Full Transcript
Mikko Herranen:
And the game is about Saran guy who used to be a policeman before he got into an accident and got blind.
Jesse Anderson:
Whether you’re dealing with visuals or audio only or virtual reality, whatever it happens to be, that’s the cool thing, is gaming has becomes so big that anybody can find something, that they might want to play.
Announcer:
Please welcome My True Sound, creators of audible games for the blind.
David Oliva:
It’s like gold here to be able to do an audio game multi-player.
Announcer:
And joining me, Jesse Anderson.
Jesse Anderson:
In some of my favorite games over the years, audio goes a long way in the selling. Selling you on the environment that you’re in, or if you’re playing an action game and you find out where people are.
Announcer:
Gold Gun, available in the APP store today.
David Oliva:
We are doing our own game engine, which is the tool to make the games, and our goal is that that engine at some point can be used blind people, that it will be fully accessible, and that they could do their own games.
Mikko Herranen:
And we want to show it’s for everybody and that there will be games for everybody, so it’s not for scientists, it’s for us as well.
Jeff Thompson:
Welcome to Blind Abilities, I’m Jeff Thompson, and today in studio we got Jessie Anderson from Illegally Sighted on YouTube and a fellow resident of Minnesota with me. How are you doing Jesse?
Jesse Anderson:
I’m doing pretty well, although it is pretty chilly out there, so yeah.
Jeff Thompson:
Well our guests today, I think they come from some place that can get chilly to all the way from Finland. We got the team from My True Sound, David Oliva and Mikko Herranen.
David Oliva:
Yes.
Mikko Herranen:
Perfect.
David Oliva:
Thank you Jeff.
Jesse Anderson:
You bet. How are you guys doing?
Mikko Herranen:
Fine, thanks.
David Oliva:
Pretty Fine.
Jeff Thompson:
Good. You guys got some great news. You guys coming out with some …
Announcer:
Breaking news, just released Gold Gun on the APP store.
Jeff Thompson:
Some audible games for the blind. Can you explain a little bit about your company and thanks for coming on.
David Oliva:
So we are a small startup from Finland, and we do audio games. We have been around for one year and a half. Sure, at the beginning it took a little bit of time but now we are stronger than ever and we are launching our first game, Gold Gun, at the end of this month, so 31st of January, and it’s an audio game that you play on mobile devices, iPhone, and Androids.
Jeff Thompson:
Thanks David. How about you Mikko?
Mikko Herranen:
Yeah, I’ve been playing gangs throughout my life. I’m blind myself and I liked games. Every time I’ve been around after trying computer games and console games and such, I have a little bit sight, but like read Braille so, and don’t have colors. Basic visual games are not for me. I’ve tried some audio games but we wanted to do something different, more fancy, so we’re on the way there and this is the first game. Let’s see what’s happened.
Jeff Thompson:
Well that’s really great news. David, Mikko, well knowing I’d have you two on from My True Sound, I decided to bring on the expert from Illegally Sighted. Mr. Jessie Anderson. Jesse, you’ve been involved in gaming for quite a while.
Jesse Anderson:
I have been running the Illegally Sighted YouTube channel for what was it? I think since 2012 but I have been a gamer ever since I can remember and when I was really young seeing the Atari 2600 at my babysitter’s house and just the fact that, “Oh man, I can control something on the TV,” even though it just seems like rudimentary shapes and blocks and things. And I saw my first Apple two and then the NES came out, and that’s pretty much all she wrote. I’ve just been addicted ever since. But yeah, I’ve been playing games, PC games, console games, definitely some audio accessible games in the past. And especially now that I’ve been doing the channel, I’ve really started trying to get more into game accessibility as well.
Jeff Thompson:
Well that’s great because this is something that’s going to become more and more popular amongst the blindness community and it was exciting to hear that My True Sound is coming out with a new game. When do you perceive that the game would be released for the public?
