AudiCom (Audio Game Community) was a one-year project funded by netidee. Our objective was to create a web application that is both an audio game editor and that also includes a platform for sharing custom made audio games. That is, we aim to offer a browser-based application, where audio games can be built as well as shared among community members. 

From a more global perspective, our goal was to make audio games more popular. 

- Audio games are a special genre of computer games that are played with hearing instead of (primarily) vision as with the widely-spread genre of video games. This opens audio games to a broad audience of players. Both people with normal as well as impaired vision can enjoy the experience of playing non-visual games based on sound. Players usually enjoy audio games with their eyes closed in a relatively quiet environment to be able to immerse themselves in the experience of the game.

Project webpage: https://www.netidee.at/audicom

Project team

• Michael Urbanek, Michael Habiger, Florian Güldenpfennig 

Demo video of first prototype (a tangible audio game editor)

As a first prototype, we have created a tangible audio game editor. While the project is about the implementation of a web application (software only), we created this concept for a tangible editor (software and hardware) "to make our hands dirty" and to get started with audio game design. The tangible audio game editor works as follows: the designer builds a game using Lego bricks. These bricks represent audio game elements (i.e., primarily different sounds) and are then translated into the digital. The video shows how Michael builds a game, puts his headphones on, and sits down on the sofa to play the game. 

Demo video of our online prototype

It is probably a good idea to wear headphones for these demos.

Get the source code

• Editor source code on GitHub

Acknowledgements

• This project was funded by netidee
• Sketches: Peter Fikar

Publications

• Urbanek, M., & Güldenpfennig, F. (2019). Unpacking the Audio Game Experience: Lessons Learned from Game Veterans. To appear at CHIPlay'19, ACM. PDF.
• Urbanek, M., Habiger, M., & Güldenpfennig, F. (2019). Drag 'n' Hear: Creating, Playing, and Understanding Audio Games Online. To appear at CHIPlay'19, ACM. PDF.
• Urbanek, M., Güldenpfennig, F., & Schrempf, M. (2018). Building a Communnity of Audio Game Designers - Towards an Online Audio Game Editor. In Proc Designing Interactive Systems (DIS'18). PDF.
• Urbanek M., Fikar P., & Güldenpfennig, F. (2018). About the Sound of Bananas - Anti Rules for Audio Game Design. In Proc. International Conference on Serious Games and Applications for Health, IEEE. PDF.
• Urbanek, M., & Güldenpfennig, F. (2017). Rethinking Prototyping for Audio Games: On Different Modalities in the Prototyping Process. Paper presented at the British HCI. PDF.
• Urbanek, M., & Güldenpfennig, F. (2017). Tangible Audio Game Development Kit: Prototyping Audio Games with a Tangible Editor. Paper presented at the International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interactions, Japan. PDF.