Hey everyone!
Before we let loose another competition I thought we could discuss something new!
A few people have suggested we add sound to an existing game, so I thought if anyone has a prototype that they wouldn't mind being used for the challenge please volunteer! This would be a great way to meet sound oriented people and hopefully get sound for you game!
My thought is to be able to have all the code etc. that plays the sounds already there, then the musicians just need to swap out placeholder sounds to see what their sounds/music sounds like in the game.
If no one volunteers their game/code by the 16th of August then I will jam a game/framework during the Cape Town City Hall Jam.
Please let us know! :D
UPDATE:
We have chosen game unseen!
The theme...
For this challenge we are replacing audio to the game Unseen by clockworkacorn http://clockworkacorn.com/games/ . All you need to do is download the game and replace the existing audio files. More hooks can/will be added along the way, so keep checking here!
The rules:
1. EVERYONE can join, you don't need to be a musician or have a sound engineering degree. Lets face it, we all need sound effects for our games and most of us are pretty terrible at it (I know I am). So lets practice using any software out there! (See below for some suggestions)
2. Once you have finished your entry, post a link to it here.
3. Finish the project by Monday the 8th of September
4. Did I mention EVERYONE can join in? We like silly gimmicks and I-made-this-with-a-water-bottle-and-my-laptop type entries so there are plenty of excuses to take part!
5. Feel free to collaborate, we love it when people work together ;)
6. Have fun and try to give feedback to other entries!
Download links to for Unseen Links updated: 21/08/14
Windows
Mac
Linux
Advice and popular software thread:
Check out this thread for advice on software/tutorials etc.
So who will be joining me? Feel free to ask any questions!
Update:
The download links above have been updated. Use the new XML file with lists of audio files.
For example:
Before we let loose another competition I thought we could discuss something new!
A few people have suggested we add sound to an existing game, so I thought if anyone has a prototype that they wouldn't mind being used for the challenge please volunteer! This would be a great way to meet sound oriented people and hopefully get sound for you game!
My thought is to be able to have all the code etc. that plays the sounds already there, then the musicians just need to swap out placeholder sounds to see what their sounds/music sounds like in the game.
If no one volunteers their game/code by the 16th of August then I will jam a game/framework during the Cape Town City Hall Jam.
Please let us know! :D
UPDATE:
We have chosen game unseen!
The theme...
For this challenge we are replacing audio to the game Unseen by clockworkacorn http://clockworkacorn.com/games/ . All you need to do is download the game and replace the existing audio files. More hooks can/will be added along the way, so keep checking here!
The rules:
1. EVERYONE can join, you don't need to be a musician or have a sound engineering degree. Lets face it, we all need sound effects for our games and most of us are pretty terrible at it (I know I am). So lets practice using any software out there! (See below for some suggestions)
2. Once you have finished your entry, post a link to it here.
3. Finish the project by Monday the 8th of September
4. Did I mention EVERYONE can join in? We like silly gimmicks and I-made-this-with-a-water-bottle-and-my-laptop type entries so there are plenty of excuses to take part!
5. Feel free to collaborate, we love it when people work together ;)
6. Have fun and try to give feedback to other entries!
Download links to for Unseen Links updated: 21/08/14
Windows
Mac
Linux
Advice and popular software thread:
Check out this thread for advice on software/tutorials etc.
So who will be joining me? Feel free to ask any questions!
Update:
The download links above have been updated. Use the new XML file with lists of audio files.
For example:
<list name="taser">
<audio file="sounds/taser-1.wav" />
<audio file="sounds/taser-2.ogg" />
</list>
<list name="music-tense">
<audio file="sounds/music-1.ogg" />
<audio file="sounds/music-2.ogg" />
</list>
Quick Start Guide:
Everything you need to work with is in the "sounds/" folder (Note: this is not the "assets/sounds/" folder).
Open "sounds/lists.xml" in a text editor and add/edit sound files for any triggers you like.
Have fun :)
Cheats:
F12 - enable cheat mode in-game (indicated in the top left).
R - restart the current scene (useful for looking for a specific upgrade).
U - instantly complete the current level (get upgrades quickly).
V - show vision of everything.
B - toggle blueprints.
T - show debug physics models.