David Oliva:
If everything goes good. It should be 31st of January, and then it’s actually the first episode of seven. If we tried to make the whole game at once where there will be 12 hours of gameplay, we will never get it done. We are so reduced resources that we thought, “Okay, let’s not get down. Let’s make the first episode and check what’s the response that people like it? Are we able to delete what things should be improved on?” So it’s kind of a test like a pilot, but we like it. Sure, there are a lot of things to improve.
David Oliva:
We are able to change things on the run. If we realize that game mechanics have not working good or that we want to add some new functionality, then we just add it in the next step episode, and it will be much more dramatic that if we do for two years I came and then people don’t like it. So in that way we are able to change things and react with that. That was a smart move and let’s see how it’s going. But here we also have two other games that I can tell later what they’re about.
Jeff Thompson:
That sounds like you really thought this out and I’m sure there’s a lot of people that would like to give this a try. Come January 31st and I’m sure Jesse we’ll be putting it up on his channel right away.
David Oliva:
Yeah. Do you want to Mikko to tell a bit and like what’s this Gold Gun about?
Jeff Thompson:
You Bet. Go ahead Mikko.
Mikko Herranen:
Yeah, okay, I can, if you want, I can if you don’t, anyway, it’s kind of interactive radio playing more than an ordinary game. It’s more based on the story then most of the games and the story where you have interactive parts where you can play and the game is about a Saran, guy who used to be a policeman before he got into an accident and got blind, and after that is called back to work by the police force because of missions needing guy with special hearing. And I don’t want to tell him more because I would spoil the thing like that’s how it starts.
Jeff Thompson:
It’s typical type of game there, Jesse?
Jesse Anderson:
Well, I mean that’s the thing. In the ’80s, early ’90s, video games were kind of thought to be for kids. I still hear people like, “Well, what are you doing with video games?” or “Those are for kids,” but I mean video games themselves now are, they’re more popular than movies and TV. I mean, they make so much money now and it’s just like movies, just like TV shows. There are games now for pretty much everybody. There’s games for children. Sure, but, I play a lot of games that are rated T for teen or M for mature and it’s just the kind of content that’s in them. Sometimes people might want to play a detective game. Sometimes they may want to go into, play racing games or just be in a big budget action, where whether you’re doing with visuals or audio only or virtual reality, whatever it happens to be. That’s the cool thing is gaming has become so big that anybody can find something that they might want to play.
Mikko Herranen:
Yeah. And in the console world, there are these games called telltale games.
Jesse Anderson:
Oh yes.
Mikko Herranen:
That run the story and you interact with the story, that’s the closest thing I find in PlayStation world for Gold Gun.
Jesse Anderson:
That’s really cool too because I played a lot of the early telltale games and I kinda fallen off of them. But like the first season of The Walking Dead. Oh man, that was so good.
Mikko Herranen:
Okay, I haven’t tried that one.
Jesse Anderson:
Yeah. The first season of The Walking Dead, I played a little bit of the second season and I know they’re in the final season right now. I think there’s like four or five seasons now. But like the first season you’re playing this guy named Lee and you are taking care of this little girl, Clementine, in the Zombie apocalypse, and I mean I’m not going to say anything but like that game definitely goes some places and some really gnarly stuff happens. And by the end you’re like the episode five of the first season, you’re like, holy crap, I remember everyone raving about that game back in the day.
David Oliva:
So is it a PC game?
Jesse Anderson:
It’s on consoles and PC.
David Oliva:
Okay.
Jeff Thompson:
Now with My True Sound, I’ll be able to play Gold Gun with my iPhone or my iPad, IOS device.
David Oliva:
We thought that it was easier for us to concentrate on one platform and then it was that one.
Jeff Thompson:
Well this is really exciting cause we’re just a couple of days away from the release of Gold Gun from My True Sound, and you also mentioned that you’re working on a couple of other games.
David Oliva:
Yes. So while Gold Gun, as we say, it’s like a story that you play but then the other games are a bit different.
Mikko Herranen:
More action based.
David Oliva:
Yes, the first one, it’s called Music Maze, it’s like Infinite Runner game, where music builds us up as you proceed on the levels, it’s actually a new concept we wanted to try and we thought that, okay, if the music is the most important and then you want that you play for awareness, they need it should be very cool.
