Realtime Associates, Inc. is a game developer with a long history. They were founded in the days of the Intellivision, and over the last 20+ years, they've been involved with 85 different games across almost every game platform known to man. Dave Warhol, the company's president and founder, put Realtime together originally to focus on in-game audio, "specializing in sound effects and music for computer games." As such, it's no surprise that today, Warhol and Realtime have announced a new type of game they're calling "Realtime Audio Adventures," a sound-centric series of interactive fiction titles. It's also fitting that their platforms of choice for these new games are the iPhone and iPod Touch, devices which have evolved out of Apple's ubiquitous MP3 player -- platforms that can deliver high-quality sound with a slick, user-friendly interface. That's what Realtime Audio Adventures have been designed towards: Intuitive navigation and ultra-simple controls which won't distract you from the rich, immersive audio that makes up the entire game.
We had a chance to sit down with Warhol last week and go hands-on -- and ears-on -- with the inaugural Realtime Audio Adventure, Soul Trapper.
The iPhone/iPod Touch are often hailed for bringing a very powerful system to mobile gaming, but Realtime Audio Adventures make very little use of it. There are no motion controls, no 3D graphics, not so much as a single piece of animation apart from the occasional scrolling text. Instead, the focus is entirely on the audible portion of the games. This was the intent from the beginning; Dave Warhol explained to us that gamers are seeing so many new games these days with big-budget, triple-A graphics. RAA is attempting to be just as impressive, but for your other senses: RAA will be the industry's first game to deliver "Triple-A audio," upon which Realtime Associates has "spared no expense." A decent pair of headphones is essential to enjoy the ideal RAA experience, and Warhol even recommends that you play most of the game with your eyes closed. You'll have to open them to follow the occasional on-screen button prompt, but Warhol suggested that we "don't look until it's time to interact."
With the introductions aside and my eyes obediently shut, I was treated to the first chapter of Soul Trapper, the first game scheduled for release in the RAA series. Soul Trapper tells the story of Kane Pryce, a cynical but duty-bound young man who deals in the supernatural. Kane is something of a mix between John Constantine and Peter Venkman: His world is inhabited by spirits of the recently (and not-so-recently) departed, and it's his job to confront and deal with them. In Kane's world, the dead are confronted by a door, on the other side of which lies their eternal reward/deeply unpleasant pit of fire. The dead, wouldn't you know it, sometimes don't want to go through the door, but that's where Kane steps in with his mysterious "Soul Trap," a device which allows him to ensnare a spirit, communicate with it, and if he wishes, give them a push through the aforementioned door.
Kane's journey begins in a barn, the site of his latest haunt hunt. The scene is set entirely through sound, narrated by Kane's inner monologue, his conversations with NPCs, and some high-end music and Foley production. Warhol describes the process as either an "audio text adventure" or an "interactive radio drama," and both are accurate: The story-heavy portions of the game play out just like listening to a classic radio serial, as Kane can be heard creeping into the creaky old barn while musing to himself about his life. This being a game, however, portions of the story are interactive, and Kane will transition into a description of the situation at hand, presenting a list of options to the player. Warhol claims these portions were inspired by the celebrated Infocom titles, and the influence is definitely clear; Kane will mutter, "The hay loft is directly in front of me. To my right, a tall ladder rests against the wall. To my left is a water pump." As this description comes across, Soul Trapper will display a selection of on-screen buttons, allowing the player to pick from the usual front/back/left/right array, at which point Kane will go in that direction and attempt to interact with whatever is there.
Before long, Kane has tracked down the ghost du jour, and must catch it with the Soul Trap. This prompts the game's first real-time action sequence: The ghost is not willing to go quietly, and in order to trap it, Kane needs to stay locked on by aiming the Soul Trap left and right, pressing "left" and "right" buttons in response to the spirit's dodges. Kane walks the player through this first experience, making it quite obvious what to do -- he goes so far as to yell "He's gone to the right!" or "I need to aim left!" until the ghost is finally caught. Later in the game, Kane will step back and allow the player to handle these sequences on their own -- tracking a quarry by listening closely for the direction of their footsteps, or gently tuning a radio to listen for the voices of the dead. Kane will even need to manage a swordfight, we're told, by listening for the swings and parrying appropriately.