Y - spawn an enemy
Comments
We're also happy adding sound hooks throughout the competition if someone specifically needs them.
So yeah, check out our prototypes at http://clockworkacorn.com/games/ and let me know if one there strikes your fancy. The only exception on that list is the full version of Monsters and Medicine, which is currently on sale, but we can make a demo version of that available which uses all the sounds in the full version.
Have some ideas that could work nicely with the gameplay.
:)
I also vote for unseen, although monsters and medicine would have been fun too :P
@Riocide I think we should give people a little more time to vote on the game, then we could start the competition on say Friday evening? I would just need a link to the game :D
And yeah, as soon as we have that we'll add the hooks and some random place holder sounds and send you the local builds for the chosen game.
Can I volunteer my game Oliver? Game is here
@PowerCat Thanks for volunteering! I think that we are going with @Riocide for this competition as they volunteered first and have some interest already. Maybe we could use your game in a future comp? :)
@Riocide In terms of wanted sound triggers, these are my thoughts for unseen. You don't need to do them all, they are just ideas I thought might be cool. You would probably need to decide according to how it fits with the gameplay you envision.
SFX:
- Footsteps, or when the little sound circles spawn behind you.
- Player collision sounds, when you bump into a wall or another player.
- Shooting/punching sounds, it might be cool if you could either have multiple sounds that could be chosen from randomly. Or if you could adjust the pitch of one sound.
- Menu selection sounds
- Doors opening
- Damage/death sounds
- Menu click sounds
- Foley sounds, so if there were any items like powerups that would emit sounds from their position.
- When another player first comes into line of sight (or is locked on) (this is probably not super important, just could be nice to have)
Music:Let me know for the future then ;)
The triggers that @creative630 mentioned sound great! I had a few more in mind...
-Stepping on exit zone/portal
-Ambience sound?
-Level Complete Sound
Upgrades:
-stealth sprint/flashbang/invisibility
-> I think 2 special ability sounds are fine to prototype.
Is it possible to always have those 2 as upgrades or is it randomly generated what u can upgrade...for the sake of testing it would be great if there are 2 abilities that are always upgradeable...
I think most of the suggested SFX by @creative630 and @Mexicanopiumdog will be easy to do. It should also be easy to add more SFX after the competition starts.
Music is a bit more difficult. An idea is to have a customisable list of tracks and then possibly add more lists that depend on the current situation, like "normal", "guards nearby" and "seen by a guard". How does that sound?
@Mexicanopiumdog: upgrades are randomly chosen at the moment, but there are debug cheats that allow you to "save scum" for any upgrade. Is this ok, or would something less random be needed?
EDIT: I think it would be very useful if I documented some of the debug cheats in any case.
Yeah if you supply us with a list of cheats it should be fine...We dont want to be messing up the game now with special requests.. :P
Regarding the music: I think for now having it relatively basic ie. is perfect.
Btw, what idea did you base Unseen on? Its a very cool concept and I would really like to see it developed, especially on the art side!
We're still not sure what the end result will be, but we like the place it's heading to. You can check out the MGSA thread on the game at http://www.makegamessa.com/discussion/2227/prototype-unseen-v2-stealth-roguelike if you're interested in the development process so far.
Download:
- Windows
- Linux
For testing, you can hit F12 while playing to enter debug mode, which allows the following commands (and more):U - Finish level, allowing you to select an upgrade
R (on upgrade screen) - Reroll upgrades so you can get what you want
R - Restart level
If you need another command, it might already be there :O, just ask. If not, we might be able to add it for you.
One thing that needs to be mentioned is that we changed the formula that calculates the volume of sounds a bit and are aware that sounds may still be too quiet in general. If so, let us know and we'll see if we can improve it.
Implemented sound hooks:
Ability sounds for blink, invisibility, and all three thrown items
Footsteps
Taser
Player (and guards) taking damage and dying
Opening and closing of doors
Guard being alerted (triggers when he hears or sees anything while he's not looking for the player already)
Finishing a level, losing, and completing individual objectives
Hooks we'll add soon:
Clicking a button (main menu and upgrade screen)
Running into walls or guards
Music
Ambient sounds
Let us know if there's anything that doesn't work as is and needs to change, or if there are more hooks you'd like added. We also haven't added functionality for multiple sounds for the same hook, but we have a possible solution that we just need to implement.