David Oliva:
So what we are trying is that it has a lot of action. You need to do a lot of things. And then the music and the melody builds up you play and all the sounds, all the actions you do are like in harmony with the melody. So in that way you can play for a lot and it’s like endless basic, just you play for many levels. And then the other game, which I really like it, it’s going to be called Audio Itsat, and it’s a battle mode type. And in here you defend your position by fighting against the spells attacking you and music is also very important here, we, again, all the sounds are in harmony, I mean tempo with the different sound tracks. And this is actually the game that will enable us in the future, like to open up multiplayer modes. It’s something that I only play multiplayer modes, so, it’s my goal here to be able to do an audio game multiplayer.
Mikko Herranen:
And I think there aren’t any audio multipliers for the mobile devices in other game worlds because of that, that’s also very interesting.
David Oliva:
So, well actually yeah, we have like ideas and motivation and well, let’s see. I think the three games we have some kind of the fundings to go because of how it’s our strategy. I think it’s kind of secure that they will see the light at some point when it’s some work. A bit of good luck.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh that’s great. How can people find My True Sound?
David Oliva:
Yes, that’s a good the question that I’ve been trying to improve it on there on the last amounts. So sure, we have our website My True Sound dot com and we are active in social media like Twitter, which has been very difficult to build up, in Facebook, but then especially Applebee’s dot com on an audio games dot net which are I think the two biggest channels for audio game talking and we tried to be in there very active without being annoying. Like we don’t want to be talking all the time about us, but then at least we are updating the news.
Mikko Herranen:
And the games will be found on APP store and Google play.
David Oliva:
Yes.
Mikko Herranen:
So whenever we are releasing something it will be there.
David Oliva:
Yeah.
Jeff Thompson:
So when you’re talking multiplayer game, you’re talking that I can log in, I can be playing against someone in Finland.
David Oliva:
Yes.
Mikko Herranen:
Exactly.
Jeff Thompson:
No, that’s cool. When I first heard your name, My True Sound, it me think, “Wow, that sounds really cool. It’s audio, it’s acoustics, it’s my line of work.” Give us a little bit of the background. What inspired you to come up with the name My True Sound?
David Oliva:
It is actually, well it came, the name of the company, and so on because my background is in acoustics and sound. I was working in acoustics, it was already too monotonic, and I wanted to change and go into the gaming industry. So in my university there was a team doing games, teaching how to do games and then I ask them, “Can I join you? I I know about sounds.” And then they say, “Okay, try to find out your own project so you are cheaper for us, try to find a project so you get your own money,” and so on. And then I started to think, “Okay, it can be this sound, this immersive sound, the sound that feels as realistic as as in the real world.
David Oliva:
And then it’s what I thought, “Oh, I think in this way it would fit like 94 people that it’s so experience about listening knows what’s the distance to our wall just by listening,” and that’s something I didn’t have, or so it’s actually the thing that they think the multiplayer you play it by the sounds, everything needs to be as in real world. You know when we are in the same room, you know where I am and in the game should be the same thing. You should know where the person is just by how his footsteps or his boys is or is he at the other side of a corridor, all those things should be brought like perfectly and that’s what we audio people call immersive sound, or in massive audio, three D audio, so that that will be the key to play those multiplayer games.
Jeff Thompson:
Well that sounds great. I love binaural microphones. I love sound and this is getting more interesting the more we go here. What do you think about that, Jesse?
Jesse Anderson:
Oh, I’m actually quite intrigued about all three of the games that they have mentioned so far. And I will say that you know, audio, especially when you think about mainstream games, I think audio often gets overlooked. Everyone’s kind of hyperfocused on, “Oh man, look at the pretty colors, look at how, look at the graphics of everything.” But in some of my favorite games over the years, audio goes a long way in selling you on the environment that you’re in or if you’re playing an action game, you find out where people are, or a horror game, I mean audio is just critical there. And there’s been a lot of games, like I said with the second game you guys mentioned was the Audio Endless Runner.
David Oliva:
Music Maze.
