Setting up speech recognition for Tower!3D Pro

Overview

Setup under Windows 10 to use voice commands in the game for especially non-US English Windows installations. (Individual steps in older Windows versions may differ.)May possibly be interesting for troubleshooting US Windows versions as well.

Guide

Setting up Speech Recognition for non-US Windows installations

Not all steps may be necessary for every user.
Here I assume that a current version of Windows 10 (Home or Pro) is installed and a working voice input device (microphone, headset) is connected to the PC and ready for use.

Disclaimer: No warranty or guarantee of any kind. The author of this guide cannot be held responsible for any damage, loss of data, etc. that may be directly or indirectly linked to using this guide.

Users of non-English Windows installations might want to create a second Windows user account under Start -> Settings -> Accounts -> Family & other users (or Other users) and then follow the steps below with the new account. This way the main user account remains in the native language and only the new account, which is then used to start the game, is set to US English.

Press Windows-Logo + I to open “Windows Settings” (I = capital i)
Click on “Time & Language”
Click on “Language” (left-hand side)

Under “Preferred languages”, check that “English (United States)” is installed
Hover over the small icons (upper right-hand corner) of “English (United States)”
Check that “Display language”, “Text-to-Speech”, “Speech recognition”, “Handwriting” and “Typing” is installed
If not de-install and re-install the Language Pack “English (United States)” with all components
Reboot your PC if needed

Click on “Region” (left-hand side) and check that..
“Country or region” is set to “United States” and that the current
“Regional format” is set to “English (United States)”

Click on “Speech” and check that..
“Speech language” is set to “English (United States)”
“Recognize non-native accents for this language” is checked
Under “Installed voice packages” (likely you need to scroll down), “English (United States)” (~48 MB) is installed (if not, add/install it)
“Voices” -> “Choose a voice” is set to “Microsoft Zira” (just to have a default US Voice selected)

Close the Stettings window

Press Ctrl + Windows-Logo + S to open Windows Speech Recognition (v8.0), a tiny window with a microphone symbol on the left
Right-click at this window and select “Off: Do not listen to anything I say”
Right-click again and click “Configuration” -> “Set up my microphone”
Set up your microphone, make sure your computer can hear you (run the test here; whether Cortana can understand you or not is irrelevant; Cortana and Speech Recognition are different apps)
Right-click Windows Speech Recognition again and click “Configuration” -> “Improve my voice recognition”
Run the Voice Training a couple of times (3x at least)

Optionally you can right-click Windows Speech Recognition and click “Options” -> “Run at startup” to have it running when you start your PC, but leave it at “Off: Do not listen to anything I say”

Press Windows-Logo + E to open the File Explorer
Navigate to [Program Dir, most likely C:Program Files or C:Program Files (x86)]SteamsteamappscommonTower 3D Pro
Right-click on “tower3d.exe”, then click “Send to” -> “Desktop (create shortcut)”
Close the File Explorer

Right-click on the tower3d.exe shortcut on your desktop, then click “Properties”
Click on the button “Advanced…”
Check “Run as administrator”
Click “OK”, “Apply”, “OK”

Open your Anti-Virus (or other Security Software) program
Make sure that..
[Program Dir]SteamsteamappscommonTower 3D Protower3d_DataTowerSpeaktowerspeakbridge.exe
and
[Program Dir]SteamsteamappscommonTower 3D Protower3d.exe
are treated as save or secure programs with no restrictions and to allow them to use your microphone

Start Tower!3D Pro via the desktop icon you just created!

Note: You can have English US as display language and still use your native language keyboard layout or a different layout.

Settings -> Time & Language -> Language
Choose or install a language, than click on
Options -> Keyboards -> Add a keyboard

Your native layout is of course already installed. The keyboard layout can be selected/switched via the language bar. You can search the Internet for further information.

I recommend that the Windows Speech Recognition app is open to ensure that the necessary process is started and active before the game is launched. “Listening” in the app should be turned off, so that the voice commands you give to the game are not tried to be converted into Windows commands by the app in the background.

In case of problems with speech recognition, typical sources of error are:

The “Pro” version of the game was not purchased
The system is not completely set to English (United States) or the English (United States) language package including the package for speech recognition is not completely or faultily downloaded or installed
Tower!3D Pro does not run with administrator rights
An anti-virus/firewall software blocks (parts of) the files towerspeakbridge.exe or tower3d.exe
The “Nehalmic” process is running in the background and interferes with the speech recognition (as reported by a user: [link]
The voice training was not performed often enough
The microphone is not set up correctly and/or the game sound or game’s speech is transmitted on the same channel as the voice input (if using a virtual audio mixer)
“Sticky Keys” is activated in the Windows Settings (Windows Logo + I -> Ease of Access -> Keyboard -> Sticky Keys)

Often the speech recognition is not very reliable at the beginning, despite repeated speech training. The speech recognition learns even while playing. It can be assumed that the speech recognition improves over time.

Tower!3D Pro Guide

Overview

Guide