Audyssey; Games Accessible to the Blind Issue 34: Third Quarter, 2002 Edited by Michael Feir Fun, Friendship, Knowledge, Charity +++ Welcome Welcome to the thirty-fourth issue of Audyssey. This magazine is dedicated to the discussion of games which, through accident or design, are accessible to the blind either with or without sighted assistance. This issue is a relatively light one due to a number of circumstances. However, readers will still doubtless find something to interest them. Besides updates from several game developers, this issue contains letters which were a part of a fantastic debate on the Blindgamers list. You'll also find a number of game reviews. Note: This magazine uses plus-signs as navigation markers. Three plus-signs are placed above any articles or sections. Within these sections, two plus-signs denote the start of a new sub-section. Smaller divisions are marked by a single plus-sign. This allows people to use their search capabilities to go quickly to the next division they are interested in. For instance, the "Letters" section is preceded by three plus-signs. Each letter within it has two plus-signs before it. Answers to letters have a single plus-sign before them. +++ Distribution Information and Submission Policies This magazine is published on a quarterly basis, each issue appearing no earlier than the fifteenth of the publication month for its quarter. All submissions to be published in an issue must be in my possession a minimum of two days before the issue is published. I use MS-Word to produce Audyssey, and can therefore accept submissions in pretty much any format. They may be sent either on a 3.5-inch floppy disk, or via e-mail to: mfeir@cogeco.ca I will give my home address at the end of the magazine. Please write articles and letters about games or game-related topics which interest you. They will likely interest me, and your fellow readers. This magazine should and can be a highly interesting and qualitative look at accessible gaming. To insure that high quality is maintained, I'll need your written contributions. I reserve the right to unilaterally make changes to submissions if I deem it necessary to improve them grammatically or enhance their understand ability. I will never make changes which will alter the spirit of a submission. All submissions must be in English. However, people need not be great writers to have their work appear in Audyssey. Many of our community come from different countries. Others are quite young. Where possible, I try to preserve their different styles of expression. The richness that this adds to the Audyssey experience far outweighs any benefits gained from having everything in prose so perfect as to be devoid of life. Audyssey is a community and magazine built on the need for blind people to have fun. There are no formal structural requirements for submissions. Within reason, they may be as long as necessary. Game reviews should all clearly state who created the game being examined, where it can be obtained, whether it can be played without sighted assistance, and any system requirements or other critical information. Although profanity is by no means banned, it should not be used gratuitously. In all submitted material, it is helpful if any E-mail addresses or links to places on the Internet are on their own lines. Submissions not published in a current issue will be reserved for possible use in future issues if appropriate. Any content submitted to Audyssey Magazine may be used on the web-site as well as in the magazine. Those who are on the Audyssey discussion list should be aware that I often put materials from the list in the "Letters" section if I feel that they warrant it. Anything posted to this discussion list that in some way stands out from the common and often lively ongoing discourse will be considered fair game for publishing unless it contains the author's wish that it not be published. Until now, this practice has been commonly consented to. From now on, it is now officially a policy of the Audyssey community. This magazine is free in its electronic form, and will always remain so. Due to a lack of demand, PCS Games is no longer making Audyssey available on disk. I'm writing this magazine as much for my own interest as for everyone else's. Your articles, reviews, and letters, as well as any games you might care to send me, are what I'm after. Send any games, articles, letters, or reviews via E-mail, or on a 3.5-inch disk in a self- addressed mailer so that I can return your disk or disks to you once I have copied their contents onto my hard drive. Please only send shareware or freeware games. It is illegal to send commercial games unless you are their creator or have obtained permission to do so. By sending me games, you will do several things: first, and most obviously, you will earn my gratitude. You will also insure that the games you send me are made available to my readership as a whole. As a further incentive, I will fill any disks you send me with games from my collection. No disk will be returned empty. If you want specific games, or specific types of games, send a message in ASCII format along. If you have a particular game that you need help with, and you are sending your questions on a disk anyhow, include the game so that I can try and get past your difficulty. If you can, I recommend that you send e-mail. I can send and receive attachments with ease. This way, no money will be wasted sending me a game I already have, and you'll get my reply more quickly. You are responsible for shipping costs. That means, either use a disk mailer which has your address on it, and is either free matter for the blind, or is properly stamped. I can and will gladly spare time to share games and my knowledge of them, but cannot currently spare money above what I spend hunting for new games. I encourage all my readers to give my magazine to whoever they think will appreciate it. Up-load it onto web pages and bulletin board systems. Copy it on disk for people, or print it out for sighted people who may find it of value. The larger our community gets, the more self-sustaining it will become. There are now several ways of obtaining Audyssey. Thanks to the generous support of Monarch Business Systems, Audyssey Magazine now has an official home on the Web. All previous issues of Audyssey can be obtained from there in several different formats. Visitors may take advantage of a growing amount of content as well as submit material. Check it out at: www.audysseymagazine.org Those who want to receive issues of Audyssey as they are published should send a blank E-mail to: Audysub-subscribe@yahoogroups.com The Audyssey discussion list facilitates discussion about games accessible to the blind between the publication of issues of Audyssey. All are welcome as long as they respect their fellow community members and keep in mind that the topic of the list is supposed to be games. Other topics are allowed within reason as long as they don't begin to monopolize the list traffic for too long. Newcomers should be advised that traffic is frequently fairly heavy. To help those who are swamped with E-mail cope with this, there is a digest mode available which sends one large E-mail per day containing the day's traffic. Anyone participating in the discussion list will have issues of Audyssey automatically sent to them via E-mail. Representatives from all major developers of games for the blind are actively participating on the list. All staff members of Audyssey are also encouraged to participate on the discussion list. There are two moderators keeping things civil and orderly. Be certain to read the Audyssey Community Charter as all list members are expected to follow its rules. If you want an active role in shaping the future of accessible games, this is where you can dive right in. To subscribe to this discussion list, send a blank message to: blindgamers-subscribe@yahoogroups.com To post messages to the list, send them to: blindgamers@yahoogroups.com Should you wish to unsubscribe, send a blank message to: Blindgamers-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com To change your subscription to digest mode so that you only receive one message per day, send a blank message to: Blindgamers-digest@yahoogroups.com To go back to receiving individual messages, send a blank message to: Blindgamers-normal@yahoogroups.com There are more options at your disposal. To find out about them, send a blank message to: Blindgamers-help@yahoogroups.com Stan Bobbitt has made Audyssey Magazine available in HTML format for easy on-line browsing. To take advantage of this, you are invited to visit our home-page. People can easily and quickly navigate through the various articles and reviews, and directly download or visit the sites of the games that interest them. This will be of especial benefit for sighted people who wish to make use of Audyssey and/or join the growing community surrounding it. The Audyssey community thanks Mr. Bobbitt for his continued efforts on its behalf in this matter. You can also find all issues of Audyssey on the Internet on Paul Henrichsen's web site at: www.henrichsen.org J.J. Meddaugh has long been famous in the Audyssey community. He has now started his own web-site called The Blind Community. All issues of Audyssey are there in zipped files in the file centre. Another site has recently added Audyssey issues to its resources. We welcome: www.blindhelp.com to the Audyssey community and hope that visitors to this site find our resource to be of value to them. If you have ftp access, all issues are also available at Travis Siegel's ftp site: ftp://ftp.softcon.com Look in the /magazines directory. +++ Contents: Welcome Distribution Information and Submission Policies Contents From The Editor Letters Assistant Editors Needed The latest company to hit the Net. LWorks! Race-Calendar 2002-2003 Arcade Mania Meets The Blind Gamer MarvelSoft's Talking Typing Teacher Puzzles and Games Accessible Games--Lagging Behind? Free Game Winner News from Code Factory News From BSC Games: News From ESP Softworks: News from GMA Games News From Lworks: News From PCS: News From Zform: Game Announcements and Reviews: Answers to Puzzles and Games Contacting Us IF Only Second article Friendly Travellers Puzzles and Games Free Game Winner News From Bavisoft News From Code Factory News From Danssoft News From ESP Softworks News From GMA Games News From PCS News From Zform Third article Answers to puzzles Game Announcements and Reviews Contacting Us +++ From The Editor: Hello, everyone. It's been a long time since I edited issue 32 of Audyssey six months ago. During those months, much has changed for myself as well as for the prospects of blind gamers. On a personal level, I'm now a married man living in our own apartment with my wife Rebecca. These are both quite drastic changes to go through, as some of you know from experience. I would like to extend my thanks to all of you who have offered your congratulations, advice, and support. Rebecca and I certainly appreciate it, and trust that the friendships we've begun in this community will continue. The Summer has been filled with activity for us, and I admit that our marriage has been my first priority as it ought to be. It'll probably take a while to really hit my stride in terms of time management and such, but things are settling down into a semblance of normalcy which I hope will be reflected in the next issue. It would appear that the Summer vacation phenomenon has struck the writers in the Audyssey community in full force. There were no articles at all until the very last minute well after the deadline for submitted material had passed. Had I not been flexible this time, this issue would have been very short indeed. This time, I had time to edit things. However, I more than likely won't have time in future to pull a last-minute miracle or take advantage of those performed by others. Please keep this in mind and don't wait until we're down to the wire to submit material. People had a disturbing habit of sending in reviews and calling them articles instead. To clarify the distinction for everyone, a review deals with a single game discussing its uniqueness, merits and shortcomings. An article deals with a broader aspect or issue. For instance, an article might examine educational games for blind children and draw conclusions about existing games versus what teachers and parents might want. We've had articles which deal with a whole type of game such as muds or arcade games. In short, articles paint broader strokes than reviews. To be a positive force and good resource for both game developers as well as people in search of accessible games, Audyssey needs to have both things in a steady continuous supply. I hope for the sake of the community that this was simply a low ebb in creative thinking and writing about the games we all love. Otherwise, the web-site won't be nearly as effective and vibrant as it should be. This is even more vital since we're no longer the only forum for discussion of accessible games in town. James North of ESPSoftworks has successfully launched a great new site for blind gamers everywhere. They're currently in the process of getting things going, and have big plans for the future. I hope everyone will visit the site and help it prosper. Their E-mail discussion list has been host to some very good discussions of the kinds of games people want and other topics. For the Audyssey community, the appearance of this new haven for blind gamers means that we'll have to alter things somewhat in order to make certain that each place offers something unique. Frankly, I would rather see Audyssey disappear entirely