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TIGSource ForumsDeveloperDesignHas anyone here ever worked with Audiogames/Games for Blind People before?
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Author Topic: Has anyone here ever worked with Audiogames/Games for Blind People before?  (Read 803 times)
Vini Aleixo
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« on: September 10, 2014, 11:01:02 AM »

Hello everyone!,

I'm in charge of a game project targeting a blind audience, and although I'm trying to be empathetic with this disability, I'm in the dark regarding their gaming preferences and needs.

At some point I'll definitely interview a few disabled people to get more info, but for now, I would be really thankful if anyone here have any experience to share about this kind of game design challenge.  Smiley
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rj
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« Reply #1 on: September 10, 2014, 05:21:40 PM »

play soundvoyager
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Sik
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« Reply #2 on: September 10, 2014, 08:14:44 PM »

Never made one (yet) but I'd suggest getting headphones and something to cover your eyes. That way you can at least try to test blind playing =P (without headphones you won't really get 3D positioning, and without covering your eyes you'll get distracted by what you see)

Also please don't make it an audio-only game, as then you'll leave out the deaf. Sure, design it towards audio, but also provide some visual output so those who can't hear (or have no sound) can play as well. Just make sure the game can still keep working if it can't initialize the video output (as long as at least one of video or audio works you should allow the game to run).

By the way, background music can interfere a lot (since absolutely everything has to be provided as sound effect clues), so take that into account. Provide a way to lower its volume (including down to 0%), or don't include it at all.
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valrus
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« Reply #3 on: September 10, 2014, 11:16:33 PM »

Interesting!  Have you decided what genre?

I haven't, although I've have had to give thought to accommodating blind contestants in a contest we run. (I've also had blind and visually-impaired students, and while that's not a game it's still "experience design".)

Thoughts off the top of my head:

  • Get (or make) a good binaural recording setup.
  • There are many legally blind people who have limited vision, and many other visually-impaired people, who would probably enjoy your game but can also process some visual cues... who would, probably, really appreciate a game with large, high-contrast graphics that doesn't expect you or require you to see anything, but does allow you to see what you can.
  • Remember that you can use haptic feedback as well, if you've got a controller, or a phone.  That can give you a second feedback channel if necessary.  (Say, for example, it's a rhythm game and you want a way to underline that a mistake has happened, but there's already a lot going on sonically.)
  • This might go without saying, but don't assume heightened aural sensitivity, memory powers, or other compensatory abilities. (Like at some point you might ask "Will the player be able to remember that cue, even though it was 45 seconds ago?" and a team member might say "Well, blind people have really good memory skills", or something like that.)  That's a common stereotype, and for some people it's true, but you don't want to assume it of your player.  (Maybe their visual impairment began recently, and being blind is almost as unfamiliar to them as it is to you!)  (And, of course, maybe they're just a sighted person who's bored on the bus, but it's too sunny to see the screen well.)

Have you contacted any of the accessibility and disability in gaming folks, like at gameaccessibilityguidelines.com?  (I think I've seen Ian Hamilton around these forums before.)
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ianhamilton_
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« Reply #4 on: September 10, 2014, 11:35:38 PM »

Yep, right here, had a heads up from Sik!

Agree with the above posts, audio only games aren't the best approach to take. Instead, just make a regular game that is also accessible to people who are blind. It avoids you being restricted to a niche, means making a game that's accessible to more people rather than less people, and believe it or not visuals can sometimes actually be helpful to people who are blind.. most people who are legally blind do still have a very small amount of vision left.

And to give an example from another area of accessibility, if you broke a couple of fingers, would you then want to play a small selection of games designed specifically for people with less than 10 fingers? Or would you want to play exactly the same games as everyone else, but be able to rearrange the buttons so the most important things were in positions yoi could reach easily?

As far as preferences (assume you mean tastes?) in games go, that's a bit like asking what tastes people who aren't blind have. Answer: depends on the individual person.

One thing for definite though is to avoid the first ideas you have, they are likely to be the same ideas everyone else has already had... There are a million and one audio games already out where you're trapped in a maze, lost your sight, and have to find your way out.

Something that there's a real lack of is online games that blind and sighted people can play together. For this reason diceworld on iOS is very popular, as it gives a rare opportunity for blind people to play remotely with sighted friends and relatives.

What platform are you targeting? The easiest way to do blind gamedev is on iOS, every iPhone and iPad has a built in feature (voiceover) that assists how gestures work and speaks out the label of any object under your finger, so blind players can effectively 'see' the layout of the screen.

So if you're making a game that isn't reliant on timing and is about navigating an interface rather than a 3D environment, it can be really easy to make the game blind accessible.

The only catch is that it can only recognise UIKit elements, so you have to develop natively rather than use a game engine (although I think the sparrow game engine may support it, you'll have to contact them to check though).

So a good approach for coming up with an idea might be be to have a play around with voiceover, and think back through all of the game ideas you no doubt have knocking around that would be fun for all players, and see if any of those ideas would work with voiceover.

Then for blind gamers, there are three main communities: the Applevis.com forums, the audyssey mailing list, and the audiogames.net forum. Through all of those places you'll be able to find lots of puerile happy to be interviewed, suggest game ideas, help with testing etc. Applevis also has listings of hundreds of iOS games that are already build accessible.

This GDC talk might be helpful for you:

http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1020415/Beyond-Graphics-Reaching-the-Visually
« Last Edit: September 10, 2014, 11:57:55 PM by ianhamilton_ » Logged
Sik
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« Reply #5 on: September 11, 2014, 01:34:28 AM »

Why do I always end up wanting to reply during maintenaince hour? =|

The only catch is that it can only recognise UIKit elements, so you have to develop natively rather than use a game engine (although I think the sparrow game engine may support it, you'll have to contact them to check though).

Note that you can always work around it the bruteforce way if you can afford to do voice acting (or have a speech synthesizer available for some reason, but that's worse quality) and can afford to spend the extra space usage (helps when there's little to voice): http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DianaHughes/20131120/205346/5_Things_We_Learned_About_Developing_An_iOS_Game_for_Blind_Players.php

Although mind you, if your budget is tight and you need lots of text and can afford to record from a speech synthesizer, you could just make everybody who talks to be robots and use that as an excuse for it not sounding natural =P (although in the end you'll always have to take space usage into account unless it's rendering on the fly instead of being prerecorded)
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Vini Aleixo
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« Reply #6 on: September 16, 2014, 05:08:46 AM »

Well, I guess that wraps up everything I needed for now, ahaha! Sorry for taking so long to answer back.

Thank you very, very much valrus, Sik and Ian Hamilton (amazing GDC Talk, btw). Unfortunately this is not an indie project, so I have a few limitations (and also a schedule, for the matter). However, I guess that now my team is on the right track and might have a few great things to show when we actually interview a group of visually impaired people and get their feedback next week.

I guess the most important lesson I had from your posts was to make a game for everyone, and not exclusively visually impaired. I guess that is something I will take to my to my next [actually indie] game project.  Smiley
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