Sound games: an invisible market awaits heroes

Fragment of the official poster for the game A Blind Legend .

The voluminous binaural sound from the headphones creates an effect of presence and forces the player’s brain to draw a “graphic”. Audio quest, sound RPG and "blind" shooters are sold on GooglePlay, iTunes and Steam for $ 2 to $ 20. All the more curious that in Russia sound games and interactive audiobooks are an empty niche where only a few people try themselves. What is this invisible market, who needs it and how to approach it - found out the author of GeekBrains Maria Lisyanskaya.

The article consists of four parts:
')

• find out who and why need sound games
• tell what technologies are built audio games
• We talk with a player who buys audio games and monitors their development,
• talk about the tools useful to the developer of sound games.

Audio games - why and why

Computer games that can be played with eyes closed attracted the attention of professional developers by the early 2000s, when the technological base was ripe for such projects. 3D sound positioning systems made it possible to navigate the playing space by ear. It gave new ideas for gameplay and instantly interested people with visual impairments. The search for enemies by sound was realized in 1996, in the graphic horror film Enemy Zero, where it was necessary to search for invisible monsters. But then there was no talk about a full-fledged audiopanoram.

Later, a new incentive appeared for the development of audio games - it is convenient to play them on mobile devices . Here you will find both non-standard gameplay, and hearing training, and the opportunity to play without straining your eyes after the working day. Put on headphones - and go. At the same time you can be in a public place and not lose control over what is happening around.


Photo: StockSnap

Sound games are still small - the account goes to the hundreds. There are even fewer quality products with professional voice acting, so each new product attracts attention. To see this, check out the audiogames.net forum for new releases . The main part of the audience here are blind players. Thanks to screen access and braille displays, totally blind people use a computer like everyone else, but there is not much of them available from mainstream graphics games - mostly fighting games where you can hear which side the opponent is on (Mortal Kombat IX and X, Injustice 2, etc. ). This situation encourages the blind to take on the development of games themselves and, of course, support the dollar and the euro for those who produce something good.

The threshold of entry into the development of sound games is lower than in the graphic game. You do not need to hire artists and animators, you do not need to be compared with anyone polygons or shaders. In your game world everything is possible that you will be able to express with words and sound. A feasible task for small teams and enthusiasts.

How it works

Some sound games are fully voiced by real people, others by a speech synthesizer. Screen dubbing technologies are often associated with Windows special features, TalkBack on Android and programs for creating audio books from text (ICE Book Reader, Balabolka, Demagog, etc.). The basic principle is the same everywhere: the speech synthesizer reads you out loud.

Audio games with professional voice acting can produce some information through a synthesizer. This allows you to listen to the text in your desired voice, with adjustable pitch and speed of speech. For example, a person who listens to a text in a foreign language may slow down reading to make out every word. And the one who saves time, on the contrary - will set a one-and-a-half or double speed. If you can take notes or rename objects in the game, again, a synthesizer is useful. For amateur authors, artificial voice acting is a saving on sound recordings, an opportunity to reduce the weight of the game and change dialogues on the fly without having to re-record the voices of announcers.

To voice themselves in Windows, audio games usually use Text-to-speech (TTS) technology and MS SAPI speech interface. Under this interface, different companies produce voice synthesizers, which are also called speech engines. Each engine has its own set of voices, as a rule, for several languages.

By default, you have at least one English SAPI voice installed on your system. Russian, French and other voices can be downloaded from the Internet. For example, on GitHub there is a free voice engine RHVoice and several Russian voices to it. Esperanto, English, Georgian and Ukrainian are also supported. Compared to commercial products from the Nuance Vocalizer Expressive line, RHVoice voices do not sound so realistic, but clearly and with pronounced intonations.

If you dive a little deeper into the world of sound games, you will find that some of them are not voiced through SAPI or its analogs for other OS, but with the help of an external screen reader program (“screen reader”). Such software allows you to control the operating system and applications running in it. Among the blind users of Windows is a popular free screen access program from NVDA. Making friends with your game is easy - using the NVDA Controller API library. We will also touch on the topic of screen readers in the section “Engine for audio games”.