than get into a situation where we're in direct competition for loyalty and resources. I'm just not interested in participating in something which would divide and dilute the progressive elements of the community. Helping people is what I've always been striving to do, and that's one thing in my life that will never change. For everyone who decides to pitch in and help me to do that, Audyssey should be looked at as a hobby. I have a habit of treating it like a job. It has been a very meaningful and critical force in my life for the past seven years. When times come up when nobody seems willing to take the time to write material, I've sometimes taken it more personally than I ought to. When you get involved in a good cause like spreading awareness and promoting accessible games for the blind, it takes a real effort to step back and look at things objectively. Well, folks, I've made that effort. Here's what I think: At its best, Audyssey is a place where games are like fuel for thought and discussion. They are more than merely entertaining. Each game has its place in the total growing mosaic of games available to us. Games are not necessarily separate from other areas of life. They can teach us lessons about ourselves and our world. The Audyssey Magazine and web-site must be where a higher and level-headed thinking about the games we play is set out for all to enjoy. Reviews in the magazine and on the site should try to approach games fairly and thoughtfully. Problems found in games should not diminish or up- stage a game's good points unless it is warranted. Of course, the reverse is also true. A game's problems should be clearly stated and discussed. Developers and consumers should both feel that their interests have a place here. Another thing I would like to see represented on the Audyssey site is creative writing related to games. Poetry and stories would be welcome additions to the magazine and site. Overall, I'd like our Audyssey to take us along the higher and more literary road and serve people who are after more than just fun. After all, although fun is the first word in our motto, it isn't the only one. One good bit of news is that I have at last finished the game I have been working on for the past while. Sparkle is available for downloading from the Audyssey site in the "Games download" section. If any game developers out there require space for their demo files, we are willing to host them on our site and server. Please contact us if you're interested. In the mean-while, I hope that everyone enjoys what this issue contains. May it inspire you to help me make the next one due at the end of November even better. +++ Letters: Discussion was quite far-ranging on the Blindgamers list during the third quarter. Each game released attracted some attention. Unfortunately, problems with games got far more discussion than their merits. This is pretty much expected these days, although I hope to see a less knee-jerk reaction in the future. Developers need to be told what they're doing wrong, but also need to be encouraged about what they do right. Sadly, the scale was tipped towards harshness in this quarter. Free games are pretty much always pounced on by inhabitants of the Blindgamers list. Particular note was taken of Dan Zingaro's freeware game Deekout. People gave very little analysis in their exchanges, but it was astounding to see how they were all bent on out-doing each other's highest scores. Like Pong before it, Deekout seems to have that strange kind of delightful simplicity which keeps people coming back for more. ++ From Matthew Bullis: Hello, I've been away from the gaming community for a while, but have now just joined this list. Although this is not directly blind gaming related, I thought I'd direct some people to where they could find those puzzles that you have to twist and turn or try to get apart. They are the metal puzzles, and here are a few sites you can go to. You will have to ask sighted people to describe the pictures of the puzzles to see if you want those particular ones. For me, I don't like the ones with beads and ropes. I prefer those which you have to take two pieces or so apart, or twist it to get a ring or ball or other metal object out of it. They are called disentanglement puzzles, and for the longest time I never knew what name they were referred to as. I always called them metal puzzles or metal hand puzzles. Anyhow, I just ordered a few puzzles from www.BitsNPieces.com and I'm enjoying the following selections: man the torpedo free the key black hole if you type these phrases into their search box, you get a description of the puzzle. There are other sites, such as www.BinaryArts.com which have a great one called Spin-Out. It's plastic, and you have to turn a series of discs to get the board to slide free of the base. www.BrainPuzzles.com has some, and Seth there is responsive, and will describe puzzles if you don't have sighted assistance. Other than that, just type in the word disentanglement into your favourite search engine and see what you find. Matthew + Welcome aboard, Matthew. The only reason why your post seems off- topic is because the tendency of this community is towards computer games. In actuality, I have long established that Audyssey Magazine can be about all kinds of accessible games for blind people. Your information is a welcome and refreshing example of the other directions the focus of the discussion list and magazine can take. ++ From Graham Pearce: Hi all. I am pleased to announce that my new web page is ready for viewing. You can find it at: www.anycities.com/graham43 At the moment there is a home page for my huge collection of basic games, the simon home page, and a links section. Soon I'll be adding a section about my writings, and lots more stuff as I think of things to put on there. I'm not going to use this list to announce any updates to this web site, as I fear it might clutter the list, grin. Again the address is: www.anycities.com/graham43 Enjoy! Regards, Graham Pearce ++ Other discussion on the Blindgamers list mainly centred around specific games. Each game to emerge generated quite a bit of chatter about it. Also, it seems that there is a growing interest in the games of Infocom. A number of these were discussed during the past while. Cryptic hints are still the preferred method of handing out clues. However, it is reassuring to note that the convention for giving due warning before revealing outright solutions to problems is being honoured and seems well established. For those new to the list, please be certain to spell the word "spoiler" putting each letter below the previous one on a new line. This warns people not to read further since doing so may ruin the enjoyment of trying to solve a problem by one's own skill. BSC Games released an update to its flagship product Troopanum. Details about it can be read in the News From BSC Games section found later in this issue. Unfortunately, the small amount of praise from satisfied and excited customers and discussion of the new features added was completely overshadowed by a discussion about the unsatisfactory security methods employed by BSC Games. Despite what seemed to be a clearly announced policy shift complete with an apology from Dan Zingaro, people seemed unwilling to let sleeping dogs lie. for the record, people can request additional keys for any games they purchase from BSC Games. There is no charge for additional keys. I find it somewhat sad to see such obvious progress in gaming terms met with the reception that it was on this occasion. James North's Alien Outback was met with far more praise, but despite its marvels and extraordinary efforts on the part of ESPSoftworks to respond quickly to customer complaints, the initial bugs and problems of this game seemed to take centre stage. I fervently hope that this tendency changes in the months ahead. Although it is vital that Audyssey remains a forum where people feel free to give criticism and point out such problems, it should also be a place where the games themselves are discussed and reviewed. A painful irony which I was presented with when looking through the discussions of the previous quarter was that Jim Kitchen's relatively simple Pong game garnered more analytical discussion than either of the two Space Invaders interpretations we've just seen emerge. ++ From Bobby: Hello. I believe that the approach to blind gaming is all wrong. programmers are just not coming up with games that suitably astound us. They are basically just taking games that have been free to our sighted comrades for years and making them accessible to speech. I mean, if you stripped some of the games available to blind people today down, like battleship and monopoly, they are nothing more than the simple space invader type games programmed in the early eighties, made more attractive, i may add, with high quality sound effects, but nevertheless, they are just simple programmes. That's just my opinion of course. Bobby + It's interesting how life works. Many people had wondered whether Audyssey Magazine still had a real role to fulfil with the emergence of www.accessiblegames.com onto the scene combined with lagging interest in starting our own page and my new and very busy life. Just like how the only full-time paying job I have ever had found me when I had given up looking for one, the answer to a lack of true direction for Audyssey began with the posting above. At the time, I remember thinking that if we were lucky, this wouldn't degenerate into a completely nasty flame battle which would lose us even more membership. Over the next days, I was blown away by the passion and style of the extended and wide-ranging discussion which resulted from it. The debate had its highs and lows, but never degenerated as I had originally dreaded. In fact, it proved to be the one realisation of what Audyssey at its best is all about. People argued their points with spirit and vigour without getting overly personal or offended when disagreed with. My hope for our future was at its lowest point when all of this started. Prior to this, the list had been prone more to complaints and the healthy but largely unusable chatter about games which typically comprises the bulk of messages. Not much had come in for me to use in constructing this issue, and I started to seriously question whether I was the only person who thought deeply about the games I played and the issues they raised. One of the best things about the debate was that it compelled a number of people who were not normally given to posting messages to the list to stand up and be counted. To all of you who participated, I extend my deepest thanks and appreciation for restoring my weakened faith. If enough of you who so ably demonstrated your ability to reflect and express yourselves are willing to submit articles and reviews as well as participate in these kinds of discussions, I think we can take the higher ground and do alright. I have included a very small sample of the debate which will give readers a taste of what an interesting place the Blindgamers list can be. It won't, however, begin to do justice to the scope and large number of different areas the debate explored. May many more such discussions lie ahead of us. + From Darren Duff: hi, have you ever played Shades of doom? or lone wolf? or monkey business? These are just a few of some of the great games out there for blind people. and, before playing them, I never new that such games were available to the blind. And if they are games that the sighted have been playing for a long time, there all fairly new to the blind community and open up a hole new world to those of us that have never played or have been able to play a game like this before. Just my 2 cents worth. + From Debra harper Hi Bobby, Well then you haven't taken a good look at several great games including Shades of Doom, Lone Wolf and Star Trek and Phil is coming out with a new Pacman Talks. I have really enjoyed all the games our developers have made accessible for us. Before Jim Kitchen, David Greenwood, Phil Vlasak and Dan of bscgames, and let us not forget Mr. North came along to make these games accessible for us we had little or nothing besides on line gaming. Any new and unique games would be appreciated by all of us. However there still probably an infinite number of games out there accessible for sighted people that we as blind people would give a lot to be able to play. So much criticism of our game developers occurs while sometimes it seems there is little appreciation. I for one thank all of our accessible games developers at least a dozen times a day when golfing, playing black jack, Sod or LW or any of the fine games they have created. + From Bobby: I'm not saying that the games you play are awful, but what I am saying is this, don't try and duplicate sighted games like doom and quake. I lost my sight when i was 21 and I played games like doom and wolfenstine and believe me it was the graphics that astounded me and not the sounds, but that's beside the point, when i look back now, they were extremely boring games, no story, no plot. We are better than that! When I lost my site and got back into playing computer games, i found that text adventure games were incredibly more enjoyable. why not make these games come more to life? Games like colossal cave and zork. Give them more than just text, give them sound! I'd rather play something like that rather than a game where you go around shooting endless monsters. + From John R. Jeavons: Hi, Bobby. If all those games you played while you were sighted seemed as boring then as they do in retrospect, you probably would not have played them very much. While