Sound support for IF

Authoring General Design Discussions
1

Hi:

I’ve been authoing in Adrift for a while now, and am interested in doing things with better sound support. What’s the best IF system for sound? Are there any special packages that make sound support in TADS/Inform easier? I’d really like to get up to 8 looping sounds playing simultaneously. Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance for any help!!

Tim

2

Hugo is pretty good for sound.

3

Thanks.

I’ve tried Hugo, and can’t get the sounds to play, even though I’m sure I’m creating the resource correctly. Even downloaded the tetris example (source) to compile and examine. It compiles perfectly, but once again no actual sound plays (yes, I’m checking the sound option).

Any suggestions? Is there a Hugo game in which you know the sound actually works, so I can check to see if it’s my computer (Adrift sounds play fine)… Do I need a special version of the compiler?

Thanks again for any help or suggestions…

Tim

4

Well, the sound should work fine in Trading Punches:
sidneymerk.com/zips/tpunch19.zip

But I have to ask the question… what OS do you use? Sound is only supported in Windows and MacIntosh native runners (although I’ve heard the music work in Gargoyle as well, at least on Windows). The GUI version of the Linux runner might support sound.

Glulx is another option, I think. But I’ve never played a Glulx game with sound, so I can’t point to any examples.

(edit):
Oh, and the obvious Hugo example, Future Boy!
generalcoffee.com/futureboy/

5

Thanks! I downloaded trading punches, and get a looping synthetic sound that is obviously out of place with the story, but definitely coming from the game. I wonder if my machine is playing it at too high a sample rate or something. I am now downloading Future Boy, and will let you know if get something reasonable.

I am using Windows XP Pro and have never had sound problems in the past. I am encouraged that I am at least getting sound of some sort out of Trading Punches, but if I can’t find out what the programmer actually did to make it ‘work’ (I followed the “Hugo Book” and the Tetris examples to the letter), I’m still SOL. I’ll let you know if I can make Future Boy work. I also have a second computer to try things out on.

Thanks so much for your advice thus far!!

Tim

6

laugh Ooops! You are the programmer.

And yes - congratulations on this game (I played it several years ago as part of the IF competition - don’t remember sound then, though)!

Should the opening sound on the bridge be a looping synthetic blast (not noise)? If so, I have at least part of my answer.

ttys (and thanks!)

TIm

7

Nope, the sound should be this MP3:
sidneymerk.com/zips/skipping_stones.mp3
It’s synthesized (originally MIDI), but not just a looping tone.

I use Hugo on Windows XP Pro on my laptop, and Hugo sound has always worked fine. I wonder if you have some issue with DirectX?

And sound is enabled in your Hugo runner, right? You can check the menu, or just hit CTRL+P.