By genre and gameplay organization, sound games cover many areas: from simple puzzles to large-scale RPGs, simulators, races and strategies. Let's look at examples.

Conversation with the player

In order not to dwell on theories and my own subjective impressions, I interviewed Vladimir Erokhin, a man who moderated the sound game site for a while. Blind.games, still plays a lot of audio games and knows the visually impaired gamers from the inside.

- What are your favorite audio games and why? Share your impressions.

- My undisputed favorite is “A Hero's all”. I love RPG, and this is not just a party RPG, but a game with an open world, easy navigation, a developed system of skills, an interesting storyline, many quests. What is cool ambient and surround sound - it just needs to play and feel. You pass by the fountain and clearly feel that it is behind you, you hear how far it is, you hear how the drops hit the stone. The developers somehow screwed the technology from the Oculus Rift virtual reality helmets. I understood this by the oculus.dll file and the names of other libraries in the game folder. Voiced even passing characters. The whole sound weighs more than a gigabyte. Few games without graphics weigh so much.

And the music! This is a separate topic. The trick is that each character from among your party members has its own musical theme. And each character has its own history and quests that reveal its character and motivation. In dialogs, you act out the image of the main character, and your choice really affects the relationship with the NPC, and the skills that open to you and your group. Through dialogs, you can even pump over some of the satellites, if you motivate them, you will help them become more confident in themselves. You can talk with the characters of the group at any time, and sometimes it moves you along the plot. But to predict the consequences of a choice is difficult. I've done a good deed - I returned the ring stolen by a party thief to the owner. I did not know that later my companion would lead me to the customer of the theft, who would ultimately be offended and close us access to the best item shop in the game. Well, the thief, of course, was upset ...

All dialogues are voiced by actors. I understand English well by ear, and if a person does not have time for a speaker, he can re-read the same thing several times with text via SAPI and then choose the answer option using the up and down arrows. To whom it is very difficult, in the settings can enable Google-translation in real time.

- Do you have any drawbacks to this game?

- She is short. Developers talk about 17 hours of gameplay. I played in snatches, so it took about a month and a half to go through. I have never regretted neither time nor money: I put 9 out of 10 games. I want the authors to continue in the same spirit.

- It is only under Windows, there will be no mobile release?

- Of course it will not! There, the engine is not even sharpened for mobile devices. To transfer the entire interface would have to rewrite. Is that on the Mac can still be release. They are now making a version with graphics support, so that sighted will play more and make money from it.

- Is there something interesting among mobile games?

- There is! But here we must look at what platform we are talking about. Most of all mobile audio games are now available for iOS. Under Android - very little.
My second favorite game, A Blind Legend, is also available for PC, iOS and Android. I passed it on the PC and on iOS at different levels of difficulty. Very dynamic gameplay! Nowhere have I seen a game in which I would have to, running away from the guards, jump on the roofs and, in order not to break, put up a shield. A very interesting plot concept: a daughter helps a blind knight in his travels - he warns about the dangers, tells where to go. Unusual and high-quality combat system, cool bosses. If you fight with a troll - you fight with a troll, and if with an underwater monster - everything is completely different. Because everyone has his own behavior, his own system of strikes and tactics. Before attacking someone, you need to learn how he fights, and only then catch him on a long span, for example, and strike. Otherwise, you will be pushed very quickly - the game of mistakes does not forgive.

- How long is it for the duration?

- The duration of this game is less than “A Hero's Call”. They also say that of the two versions of the French voice is better. I cannot appreciate it, let those who know or learn French appreciate it.

- How different is the gameplay on a mobile device?

- In my opinion, the game feels sharper with the touchscreen, because from a computer it is very simple, for example, to put a block with the “F” key. And with a mobile phone it is impossible to put blocks so mechanically, you are still touched, because the screen does not respond so quickly. You feel more the connection of the game actions with your movements, you feel the weapon better. In fact, I'm covering up the touchscreen glitches (laughs). On the smartphone, this game is a great time killer, especially if you need to pass the time on the road. Although in principle it claims to be much more. The voice acting is gorgeous, the plot is decent.

- Does the mobile version have paid content?