they were very likely somewhat repetitive and challenged only a small subset of the skills and abilities you may now possess, competing with your own best performance and honing your eye-hand coordination must have been interesting enough to you then to keep you engaged. Different people enjoy different genres of amusement at different stages in their lives. this seems to me to be a natural progression of preferences and interests as one develops different values, skills and abilities. At any given time, there are lots of different fully and partially sighted people in different age and interest groups playing different genres of games for different reasons. There are also all kinds of blind people who like all kinds of games. Each has his own preference and is entitled to it. there are still plenty of text adventures out there, and some people on this list have expressed interest in gaining the knowledge to write more of them. the present state of the accessible gaming art includes both audio arcade games and audio adventures.... only you have to pay for most, if not all, of the accessible audio adventures. Such is the nature of business, and many of the accessible game developers are indeed in the business of accessible gaming. These developers expend a great deal of effort to generate original story lines, characters, obstacles and sound environments, consuming a lot of resources in the process. They can only succeed financially, which is the point of business, if they produce games that are interesting or challenging enough for consumers to want to play, so they try to plan and program to meet the desires of their target markets. Hobbyist developers who present their games for free as a public service logically program to their own tastes, which apparently include audibly playing arcade style games they remember from being sighted. Those games were fun for them then, and they are still fun for many people now. The hobbyists in this field are to be lauded both for their skills and philanthropy. Interestingly, you seem to be promoting the aural enhancement of existing, fairly old, text adventures such as Zork over first person shooters, which you seem to not enjoy. Some people find adventure games intellectually demanding, and are playing games as an amusement, bereft of social or political or intellectual stress or morality. For them, Puzzles may be annoying while first person shooters may be quite relaxing. There is one unofficial patch for sighted players of Doom that presents all of your enemies as the children's television character Barney.... and some parents find it quite satisfying to wreak havoc on him and destroy him in various violent ways. Others would find this diversion quite abhorrent. they can either play other games or not use the patch. there are collectors who place a premium on non-interactive fiction arcade games such as Space Invaders, Pac Man, and even the Black Hole pinball game, to name a few, indicating their lasting value in the sighted gaming world.. For them, playing these games may be a means of connecting with their youths (mis?)spent in local game rooms. The sighted gaming world clearly also senses a lack of stimulation such as you express, even given stunning and 3-D graphics, as demonstrated by overwhelming spectrum-filling soundtracks and sound effects, as well as forays into the arenas of tactile stimulation through force- feedback devices including gloves and joysticks and steering wheels even chairs and body suits. How long will it be until the general gamer wears a helmet and suit which generates a visual panorama accompanied by 3-D sound, tactile stimulation all over, and even appropriate smells and tastes as they venture through their gaming experience? Infocom used to distribute some of their interactive fiction computer games with props and scratch and sniff cards to promote the purchase of the official legal game.... and they had a lot of fun with the concept. the smells were not always the ones you expected. Perhaps accessible game developers will one day ship textures and smells with their products, and even start to include force-feedback technologies into their designs and revisions. visual computer games began their evolution as simple arcade games as well, eventually moving into story-line based arcade games and then even interactive movie-style games which permitted player choices to alter the outcomes of the story lines. As different techniques of animating these games developed, such as vector graphics and later, texturing, the arcade developers took advantage of them. Some developers led the way in creating proprietary techniques that gave them the market edge for a while. The interactive fiction genre arose roughly simultaneously with the visual arcade games, outside the arcades and game rooms, as mainframe computer exercises in teaching computers to parse natural language commands in what would now be called an "online" setting, with games like the original Adventure, which Zork closely resembles. Their amusement value was secondary to the task of programming an opportunity in which to employ typed conversational commands for the computer to analyze and interpret. Now visual video and arcade games are moving more towards realistic action and visual and sound immersion... visit any local game room for a sample... and a virtual reality closer to the experience of the gamers' real one. Some, like fantasy bowling, try to approach alternate possible realities, which can disregard the conventions of time and space and physics as we know them, as well. All of these approaches to games are equally valid for those who play them, and those who produce them. The market determines each approach's economic viability in the end. If lots of people like a game, and they think the price is warranted and can afford it, they will buy the game, or go to an arcade an play it. I am unaware, but would certainly like to hear about, any public arcade primarily for blind gamers. This leaves the market for these games in the homes and schools of blind and visually impaired consumers. Accessible gaming has taken a long time to get where it is, and hopefully will continue pushing the potential of the supporting technology as it matures. It is following the same rough direction in its evolution that occurred naturally in visual gaming. Perhaps it will catch up to your tastes soon, or perhaps your tastes will change again, as they have since you enjoyed those now boring visual arcade games. The accessible game developers are only limited by their imaginations, prior experiences, skills and the capabilities that they can use which are offered by the technologies which they can create or already have available to them. simply keeping up with the state of the art of programming and operating systems is challenge enough for many programmers, let alone pushing the concept and design envelope. Gamers are only limited by the quality and power of their computer systems, the scope of their interests and the size of their wallets, and the choices the developers make about what they can feasibly implement. Not all of those choices are entirely voluntary, as the tools of both accessible and visual game development are inextricably linked to the limitations of the hardware and software platforms upon which they are implemented. Games such as those already mentioned in this thread have already taken audio gaming to the next level from simple auditory implementations of existing board and arcade games to interactive adventures including original quests and mazes, as well as original quick ear-hand coordination games. All three genres are equally valid, even if radically different on other technical and philosophical planes. They have moved through this evolutionary process in much less time than it took to get from the original Pong and home TV gaming systems to today's advanced graphics and intense sound spectacles and accurate visual statistical representations of various sports events. One apparent irony is that those who have the means to afford the paid games may not actually have the time to play them, due to work obligations, while those who have the time to play lots of games may not have the means to afford the paid ones. this dichotomy is not unique to the blind and visually impaired community, by any means. Indeed, it is a point of commonality with our sighted peers. A categorization of accessible games for the blind based upon an analysis of only those games available for free would certainly render a spectrally limited and slanted view of the overall industry, since many of the games available for free tend to be original or classic arcade style games, rather than the interactive fiction or adventure genres. This by no means implies that none of the paid games are arcade style ones, indeed many of them are. The trend seems to be that the more interactively styled games are paid ones, though. I can only hope that as the skills and resources of the programmers and developers of accessible games increase, that they can include more universal design features in their projects, such as including graphics and alternate human interface devices like joysticks and steering wheels for the visually impaired and the sighted families and peers of blind gamers, as well as the blind gamers themselves. One accessible game developer has even promised inclusive practices such as graphics in his public mission statements on this list. I also look forward to the time when the accessible features of mass- market games are not inadvertent and discovered by vigilant enthusiasts, but are rather designed in and programmed in from the beginning to intentionally include the entire spectrum of gamers with the entire continuum of abilities, across the various market genres. in the interim, each genre and implementation philosophy has its place and niche market, and this list is a fine resource for gathering information on them as it emerges. Each amongst us will enjoy what we do, and the developers will develop what they can, and hopefully there will be a lot of common ground between the two. + From David Lant: Hi Didier, I appreciate that you do not find much enjoyment from arcade style games. To be honest, neither do I. I never found Space Invaders, Pong or Pacman very interesting, even when I could see. However, to say that the community wants to move on to other things is being slightly egotistical perhaps. I think you'll find that many blind gamers are perfectly happy to pay for the good quality arcade games that are available to them. If they weren't, they wouldn't buy them. You say that some sighted developers make things freely available because they can't be bothered with marketing. Well, when you do the marketing, you realise that there are a significant number of customers who are very willing to pay for such games. The other point you slightly glossed over, was the point about the relative quality and technological advancement in games. AS you pointed out, the accessible games developers are very small, often one-man outfits. You just cannot sensibly compare their output to mainstream games, which are designed, built and tested with large teams of professionally paid technicians, producers and artists. Certainly, there are games on the market that cost little more than the present set of accessible games, and that possess much superior sound quality and features. But that is largely due to two factors. First, the sheer size of the market. These games are likely to sell in such numbers that it is easy to price them at a lower level to make a reasonable return. Secondly, they are developed with the benefit of economies of scale. When you have an outfit that is set up to produce entertainment media of many types, you don't need to regularly buy in technology or skills, just to turn out a new title. Thus the overhead costs of producing cinematic quality action games is kept reasonably low because they are being produced in comparatively continuous streams through the software house. I accept that the accessible games market is lagging behind the commercial mainstream. It has to. Until one or more of the companies and developers are able to buy in the resources necessary to be on a par with their mainstream counterparts, I think it is going to have to be an evolutionary process that moves us into the kinds of games and technology that you are talking about. If you've got a couple of million dollars sloshing around to fund some heavy duty studio work, I'm sure there are a few developers around here who would be willing to put it to good use. You're not hurting my feelings at all, as my feelings don't come into it. I wouldn't mind if no more arcade games were turned out by the accessible games developers. However, I think you'll find that there are people on this list and elsewhere who are very happy to play Troopanum or Packman Talks for hours on end. You may not, and you would be in the same opinion group as me in that preference. But that shouldn't be extrapolated into a statement that things that are presently available aren't good enough. They're actually pretty good, in comparison to what was available 2 years ago. They are, in the same way, pretty poor in comparison to what is going to be available in the next 2 years. You can see from the demand being expressed by gamers here and on other lists, that there is certainly a growing clamour for games with much more depth, content and richness in them. The developers, given time, will undoubtedly rise to the challenge. + From Toti Alberto: Hi to everybody, gamers! I'm Albert from Italy and I would like to express my opinion in this interesting discussion. I've played