It seems like nothing's complete these days unless it comes with some sort of director's commentary. So here's mine.

The idea of using sounds as puzzle elements in a video game is nothing new. In fact, the first inklings of an audio-only game came to me years ago while I was playing games like Myst and Link's Awakening, both of which made use of audio to provide extra cues that weren't available to you by just watching the screen. In some cases, you needed to be listening to figure out which direction the tower had turned, or where the secret doors were hidden.

But a whole game without visual cues? There are plenty of games where you can switch off your speakers and play just fine, but a game where you could switch off your monitor and do the same? The idea intrigued me. Surely, that would be something to see experience...

My first "vision" for a game like this was based on those tilting table labyrinth games, the one where you had two dials on the sides of a wooden box, and a marble rolling around on a maze. You'd have to feel out the maze, listen to when the marble hit walls, and possibly I'd add doors that needed to be unlocked by sound-coordinated keys and draw bridges that needed to be lowered by sound-coordinated switches. The idea got thrown into my growing pile of game ideas, and I really didn't do much with it for quite a while.

A few years down the road, I took a course in artificial intelligence, and we studied the classic Wumpus World. Now, Wumpus World, for those of you who aren't familiar, takes place in a cave laden with pits and monsters where the explorer relies on abstract "perceptions" to find treasure and then get out of the cave. This got me thinking about that old idea I had a while back, and over the following Christmas break I drew up the first draft of "Blackout," which was, more or less, just Wumpus World plus the coordinated door-key combinations and some chime tiles on the floor to help you get around.

Original plans were to make a turn-based game. You'd have as much time as you wanted to feel around before making a move. After coding the beginnings of a turn-based engine and testing it a few times, it seemed much too artificial, and it limited the things I could do with it, so I switched to a real-time engine. The first draft also only let the player hear things on the tiles right next door -- this, clearly, had to be changed. And while I was changing things, I figured I might as well give the game a name that didn't already belong to another popular puzzle game.

Then I had some new ideas for my own set of monsters. If the player had to navigate by sound, then why not have the monsters navigate by scent? It seemed like a good idea, and opened up a whole new set of things to put into the levels.

So, piece by piece I got the Labyrinth and Wumpus World ideas out of my head and gave Aura a personality of its own, influenced a bit by games like the Adventure of Lolo, and by the Indiana Jones temple looting atmosphere (well, at least that's what I was thinking about, whether you think the same thing or not).

Aura became a much more involved project than I ever intended it to be... much of this was due to the response I got after the first beta release in October of 2001. A lot of people had taken an interest in this little project, and they tossed some good ideas my way, and I decided to push things up a notch.

30 Sep 2002
Version 0.9.1 has been released! The focus of this version was to get as much of the core engine as ready and as finalized as possible, this will allow for a few things. First of all, I can start working on level design along side the programming part of it. Second, as a few people have expressed interest in making fan levels, this makes it easier on them, since they won't have to bother with endless conversions for each minor change.

The downside to this is that you'll have to wait to get some of the more peripheral parts of the game, such as joystick/gamepad support and pre-level narrarations. It also means that from here on out I'm less open to suggestions for changes to the engine. I've taken many of your suggestions into account already, and I was quite glad that I released the beta as early in development as I did, since there were some good ideas I wouldn't have been able to work into the game had I waited longer. So it was more work for me but it'll be a better finished product.

Many of the changes in this version are behind-the-scenes things -- preparing the engine for save states, completely overhauling the level file format, and a fair amount of reorganization, working out all the old code that was leftover from when Aura was supposed to be a turn-based game. (and I don't mean to toot my own horn, but this is some of the cleanest code I've ever produced. Those few of you who have seen the living nightmare which is the DOL source code should be glad to know I've grown as a programmer since then.)

I'm also getting close to the point where I'll be ready for voice actors... I'll be looking for at least three people (and of those, at least one male and one female) and maybe some smaller parts to fill things out. Experience is not necessary, but some way to transfer large files to me is.

As always, your patience is appreciated. Aura isn't the only thing going on in my life, and I'm well behind the schedule I would have liked to be on, but I haven't lost interest in the project.

