dateariane
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Strip Crazy Eights with VOICE!! (updated)
🕑 Added 2023-03-10 22:03:42 +0000 UTC
I was having a discussion on Discord about all the various AI tools out there, and a voice synthesizer AI website called Eleven Labs https://elevenlabs.io/ came up.
So I signed up for a free account and tested it by creating voices for Ariane, Rachel, and Maya. (not entirely satisfied with Maya, or Rachel for that matter, but tell me what you think.)
I picked Strip Crazy Eights because each character has about 25 lines each, though I ran out of free lines to voice the card names or voice the player character.
What you have here is a potentially big experiment. Play it and tell me what you think. Do you like their voices? Would adding voice to my other games improve them, or do you find it a little creepy that they talk?
If there is interest maybe I can start voicing my other games? I'd buy a monthly subscription and make changes to the voices. I haven't committed any cost yet, and I still want to finish SITAR first, but thinking about this as a next project.
Eleven labs voicing is currently in beta and there are MANY features they need to add to really be useful for game voicing.
Eleven labs typically reads lines as if they were for a presentation or something. Loosening parameters allows for random "acting" but some times it takes quite a few trials to get the perfect line read, and due to limitations of the free account, I could not do many takes.
For example, there is no way to direct the line acting. I'd like to emphasize certain words or change pitch to certain words. I actually have a sound editor called Wavosaur that would allow me to do pitch editing, but using it to direct every word of every line would be cumbersome and a hell of a lot of work.
Below is the PC/Linux version, due to attachment limitations on Patreon, the Mac version is in a different post. Because of the experimental nature of this project, I don't want to post it on itch.io yet. I'm also making this available to all levels of of patrons to maximize feedback.
UPDATED!! (told you this was experimental) Made three changes that may work better:
1. Got rid of the voice during the actual card playing rounds. No more repetitive dialog when players put down a card, draw cards, or announce one left (though I did love a couple of those lines, they get old fast)
2. Changed Maya's voice. Sounds younger and with less huskiness, but still different enough from Ariane and Rachel. I wish there would be an option for African American voices.
3. Added some narration lines when player loses clothes and final game outcome at the end.
4. (3:45 EST) Changed rule for max unusable cards from 7 to 6 as 7 almost never happened. Also updated credit and advertisements with latest info.
Comments
Pokemasterflex
Makes sense, yes that's what I was talking about.
Ariane Barnes
You might be talking about the advertising at the end. The inability to skip is by design. I made this game free as an advertising tool. It goes back to the main menu after about 15 seconds or so.
Pokemasterflex
The endgame is kinda wonky. You can't skip through it using the Skip dialog function. It bugs out. Otherwise fun. I agree with the comments above though, less voiced dialogue.
Ariane Barnes
Helpful suggestions. Was wondering what to do about the repeating lines during the game play and I can either voice every single card by every single player, Or I can do as you suggested and not have any voice in the actual card part. Yours is a lot easier.
Anonymous
I actually thought that Rachel's voice was the best. Maybe it's a personal thing, but Ariane sounds too much like the automated TikTok voiceover. And Maya sounds huskier than her appearance would suggest. I'll say that good voice acting talent is hard to find, and it's a notable achievement that Ariane and Rachel's voices line up pretty well with their appearances. This doesn't always happen with human-generated voices; I've played erotic visual novels with human voice acting where the talent didn't sound like how the characters ought to sound at all; even in mainstream visual novels like Doki Doki Literature Club this is a problem. From a gameplay perspective, I think having the characters talk during the actual card game is too much, at least right now when they just read the same line every time. I can see the appeal of having the characters talk during the introduction and while they're stripping.