with Shades of doom because one friend of mine has bought it and shown it to me. I find this game is very realistic and very amazing because of its sounds that give to the player an idea of the space. Here in Italy, a game producer created 4 years ago a game for sighted people called Blindness that was accessible to the blind people because the player could reach the buttons with the mouse and every button representing the action the player was doing in the game was audible through a wave file that said, for example,: "Open the door, or dial the telephone number, etc". This game had a plot: a blind man was witness of a murder and had to discover who had killed his friend. The game was rich in dialogues and animation and it was possible even to play in cooperation with sighted people. It was a thriller! The game was in Italian language, but I don't know if there was a version even in other languages like for example in English. Anyway it's the best game accessible to blind people I have ever played. I think that the two things that the accessible games haven't got actually are these ones: there isn't an amazing story and there isn't a graphic support that make possible to blind people to play with sighted people too. Games should be a valid means of social integration for blind people, don't you think so? + From Michael Mccarty: I think you are both right in a way. One thing to remember though is that we need the simpler games in order to "train" the ears as to what to listen for, and how the basic control of a game is to be mapped. You can't compare the classic arcade games with the basic games for the blind today. When ATARI was out, it was the top of the line in game consoles. The games were simple, because they couldn't be any better. As people played these simple games, they gained, some would argue with this, skills that prepared them for later games like Mario Brothers. Even Nintendo kept simple games in the market when they put Duck Hunt on the "Getting started" cartridge, sold with thousands of Nintendo systems. Games for the blind are simple for another reason, people need time to build those basic skills that the sighted world got with ATARI. many of us didn't get the chance to home in on those skills, or the want to build those skills wasn't there due to a lack of interest in a game for the sighted world. When ATARI was out, I had vision, and I played every game I could get my hands on. As the Nintendo craze took hold, the graphics became too involved, and things got too hard to see. Glaucoma took the rest of my vision, and I lost interest in all games, they were for people who could see, and I found them annoying. Recently, I have really built an interest in games for the blind, and I find that I miss the thrill of the game. I like the simple games, one of the first that I downloaded was SuperShot from LWorks. This is not brain surgery, but it showed me how to maneuver in games of this nature. I would later find, after downloading the demo of Shades of Doom, and then Monkey Business, that there are some "standards" in the way the controls of a game work. I had no idea of this before, but these simple games taught me how to listen to the game, and how to control it. More complicated games are on the way, that's the natural progression of any gaming market, but as they are released, they will build on the skills we all learned from the simpler games, and in ten years or so, we will look back on these "legendary" games and want to download them again, much like the revival of the ATARI 2600 games that can now be downloaded from the net today. These games are simple, almost ridiculous compared to today's technology, but people still want them, for the memories. +++ Assistant Editors Needed By Michael Feir In order to make the move from E-mail magazine to constantly updated web-site, I need the help of some dedicated people in addition to those already standing behind what we'd like to achieve. The ultimate goal is to develop and sustain an active community of gamers willing to share their thoughts and hopes with others. We should all be responsible for keeping Audyssey Magazine going. I will remain chief editor of the quarterly magazine. Also, I will continue to be the community leader I always have. My task will be to keep a good overall grasp of what's happening and to do whatever I can to improve the overall health of the community. To that end, I'll be available to help resolve any disputes, keep a good overall view of how things are going and what's available, and act as an ambassador for accessible games to any interested parties. What will assistant editors do? Assistant editors concentrate on specific parts of the site and visitors interested in their area of responsibility. They will strive to help gamers having trouble with the type of game they specialize in. When possible, they should try to submit material for publication on the site. However, this is of secondary importance to the task of inspiring others to contribute writing for their areas. They need not submit material for every issue of Audyssey. One of the ways that inspiring community participation should be done is to make certain people are aware of the latest developments in their areas. For example, when a company releases a game, the assistant editor in charge of commercial accessible games would make certain that information about it was posted to the site. He/she might then write a full review of the game for people, and/or pose questions about the title to provoke thoughtful responses from others. Our first assistant editor is Randy Hammer who will be responsible for commercial accessible games. He was previously a staff member covering the same territory for Audyssey Magazine, and has always produced fine work. I have no doubt he will continue to do so under these new and more flexible terms. If you're interested in becoming an assistant editor, please contact me. I will send you information on how to join a private E-mail list set up for the use of Audyssey staff only. Also, if you have the skills to edit web-pages, you may be able to update your section of the Audyssey site on your own. However, people without such skills need not worry. Material can be submitted to either Luis or Stan who can help get things posted. Assistant editors will be responsible for viewing any submitted material pertaining to their sections and submitting it to Luis and Stan for publication. Copies of everything should also be sent to me so I can keep track of what's being posted. Areas which need coverage include interactive fiction, educational games, board and casino games, on-line games, and other areas which may be thought of in the future. Assistant editors need not restrict themselves to covering games in their particular areas, but their priority should always be to see that those games are covered first. I can't stress enough how much Audyssey depends on the community it serves to keep going. Without an infusion of new ideas and material, I simply won't be able to produce quarterly issues. Also, the web- site will fall far short of its full potential of being a centre for ongoing discussion and clearing house for information on accessible games. All communities need to have people who inspire and rally others around them. If you think you have what it takes, please contact me. Help keep Audyssey going. Help us enter our seventh year with a spring in our stride. +++ The latest company to hit the Net. LWorks! HI All. This is Liam Erven, programmer and founder of LWorks. Since I was little, I had always wanted to make computer games. I played games on my apple 2e and always wanted to make software for the blind. A year or so ago, I was introduced to visual basic, (a programming language for windows.) With the help of some friends of mine, including James North of ESP Softworks, I was able to learn direct x in a short amount of time. And, that brings us up to LWorks! LWorks produces quality games and software for those who have visual impairments. LWorks Focuses on games that are fun and affordable. LWork's first release is a game called Super Shot. The object is to shoot at falling objects by using your arrow keys. Three difficulty levels of play, 5 levels, cool music, awesome stereo fx, and addictive play make this game a sure download. and priced at a comfortable $0.00, this game is a sure bet! The future of lWorks includes: a drum machine, an action arcade style game, a children's typing game, and much more. You can visit LWorks on the web at http://liamshow.com/lworks +++ Race-Calendar 2002-2003 2002 July, 1-14, 500 Miles of Indianapolis 2002 Indy, level 3, 9 laps 2002 September 1-14, Short-track-Cup Kirtland level 1, 1 lap 2002 November 1-December 5, Worldchampionship Mach1 2002 ohio gp, level 1, 2 laps Chardon hill gp, level 1, 2 laps snake river gp, level 1, 2 laps erie lake gp, level 1, 2 laps mentor road gp, level 1, 2 laps 2002 November 1-14, (only for competitors who do not participate in the worldchampionship) 500 Miles of Maple maple, level 2, 9 laps 2003 February 1-14, (2003) Series Mach 1 Worldchampionship ohio level 1, 2 laps 2003 march 1-22, Enduro Race 24 Hours of Le Mans ohio level 2, 4 laps ohio level 3, 2 laps ohio level 1, 4 laps to join the races send a mail to hugo.j@pi.be All Information about the races can be found at: www.blindsupport.be/mach1 +++ Arcade Mania Meets The Blind Gamer By Michael Feir Over the past while, I have been drawn to examine what goes into making a truly successful video game. I don't simply mean a game which does well commercially. Figuring that out takes no brains at all. Good design combined with clever marketing will give a game developer for the sighted world a financial success. Even some games which look flashy enough but have little substance will sometimes do that. These games will hang on for long enough for the developers to walk away with a tidy sum before fading from the public consciousness. Some games, however, obtain a special cultural status. Games like Pacman, Space Invaders, Zelda, and the like were what I was focussing on. For sighted people, arcade mania struck in the 1980's. Games such as Pacman and Space Invaders swept millions of quarters out of the pockets of people only too happy to fork them into video games. I'm talking here about all kinds of people from all walks of life. There were a number of factors which made it possible for arcades and games to be as incredibly successful as they were and not simply develop small cult followings. In essence, these factors added up to the basic truth that people were ready and waiting for something new. Clever marketing also helped catapult games like Pacman into pop culture phenomena of incredible magnitude. Every kid had to have a Pacman lunchbox. Like Star Wars, everyone knew the basic fundamentals of Pacman. Good design and good marketing were certainly involved, but I was unable to answer to my own satisfaction what allowed the awareness of and desire for the game to spread and make such an impact. Over twenty years later, there appears to be a critical mass of blind people wanting arcade action for themselves. It seems they've all heard of the games their sighted contemporaries have been playing and become envious. For quite a while, this didn't occur all that widely since text-based games held us in their clutches for quite a number of years. Now that the average computer owned by a blind person is powerful enough to support sound-based arcade games, the cries of "I want to play too!" have reached the right proportions to start the process in earnest. Developers have sprung into action. However, the ultra-wide spread awareness of the games already available and those under development has not happened. Unfortunately, developers have yet to find a way to make it economical to engage in large-scale advertising. Also, no game has come out which seems to be as universally satisfying as Pacman was for the sighted. Were a game to appear, the blind community's more closely connected nature could very well offset the advertising handicap developers of accessible games face. Before that occurred, a game would have to accrue a large enough player base to fire off the chain reaction. Games like that are quite rare even in the sighted world. Nintendo struck gold with the Zelda series of adventures. Despite their relative complexity, they had the playability and longevity which counted for people of all ages. Children are still captivated by the Zelda series, but so are parents. The game just has that universal calling capability. Of course, companies like Nintendo have the ability to do lots of market research and can afford to take risks. Many developers of games for blind people cannot. They therefore take their time and try to be as certain as possible that their games are the right ones for a market whose desires are only beginning to be apparent. No sustained flow of games will therefore contribute to a developer's notoriety or understanding of the current and developing market. The way I see it, two things must happen before a wonder-game for the blind can appear: First of all, general awareness of games accessible to the blind must increase dramatically. There are millions of blind people the world over. Although economic factors prevent a large portion of these from experiencing or desiring computer games, there are still likely a far larger number of willing gamers out there than are currently reached. I believe that there are currently enough different games out there so that at least one appeals to the majority of those interested in accessible games. What is needed, however, is a game which appeals to practically all of them. Pacman