Reviews for NG Audio Elevator

[Coop]

It's been done

Yes, it's a novel piece of programming, but a user named Cyberdevil did this idea literally to death a few years back. Granted, yours is more all encompassing than his, but it's still a direct port to the Audio Portal, though severely limited.

A play / pause button should be able to play and pause the track. This just plays a new track from the start over the top of it, making the whole thing a horrid mess. You really need to work on the programming, to make things like this work, even something as basic as a program like this one.

Ideas to go forward that I could give you would include a playlist function - something that prior to the 2011/2012 redesign, the Audio Portal does not have, where you line up half a dozen or so tracks and let them fly. This could also be incorporated with a random "shuffle" function, where people could tab certain genres that they wish to listen to, which could generate a few bits and pieces to assist the user. A display feature, which shows a few key pieces of information about the track - genre, title, author, date and so forth would be useful, otherwise, I'm not seeing any benefit in listening to a piece from the Audio Portal, without actually going there myself.

What's the target market? Are you aiming to export this to other sites and have people come to Newgrounds from there? If so and your programming works, a great little piece of viral marketing. If not, this seems to be a dead end piece that you've merely used for practice.

[Review Request Club]

Surn responds:

I looked up Cyberdevil's account and I didn't see anything that looked like any audio programs. So to those out of the know I should be safe.

As for the play pause button, it does actually pause and play the music, (at least when I try it). I tried it with 3 different songs and it works properly. What I did find, in light of your statement, was that it does malfunction if you try it before the song is loaded. Perhaps there are technical difficulties on your end.

As for your suggestions on improvements/additions they would be indeed nice to have. I do believe I could integrate a user-specified playlist function and perhaps even a shuffle function for that too. However, that's not the point of what I'm going for with this. As for genre specifications/filters, that would also be nice to have, especially if there are particular genres one find offensive (like rap). If I could make it I probably would. As for title. author and date (ID3 information) I can do that, but it only works as a desktop application. I was going for simplicity with this application, so minimalism/lack of other functions is arguably it's charm.

As for not seeing the advantage of this: its primary use is to automatically play songs one-by-one as the user does other things like animate or play Minecraft. When one song finishes or is skipped the player automatically pulls and plays the one before it without need for user input. With just the audio portal, you could accomplish the same effect by sitting there listening to the song, subtracting 1 from the audio number and hitting enter when you're done with the song- but then it would require more attention.

As for my target audience I really didn't have one in mind. As for my goal: I mainly wanted to make a more convenient way to listen to the recent audio portal submissions while otherwise occupied. I thought "hey, why not make it a flash submission? Other people might like it.". So I sent it into Newgrounds.

Thanks for reviewing.

[Gimmick]

Not half bad

It's too small, but as SCTE3 pointed out, there's always the "inrease size" feature, but then again that just pixelates the whole thing. I've known from past experience with other loaders that you just type in the ID and you load the song. This one, though, simplifies that step by just telling you to input the ID and it'll do the rest. Neat-o.

The graphics: Not half bad, I like the pixellish graphics you used, and I think I know now why you had it so small -- because when enlarged the rectangles become bigger. It could've been vector instead of pixel, but aye, who am I to say -- others may prefer it, I can't speak on their behalf.

The animation: Good, since I'm talking about that one small thing where the person bobs his mouth only. I fail to see any animation there, perhaps a visualization? Then again, you said the sole purpose of this flash is "to play audio while playing something else".

The concept: Not bad, however this idea has been done to death before. There's the NG Radio Chat which had that feature, some other ones made by some other authors, and of course, the inbuilt players in the audio portal itself. So it's not at all original, and if anyone wanted to play audio from the portal, they'd just go to the portal and enter the ID, or use the other creations from other authors.

The system: Well, okay. I played the gadget, and I entered some audio ID -- I'm not sure -- and it started playing those loading bar things (it took me a while to figure out what they were). So correct me if I'm wrong, but you're supposed to load the ENTIRE song before playing, even if you just want to SAMPLE it? Also, there's no "main menu" button here, and not even a keyboard shortcut for it -- if I enter a gibberish audio ID, I get a person gaping at me, and the gadget "breaks", in that you can't listen to any audio any more, and you can't go back to select audio either. If you want to rewind the song and play from the beginning, then you'd have to skip the song, and go back to it, and wait another X minutes for that song to load, depending on your connection.

All in all, quite nifty, but under the surface, there's a lot of room for improvement.

~~ Summary ~~

~~ Good points ~~
1) Convenient
2) Good graphics, although could be vector
3) User-friendly

~~ Bad points ~~
1) Gadget "breaks" if incorrect ID entered
2) No allowance of rewinding song directly
3) Waiting time to play music, even if just to skip

[Review Request Club]

Surn responds:

"increase size" feature... pixelates the whole thing."

It's pixel art- that's kind of the idea. Still, you have a point with it being too small.

"others may prefer it, I can't speak on their behalf."

Hm, a matter of taste, I didn't really consider that.

"So it's not at all original, ... play audio from the portal, ...or use the other creations from other authors."

The advantage this has over the audio portal is that it plays the song then moves on to the next song, where as you'd have to retrieve the next song manually. As for other creations, that is a good point.

"those loading bar things (it took me a while to figure out what they were)"

Hm, probably should have told the number box at the top to say "Loading" while it was loading. Coop seemed to have had trouble with this as well.

"So correct me if I'm wrong, but you're supposed to load the ENTIRE song before playing,"

That's what I programmed it to do. Perhaps next time I'll unlock it at 50 or 75 percent.

"there's no "main menu" button here, and not even a keyboard shortcut for it"

That would have been useful, though it would have taken away from the simplicity of the device. Still, arguably worth it.

"I get a person gaping at me, and the gadget "breaks", in that you can't listen to any audio any more. "

He tells me he enjoyed your company, he doesn't get many visitors (especially with such a low score). But seriously, I probably should have made it give an error message, them compensate for it instead.

"If you want to rewind the song ... skip the song, .. back to it, .. another X minutes for that song to load."

Play controls would have been nice- but again, that would take away from the simplicity.

This review was quite insightful. I'll look back to it when I try making another audio player.