Soundtrack for cassette text adventure?

[+davidcalgary29]

Has anyone ever seen / tried to create a cassette-based text adventure that has a separate audio track? I think it would be quite neat to have had one of the Infocom games spiced up with audio effects, music, &c.

[Nukey Shay]

Perhaps. The problem is that the cassette is not random-access, so the whole thing would either be completely linear (which kind of dulls an adventure), or would require the user to locate tabs on the cassette drive manually (a task in itself). Tho I did convert my Conversational Spanish course to disks and a 120 minute cassette.

[+davidcalgary29]

Hmm...perhaps a disk or cartridge-based text adventure with cassette soundtrack?

 

Can forward/reverse cassette controls be manipulated through software, or must buttons be pressed to achieve the effect?

 

Sound effects might also be implemented more easily here. I think many text-based adventures are linear to a certain degree, e.g. certain barriers, which are present in all storylines (even dead ends) must be negotiated successfully before the game will progress past a certain point. It might be easier to cue the cassette to present an audio effect at this stage (instead of having a running soundtrack).

[Nukey Shay]

No way for the software to reverse or fast-forward a 1010 or 410 cassette drive. Though the mono audio track can be turned on or off as well as the motor (so you could have multiple messages end-to-end and just have the audio off for the required amount of time to get the correct message). This would probably work best on an adventure that only has a very limited set of outcomes for any one event...since each subsequent sequence would have to build on that choice. Consider yes/no-type problems. Step 1 would only have two choices, 2 would have 4 (2 for each), etc. That could be a lot of dead air to wait through once you reach step 8 or so. Though you could have each subset be less unique (i.e. the same message at step 8 if your character donned shoes OR boots way back on step 1).

[+davidcalgary29]

Said text adventure could always prompt players to press "stop" on the cassette during periods of time when background noise and sound effects aren't crucial to gameplay. The text adventure might be divided into "chapters", e.g. "Part 1 -- the Dungeon", which might feature creepy music and / or sound effects such as screams & the like. Players would be prompted to start & stop the cassette as required. Awkward, yes -- but this might be more feasible.

[Bryan]

The cassette motor can be turned on and off (as long as PLAY is pressed), but I don't know of any way to shut the audio off (maybe you're thinking of the Pokey loading noise that can be disabled, and SHOULD be if audio is playing). I think as long as it's on the tape, any audio on the tape's 2nd track gets played.

 

You could pipe audio from other sources into the SIO port as well.

 

-Bry

[Mudface]

I think a similar thing was tried a while back on a Spectrum game called Deus Ex Machina. There's a bit more info halfway down the page here- http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=D...%20ex%20Machina

[Nukey Shay]

The cassette motor can be turned on and off (as long as PLAY is pressed)' date=' but I don't know of any way to shut the audio off (maybe you're thinking of the Pokey loading noise that can be disabled, and SHOULD be if audio is playing). I think as long as it's on the tape, any audio on the tape's 2nd track gets played.

 

You could pipe audio from other sources into the SIO port as well.

 

-Bry[/quote']

Oops...you're right. I was thinking of the buzzing audio tones on the other track.

[dsamp]

kinda puts a downer on that idea then. for long ambient repetitions one big tape loop could be used i guess.

[sack-c0s]

'One sunday, after tea and compulsory prayers....'

 

*ahem* sorry.

 

anyhow - Deus Ex-machina was pretty much tied to what was happening on the audio casette and required you to syncronise the casette to the computer. this made for either a very linear game or a soundtrack which was completely irrelevant depending on how you look at it.

 

you could have some kind of ambient atmospheric music on the tape though - the music in the (admittedly very few) text adventures I've played when computer generated never seemed to be linked to what was going on in the game anyhow.

 

 

On the plus side though - has anyone else ever gotten royally stoned and just sat there listening to the tape accompanying Deus Ex Machina? Jesus.....

 

 

[Edit: speaking of which - I forgot I had that bizarre Frankie Howerd quote from DeM as my sig...]

[analmux]

It's possible to synchronize the computer and the tape.

 

I remember having a series of tapes with graphical maths programs which had short beep signals on the data track and speach on the sound track. The beeps where triggering the screen changes.

 

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mux

[analmux]

It's possible to synchronize the computer and the tape.

 

I remember having a series of tapes with graphical maths programs which had short beep signals on the data track and speach on the sound track. The beeps where triggering the screen changes.

 

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mux

 

Off course I ment on the Atari 8bit, not the Spectrum. :wink:

 

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mux