Jesse Anderson:
Yeah, Music Maze. That one actually sounds really interesting because I am intrigued about games that also have kind of music as part of the game play. Like some of my favorite titles in recent years has been like Luminesce or Beat Saber in VR where basically you’re doing light sabers to music and it’s just this whole like music is a core-
David Oliva:
Exactly.
Jesse Anderson:
…part of actually what’s you’re doing and it’s, yeah, it’s really kind of cool.
David Oliva:
It’s actually a bit how it has come the idea I have played the beat and it’s so fun.
Jesse Anderson:
Oh isn’t Beat Saber cool? I’m terrible at it but it’s amazing.
Jeff Thompson:
You admitted it.
David Oliva:
I think on some levels are [inaudible].
Jesse Anderson:
Yes.
Mikko Herranen:
I have to try that someday.
David Oliva:
Yeah.
Mikko Herranen:
Cause I have VR set as well.
Jesse Anderson:
Oh do you? Okay. Yeah, I have an Oculus Rift at home and that’s one thing that’s one area where I’m actually really trying to, I’m trying to really advocate for accessibility becoming a VR standard just because everyone is still early in that medium and no one really has defined clear standards yet because everyone is trying to figure out what does and doesn’t work in VR, and if I can get my voice out there to say, “Hey, you’ve got your video, your audio, your movement, your all these different locomotion things and maybe think about accessibility beforehand instead of having to patch it in later, because there are some things with VR that are fantastic, but as a low vision user there are definitely some issues that make, especially a lot of the menu and overall texts, navigation stuff, very difficult.”
Mikko Herranen:
Yes, exactly. But then there are some games like I have a PSVR set, and, like I said, I only have some little sight left. But for me, I think the great thing is that when I put the VR helmet on, I’m really there. I don’t see into the bucket graphics or it’s being sluggish or anything. For me it’s real, and it’s so much fun. There are some games that’s been one of the surprises there. Like I played Resident Evil seven which is a horror game.
Jesse Anderson:
I’m so mad that didn’t come to the PC VR. I so wanted to play that in VR.
Mikko Herranen:
Yeah. Usually those games are not for me cause I don’t recognize all the objects, what they are but in the PSVR you can go nearer the menus and they get bigger. So it’s like using a screen reader and all the objects have names. So basically, “Ah, okay it’s a shoe. All right man.” So I know what I’m doing. Took time but I did it.
Jesse Anderson:
Yeah, and VR is just one of those things, I find it’s kind of hard to explain to people. It’s one of those things you almost really have to see because you have that extra layer of immersion kind of with like the three D depth and kind of what you’re talking about there with the full head tracking where you can, if you’re in the environment and you want to look closer at something, you just lean into it like you would in a real life environment. And that’s why I was so annoyed because Sony announced, I’ve played Resident Evil seven on the PC, but they have the exclusivity for the PSVR. I’m like, “Oh man, I would so play that in virtual reality if I could.”
Mikko Herranen:
Cause that’s one of our goals in My True Sound, because I’m a PlayStation user, and for me, I myself can play one of every 20 games I try with my friends.
Jesse Anderson:
Right.
Mikko Herranen:
I like following the games because they are like action movies. The pace is slower so it’s easier to be alone. And I know about what’s it called in English, like what’s happening in speech. It’s foreign language in Finish, you don’t-
Jesse Anderson:
You mean like describing?
Mikko Herranen:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes of course I can watch normal movies but I like when like the game plays 30 hours. It’s just much cooler and I play games with my friends that lasts for like two months for us, cause we can’t play 30 hours in a row. So basically one of the core ideas behind My True Sound was to make games more similar to the PS world. He goes, what bugs me in other game world is that most of the games are so simple. I liked many of the games, don’t get me wrong, I played them quite a lot actually like Fear and I used to play Audio Defense and stuff, but still my favorite games are in PS world. And it’s because of the stories and because of them being like more this than someone. When I got the possibility to join My True Sound to make audio that’s been one of the goals. It’s not happening in our first games but we are going there. I promise we’re going.
Jeff Thompson:
Yes.
