• Registered: 2006-02-03
  • Posts: 291

Topic: The Sound Alternative

Game accessibility for players with a hearing impairment often revolves around text-based closed captions. This is an easy and cheap solution to solve the majority of problems that hearing impaired players face in games. But plain text is not as much fun as the sounds of roaring monsters and exploding rockets. When it comes to making game audio accessible for players with a hearing impairment, is text-based closed captioning the only alternative?

In this feature article Richard van Tol explores the possibilities of alternatives to game audio that might not only make games more accessible, but also more fun. Read the article through the following link:

http://www.game-accessibility.com/index … lternative

  • Registered: 2006-02-03
  • Posts: 291

Re: The Sound Alternative

And if anyone has some suggestions for other alternatives, please post them here!

  • Registered: 2006-02-03
  • Posts: 294

Re: The Sound Alternative

Great article.

I wonder if games might implement tints to convey mood changes that would otherwise be allayed in music. So the screen becomes bright and a bit washed out to indicate a blissful stage of a game - Darker and blue to indicate a sad part of the game - Red to indicate high danger / anger in a game?

By the way, I would say that audio was still quite useful in Pac-Man as regards the power-pill running out sounds.

  • Registered: 2006-02-03
  • Posts: 291

Re: The Sound Alternative

That's a cool idea, I wonder if there's a game out there that does this (Fable? Black&White?)...
About Pac-Man: I agree that the sound in Pac-Man is very usefull. Not only for the power-pills (I actually didn't know this ;) but also on other levels. Pac-Man set the example of how "games sound" - in a similar way that one could recognize vacuumcleaners and cows by their sound, one could now hear something and say "hey, that's a computer game!". This lasted of course untill game audio took off with samples and surround :)
The sound of Pac-Man was also a commercial hit. It attracted a huge crowd (future customers) just by making noise in a corner. Simply everyone wanted to know what that thing with its weird electronic noises (remember that not that many people were accustomed to electronic noises) was doing there - and why there were people cheering around it.
Yeah, Pac-Man is THE game, also in audio game history in my opinion. Many of its sounds still are a symbol for games.

  • Sander
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  • Registered: 2006-02-03
  • Posts: 157

Re: The Sound Alternative

I wonder if games might implement tints to convey mood changes that would otherwise be allayed in music.

Yesterday I watched the movie 'Sexo por Compasión' (not as explicit as the title could implicate). Strange, but pleasant and occasionally very funny.

In this movie a small and "sleeping" village becomes alive after a woman who can only do good does good to the whole village. The first part of the movie is desaturated, the middle part the color gradually comes in. Eventually - like in almost all movies - a crisis happens and the people in the village get depressed again (screen fades back to black and white). They conquer the depression and become happy again (and yep: full color fades in).

Artistically seen, this is not very shocking, but for me as viewer it worked extremely well. The whole mood changes when the people lighten up, predictable but stylish. The most special aspect of the effect is that the fades are slow and presented with beautiful images and music. The use of this screen effect in a movie reminds me - in some way - of how music is used in movies. Wow, could this be useful for translating the emotions of music to vision???

Anyway, I think it could work in games as well, as long as we keep the colorblind in mind... :)

Creative Heroes: http://creativehero.es

Sander's Website

  • Registered: 2008-07-23
  • Posts: 4

Re: The Sound Alternative

That is a very good article. It describes everything very well and has great examples. The comparison with comics is great.

In Tomb Raider Anniversary they use a blurred screen for the adrenalin move.

I like the idea with the "motion screen" :-)

Edit:
Localisation is also important. This means that a game is adapted for another language. The images should be still available in "raw" format, so that they can easily be changed. Also the length of the text should be variable.

For the audio there should be an excel list with all information that is necessary, this can help also to make the alternative sounds. (Description of length, emotion, who says it,...)

Last edited by Sandra (2008-07-24 13:05:24)