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Deaf Players Or No Sound

LagosLagos
edited July 2009 in Tales of Monkey Island
I beat the first episode. Great game. Good work guys. No real complaints. But a thought occurs to me this morning. Minor spoiler.

Some people play without sound. Now, they're missing out on some great VA and music, but I'm sure they have their reasons. Others have no choice in the matter, being unable to hear, but they can still enjoy the humorous dialogue and story of Monkey Island (and indeed, subtitles exist partially for that reason).

But there are two places in episode 1 where you need sound to solve a puzzle, with no visual indications.
Specifically, navigating using maps whose directions are in terms of audio cues.

I'm curious what others think about this. Is it poor design or is it alright that they have to solve these things through trial and error? And how would you fix it?

Comments

  • BarbwirebushBarbwirebush
    edited July 2009
    --Dark Ninja Dave--
    Use Map on Well, East, East, North, South, South, North, West


    --Hemlock--
    Use Map on Altar, South, West, North, Use Flowers on Well, East, West, West, Counter Clockwise on Calendar, North
  • paraboleeparabolee
    edited July 2009
    HEY BARBWIREBUSH!

    TRY SPOILER TAGS NEXT TIME!!!!!!!!!!!

    Some people may not have done those puzzles yet!
  • HoboStewHoboStew Telltale Alumni
    edited July 2009
    This is definitely something we discussed, unfortunately there just wasn't enough time to put in a good solution. Fortunately, we have Barbwirebush to the rescue, but yeah... Spoilers....
  • BarbwirebushBarbwirebush
    edited July 2009
    the post has a spoiler tag so i thought it to be redundant. plus you have to purposely sit there and memorize it for it to be a spoiler. its not like i said something like "Elaine gets pregnant in episode2" jk
  • DjNDBDjNDB Moderator
    edited July 2009
    I solved one by trial and error, cause i didn't understand the hint.
    Barbwirebush wrote: »
    "Elaine gets pregnant in episode2" jk
    From Le Chuck. The Real LeChuck dies and no one knows until he's (re)born and growing old within seconds.
    I hope i didn't spoil the Plot.
  • LogicDeLuxeLogicDeLuxe
    edited July 2009
    Lagos wrote: »
    But there are two places in episode 1 where you need sound to solve a puzzle, with no visual indications.
    Indeed. I know what you mean, as I know someone deaf myself.

    There really should be another option besides regular subtitles to also describe essential sounds. Just like the options you have on many movie DVDs.
  • Mad MaryMad Mary
    edited July 2009
    LogicDeLuxe wrote: »
    There really should be another option besides regular subtitles to also describe essential sounds. Just like the options you have on many movie DVDs.
    I agree to that. EDIT: Think of the deaf people out there.
  • HaggisHaggis
    edited July 2009
    DjNDB wrote: »
    I solved one by trial and error, cause i didn't understand the hint.
    I did that for both, and it wasn't even that bad. :p

    I agree about the subtitle thing though. At least on the Wii it could be solved by using force feedback (see also this article that I wrote).
  • RandulfRandulf
    edited July 2009
    Even if you know that these two puzzles rely on audio cues, the sound is mixed in such a way that the clues are messed up -- irrelevant (not to say misleading) ambient sounds are mixed with sounds you're supposed to follow. On dealing with the latter part of puzzle two I basically resorted to save-load trial and error.

    The idea behind these two puzzles is actually very clever, unfortunately the implementation is not as good.
  • plrichardplrichard
    edited July 2009
    Randulf wrote: »
    Even if you know that these two puzzles rely on audio cues, the sound is mixed in such a way that the clues are messed up -- irrelevant (not to say misleading) ambient sounds are mixed with sounds you're supposed to follow. On dealing with the latter part of puzzle two I basically resorted to save-load trial and error.

    The idea behind these two puzzles is actually very clever, unfortunately the implementation is not as good.

    I didn't notice this at all, I thought it was pretty easy to identify the sounds and where to go.
  • Mad MaryMad Mary
    edited July 2009
    plrichard wrote: »
    I didn't notice this at all, I thought it was pretty easy to identify the sounds and where to go.
    For me, it has been pretty easy, too. The puzzle itself was a great idea. But what about the hearing impaired? How are they supposed to figure out what to do? There really should be added some special subtitles for them.
  • ShmehShmeh
    edited July 2009
    Randulf wrote: »
    Even if you know that these two puzzles rely on audio cues, the sound is mixed in such a way that the clues are messed up -- irrelevant (not to say misleading) ambient sounds are mixed with sounds you're supposed to follow. On dealing with the latter part of puzzle two I basically resorted to save-load trial and error.

    The idea behind these two puzzles is actually very clever, unfortunately the implementation is not as good.

    I didn't find the ambient noise conflicted with the
    animal sounds
    . I thought they implemented this puzzle well. (It could have been better if there was a set of subtitles for the hearing impaired, but not everything can be implemented into a game. Especially if the game is not released by a big budget developer.)

    I have been given the impression from other posts on this and the W&G forum that there is a bug that affects the sound levels on some PCs. If you have experienced the ambient noise
    drowning out the animal sounds
    , then maybe this is a bug, rather than a result of poor implementation (unless, of course, you count implementing a bug).
  • RadogolRadogol
    edited July 2009
    I've actually been replaying Escape from Monkey Island today and noticed that, with the subtitles on, puzzle related sounds are noted in parentheses. The music box comes to mind.

    Would something like this be possible in future updates?
  • HermitHermit
    edited July 2009
    Aye, closed captions would seem like the way forward on this. Wouldn't need to be for all sounds, maybe just puzzle related and important ones.
  • NimeniNimeni
    edited July 2009
    Actually there are three puzzles that are solved by sound. Have we forgotten the disturbing puzzle regarding the marquis de singe? :)

    Although there are admittedly other ways to solve that one.
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