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Audio games: new perspectives on game audio

Published: 02 September 2004 Publication History

Abstract

This paper discusses the design of audio games, a quite new computer game category that originates from games for players with visual impairments as well as from mainstream music games. In the TiM project (Tactile Interactive Multimedia), SITREC develops three sound-based games that point out new directions for game audio design. The TiM games demonstrate different ways in which games can be designed around an auditory experience. Several unique features of audio games are presented emphasising unexplored potentials for interactivity and future development areas are suggested.SITREC proposes an approach to the design of auditory interfaces that takes three listening modes into consideration: casual listening, semantic listening and reduced listening. A semiotic model is presented that illustrates this view on sound object design and ways in which sounds can be combined. The discourse focuses on issues of continuous display, musicality and clarity, and introduces the notion of "spatialised game soundtracks," as opposed to separated background music and game effect sounds.The main challenge when developing auditory interfaces is to balance functionality and aesthetics. Other important issues are the inclusion of meta-level information in order to achieve a high level of complexity and to provide elements of open-endedness. This refers to planning the overall gameplay, as well as to designing individual sound objects and combining them into complex, interactive soundscapes.

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cover image ACM Other conferences
ACE '04: Proceedings of the 2004 ACM SIGCHI International Conference on Advances in computer entertainment technology
September 2004
368 pages
ISBN:1581138822
DOI:10.1145/1067343
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or 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 on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

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Published: 02 September 2004

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Author Tags

  1. audio game
  2. auditory interface
  3. e-inclusion
  4. game audio
  5. sound design
  6. sound-scape
  7. spatial soundtrack
  8. visual impairment

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Cited By

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  • (2025)Exploring Asymmetric Competitive Gaming For Mixed-Visual-Ability PairsVideogame Sciences and Arts10.1007/978-3-031-81713-7_2(21-39)Online publication date: 2-Feb-2025
  • (2024)Speech Puzzles (Spuzzles): Engaging the Reduced, Causal, and Semantic Listening Modes for Puzzle Design in Audio GamesApplied Sciences10.3390/app1409385814:9(3858)Online publication date: 30-Apr-2024
  • (2024)Clothing Sounds in Games: Generation Procedure and Impact on Player ExperienceProceedings of the 13th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/3679318.3685378(1-16)Online publication date: 13-Oct-2024
  • (2024)Virtual Reality Audio Game for Entertainment and Sound Localization TrainingACM Transactions on Applied Perception10.1145/367655722:1(1-24)Online publication date: 28-Nov-2024
  • (2024)SoundTrek: A Virtual Reality Audio Perspective-Switching GameCompanion Proceedings of the 2024 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play10.1145/3665463.3678824(352-358)Online publication date: 14-Oct-2024
  • (2024)Surveyor: Facilitating Discovery Within Video Games for Blind and Low Vision PlayersProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642615(1-15)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
  • (2024)Game accessibility for visually impaired people: a reviewSoft Computing10.1007/s00500-024-09827-428:17-18(10475-10489)Online publication date: 20-Jul-2024
  • (2024)AudiogameEncyclopedia of Computer Graphics and Games10.1007/978-3-031-23161-2_194(148-150)Online publication date: 5-Jan-2024
  • (2023)Flying a Quadcopter—An Audio Entertainment and Training Game for the Visually ImpairedApplied Sciences10.3390/app1311676913:11(6769)Online publication date: 2-Jun-2023
  • (2023)Mathematical Content Browsing for Print-disabled Readers Based on Virtual-world Exploration and Audio-visual Sensory SubstitutionACM Transactions on Accessible Computing10.1145/358436516:2(1-27)Online publication date: 17-Feb-2023
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