I found your web site thanks to the link you added to my video (you were in the list of referring sites). Thank you for letting the community know about this project, and for the constructive criticism. That's a much earlier version of the game and I've spent the past 2 months creating a new (and hopefully better) version. My background is in computer science and English writing though, so the sound design probably still isn't the best, but it should at least be easier to recognize objects (and the user now has the option of not having CONSTANT sound feedback so some of the sounds might be less annoying--new sounds were also created/stolen as well). I've also added the ability to play with a game pad and I've created a networked version--so two players can battle against one another.

The project is open source and the files (Python) can be found at http://sourceforge.net/projects/moosic. However, I still need to upload the new versions... I'll get to that soon, hopefully. I'm preparing for the user study for this game and I'm also beginning to learn haptic (touch-based) devices for a different research project, so I've been busy. I should also note that the game works in Linux (with some work) and Windows, but I haven't gotten one of the required files to compile correctly on OS X.

Great web site, and I added it to del.icio.us so I can be sure to keep up on the other projects out there. By the way, do you know of any other audio platform games? I searched for some so I wouldn't have to reinvent the wheel in terms of audio platform games, but I was unable to find any--just lots of audio puzzle/maze games, FPS games, and then a handful of RPGs and other genres. If you could point me in the right direction it would be greatly appreciated (and hopefully lead to even further improvements on the game I'm working on).

Hi Steve, thanks for joining and look forward to hearing more of you! Greets, Richard.

Thank you for directing me to that. The first two levels are fairly easy--no holes or any other time when you need to jump so you can just run through shooting the entire time and make it through them without much of a problem (although unless you're careful you'll be hit by the falling rocks or whatever they are). The boss of the first stage was difficult for me though and I never really pinpointed its position--the sound they used for it was a bit too soft for me and I wasn't sure how to shut off the music so I could hear it better (unless I had to do that at the options in the beginning). Do you know if later levels actually have platforms to hop on to? There were none in the first two levels--unless I missed the audio cues for them.

From your experience with audio games, is it necessary to have a walking noise? This was something my professor and I debated and something that never came up in my earlier user studies with the Indiana School for the Blind--none of the users seemed to care that there was no feedback while walking. I, personally, thought it would be annoying to have a sound just to indicate that you are pushing the left or right arrow key (or moving the joystick left or right), but that might just be naive on my part as I'm fairly new to audio games and am fully sighted. Another point for debate with the professor I'm working with was whether or not to allow horizontal attacks (with a gun or sword)--in the 'master game design doc' these are included as part of the RPG/power-up elements that may or may not ever be included, but for this iteration I wanted to keep it at the simple platform level with just jump attacks. I realize jump attacks are more difficult to execute as they require more precision than simply shooting an enemy on a 2D field, but the new version has various audio cues to let the player know when they are within range of 'attack' and has a 'perfect jump' button that will ensure that they perform the maximum jump. Plus, I made the enemies large enough that any attempt to jump over them (assuming they're not of the flying variety) will almost always kill them as long as the player is within the attack range. The original user study also indicated that players had few difficulties killing the horizontally moving enemies (and that was the version before the audio cues indicating attack range).

I'll be testing this new design out at the Iowa Braille and Sight Saving School in the near future, so hopefully it will be more fun/easier to play/better sound cues than the previous version. When I get around to uploading the new version to SourceForge (which is also easier to install--at least on a Windows machine) then I'll be sure to post here about that.

Thank you again for referring me to Super Liam.

As I type this message, release candidate 3 is being uploaded to SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/moosic). The install is optimized for Windows XP and should be considerably easier than previously (where you had to install all of the components)--now you just need to install Python 2.4 (http://www.python.org) and copy the 'fmod.dll' file to the system32 folder from the Documentation folder in the .zip file. The documentation folder also includes instructions for setting it up on Linux, but I would not recommend doing that unless you're a fairly proficient Linux user. Unfortunately, this game does not work on Mac OS X.

