Hi /r/Blind

This is a serious post, I'm just using a throwaway because I don't have a real Reddit account, too much moderation for my tastes. On that note, if there's another forum you like to use that has better compatibility with Dragon, less moderation, or both - please do point me there.

This is a pretty long post. I'm going to touch on some ideas I have for a game and ask if you have any suggestions. The game would be free and probably depend partly on the player community for voice acting. I'd like to add some audio-based level design capabilities and moddability to it as well.

For several years now I have wanted to create an audio-based RPG using surround sound, or just directional sound headphones. I know very little about sound technology, so I don't know exactly what that entails programmatically, but I'm sure I could find some good libraries to help with it. This is one of many games I have wanted to make, and to date I have made none despite my best efforts, but I really do still mean to make them once life and hardware stop getting in the way. I do have some programming experience so it's not just a random whim, I just have to find the time and get into it. I'm not really looking for anything in particular out of this post, just gauging interest and fishing for ideas.

The control scheme I was envisioning would be a combination of spoken audio and keyboard control. I think having movement and directions of enemies, items, and so on divided into eight segments would be interesting and still easy enough to identify immediately. The idea is that the left hand would control movement with the E S D F keys, so a sighted person wearing a blindfold can use a standard keyboard and still know where they are by the nub on the F. Diagonal movement would be as simple as pressing and holding two keys at once, similar to normal W A S D gameplay. The player character would move in a real grid based game space for simplicity of testing, but the final product would have the test grid hidden. Attacks and interactions would be done directionally as well, using the I J K L keys. The player character would be able to attack behind them without turning, which goes well with the theme I was considering, which I'll mention later.

Anyways, hit I to use current weapon ahead of you, K behind you, J left, L right. Again, J is the other key that has the nub. I could of course make a voice menu to change keybinds in case that's uncomfortable. To attack diagonally ahead of you and to the right you would hit I and L together, much like the movement menu. Then the game would check if the enemy was within the range of the currently equipped weapon and if the enemy was at least partially inside the eighth of a circle you were aiming at.

So the actual "aiming" would be pretty simple and generous, but that's where the NPC cues come in. Some NPCs just tromp around noisily so you can alway hear them coming and just have to use a ranged weapon or time it right with a melee weapon if you're used to its range and the volume-distance relationship of the game. Other enemies you might have to make out the rustle of clothing, a twig snapping, a sandal scuffing on sand and guess their position and distance from that. Those would be the main classifications of enemies: strong, fast, or stealthy.

I envision early versions or at least demos being somewhat "on rails", with the player never turning, but just moving through the levels. "In front" would always be the same direction and all levels would "start at the bottom and end at the top". Weapons would be equally effective in all directions, and sound has no field of view limit, after all. Actions like switching weapons, pausing, opening inventory, sorting and equipping things, could all be based on audio cues, or mapped to keys as desired. I imagine there's probably some code hook for Dragon to input text directly into an application rather than to a textbox in one, but that's another thing I'd have to learn about. The basic idea is that less time-sensitive inputs would be voice-controlled and movement and attacks would be keyboard-controlled.

The theme I was thinking of is a classic "Blind Samurai" type game, with lots of hack and slash in between tense and formal tea ceremonies or relaxed conversations with friendly NPCs in bamboo gardens. Stereotypical sure, but it would be fun to narrate scenes and levels in terms of things like air temperature rather than visual descriptions, in addition to have the ambient game sounds providing information. Obviously the sound track and the sound effects would have to be on point, which might be a problem with my lack of budget, but there's a lot of good oriental and classical music under open licenses. I'd like to put in some choir stuff too, when practical.

For weapons, I was thinking a few standard lengths of katanas and some classic throwing weapons like shuriken, nothing too long-range, so the eight-direction attack thing sort of holds up more. Maybe some herbal medicine that restores stats and health over time rather than the standard potions.

There are already a lot of existing games out there which make great use of audio cues and background noise, but this would be more crucial in that while I want to have a good soundtrack, good enemy sounds, good item and miscellaneous menu/notification sounds, good narration, good NPC dialogue...all of that has to be timed with checks and balances so it's understandable. I already know how to organize all of that, but it would take some testing to make it not just work, but sound good. This is all after I decide on and learn a sound management utility or library to code with.

As much as I would love to allow player to actually talk directly to NPCs, unavailability of true AI or processing power for it means that you'd probably end up hearing an NPC, hearing a player character voice read some possible responses with a number associated, and then saying "Two" to hear it repeated again and the NPC reaction to that. The next best thing, though, would be the ability to put your own voice into the game, whether for distribution to other players as a mod or just for your own enjoyment. That's probably the first thing I'd want to add as far as modding tools, the ability to record lines for NPCs and PCs to replace the originals.

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I guess that's all I have to say for now. Sorry if this was rambling or anything didn't make sense, and feel free to ask any questions you may have. Thanks for reading.