did this in the sighted world with such success that an entire industry was propelled into being. Although the blind gaming industry is already present on a small scale, a wonder-game would give it the badly needed popularity and financial kick developers have been hoping for. Even if such a game were developed and given away for free, it might well spark a new interest in commercial offerings. Many people who lose their sight are elderly. Their gaming interests seem not to coincide with those of younger blind people. Younger and middle-aged folks seem to be aboard the arcade action band-wagon. Older people, if they're interested in games, seem to want slower- paced board, card and/or word games. A game which bridges such a wide gap is unlikely, and each segment of the market is likely too small to allow developers to ignore the other for long enough to hit their stride and develop such a game. This problem may very well disappear with time as the current generation ages. If we're truly on the verge of arcade mania hitting home in the blind community, we may very well see a revival a decade down the road. Initiatives are underway which may change these almost right conditions into perfect conditions. The recent launch of www.accessiblegames.com by ESPSoftworks as well as advertising campaigns launched by Zform and other developers indicate the presence of a substantial market as yet untapped. Depending on the demographics of this market, it could either extend or shorten the current push by developers to satisfy the demands for arcade action. Zform Poker was an attempt to appeal to the widest audience possible, and it appears to have succeeded wonderfully in that sense. However, it lacks the originality to really count as a wonder-game. Poker, after all, has been around for centuries. Zform had to go to quite a bit of trouble making it accessible and playable by people the world over. They are certainly deserving of praise not only for doing this, but for being such a good catalyst for awareness of other games. However, nothing will make Poker catch hold of the minds of people like Pacman did. It was different from anything which came before. Perhaps, the wonder-game will be something other than an arcade game. However, given current conditions as I see them, I would bet on a sound-based arcade miracle. What would be the kind of arcade game to sweep blind people off their feet? It would have to be a game with very impressive sound work. Current games out there have some amazing sound effects and use of stereo panning, and these will be pre-requisites for a wonder-game. No corners can be cut in those areas. Re-play value is a definite must. Pacman went on indefinitely. Games like Zelda have all kinds of features from hidden items to dozens or hundreds of levels to keep players going. Playing the game after one has already beaten it must be rewarding in some way. Also, the game would have to be hard without having a very complex interface. This is because it must cater to non-experts and people on the borderline of not having any interest in games at all. The novice at both computers and games should be able to easily master the game's controls. A Pacman game for the blind is actually in the works by a company called Personal Computer Systems Inc. It may be able to pull off an economic miracle. Like its counterpart in the sighted world, Pacman Talks uses simple controls and is quite intuitive. ESPSoftworks's recently released Alien Outback also meets the criteria despite its slightly more complex nature. Although it won't be too hard for beginners to tackle, I get the feeling that it will be the game turned to when whatever the eventual wonder-game ends up being starts to bore fledgling gamers not brave or persistent enough to stick with it initially. Excellent use of sound and stereo combined with basically simple and well-placed control keys may give total beginners enough confidence to learn Alien Outback's more advanced features. Blind Software's Swish may also strike gold when it emerges attempting to satisfy those after a game like Mario or Zelda. It will be the first side-scroller to be done for the blind. Although the author has stated his goal of having an intuitive interface, I can't venture an opinion on the interface design until I've looked at a beta version. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if one of this current group of arcade games turns out to be that wonder-game. However, due to current perceptions of games as wastes of time by many agencies and organisations helping blind people, I won't hold my breath. A broader cultural engagement with games must happen among blind people and those falling within their social sphere. There are one or two slim signs of this beginning to happen. The National Federation of the Blind's recent stand behind BlindSoftware's flagship product Troopanum demonstrates that at least some heads are turning. Through work I've done with the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, I know that there is certainly interest among parents and blind youth in accessible games. Perhaps, if enough people show improved concentration, hand-ear coordination, reflexes, memory, or some other important attribute, something major may happen at that time. Until then, it is up to the more brave explorers among blind people to enjoy these games and spread the word about them. As arcade mania sweeps the blind community and developers try to create a wonder- game, Audyssey will be there to cover all the action. Stay tuned and play on. +++ Marvelsoft's Talking Typing Teacher Over the last few years, we've noticed an ever-increasing need for a typing program that's both fun and easy to use for novice and advanced computer users alike. MarvelSoft's flagship product is TALKING TYPING TEACHER FOR WINDOWS, a revolutionary new typing program that's ideal for home or classroom use. Built from the ground up with blind and visually impaired students in mind, TTT features HUMAN SPEECH, which is used everywhere in the program. This means that whether you're navigating menus, changing options, managing dozens of student accounts, or visiting the Help Desk, you'll enjoy listening to Eager Eddie read the screen. What makes TTT so special, however, is that each and every typing lesson or practice session is read aloud with clear, concise pre-recorded dialog. Put quite simply, you won't need to worry about trying to understand synthetic speech when you're learning to type with TTT. The only thing Text-To-Speech is really used for is to read your name and play back text you type into Workbook, a fully-functional talking word processor that ships with Talking Typing Teacher. But that's not all! TTT easily accommodates the specific needs of all visually impaired typists. With just a few clicks of the mouse, you can pick from dozens of fonts, change the size of text, and decide how heavy the print should be, (not to mention achieving the ideal colour contrast by selecting from thirty different background and text colours). These options ensure that everyone will get the most out of Talking Typing Teacher. Whether you're reading the screen or letting Eager Eddie do the reading for you, you'll have the chance to learn to type, and enjoy doing so! For more information, please feel free to drop by the MarvelSoft web site, http://www.marvelsoft.com There, you can listen to an audio demo, which takes you through just some of the many exciting features of the program. Of course, you're also welcome to give us a call at 1-800-987-1231, or send an E- Mail to: info@marvelsoft.com to find out more about TTT. Cheers, Craig Faris MarvelSoft Enterprises, Inc. http://www.marvelsoft.com Tel: 1-800-987-1231 Ext. 3066 Fax: 1-800-695-8271 E-Mail: Craig@marvelsoft.com +++ Puzzles and Games by David Greenwood In this issue, I have included three brain teasers. One is dead easy, the next is of medium difficulty, and the last is a definite challenge. 1. The farmer and his ducks were walking along the path. A stranger came up to the farmer and asked him how many ducks he had. The farmer said, "Hmm. Let me see. I have one duck in front of two ducks, one duck between two ducks, and one duck behind two ducks." How many ducks does the farmer have? 2. A bicyclist peddled up a hill averaging ten miles per hour. He peddled down the same hill at twenty miles per hour. What was his average speed? 3. Although not confirmed, the following puzzle has been attributed to Albert Einstein. There are 5 houses in 5 different colours. In each house lives a person of a different nationality. The 5 owners drink a certain type of beverage, smoke a certain brand of cigar, and keep a certain pet. Using the clues below can you determine who owns the fish? The Brit lives in a red house. The Swede keeps dogs as pets. The Dane drinks tea. The green house is on the left of the white house. The green house owner drinks coffee. The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds. The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill. The man living in the house right in the middle drinks milk. The Norwegian lives in the first house. The man who smokes Blend lives next door to the one who keeps cats. The man who keeps horses lives next door to the man who smokes Dunhill. The owner who smokes Blue Master drinks beer. The German smokes Prince. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house. The man who smokes Blend has a neighbour who drinks water. +++ Accessible Games--Lagging Behind? By Daniel Zingaro 1993. The world is taken by storm when Doom, the revolutionary shooter from ID software, is released. It was one of the first of its kind, sporting amazing (back then, at least) digital sounds and brilliant vga graphics. This thing really pushed those 486 computers to their limits. The hype was incredible, with thousands of levels being created by fans all over the world. What were we playing instead, in 1993? Text adventures. While everyone else was blasting away monsters with futuristic weapons, we were hitting n, s, e, and w trying to get out of a twisty maze of passages. 1998. Starcraft is released. Not only was it the best real-time strategy game ever, but it boasted unparalleled multiplayer capabilities on Blizzard's battle.net. They also got smash releases like Unreal, and Halflife. Many have argued that 1998 is one of the turning points in computer gaming. What were we up to in 1998? Thanks to PCS, we had finally moved into games which included some realistic sound effects. But we were still stuck in ugly DOS, while the rest of the world had moved to Windows gaming at least two years ago. 2002. Stunning games like Warcraft 3, Soldier of Fortune 2, Mafia, and Grand Theft Auto 3 hit the shelves. But something's finally changed on the accessible side of things. No-we don't have accessible Warcraft. And no, there is no accessible.net. But accessible games took a giant leap in 2001 and now again in 2002, with groundbreaking titles like Shades of Doom, Monkey Business, PacMan Talks, and so on. (boy, I'd love to add another one to this list. ) We've also got zForm, producing games with multiplayer capabilities. Accessible games are no longer just a bunch of twisty little passages. Nor are they stuck in Dos. Today's games are full-blown Windows titles, utilizing directX for the best level of sound complexity possible. We're not quite there yet, but Shades of Doom and others are light years ahead of what we had even two years ago. Accessible games will never reach the complexity of mainstream games, however. Most companies producing these games have only one or two people involved, doing everything from programming to sound design and tech support. And even though the graphics portion of the games-- one of the most difficult parts of game design--is gone, its impossible to compete with massive companies consisting of thousands of employees. Its simple to realize why this is occurring. In 1998, a game called Battle Zone was released. Battle what? Exactly. It pretty much bombed as a money maker, selling only (yes, only) 50000 copies. This is tens of thousands more than the best accessible game sells. Its unfortunate, but comparing mainstream games to accessible games is impossible. They are two completely different markets. Instead of raving about how much better main stream games are, why not take a look at the advances in accessible gaming over the last few years. Its miraculous--and we should be going crazy just like everyone else got to do in 1993! +++ Free Game Winner The winner this time around is John R. Jeavons. John was a key contributor to the excellent discussion we saw on the Blindgamers list regarding the theoretical lack of originality in accessible games. He responded with coolness and thoroughness. John's messages are the kinds of higher thinking which will keep Audyssey viable and give it an important integral niche in the blind gaming community. For participating in such stellar fashion, John wins a free game donated by Justin Daubenmire of BSCGames. You can either choose one of the games already offered, or wait for their next release called Swish. Contact Justin at: sales@bscgames.com in order to claim your prise. Editor's note: My thanks go to Justin for agreeing to this arangement. I hope that all developers continue to show their generosity as long as future issues of Audyssey are published. +++ News from Code Factory www.codfact.com Hello Gamers! In Code Factory, we are working very hard on the first game of our new collection of adventure games. It will be released some time in or around September. The collection is called Time Adventures. In the first title of Time Adventures, you have to travel through different ages and fight against the technocrats, an evil group of Enterprises that want to take over the world. The game has got lots of sound effects, conversations, characters, scenes and a very good soundtrack. It is also quite easy to handle through a very intuitive user interface. You can download a mix of some of the first title's soundtrack songs from our web page www.codfact.com. Time adventures is designed for people of all ages. It is a game full of action. In order to complete the game you have to use your intuition and imagination. In some weeks we will publish a demo of the game. Therefore you should regularly visit our website for updates in the download section. Moreover, I would like to inform you that there is a new game of our educational series "Enjoy and learn with" on the market. It is called Hansel and Gretel and it is for children mainly from 6 to 10 years old. In this game, there are lots of activities. Remember that you can listen to the story or participate in it. Like all the other games of the educational series "Enjoy and learn with" this game has two levels of difficulty. To download the demo you can go to our website. The games are available in the shops of ONCE-CIDAT and through their distributors in the whole world. On our website: www.codfact.com and in the website of ONCE-CIDAT you can download demos of all our games. We also would like to thank our more than 700 subscribers for their support. You have helped us a lot. Remember that you can always email us your opinion to opinion@codfact.com See you The Code Factory Team +++ News From BSC Games: www.bscgames.com Hey Gamers, Just a quick update this time. (That's cuz its only hours before the Audyssey submission deadline!!! *g*) I am continuing to work on my next game--Swish, but no time limit has been set on its release (hopefully in the next two months???). Its a side scroller, like Mario for Nintendo, with level creating abilities so everyone can make their own completely different games. The game will ship with several pre made games, from the simple to the ridiculously impossible (haha). Run, jump, duck, shoot, warp, and fly through hundreds of levels, killing enemies, collecting powerups, and avoiding many dangerous objects as you go. Many levels have additional requirements, such as collecting all of the coins, or killing all of the enemies. Its gonna be fun! Since last issue, Pipe has been released, as well as two free games which you might want to check out! Additionally, we released a package called Word Strain, consisting of two educational word games. Troopanum has been upgraded to version 1.5 and this is free to all registered users. Features added are listed below: What's New in V1.5 1. You can now pause the game while the next/prior level warp sound is playing with the alt key. Press alt to unpause. Additionally, when you warp to the next or prior level, you are told your score and which level you are on. 2. There is a new options menu which allows you to toggle background message speaking, as well as toggle hyperactive sides (hitting the side of the screen will cause your ship to bounce somewhere else on the screen). 3. There is a new game mode called speed round. This mode has no levels, but you keep playing until you can no longer keep up with the ever-faster ships. 4. On higher levels (and on normal/insane difficulties), bosses must be shot multiple times while falling. In other words, one hit will not knock them off the screen any more. 5. The game statistics option now shows you which items you picked up, along with other small changes. 6. Some minor bug fixes Check out all of this at www.BSCGames.com. Keep gaming! Dan +++ News From ESP Softworks: www.espsoftworks.com Editor's note: This update was sent to E-mail lists run by ESPSoftworks on August 13. I have fixed a few typo's and have made certain that E-mail addresses and links given in this update were on their own lines as is the standard procedure when assembling issues of Audyssey. Other than that, I have made no other changes. The only portion which has been rendered obsolete at the time of this publication is that Alien Outback is now available for downloading. The current version is 1.7. Those who are interested in games from this or any other company are advised to visit their web-sites and subscribe to one or more lists. This way, you'll be kept updated with progress made by the companies in between issues of Audyssey. Greetings, Gamers! This e-mail is being sent to help keep everyone up-to-date as to what's going on at the ESP Softworks' website as well as to let people know of new additions to the site. If you don't already know what it is that we do, or haven't already been to the web site, now would be a *great* time to find out! *grin* ESP Softworks is a premiere developer of accessible game software that's completely accessible to those with low or no vision. You can visit the website at www.espsoftworks.com If you don't wish to receive further ESP updates via e-mail, please send an e-mail to updates@espsoftworks.com with the word 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. On To The Good Stuff.. News! ---------------------------- Well, it's been awhile since our last update, but this one should prove to be worth the wait! *grin* Read on for the latest scoop direct from ESPSoftworks.. ESP Welcomes An Additional Programmer/Game Designer onboard! ------------------------------------------------------------ ESP is proud to announce that it has taken on an additional programmer. You may have already come to have known him in another life as David Lant, hailing from Devon, England. David brings with him over a decade of programming experience and is also an avid fan of accessible games. He will be arriving to the United States on September 22nd. I very much look forward to working with him and I'm certain you can all expect very good things to come from our collaborative efforts. Alien Outback--Let's go, mate! ------------------------------ Our latest title, Alien Outback, is finally shipping on CD as well as available as an eighty megabyte download via our website in the next day or two. The game begins in demo mode until it's registered using a purchased registration key. The demo gives you ten sample levels for fifteen days. Once the game is activated with your registration key, it will turn into the full retail version. The Alien Outback list server is now open for subscriptions. To subscribe, simply send an e-mail to subscribe-outback@espsoftworks.com To unsubscribe, send an e-mail to unsubscribe-outback@espsoftworks.com Also, the new AlienOutback.com website will be going up soon and will contain game downloads, update patches, game information, monthly high score contests, and the full high score board. Downloadable Game Versions -------------------------- There have been many requests for downloadable versions of our games for quite some time and we decided to offer future games as downloads as well as retrofit our previous titles so they may be downloaded as well. The exception will be games that are multi-CD or DVD due to their size. What Happened To ESP Raceway?! ------------------------------ ESP Raceway is heading back to active beta testing now that Alien Outback is finished and is scheduled to be released in September. It's come a long way and has proven to be quite an amazing amount of fun! What's Next From ESP? --------------------- Once ESP Raceway is completed and shipping, we'll be releasing two smaller games and then will be beginning work on our next project in the beginning of October. Can ya guess which project that might be? Here's a clue.. 'Genesis'. *grin* While we'll be keeping development under tight wraps most of the time, we'll be giving exclusive press release information and interviews to the AccessibleGames.com site. So, stay tuned! New Website Features -------------------- The ESP Softworks' website is due for an update soon and here are a few of the things to expect: Game instructions available in Italian (other languages soon), refer-a-friend from the website, and list subscriptions from the website. New demo versions will also be appearing soon. Price Increases Due For January 2003 ------------------------------------ Starting in January of next year, all of our game prices will be increasing by $5.00 each. +++ News from GMA Games www.gmagames.com This is a quick note to fill you in on what's going on at GMA. We are planning on releasing a tank combat game before the end of the year. In the game, your tank is landed on the enemy's beach, and you must work your way through several missions to join up with friendly forces. It will have an arcade mode, which will make the movement and firing of the gun relatively simple to learn, and a reality mode, which will more closely reflect what is involved in operating a real tank. It has already been through a concept test, and this provided a lot of excellent input on what would make the game even better. We still plan on releasing another version of Lone Wolf and Shades of Doom, but these are on the back burner until GMA Tank Commander is released. We also have a couple of other exciting things in the works, but it is too early to talk about these yet. Happy gaming! David Greenwood. http://www.GMAGames.com +++ News From Lworks: http://www.l-works.net Here's the latest from the little company that could. New Released Scheduled. Looking for a word game that's fun and addicting? Why not Race the Clock in our Brand new Game. LWorks words! Choose between 1 of 7 word lists. Choose the time limit, and the number of words, and then you're off! Racing the clock and hoping for the best. "btes" what is it! what is it! grr! Someone tell me please! But if your not fast enough. Buzz! You lose and the game is over. LWorks Words is scheduled for release in Mid September. The retail price will be between 8 and ten Dollars. Details are Pending. Visit http://www.l-works.net for more info and release dates when available! Super shot is Taking a Super face lift Look for the update to Super shot: the addicting, fun, and all around fun game to be hitting the net in November. enhancements include: more levels, more music, 2 new bonus games only in the retail version, send your scores directly to our website, and much much more The Retail price for Super shot upon Release will be 15 dollars. Check http://www.l-works.net for release dates when available If you haven't downloaded the original Super shot. then grab it now for fast paced, adicting fun! Tick, Tack, Boom! Do you love Tic-tac-toe? well. now lWorks energizes your favourite game for something that is flat out fun! Look for Talking Tic-tac-toe in the near future. Want details? You'll just have to wait! Remember: For all things LWorks visit our house at www.l-works.net if you have questions, concerns, criticisms , credit cards, or anything else, then send them along to liam@l-works.net +++ News From PCS: www.pcsgames.net PCS Games.net, we make games that tickle your ears! PCS Games News Blast! Pacman Talks is our Breakthrough Release! all of a sudden, you're whisked back to those carefree and exciting days as Pacman, traveling down passageways chomping away on dots and ringing up thousands of points while trying to avoid those relentless ghosts. "Hey, what's that noise off to the left? Is it coming this way? I'll slow down to check it out. Oh, no, I think it's tracking me! The low hum hum is getting closer, and then I hear the thump, thump, thump of an opening just a few blocks away! Oh, wow I know that whispering voice, it's gotta be Clyde and I gotta run! I'll go into cruise control and zoom around the outer ring to get away, but wait, yes! There's a super power pill that'll help me scare that ghost back to his home. Tick tick tick tick. I hear the sound of a wall coming up, so I gotta hit that left arrow right now or I'll smash into it! Thwack thwackq thwack. Ya! and a little off to the right is an escape tunnel! Great! Now, when Pinky is hot on my tale and thinks I'm caught, I'll sneak through and leave her way behind! Pacman Talks immerses you in a world of fast movement and suspense with rich dynamic sound effects and many wonderful and unusual voices. This highly addictive game is as exciting as the video arcade game of the eighties. It has all the things you need, a full audio menu with game sounds described, hot keys to tell you what's going on around you, many levels and a high score standings list. PCS Games knows you'll be captivated by our awesome multi sound game using Windows and the GMA game engine. We're sure it will bring you hours of enjoyment. So, download the demo, grab your ghost detector and zoom through the echoing corridors of Pacman busting ghosts. Soon, you will be able to download a 30 meg demo at the www.PCSGames.net web site. This download is both the demonstration version and the full version. Once you enter your PCS issued Registration Name and Product Key, the full capabilities of the game are unlocked. Pacman Talks Version 1.0 Available soon for download Price: $30 U.S. for download version $46 Canadian, for download version If you would like to receive Pacman Talks on CD, please go to the Pacman page on the PCS Games.net web site for further details. PCS Games 666 Orchard Street Temperance, MI 48182 phone (734) 850-9502 E-mail Phil Vlasak phil@pcsgames.net Web site: www.pcsgames.net No ghosts were hurt in the making of this game. +++ News From Zform: www.zform.com Dear Audyssey community, I am happy to report that the launch of ZForm Poker earlier this year has been a great success. We now have hundreds of people playing our game and more signing up every day. After years of hard work and building