YYAAHH! - platformer with voice control

The idea to implement voice commands came to the mind of game developers even before the era of "mobile games". Among the unusual games with voice control, you can recall those that were released in 2002-2003 for the PlayStation 2 SOCOM US Navy Seals (a tactical shooter where virtual partners could be given voice orders), horror from Sony and Konami - Lifeline, where the character could only be controlled by voice. Lifeline was a bold experiment for a decade-old game - the developers declared support for more than five hundred voice commands! Alas, this game has not received much popularity outside of Japan.


')
The next attempt was a real-time strategy - Tom Clancy's EndWar, released in 2007. Voice control allowed the player to give orders to individual groups and divisions, but the relatively low accuracy of command recognition led to a noticeable loss in the speed of such control, compared to the classical input methods (keyboard, gamepad and mouse).

In 2009, at the E3 2009 exhibition, Kinect was presented, and to demonstrate its “conversational” features - Project Milo. It is difficult to call it a separate game, and modern voice control in Kinect games roughly corresponds to the capabilities demonstrated then.

Modern games consider voice control rather as an additional option. Well-known projects such as Mass Effect 3 allow you to send commands to gaming partners through a microphone, and for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (in the Xbox 360 version) voice control was added as a separate update. With the help of the voice, you can give about two hundred commands, but perhaps the most demanded function was the ability to independently shout out the famous phrase “Fus Ro Dah!”.

As for mobile devices, which in the overwhelming majority of cases are equipped with a microphone (and speakers!) “Out of the box”, when mentioning “voice control” or “voice input” the first thing the user comes to mind is Siri, Google Now, Cortana and other voice assistants . Competition in this market has led to the fact that “dictating” the text or “talking to a smartphone” no longer surprises anyone. However, in mobile games, voice control is still a wonder.

First of all, this is due to the specifics of mobile games - users play them “on the go”, which on the one hand forces developers to look for alternative ways to control the gameplay (for example, games using an accelerometer and gyro), and on the other - “mandatory” voice control may not be entirely appropriate on the street or in the community.

A small platformer, which will be discussed today, refers specifically to that class of toys in which you can not play "always and everywhere." However, it will be appropriate to look when playing at home or in a fun noisy group of friends. This is YYAAHH! from the company SHAPE.AG - game with fully voice control.



In fact, the plot of the game can be called unpretentious. You are the pilot of the plane flying to the right, and to “climb” the microphone must pick up loud exclamations and screams. Perhaps this is all you need to know!



The complexity of this approach is quite obvious to all "amateur amateurs" - it is desirable to gain altitude constantly, and to "fly" obstacles you need to shout loudly enough. To protect your throat in the winter, you should call on the help of your friends; fortunately, the game does not recognize individual voices and allows several players to play, alternately taking on the role of an aircraft engine.



All other functions of the game are well known to anyone who has ever played platformers - we collect “good” objects (stars and huge flying lollipops), avoid “bad” (evil helicopters, high skyscrapers). By the way, the first version of the game was rejected by the vigilant moderators of the AppStore - a leaf of marijuana was used instead of lollipops. The second version with candy like Apple more. Not to hoarse, the game is divided into short levels, after which you can relax.

The game, according to the scenery, takes place in New York, and the pilot of the plane is a fan of reggae music and Bob Marley! This did not affect the soundtrack of the game, the melody repeats with the beginning of the level. The graphics in the game is “cartoon”, but for such games it is rather a plus - both adults and children can play it with equal pleasure.

Developers joke about possible "awkwardness" from the voice control in the trailer:



At the moment, YYAAHH! is available for the iOS platform , and soon the developers promise an output for Android and WindowsPhone. Follow the appearance for other platforms on the official website of the game .