TTS software. While this was originally only available for strictly text-based games like text adventures and MUDs, advances in TTS software have led to increased functionality with a diverse array of software types beyond text-only media allowing other works of interactive fiction as well as various simulator games to be enjoyed in a strictly audio environment.
Examples of such games include:
- A Dark Room – (Doublespeak Games, 2013)
- Hattrick – (ExtraLives AB, 1997)[24]
- OGame – (Gameforge, 2002)[25]
- Grendel's Cave – (Grendel Enterprises, 1998)[27]
Another example is The Last of Us Part II, which was released by Naughty Dog in the summer of 2020 for the PlayStation 4. The game contains over 60 accessibility features, including a text-to-speech feature.[28] Other features that make the game completely playable without sight include the use of voice actors, haptic feedback, and audio cues that act as hints to the player.[28] In addition, the game provides the common audio game feature of a sound glossary menu. On this menu, the user can scroll through a variety of audio cues and hear what they sound like and what they are used for during gameplay. For this game in particular, examples include signals to the user that they can crouch, jump, or interact with the nearby environment.[28]
See also
- Binaural recording
- Dummy head recording
- Holophonics
- Interactive fiction
- List of gaming topics
- Music video game
- Video game genres
- Video game music
- IEZA Framework – a framework for conceptual game sound design
References
- .
- S2CID 28804427.
- ^ Manneville, Tim (1 September 2004). "Bop-it FAQ". Manneville.com.
- ^ BopIt Extreme rules and assembly instructions from World of Tim (personal website)
- ^ http://www.playloopz.com/ Loopz's Official Website
- ^ a b Damoulakis, Ari (July 29, 2008). "A Blind Man's Take on Interactive Fiction". SPAG. No. 52. pp. 7–9.
- ^ ISBN 978-3-319-58702-8, retrieved 2023-03-05
- S2CID 208947017.
- ^ Fumito Ueda Interview with Entertainment Station from Source Gaming
- ^ a b Fleming, Jeffrey (May 10, 2007). "Game Collector's Melancholy – Kenji Eno". GameSetWatch. Archived from the original on 13 April 2008.
- 1UP.com. 2008-08-07. Archived from the originalon June 22, 2016.
- ^ "Real Sound - Kaze No Riglet". AudioGames.net game review site.
- ^ "AudioGames, your resource for audiogames, games for the blind, games for the visually impaired!". www.audiogames.net.
- ^ Harris, Craig (June 16, 2012). "Bit Generations". IGN.
- Soundvoyager (Game Boy Advance) (in Japanese). Nintendo.
- ^ Ltd., Nintendo Co. "bit Generations". www.nintendo.co.jp.
- ^ Ellin, Abby (2008-12-26). "See Me, Hear Me: A Video Game for the Blind". The New York Times. Retrieved 2011-11-14.
- ISBN 978-3-319-72271-9, retrieved 2023-03-05
- S2CID 7021479.
- ^ a b "Blind Faith Games (EN)". en.blind-faith-games.e-ucm.es. Retrieved 2023-03-05.
- S2CID 238992788.
- S2CID 235628582.
- ^ "Animal Sounds". www.amazon.com. Retrieved 2023-03-05.
- ^ "Hattrick". audiogames.net. 2 February 2022.
- ^ "OGame". audiogames.net. 2 February 2022.
- ^ "Nation States". audiogames.net. 2 February 2022.
- ^ "Grendels cave". audiogames.net. 28 January 2023.
- ^ S2CID 235800200, retrieved 2023-03-24
External links
- Game Accessibility Project, website of the Game Accessibility project
- PCS Accessible Game developers List, a big list of blind accessible games and audio games
- IGDA Game Accessibility Special Interest Group, working to make mainstream games accessible for all disability groups
- AudioGames.net, community website for audio gamers featuring a game database and a forum
- AudioGames resources, audio game resources and articles
- Accessible Gaming Rending Independence Possible (AGRIP), home of Audio Quake – a project designed to make Quake accessible for visually impaired individuals
- The Virtual Barbershop[permanent dead link], a demonstration of multiple binaural sound effects. (NOTE: This is intended for use with stereo headphones)
- Audio only menus, Some recommendations for the design of audio only menus for audio games.