MFP Update - Weekly Diary

Weekly Diary

Date	Activity	Key Findings
25/08/13	Aims/Rationale	Expand audio-only game to compare enjoyment and score over two different auditory dimensions. Flow will be tested through the adaptive difficulty, which analyses previous score and changes difficulty respectively.
	Gameplay	To present the player with an easier method of learning the game, a series of step by step instructions have been implemented. This involves a restructure of the script, controls and gameplay. The controls have changed in an attempt to disconnect the enemy ships sound to the players sound. The amount of times the player listens to the enemy ship negatively affects the score. Also once the player feels confident they have found the area in which the enemy ship is located, they press ENTER to shoot. This produces an 'audio cut scene', where a pre-designed collection of audio aims to suggest torpedo fire and impact/miss. The score is now altered by the players use of torpedoes and enemy battleship locators.
	Max/Msp Development	The second auditory dimension has been developed, which differs to the first beep rate/pitch system. The second auditory dimension uses a synthesized sound as opposed to the buffer system in the first. The second version uses panning for x-axis and timbre for y-axis.
	Sound Design	Torpedo - Instead of just an explosion, a launch sound consisting of steam, bubbles etc and distant impacts which were lowpass filtered have been included. More random one shots have been added to create diversity in the sonic environment.

MFP Update - Weekly Diary

Weekly Diary

Week Beginning	Activity	Key Findings
18/08/13	Adaptive Difficulty	Research has suggested that there is a significant link between player skill and gameplay difficulty in relation to flow. Valve's Left 4 Dead games use a method of adjusting game difficulty to match changes in player skill. This is something I have been investigating to see whether I can implement an element of adaptive difficulty in the game. So far I have two possible methods; - Gradually decreasing in difficulty over time - Analyse previous level time and scale to a new difficulty for next level
	Dialogue	Certain situations require speech to be used to convey information and audio feedback in more complex situations (Rober & Masuch 2005). Currently waiting on some dialogue from voice actors. System in place, just need audio files. One of the problems is, as the game develops, new scenarios and controls are produced but the script, which includes control instructions has already been written and recorded. So I will either have to ask for more instructions, or some how make the controls work with what I have.
	Non-Repetitive Sound Design	The ambient sound design is beginning to take shape. The footstep system selects 1 of 10 files, and pans left to right/right to left. A room tone has been added, combination of several sounds. Need to cut the file size down to comply with creating a small file size. Radio chatter has been implemented, which was originally a 2 hour capture of RAF communication. A very small selection of this was cut into individual sound files, which are randomly selected at random time intervals. They have been panned to the left to contribute to the creation of a diverse spatial environment.
	Testing	The gameplay has been completed however I am still waiting on dialogue for the player feedback and questionnaire for testing to be done. I have set a deadline for Monday for dialogue to be sent to me, so if this deadline is met it can be implemented the same day. Meaning, testing can commence while improvements to sound design and game design can continue along side.

MFP Update - Weekly Diary

Weekly Diary

Week Beginning	Activity	Key Findings
10/08/2013	Script Writing & Voice Actor Auditions	I have written an early script for the game, which provides the player with details of how to play the game and occasional dialogue feedback. The search has begun to locate a suitable voice actor to deliver these lines. This has involved engaging with voice actors on several online game development forums.
	Game Development	The game now has two gameplay types; seek and destroy, and submerge. Seek and destroy has been split into two difficulties; easy and hard. Easy means you hear the enemy ship at the same time you are searching for it, which results in the player just matching the sounds (still using the x/y knowledge). Hard means you hear the sounds independently, resulting in a greater level of memory being required. Submerge is a game type designed to test players speed. When the alarm is heard the player must quickly lower the depth of the submarine to avoid incoming attacks. This process will involve listening to multiple sounds to gather information on depth/location etc.
	Data Capture	The capturing of game/player data has been a process that has developed sporadically. Early versions of the data capture system were developed for the prototype versions, however as the game system developed, problems occurred with saving and understanding saved data. An example of how current level times are saved as a text file are displayed in the image below. The single number reflects the level number and the four numbers below is the time it took a player to complete the level. There will be an additional number included shortly, to provide x/y coordinates of the ship. This will aim to establish if an area of the 2D space is harder to locate than others.
	Non-Repetitive Sound Design	A feature of the game currently in development is a non-repetitive ambient sound design. A footstep system has been developed, which randomly selects 1 of 10 footsteps (on metal) and alternates stereo movement and amplitude. The panning is independently controlled by each .wav file, which uses a scaled midi-panning system to create the feeling of activity around the player. Also, randomly selected 'radio chatter' can be pieced together to create a background communication ambience.