the foundations of the business, it is extremely satisfying for us to finally be "air born." I am also happy to report that ZForm has partnered with a wonderful online voice-chat community so that now, our customers can easily voice-chat with each other while they play! And this voice-chat is available free of charge, thanks to our partner, For-The-People. For those of you who don't know us, ZForm is a company who's mission is to bring blind, low vision, and fully sighted together by creating online game that anyone can play regardless of visual impairment. Our first game, ZForm Poker, is a multiplayer online version of five- card-draw poker (with fake poker chips, of course). With ZForm Poker you can text-chat and play with up to four friends. We have scoreboards for those who like bragging rights, and we have casual tables for people more interested in conversation than competition. You don't have to pay ZForm to check out our game and see if you like it. In fact, you can evaluate ZForm Poker completely free for fifteen days. If you would like to sign up to play free, browse to: http://games.zform.com/signup.php?referrer=1005 To create a free voice-chat account so you can voice-chat with your friends online, browse to: http://www.for-the-people.com You can learn more about ZForm at: http://www.zform.com Thank you Audyssey for the opportunity to fill you-all in on what's new! Cordially -Paul G. Silva, Cofounder & President, ZForm - Games with Vision (http://ZForm.com +++ Game Announcements and Reviews: Above the full reviews which appear in this section, any new games which have not been fully reviewed yet will be announced in the hopes that readers and/or the Audyssey staff will try out and review these games for us. Reviews of games will not appear in any particular order. The only exception to this will be when we have more than one review for a game. In this case, reviews will be placed consecutively so that it is easier to compare them. As with Anchorhead a few issues back, I may wish to interject my own thoughts on a game should it provoke significant reaction or otherwise prove itself especially noteworthy. When I choose to do this, you'll find my remarks above the review or reviews for the game in question. Should a game have more than one review, two plus-signs will be placed above the first review and/or my remarks. This policy will hopefully encourage people to try both the latest as well as some older games which may have been overlooked. Just because something isn't hot off the presses doesn't mean that it is any less worthy of a gamer's attention. Also, remember that it doesn't matter if a game has been reviewed before. If you have a different take on the game than has already been published, send in your review and I'll consider it for publication. If a review fails to interest you, simply skip to the next plus-sign. It's that simple, folks. + Black nova traders Reviewed by Christopher Toth Available free at multiple sites including two in this review Fully playable without sighted assistance Recently, I have not been able to pull myself away from this totally awesome game called Black Nova Traders, bnt for short. In this game, which by the way, you can access at: http://daniel-chavez.dns2go.com/blacknova or: http://www.blacknova.net/ you are a lowly ship captain, with only 1000 credits, credits are the monetary system, and a very small ship! In the game, you get around by navigating to different sectors. On each page, there are up to 10 warp links. Depending on what sector you're in, the links will transport you to many places in the bnt universe. Also, you can get around by using something called "real space." You can have up to three real-space presets, which you can change too. Ok, how do you make credits, you ask? Well, what you do is something called trade routs. By clicking on the trade control link, and selecting create a new trade rout, you can make a trade rout from one sector to another. Also, you can colonize planets. Now for scoring. For accessibility, I give this game a complete 10! Is it fun? You'll be playing for days on end! By the way, I'll be glad to give you any help with this game, simply e-mail: insectoid90@msn.com Have fun! ++ A game which has drawn a great deal of reaction is Alien Outback from ESPSoftworks. Below are three reviews of the game including my own. I hope these shed enough light on this product for people to decide whether it suits their fancy. The first is from the designer of Troopanum which is in direct competition with Alien Outback. + Alien Outback Created by ESP Softworks Fully playable without sighted assistance Available from www.espsoftworks.com Reviewed by Daniel Zingaro Its another space invaders clone with the standard features, but this one's got some very cool surprises! It starts off simple enough, with the boring descending ships. But you won't be saying that by the time you hit level 5! The game consists of eight levels, consisting of five waves per level. That's 40 levels of action. Successive levels introduce a new type of ship-- level 2, for instance, introduces ships with shields, level 3 introduces swaying ships. Some of the ship types border on devilish-- the ones on level 5 actually shoot back at you! Besides the standard levels, having no ships land throughout an entire wave allows you to play one of two amusing and fun bonus levels. (One includes monkeys, believe it or not...) One feature I especially liked was the ability to review the top ten scores right from within the game; its not necessary to exit and go to a website to do this. (don't you think Eloquence sounds better than James, though? *g*) Another cool feature is the ability to start play at any level you want, without having to start over at level 1 every time. The game's also got the sound description menu, so you can learn how to play as quickly as possible. The game is over 80 mb, so dial up users will have their modems on fire by the time the download is done. And, although version 1.0 was an extremely shaky release, the current version, 1.7, is a solid piece of work. Check it out! + Aliens In the Outback [AITO] ESPSoftworks Co. Reviewed by Ron Schamerhorn Fully playable without sighted assistance. Available from: www.espsoftworks.com You're Busha Bob, sheep rancher and drinker of 'fine' beer. While on the way home from the Town n' Country pub, Busha's truck engine dies and its electrical system goes haywire. Spotting strange lights in the night sky and a commotion at his ranch in the not too far distance, he's witness to an invasion of the worst kind! After the purely blind luck of taking down one of the drone ships with his rifle and a lit n' gum, he's got the hardware to fight back! So, take a seat in Busha's place and kick some alien tail! ESP's third release! Again delving into another different genre of game. This time it's reminiscent of the classic arcade shooter Space invaders. Naturally it's got a few surprises in store for a player. That is to say it's not identical to the original by any means. Another arcade game it's similar to would be Galaxian. This game features fast action shooting. Various levels of gameplay from easy too insane. Two bonus rounds, meteors and sheep drop. Eight different types of aliens from simple straight falling ones to others that have random patterns and shoot back! Six special items you can use to help protect yourself. These items are rapid fire, shields, nuke, missiles, turbo, vaporize, and a score bonus. Players high scores and the scoreboard to see how you match up against others. Some other great options and a whole lot of fun as well. AITO is certainly a excellent contribution from ESP. The game holds a great deal of replay value in keeping with the arcade style. There's more I could say but I wouldn't want to explain everything since then there wouldn't be anything left for the players to discover on their own. Suffice it to say [yet again] it's a super game! I'd have to give AITO a passing grade of 9 out of 10! + Alien Outback Game produced by ESP Softworks Available commercially from: www.espsoftworks.com Fully playable without sighted assistance Replete with excitement and explosive arcade action, James North's Alien Outback is certain to please all of us who hunger for what our sighted fellow gamers have taken for granted for decades. Space Invaders has been taken to a refreshingly higher level of depth and strategy. Novices will find the basics simple to grasp, but there are many elements in the game which present marvellous challenges for experts. Alien Outback won't be one of those games you'll ever stop playing completely even after it's been conquered. *Game Play: Busher Bob must contend with a wide array of enemies to defend the outback. Being a Space Invaders-style game, you control a ship moving left to right across the bottom of the game area. You can shoot directly upwards at alien ships falling from the top. Additionally, you can shoot left and right at aliens which manage to land and begin attacking you on the ground. Once they've landed, all aliens turn into landers which rise on robot legs and begin approaching you. They can drain your energy if you aren't quick and careful. Also, landers take multiple hits to destroy. Before they land, aliens come in a nicely broad variety of flavours. These are introduced one by one as you progress through the game, so players shouldn't be overwhelmed by new enemies they've never faced before. The enemies to be destroyed include ships which simply fall in a straight line, enemies with shields, zigzagging ships, and some which can shoot back as they descend. Good hearing is essential to line up directly beneath these ships and destroy them. Unlike Troopanum, there is no beeping sound to indicate you're locked on. You have to judge that by making certain that your enemy is in the exact centre of your hearing. Ships which zigzag or suddenly warp to new horizontal positions as they fall are therefore especially challenging targets. The heat-seeking missiles Bob can obtain are a nice addition which can even things out. Featuring four levels of difficulty, the game is packed with re-play value. There is also the element of comparing your high score to that of other players around the world. ESPSoftworks will be having contests and other things happening in the future as they have with their other games. To aid Busher Bob against this opposition, he can obtain various power ups from flying saucers which travel from one side of the screen to the other. If Bob manages to shoot these saucers, a power up falls to the ground near where the saucer was shot. A homing beacon sound will activate indicating its position. However, Bob will only have around three seconds or less to scoot over and grab it before the package disintegrates. There are eight power ups in all. Some of these act instantly. They can give bonus points, boost energy, allow rapid firing for a short time, etc. Others must be activated by the player with the appropriate key. These keys can be changed if players wish to do this, but the default setup is quite good. The Turbo power up allows for rapid travel across the area. This can be quite handy for preventing enemy landings. Shields can also save you from being zapped particularly in the later levels. The Nuke power up is equivalent to a smart bomb and destroys all enemies in the air. Another power up does the same for landers. Various power-ups, enemies, and the edges of the board which can damage Bob's ship if players aren't careful not to run into them add an incredible amount of depth and strategy to the game. Those in search of having an experience like what sighted people enjoy will find that Alien Outback doesn't cut corners or simplify things to make them more accessible other than to introduce new enemies slowly. Players might find themselves in quite complex situations. For instance, there might be a flying saucer going across the screen and one or more landers on the ground approaching Bob's location. Is the power-up worth taking damage to obtain? It might come to a choice of shooting down the saucer or letting it travel farther across the area to be in a better location where landers won't be able to attack Bob for a longer period of time. Meanwhile, other enemies are constantly dropping from above. On higher levels, they may be able to attack Bob with lasers or bombs. Thankfully, a pause key is available allowing players to take a breather from the game or think about how to conduct themselves during crucial periods of game play. *Interface: The controls are quite simple. The left and right arrows move Bob in their respective directions. They can be held down for easy continuous movement. The left control key fires the vertical laser. The alt key in conjunction with the left and right arrows fire horizontally left and right. Holding down shift and using the left and right arrows allows the Turbo energy to be used moving Bob rapidly across the area. The Enter key activates the Nuke power up. Missiles are fired with the space bar and home in on the nearest enemy in the air automatically. Menus are accessed in what seems to be the conventional simple way of using up and down arrows and the Enter key. Over all, James North deserves top marks in this area of game design. The default layout is excellent, and players always have the option of making their own. This may actually make it possible for people with less motor control in their hands to play the game. I don't know if it could be played single-handed, but it may be possible. *Sound: Alien Outback will immediately impress people with how well the sounds in the game were thought through. The background music