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Creating and Playing Audio Games in the Cloud

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Creating and Playing Audio Games in the Cloud Interactivity Session CHI PLAY'19, October 22–25, 2019, Barcelona, Spain Drag ‘n’ Hear: Creating, Playing, and Understanding Audio Games Online Michael Urbanek Abstract TU Wien Since the last couple of years, we have been aiming to Vienna, Austria advance our understanding of the audio games design [email protected] process. As audio games are computer games that rely on sound only, they demand or invite the players to ‘build the game world in their mind’. Hence, compared to video Michael Habiger games, missing visual information is filled in and created TU Wien by mental imaginary. This makes the genre exciting and Vienna, Austria simultaneously open to both players with or without visual [email protected] impairments. In terms of game design, audio games, how- ever, bring additional challenges to the process. How does a designer sketch games that he or she cannot see? To Florian Güldenpfennig explore such issues, we created an open-sourced online New Design University audio game editor that can function as a sketchbook for au- St. Pölten, Austria dio games. By studying how people use the editor to create fl[email protected] audio games, we hope to better understand audio game de- sign and foster the growth of this interesting game genre. Author Keywords Audio Games; Audio Game Editor; Audio Game Engine; Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or Web-based; Platform; Design Process; Research Through classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation Design on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the owner/author(s). CCS Concepts Copyright held by the owner/author(s). CHI PLAY EA ’19, October 22–25, 2019, Barcelona, Spain •Applied computing ! Computer games; •Software ACM 978-1-4503-6871-1/19/10. and its engineering ! Interactive games; Designing https://doi.org/10.1145/3341215.3356986 software; 125 Interactivity Session CHI PLAY'19, October 22–25, 2019, Barcelona, Spain “Audiogames, as opposed to video games are computer games who’s [sic] main output is sound rather than graphics. Using sound, games can have dimensions of atmosphere, and possibilities for gameplay that don’t exist with visuals alone, as well as providing games far more accessible to people with all levels of sight.” – audiogames.net Figure 1: An audio game is designed by means of our editor (left) and played using headphones and a controller (right). Introduction & Related Work intangible, invisible, and time-based, that is, it unfolds over Designing is often framed as a conversation. A conversa- time and can only be processed sequentially. tion between the designer and people or stakeholders; or a conversation between the designer and the material he Compared to video games, we know far less about how or she works with. A piece of reality is manipulated and people design audio games or how we can support them in made sense of for the sake of informing further manipula- doing so. For sure, one important reason for this is the size of the industry. Video games are a huge business and au- Link to a demonstration video: tions. Donald Schön famously formulated such considera- dio games are a tiny niche market in comparison. Indeed, https:// www.youtube.com/ watch? tions when investigating the design process and the skills of there are only few commercial titles available (e.g., Feer v=_59Ifxl2tfE practitioners when performing their profession (e.g., archi- tects): [1]). Most audio games were made by hobbyists and semi- professionals. However, there is a large online community “A designer’s knowing-in-action involves sensory, bodily of supporters and fans of audio games named audiogames. knowing. The designer designs not only with the mind but net. On the left column, we provide a definition for audio with the body and senses [. ]. A designer sees, moves, games as formulated by this influential community. and sees again” [6, p. 133]. To return to the problem, designing audio games is a chal- In the context of audio game design, this quote illustrates a lenge and the audio game design process is under-researched. fundamental challenge. How can designers find appropriate In the audio games literature, audio games were often eval- processes for designing audio games, when the only ma- uated in terms of what purpose they could be used for (e.g., terial the product is composed of is sound? In more detail, for motivating people to physically exercise [5]). Further- in audio games, we face the challenge that the medium is more, researchers provided design recommendations for 126 Interactivity Session CHI PLAY'19, October 22–25, 2019, Barcelona, Spain supporting the process (e.g., [9, 3]), while, we made the we invited them to use a very quick (at least for them) mid- argument that prescriptive design rules will not always nec- fidelity technique for creating audio games. Their feed- essarily aid audio game design [8]. However, there is a lack back informed the underlying concept of the present audio of research that investigates the audio game design pro- game editor in a significant way. Most importantly, the edi- cess per se (as opposed to supporting specific aspects of it tor should be easy to use – even for people with little to no with e.g. design rules), like Donald Schön did with his phe- programming experience – and accessible as far as pos- nomenological inquiry into professional practice (e.g., [6]) or sible. For this reason, we designed a principal interaction Tracey Fullerton with her comprehensive book on ‘conven- paradigm that can be used quite intuitively. Via simple drag tional’ game design [2]. and drop gestures, the users or designers are enabled to create their own games (see next section Use Scenario To address this gap, we decided to engage in design phe- for an example) and to immediately hear the effects. To nomenology and observe audio game designers in action, support people with impaired vision, the color-contrasts of at first. However, as it turned out, it was very hard if not the graphical user interface (GUI) can be enhanced, if re- impossible to find audio gamer designers, who we could quired (see Figure 2). Moreover, we have implemented an observe in their daily practice. There were too few and Application Programming Interface (API) so that most in- they were distributed around the world. For this reason, teractions with the GUI can also be carried out using code we shifted our research strategy and took a practice-based (and text-to-speech software, etc.). Moreover, we kept the design research approach (e.g., [4]). That is, we started design of the main window, where most user interactions designing our own audio games and tools for creating au- take place, rather ‘simple’. As shown in Figure 2, this win- dio games in order to generate design knowledge through dow is divided into three segments: a left column with game these hands-on experiences. Insights from prototyping, objects and structures (e.g., players, enemies, obstacles, conversations with experienced audio gamers, and review- etc.), a middle area where these objects can be arranged ing the literature eventually led to the idea of creating an (the game area), and a right column with additional options open-sourced (online) audio game editor. By means of this for configuration. More objects and features are currently tool we also aim to reach more people who are interested in under development, so that the designers have access to designing audio games and study their use of it. The overall ‘typical’ audio game object blueprints. concept is illustrated in Figure 1. In summary, the intended target group for the editor are Online Audio Game Editor - Description people interested in creating audio games with or without The requirements for the online audio game editor were impaired vision. The graphical user interface of the editor, elaborated in collaboration with experienced (visually im- of course, requires some remaining vision or acuity. If a paired) audio gamers and (sighted) game designers. For user cannot use the graphical user interface, the editor can example, we asked participants to create audio games from be accessed via its API and conventional screen-readers, Lego bricks (each brick representing different game ele- etc. Visually impaired and sighted players both can play ments) and then mapped their analogue Lego prototypes the resulting games. As shown in Figure 2, the graphical to a digital, interactive version using Unity3D [7]. Hence, rendering of the audio game is a tool for constructing, de- 127 Interactivity Session CHI PLAY'19, October 22–25, 2019, Barcelona, Spain Figure 2: The main window of the (online) audio game editor in normal color mode (upper left corner) and with enhanced contrasts (lower right corner). Left: Different objects and structures (players, obstacles, enemies, portals, ...) that can be dragged and dropped onto the game area (middle). In addition, this left column features basic editor controls. Middle: Game area showing the locations of all game elements. The technical organization of this area is illustrated in Fig. 3. Right column: Options for configuring game objects (e.g., defining enemy pathways). bugging, and sketching the audio game. In other words, it is Use Scenario a visualization of the inner state of the audio game and will To illustrate the use of the editor, we describe how a classic not be included in the final audio game, once the develop- maze-based audio game can be created using our editor.
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