Playing audio-only games a compendium of interacting with virtual, auditory worlds


Röber Niklas Masuch Maic
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

Talking about games refers in today’s world often to the play of audio-visual computer games. Since their first introduction in the 1960s, computer games have evolved in many ways and are today one of the fastest growing industries. Besides the classic visual games, another niche has emerged over the last decade: audio-only computer games. The main difference to conventional games is that these games can only be played and perceived through sound and acoustics. Although, initially developed by and for the visually impaired community, these games posses huge potentials for mobile (transportable) gaming and can be enjoyed by all hearing. In this work we present an overview of audio-only games, and discuss the methods and techniques to play and design such auditory worlds. We further explore the evolved genres and address the advantages, as well as the limitations of audio based gaming. Our work is motivated by our own research in this area and the development of a framework, which allows an easy design and setup of audio-only computer games.

 

Game Graphics Beyond Realism: Then, Now, and Tomorrow


Masuch Maic Röber Niklas
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

Photorealism is one of the most quoted aspects of nowadays games. However, realistic game graphics is not the only style desirable. This paper surveys the many graphical styles used in past and current games, analyzes graphical aspects of computer games and discuss the use of realism with respect to game graphics. We show several examples and make references to current research, encouraging game developers to experiment with alternative, more artistic rendering styles, such as non-photorealistic rendering.