With promises of peril to come -- and with the barn now on fire -- I asked Warhol if Kane might ever wind up a spirit himself. The answer is, no, Kane can't die. He might suffer a setback every now and again, such as being thrown out of a restricted location he has failed to sneak through, but the Soul Trapper team felt that character death was far too jarring, and would break the deep sense of immersion necessary for the RAA experience. This decision was also made in order to let RAA games appeal to a broader audience, allowing casual or first-time players to enjoy themselves without getting overly frustrated. As cherished as the old Infocom interactive fictions are, they could definitely make for a frustrating, grue-filled time in their worse moments. "People deserve to finish a game they buy," said Warhol.
This isn't to say that Soul Trapper and its ilk will hold your hand the entire time. Though the initial chapter certainly railroads the player a bit in terms of puzzle guidance and linearity, I was assured this was purely to get the player situated. Later puzzles can be failed, such as the aforementioned throwing-out snafu, and a few situations will lend themselves to alternate solutions. The team even uses them, on occasion, as a means to display more sides of Kane's character: I was allowed to play through a scene in Kane's office, preparing for the next supernatural assignment, in which he needed to retrieve some vital artifacts from his personal safe. A puzzle sequence emerged in which I was tasked with remembering the combination to open the safe, which I managed to do. Had I failed a few times, however, the story would not reach a standstill -- the listener would be treated to Kane's frustrations: "Oh, screw this. *gunshot* *retrieving objects* Guess I need to buy a new safe."
With the mention of casual players out in the open, I asked about my usual concern for mobile games: Can an RAA game be played under mobile circumstances? That is to say, can I bring out my iPod on the bus, or in a long line, and enjoy the game, knowing that at any moment, I might have to stop the game and move along? Soul Trapper was described to be as a "feature movie" in terms of length and scope; a player can expect to get 3-4 hours of gameplay out of their first playthrough. However, the need for casual-friendly gameplay was definitely taken into account, and the story is broken down into 23 chapters, each of which will last 5-15 minutes, depending on the puzzles and conversations in each. Once a chapter has been reached, it is accessible from the game's top menu, allowing you to resume an old game or skip ahead on subsequent playthroughs. The audio can also be paused at any time, and as with any iPhone game, the entire application can also be put to sleep, allowing you to answer calls and check your email for a while before coming back to Soul Trapper, right where you left it. Unfortunately, there's no way to rewind audio that's in progress, so if you've lost your train of thought while on the phone, you may be out of luck in terms of following a critical plot point. However, the interactive moments will at least keep you focused -- if you go for a while without making a decision, Kane will typically repeat your present options. If the game believes you're completely lost, in fact, he may even drop a hint.
I was quite impressed at the high production values powering Soul Trapper's audio portions. The voice acting was quite enjoyable, with the game's cast portraying a wide range of both gritty paranormal investigators and dead folks from various historical eras. The puzzles were quickly grasped, and while the early ones were definitely on the easy side, I was promised a bit more challenge later in the story. I was also promised that the puzzles would change up on subsequent playthroughs, allowing for some replay value. With a good mix of classic radio-drama narrative immersion, Infocom-esque exploration, classic adventure gaming conversation trees, and the occasional touch-screen-friendly mini-puzzle, Soul Trapper appeared to be a promising first salvo for Realtime's new game genre. I asked for the relevant details of commerce, and while they're not yet set in stone, Realtime is hoping to sell Soul Trapper at an early-adopter price, which will later increase to just a couple of dollars more -- but both price points will be around the accepted standard for casual, downloadable fare.
Warhol was quite optimistic for the future of the RAA series. Soul Trapper, which stars such longtime voice actors as Peter Doyle and Mona Marshall, is expected to raise the bar for game audio and unveil a new realm of "innovation in entertainment." Warhol has a number of ideas for future RAA games -- two such titles are already in development, the next of which is a jungle-based action-adventure entitled "Blood Vine." From there, Warhol believes we may see more epic-length audio adventures every few months or so, or perhaps shorter episodic content on a more frequent basis. In either case, he says, Soul Trapper will not be the last time we hear from Kane Pryce.
Soul Trapper isn't rated by the ESRB, but Warhol described it as "PG-13;" the characters do go to hell, and Kane's got a bit of a potty-mouth (a couple instances of "ass" and "shit," but no f-bombs). It's expected to be available through the iPhone App Store later this week. You can check out an audio sample on the game's website, here.
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