 

Data Capture Example

MFP Update - Weekly Diary

Weekly Diary

Week Beginning	Activity	Key Findings
29/07/13	Participant Testing	Last weeks testing highlighted issues with the three variations of the x/y prototypes. Firstly the webcam interface proved to be an inaccurate way of controlling an audio-only game, especially for visually impaired users. It soon became apparent that the webcam interface was not needed to understand what the best method of locating a sound in 2D space, and in some cases slowed the process down significantly. There was a high percentage of results showing that a sound was not found. This suggests that the participant either could not memorize the intended sound to be found or they had difficulty navigating their tracked colour to the required area of the grid. An example of the three variations can be found at bottom of this post
	Reading List	Stevens, S. S. (1935). The relation of pitch to intensity. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 6, 150–154. Stevens, S. S. & Davis, H. (1938). Hearing: Its psychology and physiology. Oxford, England: Wiley. Walker, B. N. (2002). Magnitude estimation of conceptual data dimensions for use in sonification. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 8, 4, 211–221. Walker, B. N. (2007). Consistency of magnitude estimations with conceptual data dimensions used for sonification. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 21(5), 579–599. Walker, B. N., & Ehrenstein, A. (2000). Pitch and pitch change interact in auditory displays. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 6, 15–30. Walker, B. N., Nance, A., & Lindsay, J. (2006). Spearcons: Speech-based Earcons Improve Navigation Performance in Auditory Menus. Proceedings of the International Conference on Auditory Display, 63–68. Walker, B. N., & Lane, D. M. (2001). Psychophysical scaling of sonification mappings: A comparison of visually impaired and sighted listeners. Proceedings of the International Conference on Auditory Display, 90–94. Walker, B. N., & Kramer, G. (2004). Ecological psychoacoustics and auditory displays: Hearing, grouping, and meaning making. In J. Neuhoff (Ed.), Ecological Psychoacoustics (pp.150–175). New York: Academic Press. Hermann, T., Hunt, A. and Neuhoff, J.G., 2011. The Sonification Handbook. 1st ed. Berlin: Logos Publishing House
	New prototype	The three prototypes confirmed the research surrounding pitch and concluded that individuals musical background affects perception of audio. The next prototypes intend to take the findings of Walker and colleagues and developing a game for the blind - based around locating a sound in 2d space.
	Details of current state of practical	The project has began to focus on a more established end product, which will be an audio-only game for the blind that adopts the research surrounding auditory dimensions. I am using the previous three prototypes as a base layer to expand and develop further into a fully working audio-only game. Game Features Spoken dialogue - Voice actor - Explain instructions Button and Mouse controls - Tracks the movement of the mouse in relation to screen - Audio is only produced when clicked or clicked & dragged - Space bar to start level - Questionnaire at the end will utilise buttons 1-5 Audio-only version of battleships - Hear the enemy battleship's sonar - Use your computer equipment to locate and destroy the enemy ship Sound Effects - Sounds effects (and dialogue) used to provide occasional audio feedback Max/Msp - On opening the game, a jit.window is opened in full-screen - This is creates a blank visual for the player, ensuring there is no visual advantage to those who are able sighted.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4hnwrd43xaqheso/Participant%20Testing%202.zip