- I do not remember exactly, but, in my opinion, if they kill you in the mobile version and you want to continue the game right away, you need to buy something. Otherwise, you will be able to return to the game only after some time. Therefore, in fact, I prefer the PC version and played it more often. For the computer in general, there are many times more games and I spend more time with it.

- What games, besides “A Hero's Call”, did you buy?

- Entombed (this is a dungeon crawler, I did a stream on it), The Nightjar, a zombie shooter Audio Defense, two parts of Papa Sangre - they are awesome just! Accelerometer is used in Audio Defense and the second Papa Sangre. That is, you control the character, turning with the phone in his hand. In a shooter, this is very convenient, because when you see a zombie rod on you from different sides, you kill one thing - you turn around sharply and shoot the second one. In melee, you can still strike with a bat or a stick from top to bottom. By the way, in Audio Defense you have a lot of different weapons, well voiced, which can be pumped. Now I’m already used to it, but as for the first time it was a very interesting experience. That's how I casually called a few more favorite games.

- About Papa Sangre you have not really told.

- This is an adventure. Fighting do not give. At each level, to solve the problem: save someone or find something - you need to distract or bypass the monsters. If the monster is sleeping, and you start to stomp hard, touch the glass or rustle, it will wake up. And the big question is whether you can run away from him. Therefore, it is better to pass carefully. And you rearrange the legs with two buttons on the touchscreen: one foot at the top of the display, the other at the bottom. You put both hands on the smartphone and walk. If you run too fast, you will stumble, you will fall, you will make a noise and, while you get up, you will be reached. Still, when you run away, you can crash into a wall. While you turn around, you will surely be eaten. And not all monsters are asleep. Some go around the level, some even fly. And to die in this game is very unpleasant: the sound, when devoured by a character, is too realistic, binaural, and not at all for the impressionable.

- Is the screen access program useful for this game?

- Only in the menu, and the levels are fully voiced. Voice Over, which is responsible for screen access in iOS, has to be unloaded during the game, because otherwise it intercepts clicks.

- How does the second part of Papa Sangre differ in plot?

- In the second part of the hero after death enters the kingdom of memories. To regain the human body, you need to collect memories in the form of musical fragments, and so interesting stories gradually form that are not always associated with the main character. This may be, for example, the memories of a sailor about a sunken submarine. And in the second part there was a system of achievements. To get out of a burning house for so many seconds, never raise an alarm and another 100,500 achivok. If a person suffers from Munchkinism, he will hang for a long time with this game until he collects all the achievements.

- Have you ever regretted buying an audio game?

“Only once when I bought Blind Gladiator.” They did not provide a demo. “A Hero's Call” was also not provided, but at least sound previews could be heard there. And then bought and regretted. In other cases, I, on the contrary, was pleased to encourage the work of the authors, to encourage them to do something else.

- What annoys you in sound games?

- Many games sin with a bad sound, so bad that I do not play. I’m still being crammed with stupid, same-type plots, especially in side-scrollers, where you run and kill with packs of monsters. Rarely when games are delayed for a long time. In handicrafts on BGT annoying abundance of bugs.

- What genres are best for audio games?

- Action can be well implemented. The Road to Rage - there is such an action shooter, and it was written on PureBasic. And it is very well written: if I did not know, I would not have thought that this was possible on PureBasic. You can also very well implement a strategy in sound, where active actions are not needed. I would not give up on new top-quality racing Top Speed ​​or from the simulator.

- How do you like the Eurofly flight simulator?

- I love this game for the scale and deep study. By the way, my friend, also a blind player, took part in adding real-life airports to this game. Thanks to him, for example, Kemerovo airport appeared there. The map shows the surroundings of the airport, so if you live nearby, there is a good chance to see your area in the manual study mode.

- What game do you miss? What else do you expect from audio games?

- Would make another tactical audio game of the type of sighted "Jazz. Jobs ”or“ Jagged Alliance ”, which I played with the help of friends. Here I would stick there! This could be done in the form of a mod-pack for the Tactical Battle sound game. But I would prefer a full-fledged separate game. That there were mercenaries, suppliers of weapons, so that it was necessary to seize roadblocks. I would also play an audio game in the Warhammer universe.

- And from multiplayer games like that?

