The Blind Fragging the Blind

fastfinge writes "With the recent wired article, the Blind Fragging the Blind, the audio games industry is getting some much deserved coverage. Starting out from 3 or 4 games in 1998, the list of audio games has grown to over 150 titles, and shows no signs of slowing."

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Re:Cheat Codes

[Drawkcab]

Just because they're blind doesn't mean they can't use joysticks, gamepads, or keyboards.

Re:so how do you play them

[fastfinge]

As someone who plays these things all the time, it's not that hard. You need a decent headset (speakers will NOT cut it! A wonderful way to die.) and a good multichannel sound card (to avoid skipping and crap), but if you've got a recent machine you probably have this already. When you first start you'll find it strange; things sound just real enough to screw you up (unless you're playing the "arcade style" games and then everything sounds totally fake). If you've never played any sort of audio game, I'd start with dark destroyer. [pb-games.com] Yeah, the voiceover and script in this is really, really, really tacky, and it's sort of a rip off of troopanum, [bscgames.com] but it still somehow manages to be entertaining. Once you're able to hit stuff without seeing it, then move on to shades of doom. [gmagames.com] I would make some sort of comment about this, accept I must be the only blind person unable to win at this game and it makes me sad. I always get lost and then I fall into a pit and die. The layout in this is simple, too. I'm just unable to shoot at stuff and worry about energy and weapons and keep track of where the hell I am. I haven't yet figured out if this is because of the design of the game; nobody has given me the oppertunity to shoot at stuff and keep track of weapons while wandering round a research base in real life yet. I'm available, though. Oh, and in closing, the best review quote from the www.audiogames.net website is: "The game sounds a bit like a recording of Jim's porn collection mixed with the Simpsons." Only in an audio game. No, it's not nearly as much fun as it sounds.

Re:Cheat Codes

[fastfinge]

Cheats [audiogames.hku.nl] work like they work in every other game (I think).

Re:Shades of doom.. shades of dumb

[fastfinge]

Dude. In the audio games world, that voice acting is fairly good. I can show you lots worse, if you like. Audio Game companies don't have the money it would take to get experts; look at the sales figures in the wired article. As for your other problem, GMA Games lead programmer and all around developer is completely blind himself. Blind people read books, listen to radio, etc, etc, etc. We're soaking in visual references those of us born blind can have no understanding of; we tend to have strong associations between colors and other things (white=clean/medical/walls/roof/blank/nothing wred=blood/hot/angry/blushing/fire black=evil/dark/strong blue=cold/sad/bruised if you want a couple off the top of my head) that usually work just as well. If SOD went out of its way not to use things like that it would feel a lot more jarring to me; something would be missing.