1 Oct 2002
Windows port complete! That wasn't painful at all... it literally took only a couple hours, and if it weren't for a pesky little issue with how I was installing the keyboard, it would have taken less than half that time. As I said, aside from "not dying a swift and horrible death under Win2K/XP" and "not giving people driver issue headaches", there are no new features with this version.

From here on out, Aura will be developed under Windows. If there is a significant demand for it, I'll port it back to DOS after the final version is all finished, but not before then.

10 Oct 2002
Our first batch of new-engine fan levels has arived, a second slew of levels from Chris Hazard. I haven't had a chance yet to play them myself, but if they're anything like his last set, we're in for a bizarre treat.

8 Nov 2002
Just a little project status update for you. I've taken care of a handful of bugs already, and there are a few minor changes planned for the engine, all of which relate to fine-tuning sound propagation (for example, you can set the thickness of walls, and teleporters will relay sounds through their space-time vortecies if you ask them to). Joystick controls have been fully implemented for game controls (but not menu controls since the real menu code hasn't been written yet), and both joystick and keyboard controls are now customizeable.

The biggest hang-up right now is that, just when I was up and ready to use MP3's for the menu narrarations, someone pointed me to the OGG format, and now that seems like the best route to take. This means some more research on my part, which translates to a longer wait for you before the next version, although I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't think it was worth it.

To avoid another year-long wait between versions, this time I'm going to promise you, here, in writing, that I'll release something by December 31, even if it doesn't yet have all the features I wanted to include in 0.9.2.

3 Jan 2003
Sorry, I lied. I'm gonna have to push the promised release of 0.9.2 back to January 15.
The good news is I'm much closer to being done with the whole of Aura than I thought.
The other news (you can take it as good or bad or both) is that since the editor of Audyssey Magazine got in touch with me, I've been reconsidering the directions I want to take with Aura, but I'll talk more about that when it happens. The good news is I might be doing a lot more for Aura... the bad news is that it might be taking me a lot longer!

15 Feb 2003
Sorry, I lied again. I have excuses, but I won't bore you with them. Hey, this worked for Blizzard, why shouldn't it work for me, too?

The latest version has Joystick controls fully implemented, in-game control customization routines (for keyboard and joystick). The new menu system is also in place, and is more or less translation-ready as it is. For those of you who liked the old "voice-mail" style interface, you're going to have to wait until next version to get it back. Narrarations are done using the OggVorbis file format, and if anyone wants to borrow my Allegro streaming audio OggVorbis routines, just let me know, I'll send them to you.

There are only a few very minor changes to the engine, and because of that, all of the version 0.9.1 levels will load just fine into 0.9.2. I don't suspect there will be any more changes to the engine before the final version, for those of you who are designing levels.

As far as "changing the direction I'm taking with Aura" goes, I thought long and hard about it and I'm pretty much going to stick to the original plan. If Aura is successful, I might come back later and revisit some of the ideas I had, but for now, I just need to get this 'Aura' thing wrapped up!

25 Nov 2003
The final Editor is finished! (Well... almost finished. It still needs documentation.)

Originally, I wasn't going to release this on its own, I was going to wait until I was finished with the main game as well, but I've found myself in a bit of a time crunch and I wanted to release this out for the world, so I could get in a little bit of extra bug hunting and feedback before then.

All the design issues have been worked out, and the editor creates fully functional "stories" in the same format as the final version will use, what is left to do is write a front end that runs the stories, fix up the menu interface a bit, and then go and actually write the levels.

18 Dec 2003
Creeping up on the deadline... I present to you Aura's final public beta!

New features include (deep breath) full story support (including lock and key implementation), a completely overhauled hybrid telephone/console menu system, saved games, player profiles, lots of bullet-proofing, a fully polished set of 21 tutorial levels with narration, music, and environmental effects, a whole slew of bug fixes to the 0.9.3 release, and even microphone support, of all things.

Aside from any bug fixes that come up, the programming is completely done at this point! All that's left now is level design. A *lot* of level design.