Re: Bring the group back to life - Call for consensus by 24 July 2020

Hello

I don't know if this is the correct place to drop this comment, but I have
been following this thread for a while and it is good to see it becoming
active again

So, my thoughts on "web gaming" from my experiences thus far:

One of the biggest issues that I have encountered is audio. The web audio
API is really nice but it could be improved. For example, we currently have
to recreate and reconnect nodes every time we need to play a sound
(BufferSource), and that's after we have jumped through the hoops of
loading and decoding the audio data via fetch or XMLHttpRequest

If a new audio node was available that could (a) handle the loading, and
(b) allow that audio data to be replayed in a monophonic or polyphonic way,
it would ease the pain immensely

Rough example ...

const ping = context.createSamplerNode({ polyphonic: true });
ping.load("snd/ping.ogg", "audio/ogg");
ping.connect(destination);
ping.play(); // does nothing, not loaded
....
if (ping.loaded) ping.play(); // ok
ping.time = 0.5; // half original speed
ping.play();

Essentially, the loading and playback of audio in games needs to be a lot
simpler and less GC heavy. One node should be able to play one audio file
multiple times if needed

Most of the other APIs such as WebGL2, gamepads, and VR are pretty solid
already in my opinion. It's just the audio letting things down at the moment

Simon ++

On Thu, 30 Jul 2020, 22:07 Matthew Atkinson, <matkinson@paciellogroup.com>
wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Thanks Francois for making the accessibility-related charter update; it
> looks great to me. I have now been officially accepted into the group from
> a W3C perspective, so I can act as a liaison with the Accessible Platform
> Architectures (APA) group if needed.
>
> It was good to hear about your backgrounds, Noël, Tom and Vincent, and
> from Francois with the latest update on progress since the workshop. Here's
> a bit more about me: I am an accessibility consultant with The Paciello
> Group (primarily helping clients make their web and mobile apps
> accessible). Before that, I was a researcher in academia and worked on
> digital accessibility projects [1]. I have worked on some game
> accessibility projects in the ancient past [2] and have recently found a
> bit of time to start playing games again [3]. Whilst I don't have a games
> industry background, I would be happy to help in any way I can :-).
>
> In order to keep the momentum going, I have two questions...
>
> 1. Is there anything small we could work on right away? I know that
> discoverability is a major concern, and am catching up with the schema
> proposal Noël made [4]. Is there anything else that we could get started
> on? One thing I was wondering: do we have a recorded list of all of the
> things that other W3C groups (and external organisations) are working on
> that are relevant to this group? Here are a couple that spring to mind from
> work going on in APA:
>
>    * XR Accessibility User Requirements: https://www.w3.org/TR/xaur/ -
> just published and a really clear and helpful overview.
>
>    * Framework for Accessible Specification of Technologies (FAST):
> https://w3c.github.io/apa/fast/
>
>    There is a page on this group's wiki about features we are tracking [5]
> but it was last edited in 2012; would it be helpful to go through that list
> and update it (or put the list somewhere else)?
>
> 2. Francois mentioned the forum Noël set up [6] - is that the place where
> we should be having all discussions (i.e. not this list)? If so I'll move
> my question above to that forum.
>
> I just started re-playing Duet... I would love a slo-mo mode as my
> coordination isn't the best, but the bits I can play are a lot of fun, and
> the idea is really compelling. Some of my faves are Descent (6DoF
> robo-shooter from the '90s), Half-Life, Deus Ex, Braid, Beneath a Steel
> Sky, A Dark Room and many Amiga ones :-).
>
> best regards,
>
>
> Matthew
>
> [1] http://matatk.agrip.org.uk/research/
> [2] I'm working on getting this working again on modern platforms, so
> there's nothing to show at the moment, but years ago a friend and I made a
> version of Quake with enhanced audio cues, and I've also worked on a
> proof-of-concept "Level Description Language" that allows people to
> describe in text, rather than visually design, maps. I am hoping to have a
> release for Windows 10 and the latest macOS soon:
> https://github.com/matatk/agrip
> [3] Here's a talk about my experiences of gaming with a vision impairment:
> http://matatk.agrip.org.uk/talks/2019/game-accessibility-low-vision/ (I
> recommend 'story mode' so you get the details).
> [4] https://github.com/schemaorg/schemaorg/issues/2565
> [5] https://www.w3.org/community/games/wiki/Features
> [6] https://www.html5gamedevs.com/forum/40-web-gaming-platform/
> --
> Matthew Tylee Atkinson
> --
> Senior Accessibility Engineer
> The Paciello Group
> https://www.paciellogroup.com
> A Vispero Company
> https://vispero.com
> --
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