- I play text MUDs a lot. These are not audio games, but they are available and for some of them it is possible to install sets of sounds that are played on certain events. At first, I was surprised that sighted people still play mad, where there are no graphics. An acquaintance told me that he was playing for the sake of an adequate company. Because in games like WOW you go in and hear from schoolchildren about mothers and so on.

- In Madah people who like to read are gathered.

- Yes, there is a lot to read. And they love to fantasize themselves, to represent the game world. In audio games, too, there is such a moment.

- And what, in your opinion, audio games can be interesting to see?

- Some sighted people with whom I communicate play audio games for the sake of new sensations. Even if it is impossible to get used to unaccustomed and often lose, they still have fun: “As I have now famously crashed, aah… what a sound!” And so on.

- How are you looking for games for yourself?

- Through the website audiogames.net and its forum - there you can track interesting projects long before the release. Through acquaintances with whom we share games for sighted and blind people. Also through the AppleVis website, where all sound iOS games appear.

- Thank you for the story! I feel a lot is still behind the scenes, but just one time you will not discuss.

- You are welcome. Yes, the same mad - it is a separate big topic, worthy of a separate article.

Genres and examples of sound games

We have compiled the TOP player, and now we will add links and facts so that you can better understand what this is about.

Sound Action and Adventure

A Blind Legend is a mobile hack-and-slash with realistic binaural sound and real-time combat. The game in English and French can be downloaded from PlayMarket , iTunes Store and Steam . Developers from the Dowino studio (with the participation of Radio France) raised this project to crowdfunding and raised $ 53,469.

Papa Sangre for iOS - survival horror, imbued with the spirit of Mexican mythology. The only way to survive is to walk quietly and not to wake famously, and if something happens, to run. The popularity of the first part (2010) inspired the developers from Something Else to continue, which came out in 2013. The sound quality in the game can be estimated here . The studio released other audio games: The Nightjar and Audio Defense. Alas, they all have already disappeared from the AppStore. But the engine Papa Engine , which allows to make real-time games with binaural sound, healed with its life. Some time ago, the developers claimed that they were reworking it for compatibility with Unity.


Source: TheVerge.com . In the same place - in detail about the game (English).

3D Sound Shooters

Shades of Doom is a first-person shooter for Windows. We focus on the terrain with the help of a computer, as well as echo our own steps, draft in doorways and the noise from objects nearby. The game simulates the Doppler effect - the frequency of the sound changes as the source moves. The latest version of Shades of Doom is sold on the developer site for $ 25.

Swamp is a multi-user FPS. The action takes place during the invasion of zombies in the town near the swamp. You have to survive (it is not easy) and carry out missions together with other players. You can listen to the English review of the game here .

Audio RPG

Sound role-playing games - this is freedom for a novice developer and a chance to implement epic designs without spending on graphics.


Source: OutOfSightGames.com .

A Hero's Call - RPG with six classes of characters and 70 types of enemies. Runs in Windows XP, 7, 8, 10, and with the help of the Wine program in Linux and MacOS. The game was created using the FMOD Studio tools. There are sound demo navigation and control. The developers ask for the game $ 20, and they are paid this price, including users from Russia.

Sound simulators

Eurofly is a free civil aviation simulator. The game uses real GPS-coordinates and a detailed digital atlas, which can be used to study the nature of the terrain and the location of settlements in areas of interest. You fly, refresh your knowledge of geography and get acquainted with the airports of the world, each of which has its own height of convergence and its own characteristics. You can go to "free flight" or consistently pass the mission and open models of aircraft.

The game covers all aspects of pre-flight preparation and flight: boarding passengers, refueling, communicating with airport controllers, announcements in the cabin, etc. Time here goes at a real speed: if the flight takes 5 hours, you fly so much. When the fuel runs out, you can sit at the nearest airport, if it is not prohibited by the terms of the mission. For example, the airline may prohibit you from crossing Austrian airspace en route from Slovakia to the Czech Republic.

For Eurofly released a lot of mods : airplanes, airports, flight attendants (there is a Russian steward Andrew), controllers, sound effects. On the developer's site, you can track “current traffic” - where and from where game flights fly, where every aircraft is now located and how many passengers it has on board.