Mikko Herranen:
If we ever get just there but we’re going there anyway.
Jesse Anderson:
And I’m really glad to hear you say that because I’ve actually, I’ve covered a fair bit of audio and accessible games on my channel, and, like you, I’ve said pretty much exactly the same thing you did is still having the vision that I do. I am able to play some PC, Xbox, PlayStation. I’m able to play some of those games still. I mean, I still like audio games, I love to play them, but they’re either kind of too simple or they don’t, they’re really cool for a short while, but they don’t really hold my attention for quite as long. Or because of the development size of the team, you don’t have the resources that a triple A game developer would, but you know, so some of the presentation can even feel a little bit more limited compared to like what a mainstream gamer would be used to.
Jesse Anderson:
And so, yeah, I mean, I would love to see more audio games kind of catch on. But the other thing now that I think about it that I’ve also been kind of thinking about more is instead of, and I’ve thought about doing a video on this, I’m just not sure how to go about it. But there’s also been some talk about instead of making let’s say an audio game and kind of targeting it more toward a blind audience because that’s ultimately who we want to, we want to provide games for that type of audience, but can we make an audio game but yet somehow make it appealing to the mainstream game audience to go, “Oh well you know, I’m used to looking at everything visually and then having a sound with it.”
Jesse Anderson:
But instead of targeting it towards something that blind people can play, can we use universal design and maybe make something that both sighted and blind and visually impaired players would want to play, because that would also really make it so that if you had a sighted audience also interested in your game, you would potentially have a lot more buy in a lot more in people investing to pay, “Oh I’m going to pay $20 for this game, or $5, $10, $50 for a game.
Jesse Anderson:
And you’re not selling to like just a small blind market. But even just getting other people interested in, “Hey, there are more ways,” like when the Wii came out, people weren’t used to playing motion controlled games. We had the Wii we have Connect, now, we have motion controls and PlayStation VR, Vive and Oculus for virtual reality, so that’s kind of a thing. So maybe if we could somehow look at getting audio to be more focused on and just people to be more receptive to that in the mainstream as well. Just a thought, you know?
Mikko Herranen:
Yeah. It’s funny that you say that because that’s also one of the things we’ve been talking and we’re testing little by little, not exactly like that, but because there are some games for PlayStation, like multiplayer games, that you play against each other, but you have different roles and all the roles don’t need that much graphics. So basically, in my dreams, there are those games where you could play like blind people and sighted people could play against each other. Or it doesn’t have to be, especially a games, but play the same games so that sighted people and blind people have the audio only.
Jesse Anderson:
Yeah, I mean there are already things like that, like with first-person shooter is more modern ones where you have the team shooters where you got some people that aren’t really good at the shooting part but they can be a medic and they can go around-
David Oliva:
Exactly.
Jesse Anderson:
… helping people.
David Oliva:
Exactly.
Jesse Anderson:
Exactly Yep.
David Oliva:
I think in in general, lines the accessibility thing is going to improve a lot on the next two years. Now in the States you have gotten these new law that forces all game developers implementing games with communication to make it accessible and that communication should be accessible not only for blindness but also for reduced mobility I think, so it’s all game developers, especially the indie, a small size, they are very scared how difficult it’s going to be. But I think it’s going to be pretty easy because somebody will find out that, hey, perhaps I can do the patch, I can do the plugging. So the developers can buy me the plugin for 100 euros and then it’s done. And I think a lot of games that now they are not accessible, in two years it’s going to be different.
David Oliva:
I’m really happy about that thing, and then going back to that question about will be sighted people interested in doing in playing audio games. It’s something that many people ask us, especially when we talk to investors or somebody like we are trying to grow the company and they say, “Will that happen?” And I think it can. It can be, but the game then needs to be fun. It cannot be a boring game. It has to be interesting. It has to have nice melody, but especially the game has to be good, appealing, and the company’s huge, visual games are incredible. Now, The Redemption, there are so many good titles and if we want people to play another game, we need to give the same level.
Jeff Thompson:
Right. Now’s a good time to come out with the Bird Box Challenge audio game because people are putting blindfolds on and they don’t really need to see.
