cloudskippin is a rhythm gliding music player, now with spatialized audio!

this is a work in progress. made in one month: Games for Blind Gamers Jam 2 (2023)

should be compatible with screen readers. menu has text and interactive elements, gameplay uses flight controls with no readable elements. the Settings menu has an option for Quality, if you don't care about graphics set this to Low for best performance.

in cloudskippin, you are a floating paper plane drifting among clouds. the background music is controlled by the direction you fly in the 3D atmosphere. this game is designed to be fun for all, including BVI and sighted players!

original music raindriftin was written, performed, recorded, jammed, chopped 'n screwed by me, for you.

to get onboard quickly, listen to the first 3 minutes of the piano demo video at the top, with subtitles on. it's the simplified, essential instructions you can also find under Gameplay, as a live demo!

Sections below: Gameplay, Controls, Dev Notes, Download, Download Instructions 

Gameplay

select the only album, which starts playing the only song. don't touch anything to hear it normally. try making small movements first, in one direction at a time.

turning left or right slows, then stops, then reverses the song. the plane starts by moving forward through the song. turning exactly left or right stops playback on the current note, because you aren't moving forward or backward. song playback speed and direction is tied to horizontal movement in these two particular directions.

turning beyond left or right plays the song in reverse, and makes every played note louder. continuing the turn towards the forward direction plays notes at their original volume and your current speed.

diving will increase flight speed, but slow down song playback if you dive too steeply. angling the plane perfectly vertically stops playback on the current note. the plane continuously rotates while dive or lift is pressed, and when released holds the current angle.

pulling up out of the dive using the lift button plays the song faster, because the plane has accelerated and angled back to horizontal flight.

continuing the lift rotates the plane upward, losing flight speed to gain altitude. this reduces playback speed even more quickly, because horizontal movement is reduced as well. if you stay angled up, you will eventually stall and stop the song. diving again increases flight speed as you lose altitude.

nearby clouds play clicks around you while moving forward or backward (horizontally) through the song. when you enter a cloud, it boosts your speed and the main music track is muffled. an album begins with a thick layer of stratus clouds below, cumulus clouds around and above, and cirrus clouds at the highest altitudes.

there is no winning or losing in this. you are a paper plane on the wind. fly.

not-so-hidden secrets

if you want to play more but you've had enough of the default track, there is a secret way to use your own custom MIDI file. if you try this, it is technically not supported. songs with a high density of notes near the beginning can greatly impact the game performance.

inside the unzipped game folder, find a folder named StreamingAssets. inside the Midi folder, there is a file named cloudskippin_raindriftin.mid. if this file is replaced by a valid multi-track MIDI file with the same name, the game will attempt to load the new contents. you can only replace the file one-at-a-time, and make sure you have a backup copy if you want to keep the original track!

tip: use an individual folder, titled with the song name. place your new MIDI file there, then copy, paste, and rename to use for the game. close the game, copy the replacement file from your folder to overwrite cloudskippin_raindriftin.mid, and relaunch.

this was a really nice piano song I found for flying and used for the demo video. simpler tracks are less-intensive and may improve performance if you experience playback stuttering or unresponsive controls: https://bitmidi.com/the-chill-of-an-early-fall-mid

this website works well to load and re-save an existing MIDI file in multi-track format, guaranteeing it's formatted to work with cloudskippin. unfortunately, BVI users may need OCR since it doesn't seem screenreader accessible: https://signal.vercel.app/edit

Controls

full controls are listed below. the default album can be selected after launch with three presses: Confirm, Down to Quick Play, Confirm.

double-press the Escape key to exit the game during album play. H or Start Button to pause. 

Pause and Main Menu screens have a Quit menu button at the bottom. directional menu navigation is vertical-only and doesn't loop.

Game Controls for Keyboard

• A and D keys to turn left and right, continuously 
• W to angle up and slow down, continuously until you loop
• S to angle down and speed up, continuously until you front flip
• Z and X to change volume 1-10
• H to pause
• Alternate keyboard controls
  • Minus and Plus keys also control volume
  • Control and Alt also angle the plane up and down
    • Left Control and either Alt for standard (left lift, right dive)
    • Right Control and either Alt for inverted (right lift, left dive)

Game Controls for Gamepad

• Left Stick to turn left and right, continuously 
• Left Trigger to angle up and slow down, continuously (loop)
• Right Trigger to angle down and speed up, continuously (front flip)
• Left Shoulder Button and Right Shoulder Button to control volume
• Start Button to pause

Menu Controls for Keyboard

• Arrow keys to move focus
• Enter to confirm

Menu Controls for Gamepad 

• Left Stick or Directional Pad to move focus
• South Button (Xbox A, PlayStation X) to select a menu item

notes and known issues

gameplay is nowhere near final. endless cloud generating is not enabled yet. the song will continue, even if you fly beyond the clouds!

• some players have reported issues with TTS features enabling automatically. I want to make this work better, and also add a keyboard shortcut and setting to manually enable
• loading an album, quit to main menu, and loading an album again doesn't reset player rotation in all versions. you may start a replay off-kilter, caddy-wampus or otherwise turned-around unless you Quit the game. sorry about that!
• versions with spatialization require more RAM and CPU to run smoothly. if you experience issues with unresponsive controls or choppy feedback, try an earlier version without spatialization.

planned features include:

• improved screenreader detection and toggle on/off in settings
• controls menu to view and rebind controls
  
• sound effects when picking up speed in a dive
  
• controller vibration for key gameplay: start and increase intensity while approaching clouds, turbulence in clouds, diving and lift feedback 
• change solo track inside clouds depending on altitude, and transitions between multiple songs in an album
  
• better flight controls
  
• selectable cloud positional feedback (click, droplet, beep)
• toggle positional feedback on/off, and other gameplay settings
• load custom MIDI album folders, with file configuration for cloud parameters