“9/10 I removed a point because there was no mute button”
Okay, I think we need to take a step back here and take a look at this. Sorry for blowing steam here but I think this needs to be addressed.
Muting is not my job. It’s yours.
I put a mute button in a majority of the games I make. I only do it because I get a lot of flak for not doing it. Besides the mute I usually put in a quality toggle too, even though most people won’t actually use it.
When people complain about mute buttons they are telling me they are too lazy to actually adjust their computer’s audio. According to my calculations, it takes all but a couple seconds to change the audio settings on a personal computer. Even faster is to turn off the speakers directly. Nonetheless, I still get tons of complaints about audio. On my keyboard (and a lot of modern keyboards) there’s even a mute button there!
It might be just me, but it’s much easier for me to locate a mute button on my own computer settings then it is for me to hunt for a mute button in a Flash game I’ve never played before. Is it in the game settings? Is it on the navigation bar? The process of finding a mute button is already set, so why set it again?
“BUT JOHN! I’m at work or school. I might get in trouble!”
I understand people play at work and school. In that case if they are gaming they should have turned off the speakers or computer audio to begin with!
“BUT JOHN. Big name computer games put mute in their games!”
I can handle that. Most big computer and console games take up the entire screen so there is no real good way to get back to your system settings. But Flash is an in-browser experience; your access to audio is super close to wherever you are.
“But John! What about the music? I hate the music! I want sound effects but not the music!”
Very well. Then instead I would love you to tell me, “John, your music sucks. I hate it. Techno makes my ears bleed!” This means so much more to me than complaining about a mute button. It means I’ll adjust the audio genres and music selections in future games. I want people to enjoy my games and if I am making ears bleed I’ll find compromises to make people happier.
I also think there is some integrity to being in an “experience” when playing a game, in that the music and sound is specifically chosen by the artist… but I won’t get into that.
But anyway, I’ll give. I’ll put in mute buttons. But if I start seeing that you don’t like the colour orange or that elephants make you nervous then I’ll let it go.