Papa Sangre and Other Audio Games from Somethin’ Else to be Discontinued and their Game Engine Made Open Source for Others to use

Is this the game from the makers of Inflection The Game, or something like that? If so, I remember it a little...
Regarding Something Else, they also made Audio Arena I believe.

Yes! That is the game I meant. There's iAssociate 3 now, but it's got super loud music which I can't find a way to turn off and doesn't seem to be VO friendly.

I remember the Nightjar. It's another game I was never able to finish, but I had a lot of fun trying.

Just remembered another one called Stem Stumper. That was popular when I first got my iPhone 5S, so I was never able to actually get good at it before it went away.

I also enjoyed all of the Somethin' Else titles, Stem Stumper, Sixth Sense and Where's my Rubber Ducky. 2 other titles I miss are Ear Monsters and Audio Invaders.

Not sure if the rubber ducky game was before my time starting out with an iPhone, but I've never heard of it. I know this is wandering way off the topic of the Something Else games, but I've just remembered another game that was really fun when it existed. It was one we could play with friends, or at least that's what I seem to remember. It wasn't Hanging With Friends, although I really miss that one too. This was another word game. The developer was pretty active here when the game was first released, but then... I don't know what happened. Anyway, it was a neat game, and another one I miss. It had some kind-a musical sounds to it. I want to say that spelling was in the title, but might be wrong about that. Thinking of attempting to find it in the archives, but that'll be tricky since my memory of it is fond yet vague.

I dearly wish someone could bring back and maintain the Papa Sangre games. The sad reality is that we're unlikely to see their level of quality again. The people behind those games had deep enough pockets to hire top rate actors, use and pay for high quality sound, and do the creative thinking and coding to produce true marvels of audio entertainment. These games were designed to attract sighted players as well as blind players and marketted acordingly.
Unfortunately, there just wasn't enough sustained interest in the sighted community to keep these games profitable. It costs money to have these games available in the app store. It also takes time, effort and money to maintain the games and keep them working as iOS improves. That engine has basically languished unatended since 2016 or thereabouts. A lot has changed in how iPhones handle audio since then.
I very much doubt there's enough extra money floating around the Applevis community to hire the kind of top talent which the folks at Something Else LTD. Were able to finance. Setting that aside, there's actual programming talent needed. You don't just slap audio assets into a game engine and call it a day. I think there are plenty of actual good game ideas floating around the community so we probably wouldn't fall short in that department. I have many such ideas, but absolutely the wrong head for programming. There's no way to test any of these ideas without tallented programmers willing to put in their time and talents to do so.
I've long felt that iOS had a lot of untapped potential for excellent and innovative audio entertainmente. I see no reason why we couldn't have a far more extensive accessible Pinball, Astroids, Packman, and Super Mario style games all done in audio with actual game physics and mechanics. Even more reachable would be audio roleplaying games and more advanced board games than we've experienced to date. A game like A Hero's Call, with its city and environments you move through in 3d audio, would be quite possible to create for iOS. In fact, I believe that was part of the overall plan which sandly ended by the team behind the game separating. . I can imagine how all of these kinds of games would feel to play and control with my iPhone and/or game controllers. What I can't do is put any of my notions to the test.
If someone were to get hold of the audio engine today, I have some confidence that someone who understood coding and how the engine worked would come away with a leg up in producing a modern audio game. The sound design in the Papa Sangre games was absolutely stellar and would have required a lot of thinking about 3d audio processing. However, I suspect that to actually make an audio game running on modern iPhones, you'd have to essentially build a new engine.

So massive refactoring + API adaptations needed before considering anything else. But don't trust one single word of what you've read. I am nobody.

I'm picturing us all sat in rocking chairs with long hooked pipes and great cloud beards (even the ladies), during this conversation.

There is an archive containing many of the classic audio games. However you need an old iPhone to install them. You can sideload the packages with a pc. I can post it if you wand and if this is allowed by the editorial team.

Hi all,

The sharing of links to IPA or similar package files for games is not something that we can allow on AppleVis, due to potential liabilities for us associated with intellectual property.

Thanks,
Michael

For anyone interested, here's an old video of gameplay. The video is honestly not that great, but should at least give you an idea of what it's about. Enjoy.

https://youtu.be/LTHCGUovHXo