Speech Recognition Computer Games

Using Speech Recognition with Levelgames

Potentially Levelgames can be played using some speech recognition programs, but since there are so many different Speech Recognition programs available, it will be necessary to test on your own system. Both Speech Recognition and Arcade Games like to use as much of your computer's speed as they can harness, so to get both working smoothly together you will need quite a late model system.

Alien Invasion
This game has been tested with the Dragon Dictate speech recognition software. The computer system was a Pentium 133 with 64Mb RAM (probably more RAM than necessary). Although there was a slight pause when translating speech, the game still played quite well.

A good configuration for the game proved to be a small number of fast moving, bomb dropping, Aliens. (Normal size or large characters could be used). The resulting game requires precise timing to shoot the fast moving Aliens, while dodging the falling bombs. The ship was controled using the number keys (1-9) and firing was achieved with the "spacebar". This worked but didn't really add to the atmosphere of the game saying "one", "five", "spacebar" etc. Alternative commands were trained into Dragon. "Fire" sends the "spacebar" and "move left" and "move right" were used for positioning. The numeric keys also worked.

Although the control panel can be controled by keyboard commands, using mouse commands proved to be more effective.

Brickout
Using the keyboard command SPACBAR to quickly position the bat under the ball works well but you may need to allow for a small delay while your computer interprets your command. Setting the bat speed on very fast and saying the cursor keys (or even move right 5) can also work. You may want to set the bat wider than usual.

Ruby Ridge
This game has a special set of keys that can be used to set the player in motion. The player will only stop when he hits an barrier or if another key is "spoken".

A – Move Left
W – Move Up
S – Stop
X – Move Down
D – Move Right

If you cannot hear the game sound effects while using Speech Regognition it is probably because your sound card is not "full duplex" ie. It can only record sound or play sound. It cannot do both simultaniously. A true full duplex sound card should be able to play sound effects while processing speech commands. If you are using speech recognition with LEVELGAMES we would be very interested in receiving your feedback.

Email asden@ihug.co.nz for more information.