Blind and Visually Impaired Community
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State of Video Games? (self.Blind)
submitted 5.344573398919753y ago by ZAD-Man
Hello everyone! I am hoping someone could share info on the current state of development of video games for the blind.
Some background on me first - I'm not blind myself, but my older brother is blind, and both of us really enjoy video games. I'm a programmer, and I've been itching to make a game for a long time. Next week, at work, we have a "hackathon", basically two days to do anything we want, so long as it's tech-related, and I've decided to work on this.
Though I'm mainly doing it to learn and share with my brother, I'd love to create something I could share beyond just us, or maybe even sell. But that's where my question comes in - I know video games for the blind are out there, since my brother has many, but do games come out frequently or rarely, and are certain genres under or over represented? And while I'm asking about games made specifically for the blind, I'd also be interested in information about video game accessibility as a whole.
Thanks in advance!
Some background on me first - I'm not blind myself, but my older brother is blind, and both of us really enjoy video games. I'm a programmer, and I've been itching to make a game for a long time. Next week, at work, we have a "hackathon", basically two days to do anything we want, so long as it's tech-related, and I've decided to work on this.
Though I'm mainly doing it to learn and share with my brother, I'd love to create something I could share beyond just us, or maybe even sell. But that's where my question comes in - I know video games for the blind are out there, since my brother has many, but do games come out frequently or rarely, and are certain genres under or over represented? And while I'm asking about games made specifically for the blind, I'd also be interested in information about video game accessibility as a whole.
Thanks in advance!
bradley22 3 points 5y ago
Side scrollers have been done to deaf in my oppinion. Although a side scroller where you can do things like smash the walls for secrets, pick up boxes and smash them or collect coins like in mario or something like that would be awesome. We don't have that many horror games. If you want to check out games for blind people go to www.audiogames.net
Able_Me 1 points 5y ago
Have you tried any of the first person shooter genres offered on audiogames.net? I don't have the time to invest in actually playing one right now, but I have a few cool modification ideas that I think could add to the current accessible game design paradigms.
bradley22 1 points 5y ago
I've tryed some of them. I'm not a fan of online games.
ZAD-Man [OP] 1 points 5y ago
Awesome, thanks! I know this project won't be the highest quality, at least to start with, since it's a big learning project too, so knowing which genres are over/under represented is an important part of my research.
That site's great, though I'm trying to figure out if there's a way to separate the games that just happened to accessible vs games that were designed to be accessible...
That site's great, though I'm trying to figure out if there's a way to separate the games that just happened to accessible vs games that were designed to be accessible...
Amonwilde 2 points 5y ago
I think we could use more RPG and strategy games. There's a superabundance of card and board style games, probably because they're easy to make and blind people skew older.
bradley22 2 points 5y ago
I'd say about 99 percent of those games were designed to be accesssible. You could always ask on the off topic forum,, i'm sure you'd get some good answers there.
ZAD-Man [OP] 1 points 5y ago
Oh, OK, sweet. I guess I just need to look through it more. Thanks!
bradley22 2 points 5y ago
Not a problem. I'd highly recommend making a topic on the off topic room.
Amonwilde 3 points 5y ago
There was a somewhat similar question asked awhile back. You might check out the answers:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Blind/comments/7sxfp1/how_could_a_programmer_help/
> According to u/fastfinge, use Python using libaudioverse and pygame. There are some abandonware projects but it's not worth using them. Use this Python library to talk to screen readers: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/accessible_output/0.7.5
> On Windows only, you can use this: https://github.com/dkager/tolk
> Don't use Unity, but if you insist for some reason, use this: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/gui/ui-accessibility-plugin-uap-87935
> It occurs to me that you could also make a text game using the native iOS utilities, just make sure you test it well. You could also make a web app that is primarily text and that is accessible like any website can be accessible.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Blind/comments/7sxfp1/how_could_a_programmer_help/
> According to u/fastfinge, use Python using libaudioverse and pygame. There are some abandonware projects but it's not worth using them. Use this Python library to talk to screen readers: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/accessible_output/0.7.5
> On Windows only, you can use this: https://github.com/dkager/tolk
> Don't use Unity, but if you insist for some reason, use this: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/gui/ui-accessibility-plugin-uap-87935
> It occurs to me that you could also make a text game using the native iOS utilities, just make sure you test it well. You could also make a web app that is primarily text and that is accessible like any website can be accessible.
ZAD-Man [OP] 1 points 5y ago
Sweet, this is a gold mine. Thank you!
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