[ian-reeds-games] Another big response
- From: Ian Reed <support@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: ian-reeds-games@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2013 21:46:33 -0700
Hi all!
It's been a busy day. I'm glad to see so many great comments about the
newly updated maps.
Carlos and Craig, thanks for your responses to the questions.
I'm glad to have your help getting some of the new features
implemented. I think long term it will take a lot of the work off my
plate and allow the engine to grow at a much faster pace.
After all that discussion I feel behind as the scripting engine is not
ready to go yet. I'm confident I can get it ready by the end of the
week though and then we can start on it.
Austen, thanks for your answers as well, haha.
I'm glad you like the new direction for scripting, I think it will
really benefit everyone.
Craig, you mentioned wanting to have the game send it's text to speech
output through the screen reader.
My big concern with that is that I have less control over how things are
spoken.
I don't mean the voice or volume or speech rate.
One of the big things is that when the game uses SAPI it knows when the
spoken text is finished speaking.
This is used on the AI's turn to start sounds playing just as the speech
for that unit's action begins.
So if I don't know when the speech is finished then the game engine
would just run through all the thinking, tell the screen reader to speak
about 15 messages and start 15 sounds playing all at once.
I know the screen reader would probably play these messages one at a
time, but the sounds would still be broken.
All that said, if it's possible to fix the biggest concern I just
mentioned I'd like to get the extra support for screen readers.
It's great to hear you've written a wrapper for it, that would sure save
me some time.
Could you see if there's a reasonable way to know when the speech sent
to the screen reader is finished or cancelled so that the game can
continue by starting the next sound and sending the next message?
Also, which screen readers does your wrapper support?
Allan noticed an oddity while using JAWS 11 that hindered his use of
shift + arrow keys to move.
I think it was JAWS 11, correct me if I'm wrong Allan.
Carlos, good ideas about how to re-introduce those features.
I myself have also missed the U key that announced amount of remaining AP.
And as you stated the T key was primarily removed because most maps had
a lot of terrain unlike the original maps I made.
Your solutions for re-introducing them shouldn't be too difficult.
I could also do the third item you mentioned but it is a bit similar to
using the slash and comma keys.
I've been thinking that the slash and comma keys need to play that
little menu wrap sound when they go back passed the head of the list to
indicate you've wrapped.
I suppose one more benefit of having E and F as menus is that you would
get first letter navigation when trying to find Ian the archer or Carlos
the warrior.
All of it's on my list now.
The new maps sound pretty fun. After I get a few more big features out
I'll have to take some time to enjoy all your hard work!
Thanks all!
Ian Reed
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