Hi,
For the first question the answer is the use of the Circle API "JOYSTICK_GetState", which gives you the direction of the joystick (see the enum JOYSTICK_state definition in circle_api.h).
For the second question :
1 : record your audio messages with the Windows recorder or a better audio software, into ".wav" files,
2 : suppressed the wav header of the files (44 bytes), to keep only the raw data,
3 : convert files to ".h" files thanks to "bin2hex" and "hex2bin" tools provided with Ride,
4 : insert the ".h" into your code,
5 : call the Circle API "AUDIO_SetMode" according to your audio file format,
6 : call the Circle API "AUDIO_Play".
You can take a look to how the welcome message is managed in Circle OS, with "AUDIO_Welcome_Msg()" function in the "audio.c" file).
Yves