Shades of Doom

Shades of Doom is a revolutionary Window’s-based game for the visually impaired. It creates a virtual reality using sound as it’s medium. It features multi-dimensional multi-layered sound, immersing the gamer into a world of action and suspense set in the not too distant future. The game is self-voicing, and so no screen reader is required to play this game.

You are equipped with a medical kit, a few grenades, a gun, a knife, your fists, and a computer to analyze your surroundings, and you must make your way through the many levels of the top secret military research base, and shut down the ill-fated experiment. You will use the sound of the wind in the passages and rooms, the echo of your footsteps, the sounds of nearby equipment, and optionally, the guidance from your environment analyzer computer, to make your way through this dark world. You will definitely want to collect better weapons, armour, and equipment to help you succeed in this mission. Find the clues to shut down the experiment as you make your way to the ninth and most dangerous area.

Due to the graphic nature of the sounds, GMA recommends that parents review the game if played by children under the age of 13.

Features

Dynamic and realistic Multi-layered, 3D sound with up to 32 sounds playing simultaneously which can make use of a stereo or surround sound system,
Use of Doppler for realistic movement sound,
syynthesized 3D effects for non-surround sound systems,
Real-time game play, that is, the game is not move based, and the game continues as in
A true 32-bit Window's application,
Use of Microsoft's DirectX 8,
Full accessible help,
Optional joystick support,
Original music,
Many easy to remember one key commands,
Five difficulty levels from easy to very challenging,
Nine areas to explore, plus an aending level,
Ability to save, and later reload, up to 9 game snap shots,
Many types of weapons, monsters, armour, and other equipment and objects,
Ability to pick your own way to navigate, that is, wind sounds, step echoes, maps,
Ability to create Braille-ready maps,
Optionally, all major commands can be accessed through the menu,
Cheat codes are available, and
Much, much more.

The Story

To hear the introduction to Shades of Doom produced by Kelly Sapergia, download or play the following MP3 file. Note that this was made from a previous version of the game and that some features have been added since it was produced.

Shades of Doom Story

System Requirements

You will need:

A Pentium system 233 Megahertz or higher,
64 megabytes of memory,
Windows 98 or higher,
Microsoft's DirectX version 8 software (available free from the Microsoft site.
a Windows supported 16 bit stereo or surround sound card (headphones recommended for stereo systems),

Downloading Shades of Doom

Download Shades of Doom version 1.2 from the Download page. Select the Download link from the Navigation Bar located at the top of this page.

About Cheat Codes

Cheat codes are passwords that you can enter into a game which gives you powers beyond the design of the game. Thus the name. Initially, it was decided that cheat codes would not be made available to the gamer in Shades of Doom, but due to popular demand, we have decided to compromise. Once you have reached 20,000 points the game will generate a file which will include all the cheat codes. The file will be placed in your Shades of Doom directory and will have the name "CheatCodes.txt".

Cheat codes are not available in demo mode. If you do not want to do the work to earn the codes, you may purchase them from GMA at an additional price. Cheat codes are unique to each registered user.

It is sometimes fun to use cheat codes, but for the most part, we feel that you will have more satisfaction playing without them. If you plan to use cheat codes, we suggest that you only use one at a time. This will leave at least some challenges in the game.

The available cheat codes are:

top armour class,
total invincibility,
endless ammunition,
all weapons,
endless battery power,
unlock all locks,
fast walking,
walk through walls, and
blast through walls.