P.S. Enjoy the game too! :)
I just downloaded it on my home pc and scanned it with AVG with no warnings. My AVG is version 2014.0.4745 for reference. So, if your version is the same, I have no idea why it's getting reported as a virus.
Could you explain the Blink power up - whenever I use it all the nearby guards just home in on me! I'm probably using it wrong?
Another ignorant sound guy question: I've downloaded the Linux version (I'm on a Mac) - do I need some software to test it? Game Maker?
Do the samples need to be a specific sample/bit rate/length?
@Mexicanopiumdog: AFAIK the sounds just need to be WAV files with the correct filename (make sure the extension is .wav). The easiest sound to test is probably the footsteps (sounds/step.wav). Also note that you may need to restart the game if you change sounds, because they get cached. If you're still having an issue, maybe try run the game from a terminal/command line and see if you get an error message?
@Mexicanopiumdog You can probably use MP3 or OGG instead of WAV (I see there are OGG files in the assets>sounds folder). Might be that the sound files are too large? Maybe try reduce their size. Found this handy article, it's a little dated but still worth a read: http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/20672/what-quality-should-my-sounds-be
The plan for music is to have a separate xml file that you can use to edit the various lists. If that works well, we can look at doing a similar thing for sfx, which will mean you can use OGG or WAV.
@MCA I've built a mac version of the current version and hosted it here: https://app.box.com/s/ec85moajvmnysjgzopdz
I hope that helps, sorry for the time delay, I'll definitely be able to provide more regular updates come Monday.
The app is signed using a local signature so you might have to manually allow it to install to get it running. Sorry for the inconvenience.
I drop in the new .wav file and when I open the game that sound doesnt work anymore...I have tried bouncing my sounds as Mp3 and drastically reducing the size but to no avail...HELP?!
Do you need to reboot the game somehow to make the new sounds take effect?
Also noticed that even though I've replaced the Taser sound, the original Taser SFX triggers when guards attack, and kill me.
Once you've replaced a sound file, such as "sounds/step.wav", you should just need to restart the game and it should work.
@Mexicanopiumdog, @MCA: Could you try run Unseen from a terminal (command prompt if Windows) and see what the output is when you change a sound and it doesn't work.
If you still don't come right, can you please send me a copy of the sound file you're trying to use, so I can do some more debug work?
Sorry it isn't working for you yet, I'm sure we'll be able to figure it out :)
EDIT: I did some more fiddling and finally managed to reproduce the issue. I'll see what we can figure out ASAP.
I have found a workaround for now and pushed an update to our repo. The sounds will still need to be WAV format for now, but at least you should be able to change them. We will try and get new updated builds out ASAP. Sorry for the false start :)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vle3a1vytdrzpab/distractor.wav
I'm using the Mac build, if that makes a difference. Wondering if I should add some metadata to the audio file?
Any help is much appreciated :-)
Here is a link to the your file that i exported out of cubase. It works on my side so you could maybe just check if it works for you.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cyzql36h40kbpnl/distractor.wav
Hope it helps!
Karl
I don't think it needs to be mono, I have stereo sound that worked for me, but mono is probably better. The mime data of a WAV file that works for me is: RIFF (little-endian) data, WAVE audio, Microsoft PCM, 16 bit, mono 44100 Hz. I exported this from Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) and made sure to select "WAV (Microsoft) signed 16 bit PCM" (44.1 kHz seems to be implicit).
Here's another random sfx that worked as a replacement for me: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/55182426/build_room.wav
@Mexicanopiumdog, @MCA: if still no luck, can you maybe try run it in a terminal and make a note of any output? It might help us work out what's happening.
The plan forward is to add an XML file with a few lists of audio files. The main reason is so that you can have a list of music tracks, but if we extend this for sfx then it should make things a bit more flexible, and probably allow the use of OGG files. We should have this update out tomorrow or Wednesday (we would have liked today, but today is a really busy day for us). An example of the XML might be:
<list name="taser"> <audio file="sounds/taser-1.wav" /> <audio file="sounds/taser-2.ogg" /> </list> <list name="music-tense"> <audio file="sounds/music-1.ogg" /> <audio file="sounds/music-2.ogg" /> </list>