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[AtionSong]

I 'spose I'll use this to start my first venture documented on TIGSource. I don't really know when I got this idea, but I found myself starting work on this game earlier today, and so far it's been going pretty well.

I haven't done any research to see if this has ever been done before, but to my knowledge it hasn't. In simple terms, I'm creating a platform game that takes place entirely in the dark (aka a completely black screen, and the player must rely solely on sounds to guide themselves through the level.

Right now, I'm developing "lights on" and just closing my eyes to experience how the real gameplay will go. Below is a "lights up" screenshot of my test level (not that it explains much) and a "lights down" screenshot of what it would look like eventually (which explains even less).



Although the level I've made has WAY too steep a learning curve, I'm going to try to turn it into an accessible demo soon and I'll put it up for folks to play. I also need to think about a good plot to put with the game to fit in with the darkness.

[supershigi]

This sounds like a really interesting development challenge!  I think there was an indie game out a while back called "Bad Milk" which featured a short sequence where you had to navigate solely based on sounds, but I believe it was only a small part of the game.  Anyways, good luck with your project! 

[benb]

There's an indie game called "In the Pit" that uses the "play by sound-only" concept, but it's in 3D and requires surround sound. I like that you're doing in 2D because you could feasibly do it with stereo instead (wider audience ).

Good luck with this, I'm sure it'll be a nice challenge!

[Aquanoctis]

This sounds really interesting. I look forward to progress. Can't think of anything that's done this before so for originality 

[AtionSong]

Well, I did discover this today:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_game

So while perhaps audio-only games may not have been a brilliant innovation that I have created to revolutionize the gaming world, I'm not disheartened, and am going to continue full force with development.

Today I sketched out some level design ideas for the first few levels of the game. The real difficulty is starting out easy enough that players can get a grasp on the basic game mechanics, and not introduce level designs that are too complicated or have too many elements before the player understands how to use the audio clues to picture the level design. I drew out about five levels that for the most part I like, and am going to try making and playing through them today. And that's my update.

[SidM]

I remember a game where you played the blind Wumpus::

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3839400884012996762&ei=RgjVSqzANpPllQfQr7GZDQ

[Dom2D]

Interesting!! 

According to the Wikipedia entry you linked, you're following Fumito Ueda's footsteps! Kinda cool: You'll start out with this audio-game and move on to do the next Shadow of the Colossus-like masterpiece

[Loren Schmidt]

It's funny, seeing your initial screenshot made me initially think that the game was about seeing a level briefly, memorizing it, then navigating it in the darkness. But reading your description made me realize that the initial screenshot wasn't going to be used in the final game

This seems like a neat idea, and I'll be interested to see how this turns out.

[agj]

Audio games are too few to get discouraged by people having made some earlier. Good luck.