The project exists and develops through donations of players. The game is available in English, Slovak, Czech, Italian and Spanish. According to some reports, work is underway on Russian localization.

And for those who like to fight, there is GMA TankCommander - a tank simulator that voices itself completely. You are attacked by tanks, helicopters, cars, trains, artillery and troops. During maneuvering, you must not land on a mine or in a swamp. The game is in English, there is an unofficial crack.

Side scrollers

You can’t say "side view" about the sound game, but this is how it works by organizing the game space: to move forward, you press the "right" key. In the Angel gift, a girl angel is trying to return love, joy and peace to the village seized by demons. To do this, Liriel sits on the roofs of houses, listens to what is happening inside, and gives people what they lack, and when necessary, fights with demons.

Augmented Reality

Visual effects are primarily associated with augmented reality, but sound can play an equally important role. Project Audiogames (3D-sound game installation)
- an example of an interactive three-dimensional sound environment with which the user interacts to solve conventional game problems.

Interactive audiobook

Audionevella is the simplest version of a sound game, but with high-quality voice acting and a thought-out script, it carries you along like a good book. Story savers are not separated from the gameplay - the story develops continuously, so you need to carefully listen to each scene. For the player, this is a good way to improve the knowledge of a foreign language : English, Japanese or French - if you consider in which countries sound games come out more often.

In 1997, the sound novel “Real Sound: Kaze no Regret” was released exclusively on the territory of Japan for the Sega Saturn prefix. Everything here, starting from the main menu, was voiced by the actors. The player heard music, background sounds, character dialogues - and chose options for actions using a gamepad. Real Sound has become one of the first commercial non-visual games.

An audio quest works according to similar principles, but is more interactive: we move around locations, listen to their descriptions, communicate with characters, use inventory items. Sometimes action elements are woven into the quest, as in the mystical audio quest Chillingham, which has disappeared from the Internet, where there was a battle system. A key role in the games of the genre is played by the plot and atmosphere. Authors can bet on horrors or on humor - like in Grail to the Thief , where a rogue from the future moves on a talking time machine to the era of King Arthur.

Tools for creating sound games

An audio game can be made on Unity or another engine with support for 3D sound positioning. But there is a specialized tool for this task. It's time to talk about them, and about the libraries, which will be useful if you want to create your own audio game engine or get a deeper look at the topic.

Working with sound

: theglassdesk .

Shades of Doom. Windows XP DirectSound3D. Windows 8 10 X3DAudio Xaudio2 .

X3DAUDIO_EMITTER, Doppler Scaler, . 0.0f FLT_MAX. . .

«» — , — X3DAUDIO_LISTENER.

XAudio2 C++, .

• Python Pyrilla — - Gorilla Audio , Windows, Linux OS X. Pyrilla PyPI — pip install.
• .NET XAudio2 HRTF- GitHub . , (HRTF) Unity . Windows 10.

FMOD . , . StarCraft II, Just Cause 3 MotoGP17. API FMOD Unity, UnrealEngine c . . , FMOD 3D-, WMM A3D. — .dll .

BASS . BASS Windows (x86 x64), Android, iOS, Linux MacOS. 3D- (, , , ), A3D EAX, , . API BASS Python (pybass), # (Bass.Net), Java (NativeBass), C/++. PureBasic, FlatAssembler, Delphi, VisualBasic.

Blastbay Game Toolkit (BGT) Windows. . AngelScript . C 2014 BGT . , .

BGT « » MS SAPI : NVDA, JAWS, Window eyes System access. : SAPI screen reader. , , — SAPI-.

, 2016 , BGT , .

BGT:

• Kringle Crash — , — - .
• Obsessive Compulsive — , , . , — . BGT. !
• Damage extreme — , MS SAPI. , . , .

TurboPower Async Professional , Microsoft Speech API, TAPI — C++ Builder ActiveX.

Oculus . — .

Google Resonance Audio , . Android, iOS, Windows, macOS Linux. API SDK ( Apache 2.0) : Java, JavaScript, C/C++, Objective-C.
, Resonance Audio Unity, Unreal Engine, FMOD, Wwise DAW (Digital Audio Workstation).

Conclusion

. — , — . , .

, .

, - : . — .