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[RisingPixel]

Inquisitor's Heartbeat
Imagine taking one of your favorite games, maybe a roguelike, and playing it with your eyes closed… could you handle the challenge?
That’s the problem that many blind people face whenever they deal with a “traditional” game. However, in recent years, several games that don’t rely on the visuals to be playable started to surface. The problem is, those games are everything but cheap.
Here at RisingPixel we didn’t want to create a game that would be adapted for blind people later. Instead, we designed and developed a game that could be playable by blind and sighted people as is. For the first time ever blind players can actually experience a real and non-discriminatory adventure game. On the other and, sighted players will experience a whole new way to play a game as they won’t have any visuals to rely on.



Features

• More than 35 levels, divided in 7 different sound scenarios, for a total of more than 6 hours of gameplay in Story Mode (plus an endless mode!)
• 3D immersive audio
• Dynamic music and background sounds bound to the gameplay situation
• Cutscenes and dialogs with professional voice actors
• Roguelike elements: turns, grid movement, procedural maps, permadeath.

Description
Inquisitor's Heartbeat is a roguelike designed for blind and sighted people alike, namely a videogame (an “audio game”, actually) in which your primary goal is to find a safe route out of dungeons by relying on your hearing and orientation skills only.




Release
Inquisitor’s Heartbeat is out now on PC/MAC in English and in Italian, by the online shop for unsighte people AudioGame.it at the following link:
http://www.ticonblu.it/audiogame/inquisitors_heartbeat.html?lang=eng
iOS version (iPhone and iPad) will be avaiable on Apple Store from August 2014.

Additional information
You can find more information on the official press-kit http://bit.ly/IH_press




Support audiogames and give EVERYONE the opportunity to be able to play videogames

[Eadow]

Interesting concept. What kind of research went into making a game specifically for blind people?? I'm interested in seeing a blind person playing this, it would be cool to see their reaction.

[RisingPixel]

@Eadow
The last photo shows Davide, a blind boy who become blind at age 13... and he liked very much the chance to come back to play again

We make a lot of playtesting with some blind guys that help us to understand how they "see" the levels.

The only difference between a play of sighted and visually impaired is... the latter are better   

[RisingPixel]

On our Blog we are trying to make a sort of "behind the scene series" every week: this is the first (of 4..or 5?) article http://www.risingpixel.com/2014/07/how-inquisitors-heartbeat-born-part-12/

Out on iOS soon!

[MiNTO]

It reminds me of a student project that was being done during my masters at Abertay. I remember then that the concept and the rough prototype they made was pretty awesome experience.

They never had anything close to what you had and I'm looking forward to playing this.

Best of Luck! 

[RisingPixel]

Thanks you MinTo

During a local event (Mantova Gaming Park) we released a free downloadable PC/MAC Demo for everyone 
http://bit.ly/IH_Demo

[Julien]

Very interesting concept !