Jesse Anderson:
Oh, you know, I really.
Jeff Thompson:
I know, I know.
Jesse Anderson:
Yeah. That whole thing.
Jeff Thompson:
When you’re talking about immersion, when you’re talking about the VR immersion and then you were talking about the immersion with the audio so you can kind of have your placement. Like if I picture a room and I think of the coordinates if I have binaural microphones on and if I walk past someone, I can tell that they’re behind me now. That would really be cool for a multiplayer. So you’re in a room so the sound changes from ear to ear where someone is.
Mikko Herranen:
Yeah, that’s happening over.
Jeff Thompson:
Where something else is or a constant noise is in relationship to where you are.
David Oliva:
That’s where we should go for mobile games and in PC and PlayStation, there is that, but still, at least for me, they are very difficult to use it or rely only on the audio. Like in real life, if somebody will hit me or shoot me from my bag, I think I will immediately know, perhaps for the last time, but then in the game it doesn’t help me that audio information, I think we are not yet there, and it’s actually, again, when I find out about this company, it’s what I wanted to fix, the algorithms to really be sure that, okay, we are using this audio algorithm, or this software to make the implement the audio on again and it shouldn’t be like fully realistic, and that’s where I thought that, well at least not to me anything sounds like in real life, so how do we fix it?
David Oliva:
That’s when I started to talk that this type of project really should be accomplished by the best listeners and that’s when I thought blind people should be actually the audio experts telling all those companies that they are doing somewhere for audio like, “Hey, we are the guys that you should be asking. We are the ones that will tell you when this sounds right and when not,” and that’s actually how it has started all our work, is these ideas.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah, when I first started talking to you, I first thought of Jesse because Jesse’s been out there on Illegally Sighted and I love that name, Jesse Illegally Sighted.
Jesse Anderson:
Yeah. That’s one of those that kind of, I have a horrible time. I have trouble trying to think of names for things, like if I got to make a character name or username or something. And that just kinda came about a long time ago where, I always thought the term legally blind, I understand what it is and I understand what it means, but I always just found it to be a sort of weird term. And so, always the first thing that people, they notice you have a vision impairment and “Oh, what is your vision?” They just immediately jump to that and I just got tired of, “Oh well I can see some and it’s, but I can’t see other things,” and blah blah blah.
Jesse Anderson:
So to start things off and, things off interesting, I just started saying, “Eh, I’m illegally sighted,” just to get the weird looks from people. And the name just kind of stuck. I’m like, “You know what? We’re just going to do this thing. We’re going to brand this thing as Illegally Sighted because why not.”
Jeff Thompson:
And where can someone find Illegally Sighted?
Jesse Anderson:
Well, you can go to YouTube dot com slash Illegally Sighted. You can also go to Illegally Sighted dot com because I, yes, I do have the domain for that. Although I really need to update the website. It’s kind of just a very basic simple site that has plugs on a few things that I’ve been doing, like the podcast, my YouTube channel, podcasts I’ve been on and a couple other odds and ends here and there, but yeah, YouTube dot com slash Illegally Sighted or if you want to follow me on Twitter at B-G-F-H seven nine, you can follow me there.
Jeff Thompson:
And you’re basically giving reviews on your stuff with the gaming, you’re actually looking at games and going through them so people get an idea of what the is about.
Jesse Anderson:
I do a lot of different things on the channel. It started out sort of that way. When I started out, I had a couple different focuses and at the time I didn’t know what the channel was really going to be. Over the years I do anything from hardware reviews. So if I get a new device, I get a new toy, I might get, I might do a review on it, so it’s not gaming, but, I do a lot of PC games stuff. I do accessible games for PC and mobile. I do, and they’re not so much reviews. There’s a mainstream website that I really kind of took a lot of inspiration from. Giant Bomb. They do a lot of different video content and they do these things called quick looks and where it’s basically you turn the camera on, you let the video role, it’s not highly overproduced, it’s just, you know, today we’re just going to show you what this game is.
