frotz and the new voice input feature

[Doug DeJulio]

So, I ran an experiment with Frotz, the new iPad's voice input functionality, and one of my favorite games (Enchanter).  I wanted to try playing the game just by talking.

The first difficulty I ran into was that the input mechanism didn't "press enter" after my commands.  The second difficulty I ran into was that Enchanter (or at least the version I own) doesn't accept directions like "southeast", requiring "se" instead.

I'm toying with the idea of trying to code up solutions to these problems.  Haven't thought much about the first one yet, but for the second one, I'm thinking about trying to build a per-game table of input words that should be mapped to other words, so I can say "in Enchanter, when I say 'southeast', substitute 'se'".

Do folks think this is even remotely worth spending any time on?  If I'm not overestimating my iOS coding skills and I were to submit a patch, is there any chance it'd be accepted?

[Craig Smith]

Enchanter is the only game I know of which mysteriously doesn't accept
long form off-cardinal directions (northeast, etc.)
(Well, Starcross doesn't either, but those directions aren't used at
all in the game so it's not a problem.)
It would be pretty easy to hardcode a check for Enchanter (by filename
or game header version number) and substitute those 4 commands with
their abbreviated versions before the game parsed them.

Regarding the 'enter' problem, I noticed this too but at the time
there was no way to even tell if text had been input using voice
recognition. Fortunately, the iOS 5.1 update appears to have added a
way to do this (although I have not had a chance to play with it yet)
using UIDictationPhrase and some dictation callbacks added to the
UITextInput protocol. If you can improve voice recognition using
this, I'd be happy to accept patches. Please be sure to null-test any
APIs you use to make sure they exist before calling them, because I
compile Frotz with a deployment target so that it works on older iOS
versions. Previously I supported all the way back to 3.0, but I will
probably bump the oldest supported version to 4.2.1 (the latest OS
still supported by 1st gen devices) with the next release, so it's
okay to assume any APIs older than 4.2.1 exist without testing.

-Craig

On Apr 3, 3:46 pm, Doug DeJulio <d...@aisb.org> wrote:
> So, I ran an experiment with Frotz, the new iPad's voice input
> functionality, and one of my favorite games (Enchanter).  I wanted to try
> playing the game just by talking.
>
> The first difficulty I ran into was that the input mechanism didn't "press
> enter" after my commands.  The second difficulty I ran into was that
> Enchanter (or at least the version I own) doesn't accept directions like
> "southeast", requiring "se" instead.
>
> I'm toying with the idea of trying to code up solutions to these problems.
>  Haven't thought much about the first one yet, but for the second one, I'm
> thinking about trying to build a per-game table of input words that should
> be mapped to other words, so I can say "in Enchanter, when I say
> 'southeast', substitute 'se'".
>

> Do folks think this is even *remotely* worth spending any time on?  If I'm

[Matt Diamond]

FYI, iOS 4 is not supported by 1st gen devices, at least not without
hacking.

I myself am considering un-supporting iOS 3 for my own game, as I no
longer have a 1st gen OS 3 device to test with. Just be aware that 1st
gen iPhones and iPod Touches would not be able to update to the next
Frotz, and (AFAIK) if they download the update into iTunes, they will
get warnings every time they try to sync with their device, unless
they somehow manage to get rid of it.

- Matt

[Craig Smith]

You're right, it looks like 4.2.1 is the highest supported by 2nd gen,
not 1st gen.

That's a bummer. I wish Apple did a better job of maintaining support
for older devices. They should be able still download the newest old
release that still works on their device, and not be nagged about
updates that won't work on their device.

[andrew.f...@gmail.com]

Was this ever addressed? I haven't found any way to 'send' a dictated command without switching back to the keyboard; saying 'new line' just adds a space…

[omgit...@gmail.com]

Was this ever addressed? I was just trying dictation input in Frotz on a whim, and I wasn't able to find any command that would 'submit' a line; saying "new line" just added a space...

[omgit...@gmail.com]

(Whoops, sorry for the double-post, I overlooked the "awaiting approval" message the first time and thought something went wrong; by all means you don't have to approve both messages, heh!)

[Craig Smith]

Unfortunately, no, this hasn't been addressed.   When this was first asked about, there wasn't even an API to make it possible.

But there are now voice dictation APIs that give apps more control (introduced in iOS 10 I think), so now it's possible.

I haven't made time to work on Frotz in over a year, but when I get back to it (hopefully before too long), I'll definitely look into this, because it would be really cool to be able to play using only your voice.