and other ambient noise can be turned on or off with a single key during the game. While not exactly orchestral in quality, the music makes good background and adds a nice arcade atmosphere to the game. It does this while not being so overpowering that players miss other important sounds. Enemies have their own neat sounds which behave wonderfully in stereo. They are extremely intuitive and easy to attach meanings to. One never has the problem of sounds masking other sounds. This is good since no such masking elements exist for sighted people in similar games as far as I am aware. It's quite impressive to have a game which delivers arcade-quality sounds without ambiance playing a large portion. Most of the sounds you hear while playing are vital to the game and not just dressing. *Conclusion: Alien Outback is certain to be a very successful game for ESPSoftworks. I find it hard to imagine a better Space Invaders game being developed for the blind, and believe that sighted people would not find the game overly simplified or boring. A definite ten out of ten is in order for such a masterpiece. Also, the efforts James has gone to in order to respond to customers has been extraordinary. He has very quickly come out with updates taking into account feedback from players. This has resulted in a very polished and solid arcade experience worth every bit of its price. + Space Available for free from www.anycities.com/graham43/basic.html Fully playable without sighted assistance Space is a basic game. In this game your goal is to deliver some secret plans to the earth outpost. At the start of the game, you will be asked to choose your current rank. The higher you rank, the harder the mission will be. Then you can enter your first name and your ship's name. Then you will have 10 units of energy, and you must distribute them between shield value, firepower value and speed value. Make this selection very carefully, folks. Then the computer will ask if you want to carry out a pre launch inspection on the ship. I always do this and I recommend doing it because if you find a malfunction you will be able to fix it before launch. And then the fun starts... Unlike most space games, navigation is automatic. You just press return and move a specific number of parsecs closer to the outpost, determined by your speed value. But this is not a drawback. Decisions are the most important thing in this game! There will be accidents along the way, and I'll list some of them. You will suffer computer failures, that will reduce power to one of your generators: speed, firepower or shield...this happened to me a lot of times. An other accident occurs when the morale of the crew descends too much: this value is shown in the screen in percentage and decreases by one unit each turn, but if you do good things, your crew's spirits are lifted and the morale value increases. Ok...like I said before, if the morale value decreases too much, some of your crew will most likely leave the ship, and if you're unlucky, one of them will destroy a generator! There is also combat in this game. In fact, you will encounter alien ships and you can decide to attack them, wait or communicate with them. I attack them most times, because attacking increases the morale value and the crew and shuttles number will be more stable. Note: there's also a battle factor, which will determine your final rank at the end of the mission which is determined by your crew plus your shuttle crafts plus your energy) But if you are in a bad condition, I suggest communicating with them. They'll most likely give you some crew to help you and fix damaged generators if there are some. Combat works like rpg games: you attack first, and depending on your firepower, you'll do a certain amount of damage. Then it's the aliens' turn to attack. If you have a decent shield value (I suggest 3), you will be able to destroy the aliens without being damaged in any way. You'll also discover new planets, and you have the choice to use the gravity to accelerate the ship, send out one of your shuttle crafts to investigate or make scientific measures which will increase the morale. There are also more things to discover, but I can't list them all here! Final rating I have great fun playing this game and recommend anyone interested in sci-fi games to try this one. I must say it's cool and I have no reservations at all. + Battlezone Developer activision (website www.activision.com) Available in computer stores Requires sighted assistance Reviewed by Tom Nonis If you are looking for a cool game where strategy is at it's best, then you have to try out battlezone from activision! The story This game is set in the days of the cold war. A new scientific discovery has been made: a material called bio metal has been discovered, and obviously, they began to use it to produce deadly weapons: bombs, missiles, and such. But this bio metal is not found around Earth, it's found on Mars, and other planets of the solar system. So, the conflict between Russians and Americans moves from Earth to Space! Game play. This game combines both strategy and frenetic, real time combat. You will have to build vehicles, weapons, and other supplies to help you in your missions against the Americans or the Russians (it depends on what you choose to be). There are two main building units: the recycler (which you have from the beginning), builds basic units such as defensive turrets, ammunition, scavengers and so on... and the mobile unit factory which builds more advanced units such as tanks. You will have to use strategy in this game and there isn't that much time to think since the game is entirely real time. For example you can build some turrets and place them around your base, and then build two or three tanks and tell them to follow you so you will be more strong and safe when attacking. Also, to build these things, you need the bio metal which you can find around the planet by using scavengers. You will sometimes need to tell one of your units to return to scrap, so you can build an other one. You need to be really skilled and fast with decisions! Combat is also a frequent thing in this game. You will find yourself involved in incredible fast action battles. And again, you need to use your units properly so that they can provide you with assistance in combat. The interface The game uses both the keyboard and the mouse. The keyboard is used to move your tank, communicate with vehicles, shoot and switch weapons. The mouse is used to move the smart reticule used to target enemies and to select the friendly unit you want to give orders to. For example, to communicate with the recycles, you need to move near it, point the smart reticule with the mouse and press the spacebar to start a communication with the recycler. Then a menu will display on the screen and you need to press the number associated with the task you want your vehicle to accomplish. Sound, music and voice acting The sound effects in this game are really amazing. You will hear vehicles moving, weapons firing, as well as other sounds such as alarms etc. The only sound that should have been improved a byt, in my opinion, is the sound of footsteps when you are walking instead of driving a vehicle. The music makes you really feel the sensation of being involved in an action movie. Really good! The voice acting is an other plus in this game. You will hear people such as general George Collins and Lieutenant Corbet calling you via the radio and telling you what to do. They are really well done! Also, you will hear pilots talking when you tell them to do something. For example, if you tell the recycler to build, you will hear the pilot saying "building started!". Final rating I absolutely give this game a full rating. I really can't think of a drawback except for the one I mentioned before, about the footsteps sound. So, if you have some sighted friends, tell them to play this game with you! For example, the sighted person moves the mouse and drives the vehicle, wile the blind person uses the keyboard to communicate with vehicles, decides how to use them, and so on. In conclusion, I give this game a 10 out of 10! +++ Answers to Puzzles and Games 1. There are obviously three ducks. 2. 13.333 miles per hour. Since he will complete the downhill portion of the trip in half the time, he would then be bicycling two thirds of the time up hill, and one third of the time down hill. Therefore, you would add two thirds of ten miles per hour to one third of twenty miles per hour. 3. I solved this problem by assigning each attribute to a small Brailed card. By using paper clips to associate attributes, and positioning of the cards to relate relative geographical location, things fell into place. The German owns the fish. Check the list below for more details. The Norwegian lives in a Yellow house, drinks water, smokes Dunhill, and owns cats. The Dane lives in a blue house, drinks tea, smokes blend, and keeps horses. The Brit lives in a red house, drinks milk, smokes Pall Mall, and keeps birds. The German lives in a green house, drinks coffee, smokes Prince, and keeps fish. The Swede lives in a white house, drinks beer, smokes Blue Master, and owns a dog. If you have any puzzles or games you would like to see here, or if you would like to see certain types of puzzles over other types, you can contact me at: DavidGreenwood@GMAGames.com +++ Contacting Us I can be reached in two ways. The easiest is via my Cogeco E-mail address. My e-mail address is as follows: mfeir@cogeco.ca Alternatively, you may correspond with me on 3.5-inch disks, provided you be sure to send them in returnable disk-mailers. I don't have the money to pay for postage. My mailing address is: 350 Lynnwood Drive Apartment 103 Oakville, Ontario L6H 1M8 Adam Taylor, star of Adam, The Immortal Gamer, and our resident ADOM guru, can be reached three ways. You can send him e-mail at: blade@ican.net Or, you can check out his homepage on the web: Blade's Armoury http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Arcade/9111 His page is dedicated to providing help, cheats and solutions to many games. Send him a request, and he'll do his best to find what you need. He also has sections on ADOM and Nethack available. Also, you can download the magazine from his page. Finally, if you wish to contact him at home, his address is: 3082 Bartholomew Crescent Mississauga, Ontario Canada L5N 3L1 Jay Pellis is an avid fan of graphical adventures and console games. For those of you wondering which Sega or Nintendo games are at all enjoyable to the blind, he's the one to turn to. He can be contacted at: jalucard@icontech.com Justin Fegel has resigned his official position as an interactive fiction staff member. As such, he will be sorely missed. However, Justin plans to remain active in the Audyssey community. Therefore, those who need guidance with interactive fiction may still benefit from his experience. He can be contacted at: Jfegel@earthlink.net Kelly Sapergia is our expert in interactive fiction. He is a well-established reviewer of games for Audyssey, and has an interest in developing interactive fiction as well as playing it. He can be contacted at: kjsman2@sk.sympatico.ca James Peach is responsible for maintaining our new official homepage. Your feedback will help him make our site a better place to be on the Web. He can be contacted at: jamespeach@hotmail.com Randy Hammer conducts an ongoing search for worth-while mainstream games that can be enjoyed by blind players with sighted assistance. He will also review commercial games and shareware produced specifically for the blind, such as that from ESP Softworks, PCS, and eventually, Zform. He can be contacted at: RHammer@illuminet.com Justin Ekis is our new web-based games expert. He will search for and report on on-line games like Utopia and Archmage. He is also going to keep a close eye on the re-emerging BBS scene. You can contact him at: j.ekis@verizon.net Dave Sherman has become well-known on the Audyssey list and has now joined the Audyssey staff as our multi-user-dungeon expert. Interest in muds has popped up again and again in the Audyssey community and elsewhere among the growing net-savvy blind community. Thanks to Dave's efforts, newcomers will have another expert to turn to for guidance. Dave will also report on the various different MUDs out there and steer us to the more blind-friendly ones. You can contact him at: drsherm@earthlink.net Muds take a long time to become familiar with. Therefore, Maria Dibble joins Dave Sherman in his exploration of muds. They also make a great team to tackle interactive fiction games together. Maria can be contacted at: mdibble@pronetisp.net David Lant has long been an active member of the Audyssey community. He is now one of our two moderators keeping things pleasant and orderly on the Audyssey discussion list. He can be contacted at: DLant@btinternet.com Brenda Green is the new co moderator. Her efforts on behalf of the Audyssey community are very much appreciated. She can be contacted at: bdgreen@tru.eastlink.ca Randy Hammer conducts an ongoing search for worth-while mainstream games that can be enjoyed by blind players with sighted assistance. He will also review commercial games and shareware produced specifically for the blind, such as that from ESP Softworks, PCS, and eventually, Zform. He can be contacted at: RHammer@illuminet.com Paul Nimmo is a long-time resident of the Audyssey community who maintains a Frequently Asked Questions or faq file for Audyssey. When it is updated, it gets posted to a number of sites. He can be contacted at: pgnimmo@iprimus.com.au ------------------------ Yahoo! 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