5 out of 5 rating for Syrinscape
Honestly, I'm not a huge one for electronic tools at my table. I find most things distract from the gameplay and role playing around the table. However Syrinscape is my one major exception. I absolutely love this tool.Syrinscape is a soundboard app that enhances every one of my game sessions. It allows me to both put up an unobtrusive background sound scape for whatever scene I'm working with, and have specific one shots hounds to punctuate the important moments in the game. Right on my iPad. For example if you are in a village marketplace, you can touch one button to set up an endless soundscape of background village sounds to set the mood. This can include carts, animals, venders selling their wears,, people talking and maybe a traveling minstrel that plays every once in a while. Unlike most audio programs this is not just one endless loop track on repeat, each of those individual sounds is controlled individually. So if you don't want the minstrel to play, just turn off (or down) that set of sounds and save this new configuration as a preset. Then next time you are in town you can switch between having minstrels and not having them with the touch of a button.There are well over 50 different preset up soundscapes that syrinscape sells in both the sci-if and fantasy genres.Fantasy includes such common environments as: town, taverns, ships, forests (spooky and safe), dungeons, caves, frozen tundra, haunted houses and battles with a bunch of common monsters (goblins, dragons, gouls, Giants, etc.)Sci-if includes your standard shipboard, future city and alien ship sounds as well as another set of standard battle sounds (boasters, mech, sand worms, aliens, etc).These lists are growing with new releases every month, so I would suggest you look at the website for a full list.Each soundscape can either be individually purchased for a few dollars, or obtained as part of a monthly subscription (in which case you get all the soundsets for as long as you subscribe.Multiple players in my group have told me that the sounds are great addition to the game. They set the mood but are not intrusive, unless I specifically trigger a special one shot sound to punctuate a major event (such as a dragon screech to surprise the party)I also love the fact that you can simply click one button and kick off the sounds and i often don't have to mess with it again until the scene changes. Much easier then fiddling with play lists or sound files on my computer.The sounds are best heard through a surround sound system, but I find that simply using a Bluetooth speaker and my iPad works quite well for games not at my home.Overall this is a great tool that I consider my one must have electronic tool.