Update #19
Hello world! And welcome to the nineteenth Dev with Dave Game Progress Update!
This update is mostly about the Audio system, which I have added to significantly this last week or so, to allow it to better do what I need it to do for the game.
The Audio System
Originally, the audio system just allowed for the loading, and playing of sound files. Which is after all, it’s main job I guess? lol
However, I needed to be able to have more control over some of the sound effects. For example, the asteroid sound, because the speed of the game increases the time the asteroids appear on screen (and also play their sound effect for) decreases. In order to rectify this, the system needed to be able to specify a sprite ID which is associated to the sound effect being played, and then end the sound effect when the sprite moves off screen.
It can also specify a maximum duration for the sound effect to have as well, so instead of the sprite lasting as long as a certain sprite is on screen, you can set it to a timer instead.
The last thing which I’m quite proud about, is the way the system can fade out a sound effect rather than just cutting it short.
Best of all, all this is specified when the sound effect is played, and the rest is all handled automatically by the audio system 🙂
Other sound effects
I’ve also managed to add some other place holder sound effects into the game. These are perhaps not quite the exact sounds I’m after for the game, but they are fairly close.
Most of them have been chosen from various asset packs which I have laying around. Some have been edited in Audacity to bring them close to my vision of what they are supposed to sound like.
As with the graphics, I’m aiming for a retro old school kind of sound, but using subtle fades and layering to give a subtle feeling of depth which actual retro games don’t necessarily have.
That’s all folks
And that about wraps it up for this update.
The next update will probably be more sound effects, as well as maybe some more UI as I still need to get the pause menu designed and working, and a few others UI pages as well.
Anyway, I’ll be back in a couple of weeks with the next update. See you all then 🙂