Included in this release are the networked version where you can play a 'death match' against another player--but you will need to know the other player's IP address or hostname as well as the level they have chosen to play on (the networked version is the least up to date since it will not be used for the user study). In addition, there's a version where the levels slowly ramp up in complexity for training purposes (most of the levels introduce only one new element at a time). The last version is the normal game, currently featuring 5 or 6 levels (I forget the exact number).

If you have a game pad, the game may or may not support it (the game was designed to be playable with the Logitech dual action game pad and has not been tested with any others). Otherwise, you can use the keyboard to play, the controls are as follows:

Ctrl: Options Menu/Pause
Space, w, up arrow: Jump
a, left arrow: left
d, right arrow: right
q, Delete: temporary voice (hear the voice feedback even if constant voice is off)
e, page down: temporary tone (hear the tonal feedback even if constant tone is off)
escape: quit the game

Holding down both the jump key and either left or right will do a fixed jump in that direction (this is meant to make it easier for those not used to platformers... like my professor)

On the gamepad, the d-pad and both joysticks will move the player left or right (depending upon the direction your hitting). The bottom and top button on the right side (assuming 4 buttons in a cross formation) will act as jump buttons. The left button will activate the temporary voice and the right button will activate temporary tone. Similarly, the shoulder button closest to the top of the controller will activate temporary tone and the ones closest to the bottom will activate temporary voice. The button in the middle left will access the options menu and the middle right will quit the game.

At the moment controls cannot be customized but in the future that can fairly easily be added, it's simply not a priority at the moment.

Cheats:

Home: 99 lives
u: go up without the effects of jumping, although you can still collide with objects above you at which point you'll fall to the ground
j: go down but if you go down below the screen you will die (as this is a cheat there is no way of knowing you are going below the edge of the screen until you actually die--it's only here for debugging)
Number Keys: choose your level (1= level 1, 2 = level 2, etc.) 0 is level 10 (only the training has 10 levels).

The three versions may be integrated later, but as it is easier for the user study to keep them seperated they will remian seperated for the moment. This is first and foremost a research project and was originally coded by me and one other guy with 4 individuals lending their voices and me borrowing sounds from the web and editing them, so don't expect the next Mario. All additions since December were all coded by me and I had to record many of the voice cues over with my own voice (with the exception of the opening--I had to do the new sounds myself since the people who did the original voices are now in different parts of the country than I am and don't have access to recording equipment) and the sounds were once again gathered from the web and edited to fit the game (so still not the best sound design, but the sounds should have more meaning than before, hopefully).

Any and all feedback and criticism are greatly appreciated as this is still in the pre-user study stage--although we've submitted a proposal to the IRB for the preliminary user study. Thank you!

I discovered there's a bug with level 5 of the main game (if you reach it you will fall to your death immediately and continue falling to your death until you have no lives left or until you go to an earlier level or quit). Not sure how that one happened, but the bug is fixed now and will be available in the next release (if somebody wants a fixed copy of just the corrupt file then let me know). The next release will also have footsteps (I realized that the first level of the training and some other levels/portions of levels have no indication of movement, so I added footsteps that are different depending upon whether you're moving left or right). I also added a voice that tells you which layer (there are 4 possible layers) you are landing on (at the request of the two professors I'm working at who think that will be useful for our mapping project). Other changes (that aren't implemented yet but will be added to the next release) include a help file accessible through F1, 2 new levels in the main game (they will be shorter/simpler levels), and there may or may not be a quiz at the end of the training levels making sure users understand what object sounds represent

I may also add in a boss battle at the end of the main game as I've been wanting to implement that but haven't (since it really has nothing to do with the user study and is just something I thought would be fun/an extra challenge).

In the mean time, if anybody has any comments (anything they think needs to be added, removed... anything that's too difficult or too easy... or just any comments in general) then please let me know.

Hi Rola,

I think that Richard has ended his active role in this forum.
Don't know who the current moderator is.

If you're curious about games that are accessible to gamers who are blind, you might check out our Top 25 Web Sites for Gamers who are Blind at www.7128.com.

John Bannick
7-128 Software