Not all video video games want video. Through the years, video games that exist solely in audio have taken gamers into totally new worlds during which there’s nothing to see and nonetheless all the things to do. These video games have enormous accessibility implications, permitting individuals who can’t see to play an equally enjoyable, equally immersive sport with their different senses. And when all you might have is sound, there’s really much more you are able to do to make your sport nice.
On this episode of The Vergecast, we discover the historical past of audio-only video games with Paul Bennun, who has been on this area longer than most. Years in the past, Bennun and his crew at Somethin’ Else made a collection of video games referred to as Papa Sangre that have been among the many most modern and hottest video games of their variety. He explains what makes an audio sport work, why the iPhone 4 was such a vital technological achievement for these video games, and extra.
Bennun additionally makes the case that, proper now, even on this ultra-visual time, is the proper time for a rebirth of audio video games. He factors to AirPods and different spatial audio headphones together with gadgets just like the Imaginative and prescient Professional, advances in location monitoring, and enhancements in multiplayer gaming as causes to assume that audio-first video games might be an enormous hit now. It even sounds a bit like Bennun might need a sport within the works, however he gained’t inform us about that.
If you wish to know extra concerning the matters we cowl on this episode, listed below are a number of hyperlinks to get you began: