{"author_name":"Spiridios","cat":"LD #26","comments":[],"epoch":1367347920,"likes":3,"metadata":{"p_key":"42943","p_author":"Spiridios","p_authorkey":"506801","p_urlkey":"78578","p_title":"Conversion \u2013 Post Mortem","p_cat":"LD #26","p_event":"LD26","p_time":"1367347920","p_likes":"3","p_comments":"0","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"506801","us_name":"Spiridios","us_username":"Spiridios","event_start":"1366934400","event_key":"16","event_name":"LD26"},"text":"

\"Conversion-WallMessage\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I wrote a game titled Conversion,<\/em> after the condition known as Conversion Blindness. You cannot see, so you must complete the game using only your sense of hearing and sense of touch. It’s minimalist by reducing your senses and distilling the environment down to the remaining senses. The game is intentionally vague about what’s going on in an attempt to immerse you in the confusion of someone who just had a traumatic event trigger blindness.<\/p>\n

That’s already a bit of a spoiler, so if you don’t want to be spoiled further, go rate Conversion<\/a> and come back. We’ll wait.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Theme Selection<\/strong><\/p>\n

I did not<\/em><\/strong> like the selected theme one bit. At all. I hated it. Everyone is just going to do “minimal crappy graphics” I thought. It took me a couple hours of pouting before I decided to take the “minimal graphics” idea to it’s ultimate conclusion – no graphics. And since text adventures are a well defined genre that just left audio-only games. It still took me another hour or so to refine what I meant by audio-only – a game where you hear sounds and have to walk to them to get the next bit of the story.<\/p>\n

Implementation<\/strong><\/p>\n

I knew I needed positional audio and I knew XNA (my chosen platform) could do positional audio, so I went to work creating a simple tile map and player actor to interact with. And then I heard it. And it was awful. XNA’s positional audio is so far from precise that you’d be bouncing around the map trying to locate the sound. You can’t tell front from back, and the zone where the sound was equal volume for both ears was so wide that the sound could have been coming from anywhere. And JSIL<\/a> doesn’t support it. So I went about implementing my own positional audio using just volume and pan. I was able to narrow the area that’s considered “in front of you” and I made “behind you” quieter than in front. Both cues that’ll help you find your goal.<\/p>\n

Problems<\/strong><\/p>\n

There were plenty. I was not<\/em> prepared to build an audio centric game. Though I had the tools available, I didn’t remember how to use any of them. But when the muse strikes, you don’t say “sorry, no tools” you just plow through.<\/p>\n