Jesse Anderson:
If it’s cool, great. If it’s a train wreck, okay, then people know it. If I get stuck in an area or if there’s some technical difficulty, you get to see the good and the bad kind of a live thing. And that way you can kind of make the decision based on the gameplay footage and my commentary. People can make the decision to say, “Nah, it’s not something that I would want to check out.” And if you’re low vision I can point out things that are good or bad and the people can say, “Well that might be a little bit too intense for me.” The contrast maybe not be good enough. Or Oh, maybe I actually could play something because I’ve seen enough extended footage,” so that yeah, that’s kind of what I do. And then some virtual reality stuff as well.
Jeff Thompson:
And pretty soon we’ll probably see you checking out some of the stuff from My True Sound.
Jesse Anderson:
Yes indeed. When the game comes out, I will definitely be checking that out on the channel in some form. Going to be doing just in a little cheap plug. I’ve, going to be going down to the third annual Game Accessibility Conference in San Francisco this March going to be a presenter on a panel or on game in VR accessibility. So I’m, hopefully to be able to meet a lot of developers there and talk to people that I’ve kind of met online via Twitter and such, and I’m really looking forward to that opportunity as well.
David Oliva:
That’s a cool one.
Jesse Anderson:
Yeah.
Jeff Thompson:
How can people find My True Sound? You’ve mentioned it earlier. Can you give me a recap of how they can get a hold of you and find out more about My True Sound?
Mikko Herranen:
We are on Twitter, we have our own webpage, we are on Facebook, we are active in audio games dot net, and apple base and audio games forums. We try to be everywhere. So if everything goes like in the movies, you can find us everywhere.
Jeff Thompson:
There you go. My True Sound dot com.
David Oliva:
Yeah. Yes. And now we are trying to update it actually pretty often. If you go now to read the blog, there are a lot of entries. We also wanted to tell a bit about who we are and so on. So if you check there and you can read more about Mikko, also about me and bit by bit will appear the stories of all there, below bears, and audio guys that we have in the team. We thought that it will be cool and that’s actually the place where you can find out about all the games we are launching.
David Oliva:
Then we really hope that our game, this Gold Gun, the first episode will be easily found on APP store and Google Play. And we also have a good new, which is that the first episode is going to be completely free for everybody. We thought that it will be cool that everybody could test this kind of game for mobile phones, and also wanted to check, okay what are we reaching people, how many of them knows. So we know if something cost then perhaps not everybody allowed it. But then if it’s free then it will be different. And at this moment, we really need to find out how many people is listening us, and we thought that this will be a cool way.
Jeff Thompson:
And the name of the first game that you mentioned was Gold Gun?
David Oliva:
Yeah. Gold Gun, if I can tell a bit about the game plot without opening it too much, but Gold Gun it’s a software used by criminals in the deep web to make some bad activities and then this police man, Saran, he’s in charge of finding them out, and why he’s the best person to do that, it comes up in the game as the game proceeds. The story’s pretty cool. It has its point. We tried to bring a bit of humor and it includes real voice actors so we are not using any voice over.
David Oliva:
Perhaps the quality of the actors is not Hollywood, but we are liking it and we know that a second and third episodes and all the rest until the seventh are going to be much better with more mini games, more action, longer stories. This first one, as I said before, it’s a bit like a pilot. It’s about 40 minutes game play. So good enough to find out what the game is about. But then the whole story opens bit by bit. Basically, we don’t tell from the beginning what’s the whole point. But it’s interesting what we really hope that people like.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah. I think it’s really a great thing that you’re doing this initiative to look at the blindness community and be inclusive and create something that they may use, may enjoy, will probably enjoy. It’s just neat that someone’s doing this and doing it. You’re from Finland and here we are in the United States and we’re looking across the pond there going, “Hm, this sounds very interesting.” I know Jesse’s eager to give it a shot. Yeah.
David Oliva:
Well you know, Jeff, and we also have a lot of illusion about what we are doing but not only about that some people will play our games, we are doing our own game engine, which is the tool to make the games and our goal is that that the engine at some point can be used by blind people, that it will be like fully accessible. And that they could do their own games and perhaps we can help to publish those games and so on. So we are really, let’s say this is about the democratization of audio game production. We really would like to help other people to do the same we are doing now. We think it’s a lot of fun. So we are really aiming at the end to something just bigger than launching a couple of games.
