MFP Update - Weekly Diary

Weekly Diary

Date	Activity	Key Findings
07/09/13	Post Meeting Game Update	Quicker gameplay There was too long between firing a torpedo and receiving feedback. So to increase pace this time has been cut to avoid silence and confusion Rate of playback The auditory dimensions have been improved to speed up the rate of sonar playback. This minimises any disadvantage caused by a battleship being positioned on the outskirts of the 2D space. Two separate versions have now been made rather than two versions changing in one game. An adaptive or random difficulty version will be randomly selected and sent to a participant. The information will compared between the two. Dynamic game balancing The system now works around the mean (average) score, which sets a starting point for both sonar and ambient sounds for the round. This is then affected (increased or decreased) by the time of the level. Getting 'easier' as the level goes on, but getting harder/easier depending on average score. Consideration was made to change the difficulty through torpedoes and listens 'live' in the game. But this produced negative and clumsy results. The alternative version uses the same method of changing the games difficulty, but does not use the same data to change the difficulty. Instead of using player/level data it takes a random sequence of numbers using the the 'drunk' object.
	Instructions	After demonstrating the game, it became clear that the instructions were not clear enough. So a new instructions script was written, recorded and implemented into the game. It is a bit longer, but more detail has been added to assist player understanding.
	Application Building	Two applications have been built, with careful consideration made to avoid including any unnecessary files in the game. This stems from previous mistakes on projects where a collection of old audio had been left in the final build.
	Participant Testing	Participant Testing is under way. The results have began to return, which have provided the required information along with some comments from users regarding the game. These comments will provide a platform for improvement and further development of the game.

MFP Update - Weekly Diary

Weekly Diary

Date	Activity	Key Findings
01/09/2013	Audiogame development	The max/msp game has developed to include a basic training level, where the player can get a short feel for the 2D space. The two auditory dimensions have been combined to create one auditory dimension to create an enjoyable and easiest way of locating audio in a 2D space.
	Dynamic Game Balancing	The development of this game has provided an interesting opportunity to build on a fairly new type of adaptive difficulty system, which uses audio to influence to player difficulty levels. This idea was coined by Brian Schmidt in a game called EarAttack. At GDC 2013 he spoke about using the limitations presented by audiogames to influence the difficulty settings for the player. One of the ways this can be achieved is through overloading the audio spectrum. By introducing broadband sound such as wind, fire etc it becomes increasingly difficult to locate and separate sounds. This system has been implemented which introduces different sounds ranging from distracting one shots to broadband sounds as the game gets harder. This is determined by the previous level score. Compare results of two versions - one using DGB and one not using DGB - Score of each version - Level of enjoyment of each version - And time played of each version
	Voice acting	With the instructions and gameplay improving each week the dialogue produced by the voice actors has not been able to keep up with these changes. With a significant delay between writing/sending the script and receiving the recordings the game was evolving quicker than the dialogue was being received. This has resulted in recording the lines myself to quickly change the dialogue and implement to test the subsequent changes. Implementing of dialogue would normally come late on in the development of a video game, however in an audio-only game that is built in max msp, requires the files to be implemented to see how the game works. This is due to dialogue producing a bang when complete which then triggers gameplay and game state changes. Voice actors have not been used for the instructions, due to changes in controls and gameplay progression. However, any further development of the game will include a revised script and utilise voice actors. The game still contains a selection of feedback lines which were produced by a voice actor. These are used to provide a positive and negative vocal response to a players use of a torpedo.
	Memory/File Size	Consideration has been made to the the file size of the game. With the game being a downloadable game, it is important to reduce the file size of certain audio components without drastically altering the quality. A series of techniques have been used so far including; using shorter looped sounds, randomly timed/selected/altered and sample rate. It is important to note the platform being used for the game, which determines how much RAM (random access memory) is available. With the PC being selected as the device to run the game, a higher level of RAM can be allocated to the game as opposed to handheld consoles. Finally, another consideration has to be acknowledged with regards to file size; as this is an audio-only game, the visual material which often takes up a significant amount of memory in video games can be side-stepped in this game. Any further development of the game will continue this work to ensure the file size is the lowest it can be whilst attempting to retain quality.