Super Moosic Siblings

Super Moosic Siblings is an audio game where you must hop from platform to platform and avoid getting bitten by dogs or stung by bees. It is similar to Super Mario Bros. or Sonic the Hedgehog but can be played without graphics simply by listening to the sounds of the game.

This game was designed and built by Mike Oren and Kyle Shipley as their senior project at DePauw University. The design of the game was aided by the cooperation and feedback of students at the Indiana School for the Blind. Mike Oren continued the development and refinement of the game as part of his Masters research at Iowa State University under the guidance of Dr. Chris Harding and the advice of Dr. Terri Bonebright (DePauw University). The focus of this new phase was to refine the audio feedback in order to ensure players can properly build a mental map of the game world so that those playing the game without graphics can play it as well as those who play it with graphics. Findings from this research were presented at CHI '07, ICAD '07, ASSETS '08, and in a published paper in the Journal of Visual Impairments and Blindness (JVIB).

Code

The files can be downloaded from the SourceForge Project page where I have moved them to save my storage space/bandwidth and to make them accessible to a larger audience. These files also contain the research paper that contains all of our notes and background research.

To run the game, just open (double-click in windows) main.py (windows users can double-click main.exe if they do not have Python installed). The controls are left and right arrow keys to move left and right (or 'a' and 'd'); up, 's' or space bar to jump, and ctrl for the options menu/pause. In the options menu use enter to select a sub menu, and the arrow keys to navigate between options/change settings. If you want to quit the opening animation, simply hit space or esc. The game can also be played using a gamepad.

Video

Download it here. Requires Windows Media Player and recorded using Camtasia Studio. This is a video from the first official release (December 2005).

A more recent video (February 2007), can be downloaded here (QuickTime movie).