I'm LV, and I play Pokemon Go. Some of it is fairly easy - the pokestops, the battles, and even catching the pokemon with the balls is okay. But actually finding them on that tiny map is killer. I wish there was a way to zoom in more, or have some sort of tactile feedback if you actually clicked on it.

Considering how often the game crashes every day, I hold little hope for accessibility improvements soon.

So I am blind with limited vision in one eye. I think the game is fine at its current stage of development. Keep in mind this is a very complex system that eats your battery for dinner. In another thread in this sub I posted a technical analysis on how to adapt the game but lets be real the game is still in a Beta stage. Not all of the core features have been released and after they are released they might be able to address the accesibility. The main problem is the GPS technology and the nature of the game. They are not leaving us out of the new craze but safety is a big issue with this game for the blind. Also keep in mind no Pokemon game in the past has been accesible.

I put this in other threads, but #makepokemongo accessible is on Twitter. My son is 13 and can't play without a ton of help. He has some sight, but still needs voiceover. Thanks for writing this!!

I'm not going to lie, I hate Pokemon Go! With a passion. This is one of the best crazed to be excluded from.

I got my girlfriend and my friends to download this game so I could live vicariously through them, and they have been Having a lot of fun. We got into a little bit of a discussion about making the game accessible via voice over. On one hand, I feel that battles need to be picked about making things like this accessible… Surely there are other applications that could have a lot more focus on accessibility first before games. At the same time, having been a former serious video game player before losing my vision, I definitely feel that I am missing out on something fun.

If Nintendo or the app developers care about accessibility at all, I can see them making a specific version of this game with accessible menus and dialogue. The primary component of walking around and attempting to catch a Pokémon is all accomplished visually, from hunting it down around your environment using your camera and augmented reality, to using a specific swiping skill/minigame to throw a ball at the creature to catch it. I figure that this could be made accessible by having the phone polls faster the closer you move the camera towards where the creature is in your environment. Vibrations and sound design would allow you to find it without vision, and the mere difficulty of that would offset the removal of the ball throwing portion of the process. Once you've locked onto the Pokémon, you would simply double tap to throw a ball at it and let the chance functionality of the game work to see if you catch it or not, which is the very same with cited players.

There is a detailed map of your surrounding environment that shows where various locations are to catch Pokémon, where people have lured them, Poké stops where you can get items, and Gyms where you can fight for control. Giving blind players access to GPS data or basic addresses would solve this issue, allowing them to navigate to within 100 feet necessary to activate them. Obviously certain time restraints would be adjusted to accommodate for the new accessible features.

The fighting dynamic to take over a gin is problematic… There is a dodging element when you can see an attack coming from the opponent which may be impossible to make accessible. There will be trade-offs, but ultimately if they just included features like these it would make the game open to everyone!