Seaman Clone

[sephiroth111]

in 2000 they released a game on the Dreamcast named "seaman". as odd as it sounds, it was rather revolutionary in the sense that it had a complex life simulation and evolution chain, but it also had a still rather impressive voice recognition library. I'm not saying that porting the game would be wise (its commercial, so no source), but something similar would be interesting. I was rather fond of life sims, and the DS and PSP have been rather... unhelpful in that regard (though they are releasing "don't panic: seaman2, human" soon for the ps2)

It would require a microphone though, so maybe it's better to wait until we have the craigX system that has USB ports (so we can plug in USB headsets)

wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaman_(video_game)

 

[rx_shorty]

That game is pretty slick.

But I also think it would be really hard to make such game...
Well let's hope it will be released

 

[WhizzBang]

I think it would be incredibly hard to build such a game, particularly if you expect to see voice recognition.

I played through Seaman once back in the day and by the end I really hated the little thing.

 

[sephiroth111]

I think it would be incredibly hard to build such a game, particularly if you expect to see voice recognition.

I played through Seaman once back in the day and by the end I really hated the little thing.

i've actually been playing it. aside from the voice recognition software, i don't really see too much that'd be to hard. the graphics were pretty simple, the aquarium was around 50 polygons, and the seaman themselves were the biggest thing. i cant tell how many polys they are, but i'd say probably 500 or 600 or so. they were pretty intensive. and with 6 of them on screen the DC framerate drops to a noticeable level. (i'd say 45fps or 30fps)

the game was pretty well scripted (everything happened on certain days, and the majority of it was time based. i.e. it takes 5 minutes from the mushroomers to evolve to gillmen).

the voice recognition was extremely limited in the dreamcast version (i count around 60 or so words, and more if you include slang) it was pretty inaccurate, so i suppose it COULD be done by pocketsphinx* and a decent usb headset. (but i don't know what the reqs are for that, and that could slow the game down hardcore on the gp2x, but if this craigx machine is worth its weight in polygons, it should be a bit better at handling it.)

though this is all just speculation. but the software libs exist, it was developed for arm linux, and runs in the terminal, and it includes a variety of trainers and what not to help improve accuracy.

*http://cmusphinx.sourceforge.net/html/compare.php http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/pocketsphinx/

 

[sephiroth111]

come to think of it, if the mic was only activated when you hit a button, then the overhead of it polling would decrease. this is also how it works in the original. (cant believe i forgot about that)

 

[cactusbin]

Would you have to use a BoB with some kind of USB microphone to get it to work? I don't think that'd be very fun for people that don't have one (like me) maybe also be able to have a virtual keyboard? Takes a lot of fun out of it, but still playable for people that don't have a BoB (majority of people)

 

[sephiroth111]

Would you have to use a BoB with some kind of USB microphone to get it to work? I don't think that'd be very fun for people that don't have one (like me) maybe also be able to have a virtual keyboard? Takes a lot of fun out of it, but still playable for people that don't have a BoB (majority of people)

honestly, i don't have a BoB either. if a game was created on that though (assuming it was good enough) i'd make one or potentially buying one. assuming that. like i said though, i think (if it were made in 3d) that it should wait for the gp3x or whatever, that way we could at least have bluetooth or some form of headset (usb out built in?)

 

[cactusbin]

I've honestly never heard of a USB microphone , maybe I'm just dumb....

 

[sephiroth111]

I've honestly never heard of a USB microphone , maybe I'm just dumb....

simple google search gave me this: http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Premium-USB...3/dp/B0007SXHP0

i have the one certified for steam (mostly for talking smack on counterstrike, which has become more of an art than just talking smack, as its required in polite conversation). The sound quality is decent, the mic quality is fantastic.