Presented at the 11th International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD2005)The design of audio-based computer games possess several chal- lenges. In this paper we discuss both, the technical perspectives in the development, as well as the aesthetics in the design of audio- only computer games. We do not restrict our target audience to the visually impaired only, and assume that audiogames can be played and enjoyed by everyone. We further think that audio-only com- puter games, and audio based user interfaces in general, offer huge potentials in the form of mobile devices that can be used every- where and for nearly every application, including gaming. For this work we played and analyzed several existing audio- only computer games regarding their structure, aim, storytelling, sonification and the possible interactions, and derived some basic rules that are important for a successful game design and develop- ment. We further added additional techniques, which we believe are necessary to achieve a higher level of immersion and which assist in the perception and play of such games. To evaluate our concepts, we designed three simple action games and one story based adventure, that we integrated into our audio framework
