Volume Control

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 30, 2015

Okay, I’m not an expert on polishing games. I wish I was. Maybe after I have another dozen games under my belt, I’ll know more. We’ll see. But here’s something to me that appears obvious, but maybe that’s just because I haven’t made a game for Android yet:

When a game runs, it should respect the global volume control settings. “Media volume” should be… like… all media. You know? No exceptions.

In other words, when you install a game in the middle of the night – like, say Heroes of Might & Magic 3 HD, and may have to put the tablet down because the lengthy install procedure, you should not have to worry about the game starting and blaring its music at top volume when you’ve had the tablet in silent / vibrate mode.

Just sayin’. That’s a very simple polish thing that should be automatic. Sounds kind of obvious to me. It sounded kind of obvious to my previously-sleeping wife who woke up to the blaring music, too.

As for HoMM3-HD, we started out on the wrong foot. Let’s not have a repeat of this, like, forever, okay?

Filed Under: Geek Life - Comments: 7 Comments to Read

McTeddy said,

A-freaking-men to that.

This is probably my biggest source of frustration with my tablet.
Eric Wiggins said,

Sounds obvious, yeah, but without proper testing you wouldn’t realize that it’s actually even up to you in the first place! You’d think the OS would just handle that like a normal OS should. 🙂
Rampant Coyote said,

While I’d agree that the OS should have control over that, I’d also suggest that “proper testing” is kind of a requirement for proper polish. Especially for a game from a major publisher – even if it’s a mobile game.
Xenovore said,

Quote: “While I’d agree that the OS should have control over that, I’d also suggest that “proper testing” is kind of a requirement for proper polish. Especially for a game from a major publisher – even if it’s a mobile game.”

Totally. You can’t just make excuses like “Oh that’s the OS” or “The hardware makes it do that”. It’s your game causing the issue; find a solution and fix it.
Esrix said,

To add to those woes…Some games do offer easy access to volume control–once you get past the tutorial >_< I've encountered a lot of games that start up, throw you into the tutorial and disable using the HUD until you've clicked here, here, here, there, on that cat, on that wall and then OH RATE US ON THE APP STORE! Okay, now you can turn the volume down…if you still have your hearing.
Cuthalion said,

It’s the little things that matter. 😛
Maklak said,

Meh, I have loudspeakers connected to computer and a volume knob on the loudspeakers. It solves all kinds of volume problems. If you don’t have loudsepakers for some reason (and they’re like 30$ per set), plug in headphones. It sould disable the main speakers and you can put them on and lower the volume with the knob on the headphones. To me this is a non-issue.

Forcing me through a tutorial as the first thing when running a game is an issue, though. I want a menu with “Tutorial”, “New Game”, “Continue”, “Load Game”, “Options”, “Exit” and all that.