Do you prefer amateur AGS games to have audio or not?

Started by Fluxpuppy, Sat 08/01/2022 23:07:13

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FormosaFalanster

Quote from: Monsieur OUXX on Thu 20/01/2022 13:47:05
(About voicing)

- Silent games are more and more out of place in nowaday's "all-talkie" game space.


Absolutely not true at all. Plenty of games have no voice today.


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- Voicing only introductory sentences. For example, only that one "what's up?" at the very beginning of a conversation with an NPC. And their very first, short greeting back.

Ewww, no, please, just... no. I don't want to hear the same voice repeating WHAT'S UP every two minutes in exactly the same tone again and again and again. There's a reason why that obnoxious fairy in Zelda with her "HEY LISTEN" has become a meme.

This is precisely what I said before: the main reason why I have ALWAYS cut off the voices in every game I played is that I can't stand hearing them repeating themselves. Games have the same sentence repeated over and over again. You try dialogues several times to see if there's something new and you cringe when you hear for the upteenth time the same voice saying the same thing. Then you stop trying to talk to characters (and thus stop enjoying the exploration of the game) because you're afraid your gonna hear their stupid voice declaiming for the upteenth time "you SHOULD look INTO the palace of the..."(cut because I finally found what I have to press to make them shut up while rolling my eyes)
(bonus points: that evening I can't sleep because in my head I hear "you SHOULD look INTO the palace" in a loop)
(epilogue: "are you sure you want to uninstall?" YES)
(epilogue 2: "We are sad you did not enjoy the game, can you tell us how to improve it?" "yes: you should look into the palace").


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- Putting a lot of effort in the sound design for other things : music, object interactions, white ambient noise, wind, etc.

This, yes. Sounds do a lot for ambiance. It's already the same in movies. I think it was Kubrick who said he worked hard on the sounds for "Shining" and that he credits them for most of the creepy ambiance and not the visuals.

Videogames are not movies. Everything that tries to turn videogames in movies has always damaged them. To me it's text, text, and text only. I cut the voices in Unavowed, I cut the voices in every other games, and when a game has only voice and no text option, I uninstall and put a bad review.

There is too much of a tendency amongst fans of voices in games to think they are the right ones, that history is on their side, etc. That's bullshit. Tons of games have no voice acting and are popular. ESPECIALLY in the adventure or narrative genre. Otherwise, all these pixel/retro style of games would not be so praised constantly. I know very well I'm not the only one who shuns voice acting in games as if it were the plague. The majority of players I talk with are doing the same. It's wishful thinking on the part of devs to think the voice acting suddenly makes them better like it's 1995 and we are still impressed at the idea of digitalized voices.

Just ask yourself the question: did the most popular game made with AGS in 2021 included voice acting?

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Partially because it was done in a pompous theatrical manner.

That's 99% of voice acting in games, even done by big studios.
Even voice acting in animation has diminished in quality in the recent years. So imagine what it is for videogames. Probably because it takes more than having a good social media presence where you brag about your "commissions" and have an expensive looking picture of yourself to be the next Julie Kavner.

QuoteAnother option is to use babble language

That is very interesting actually. It's a personalized sound design to give dimension to a character. Spontaneously it reminds me of "Another World" in which the aliens mumble like that, you obviously don't get what they say but it adds a dimension to who they are. Or how the TV character "La Linea" is impossible to understand but still conveys a lot with his noises.

eri0o

I like voices for how personal they can be. La Maleta is an example of an AGS game that is incredibly amplified by the amazing voice acting - from potajito's dad!!

Other point is sense of humor, games that are meant to be funny often can play a lot with voices.

Honestly, if you have in you and it can work in your game scope go ahead.

If you want the programatic road I agree that babble voice works great. Also playing with tones per string character in retro games or voice cues like Zelda Breath of the Wild.

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