Hi All, new to this forum. I’m interested in making an audiogame based on a text adventure. One possibility is using Inform7, but I have no experience with it. The I7 game would be integrated with UE5/Unity that would provide audio support and the UI. Another approach would require rewriting a command parser, and all it takes to make a text adventure directly in UE5/Unity. If you know how to write a text adventure (I7 or directly in code) and want to discuss and/or participate in this experiment please DM me. Project is for hobby. Cheers,
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Could you elaborate on what you mean by “audiogame”. For example, do you mean a traditional IF game with audio, or do you mean a game using audio and not text. And are you referring to “audio” for input, output or both?
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Hello jy, In my intentions audio should consist of voice-acted dialogues, ambience, sfx, and music. In theory, audio could replace completely text on screen (although I’d keep it to leave a trace of the sequence of events as played). In many respects, the result would be like a radio-drama, but with added interactivity. Audio would be the main output of the game, but also commands could be based on speech recognition. Cheers,
That’s an interesting premise. I’ve had multiple interactions with vision-impaired players of my narrative games, and they are always very happy for the text-to-voice support built into Android. A game where the playing experience for them is first-class will be popular with that demographic. For players without that disability, though, you’d have some challenges to deal with.
Speech is way slower than many people’s reading speed. While good VO acting may be superior to reading yourself, it mostly has value on the first playthrough. I.e., on a second playthrough, a majority of players will simply skip (something which applies to both text and voice). Personally, even on a first playthrough of CRPGs, it is rare that I’ll wait for voice acting to finish, unless it’s an important scene. Slowness of the experience is one of the reasons I struggled to get through even one playthrough of Bandersnatch (and the other “CYOA” on Netflix).
Commands based on speech recognition sounds like a very good way to frustrate players a lot. Perhaps as an option, but I’d be careful of making something like that the default.
This is not to suggest something like this couldn’t work or to discourage you; just be aware of the pitfalls, if you haven’t already thought of them.
Yes, I see the risks you mention, but I also think that, out there, there must be other people who, like myself, like radio-dramas, and might enjoy this fusion of genres. Clearly, the narrative must be the central piece, not the puzzles. The design of scenes, and also of puzzles, should leverage as much as possible on audio. Moreover, audio should exploit its cinematic quality, which is something that distinguishes this medium from written text.
On the other hand, there are many people that do not play text-adventures because they require them to read a lot of text. And also for the genre addicts, a good game must be thrifty with text, lest it becomes boring… This fact clearly subtracts from the possibility of delivering narrative in text-adventures along with puzzle challenges.
For what concerns replaying… I usually do not replay video-games, but also movies, for that matter, and only rarely I read twice the same book.
On Speech recognition, I agree that it can be a hassle. But I think it becomes essential if you target mobile platforms, as typing on screen can be even worse! The major problem I see with google recogniser (I don’t know IoS first-hand) is latency which would really spoil the experience…
All in all, I think that every type of game can have its esteemers, and that the success of a game depends on the quality of its contents and manufacture.
Cheers,
Agreed - no question that good VO can add value. I’d just think that - even more than with text adventures - you’ll need to make every word count. Speech recognition really shouldn’t be essential unless you go for a parser-based approach, in which case you’re really asking for it. I’d definitely experiment with a simpler, choice-based approach to begin with myself.
And for sure, it’s possible to make a great game like this - it’s all in the execution. Best of luck with it.
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And for sure, it’s possible to make a great game like this - it’s all in the execution. Best of luck with it.
Thank you, I’ll need lots of it!