[Sonic Interface for Mobile Device Games]

By

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would take this opportunity to thank my research supervisor, family and friends for their support and guidance without which this research would not have been possible

DECLARATION

I declare that all work in this thesis is my own and all sources have been acknowledged.

William Ho

April 30th 2011

ABSTRACT

This dissertation is an attempt to address the issue of why implementing sonic interfaces in games for mobile devices offer an improved user experience as well as tackling the task for catering for all. Games Interfaces on mobile devices don't offer a full interactive experience to game players and focus' only on the visual element with audio acting as a supplement and has resulted in certain user groups to be un-catered for.

Keywords

Microcomputer history, Games history, Sonic Interface, Mobile Device games, Immersive sound, sonic game, gesture control, sound development for cinematography.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTII

DECLARATIONIII

ABSTRACTIV

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION1

Background of the Study1

Problem Statement2

Purpose of the study3

Significance of the study4

Rationale of the study4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW6

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY19

Research Design19

Literature Search19

CHAPTER 4: DISCUSSION20

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION23

REFERENCES25

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

Computer games have been gaining popularity since the first micro computers were developed in the 40s for missile defence systems and later developed with simple games in the 50s and 60s which resided mainly in what was referred to as “mainframes”.(Need reference) Further development resulted in multiplexing platforms more popularly known as games on Arcade, Console, PC and Portable platforms. Varying factors contributed to the dominance of Arcade, Console and Hand held games by Japanese corporations and the main focus has been to invest development for a more visually realistic gaming experience. (Connor, 2004, pp. 153-172) 8 bit graphics was increased to 16bit graphics and each subsequent improvement with each new model increased the amount of colour used for rendering graphics.(Needs Ref) This can be seen when comparing games such as Mario Bros on the NES(Nintendo Entertainment System) (MacColl, 2008, pp. 45-61) and say Code of Honour(COD) on the Xbox 360 (Arkette, 2004, pp. 159-168) with consideration that they are of different game genres.This aside the latter being visually more complex, realistic and beautifully rendered than the 8bit Mario Bros developed in mid 80s. (Gaver, 1989, pp. 1003 -1041)

Sound in electronic games have existed even at the start of microcomputer development with simple games like Pong, but have played a confirmatory part or supportive nature to the visual game play (Hopkins, 1998, pp. 224 -259). This has resulted in what would be logical marketing decisions that have cascaded to the resulting situation, which is to cater for the largest target audience only. Commercially this is correct, but this has, however, caused certain user groups to be neglected that may be seen as less important, being mindful of ROI (Return on Investment) which in this case, would be “Main stream users” compared to “Visually Impaired users”. Another reason why developers place Visual Effects development higher would be because the hardware needed to synthesize realistic sounds requires immense hardware resources to render as well as proper setup requiring the ...