Mikko Herranen:
We want to grow the gaming culture among blind people. Like me and Jesse, we both play, but I think we are still in the minority. So playing games, is lots of fun and it’s for everybody, and we want to show it’s for everybody, and that there will be games for everybody so it’s not farsighted. It’s for us as well.
Jesse Anderson:
And that’s actually, I’m really intrigued to hear you talk about the game engine and everything and just how you hope to have the ability for other developers to use that engine to create their own content. Because I know there are some, you know I’ve played several games by other blind developers for either mobile or for PC in the past. It’s still kind of a small niche thing, but if, depending on what the programming environment is and whether that whole, you know the programming side interface is accessible, but having a tool like that that could be supported by and for blind people I think is another really good idea. Cause I know they were talking about doing that with the papa engine, but I don’t know whatever happened to that either.
David Oliva:
Yeah. I think that the papas since they were belonging to this radio channel and somebody took the decision that this is not worth…
Mikko Herranen:
Yeah, but also they had their own engine about to come up but it never…
Jesse Anderson:
Yeah, well they had talked about having the game play engine available to other developers, again too, just so like, they could make some other audio games with their technology, but that seemed to kind of fizzle out.
David Oliva:
Well, what we want in this game engine is that actually you don’t need to know how to program. Everything can be done as a flow chart, like a processor structure, you say, “Oh, I’m in here with these guys, how you put those two guys,” and then you say, “Oh the boys of this one is in here at this location and now it moves through this path.” So then I will listen to the sound and so on. But you don’t need to program, the software will make all the programming to you.
Jesse Anderson:
That’s actually fantastic. Because I know there’s been other, level design and mainstream games that have that and I’ve taken enough programming classes to know that, I always tell people, “The only thing I really learned in programming class is that I suck at programming.” So if I needed to [crosstalk] I need to get into an engine like that and just be able to do something like that would be fantastic.
David Oliva:
It will be because it simplifies the whole process. It’s too difficult to make now a full game just by your own. And so we know that there’s a lot of people that will love to do that. So we provide the tool to make it faster because now software say you basically can do everything with the mouse, the keyboard, and then if it’s accessible and then, as Mikko said, no, there is a shoe and then it says this is a shoe.
David Oliva:
So everything we can make it accessible, we just need to get how the money though. So I can, we can’t pay the salaries to the guys that will do the work, and we are actually trying to get the money from some funding instruments from the Culture Finish Fund, and we apply money, like, “Hey, we have that idea, we want to make it accessible and let’s see, we get.” If we don’t get it then we will find another way. But that’s if him programming, it’s too difficult. It’s better that you program the software to make the programming for you.
Jeff Thompson:
That sounds really great. Well, Mikko, David ,and Jesse, I want to thank all of you for coming on. It’s really cool. I’m glad you guys are working on this and doing this and hopefully you get some funding. People see the light of this happening and give you some supports. It’s a really good thing. You’ve taken a big initiative and that engine you’re talking about could be the catalyst for other people to build onto.
David Oliva:
Yes.
Mikko Herranen:
Yeah.
Jeff Thompson:
Well, I’ll be looking for it. That’ll be Gold Gun from My True Sound. Thank you all for coming on at The Blind Abilities and people, stay tuned. Go check it out on the website and look forward to the upcoming games coming out from My True Sound.
David Oliva:
Thank you very much Jeff and Jessie for inviting us.
Jesse Anderson:
Yeah, thanks.
Jeff Thompson:
Me as well. Definitely.
Mikko Herranen:
It’s nice meeting you guys.
Jesse Anderson:
Yeah. You too.
[Music] [Transition noise] -When we share
-What we see
-Through each other’s eyes…
[Multiple voices overlapping, in unison, to form a single sentence]
…We can then begin to bridge the gap between the limited expectations, and the realities of Blind Abilities.
Jeff Thompson:
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