Pokémon GO

I sent an email about this earlier to them via a bug report on their support site. It was the only contact info I could find for them. Please, reach out if you want this game, the more of us that do maybe the better. I've unfortunately had little success with some developers or companies and never got responses at all from some.

I messaged them on facebook too nothing yet.

I have emailed the people in charge of the privacy policy 4 times requesting that this game be updated to support the use of VoiceOver , but I have not received a reply from them. As I wait I have contacted Apple's accessibility team, Google support, and the NFB, and Apples accessibility team is willing to work with the app developer to make Pokemon go accessible. The other organizations I've contacted said that their is very little they can do.

I don't want to discourage anyone from contacting the developer and seeking accessibility fixes - and to be sure, the more of us do it, the more chance we have of something getting done. But don't be surprised that you haven't heard back - this game's explosive popularity I literally unprecedented in the history of mobile technology - it already has more users than Twitter or Tinder, I believe. So no doubt the team of developers is absolutely swamped beyond anything we can imagine right now.

I think we should start contacting Nintendo of America.

This should not just be a Pokemon Go thing. This should be a push to make the company have accessibility at the heart of all of their games, console or mobile. I'm hoping we can turn this into a full-fledged campaign.

I hate to be the one who tries to ruin everyone's fun here, but looking at the description of the game, I don't know how on earth this could actually be made accessible? From how I understand it, you walk around your neighborhood and every so often you glace at your phone and an indicator shows how close or far a pokemon actually is, with a map of the area around you for reference. We would need to know how close or far a pokkemon actually is, which one it is, etc. Since this game is completely visual in nature, I don't see any real way of adding accessibility to it, that could be reliable. I'm not saying all this because I've got anything against the game. It's not something I would play around with but I know other people do for obvious reasons. I just think that if people are going to want to make this game accessible to VoiceOver users, having an understanding of how the game works, and a plan as to how they can make it accessible can really help the developers a lot. Sure, you can just write and say hey, we'd like for this game to be accessible to VoiceOver users, but often-times, that's not really enough information for them. They probably have no idea what VoiceOver is, what it does, or how it works. Also, like I said before having an understanding of the game really helps a lot if you're going to request accessibility fixes. Just adding a bit of thoughts here.

I completely understand your thoughts. My only guess is that VO would tell you how far away you were. Qat's all I've got.
Maybe not this game, but future games by Nintendo could be made accessible. From my understanding there will be a Fire Emblem game coming out in the fall on iOS, and I can definitely see it could be accessible.

If there is a will there is a way. This can be done GPS apps have been made with interactive maps. At the very least the app could tell you if you are near a Pokemon. You could recieve alerts for when a Pokemon is near. This would be an easier game to make Vo accessible for to as the real world is the playing ground. Also with social media you could follow other people hunting Pokemon and that could help you find them as well. There are so many ways this game can be made accessible. And I hope that it soon will be!

I agree with the poster who said that it's also important to be more specific on what isn't accessible, and what could possibly be done to make it more accessible. I find that just stating that an app or feature isn't accessible isn't enough. I've had better luck being specific about what problems I'm having, and specific ideas for solving these problems. I've even created unlisted Youtube videos and shared them with developers that demonstrates the issues. The same could be done via audio.

I haven't gotten around to trying Pokémon Go yet. I've never been a fan of the franchise, but may check out the IOS app as a low vision user.

I've seen some gameplay videos though, and I can think of a few ways the game could work with VoiceOver. The information that indicates how many steps a Pokémon is away from you, and which one it is, could be spoken aloud. The capture screen seems to be a kind of augmented reality where the Pokémon appears in the real world using your phone's camera. I'm wondering if a similar type of indicator could be added to the game to let the user know when a Pokémon appears, similar to how VO let's you know how many people are in view when taking a picture. For capturing, something like Audio Archery could work.

I think it's entirely possible the game could be made to work with VO, but don't know how much incentive there is for Nintendo to do so, now that the game isn't early in development any more. I don't know how much of the game would need to be re-worked to make these accessibility changes, and they seem to have their hands full keeping up with the demand of the game as it is.

It's still worth writing to Nintendo and other developers though. I wrote to them about Miitomo already. That would be a much easier app to make accessible.

Hello,
I'm not trying to dash everyones hopes here, but I don't see how a lot of this game could be made accessible now. From what I can tell, its an overlay on top of overlay and so on. You actually see what your camera is seeing from time to time if you turn it on, and on top of that or around it is the map, and when you're around a mon, the overlay to ketch it comes up. There is a lot of info that goes on here. I do agree that some parts of the app could be made accessible though, more so the intro screen, the list of mons you have, ETC. The bluetooth accessory will be coming out soon and I do hope that will hope the problem of ketching mons. But at I believe $50 I'm not sure how many blind people will get this if the rest of the game isn't accessible.
From a useibility standpoint, a lot og great audio ideas here, but also a lot of ideas that would need headphones to be warn to ketch things, to evade attacks, ETC. A lot of this game means that you need to walk around a lot. With headphones on, that worries me a bit. We've already had a lot of people have close calls enough as it is. I think we'd have better luck getting the devs to get some kind of API so that other people can make games that are like this, and someone can come up with an audio one for the blind.
I as much as everyone here does hope for accessibility of this game. Its a lot too miss out on, and I can understnad why some peole are frustrated. The social facters, the fitness facters, the inclusive facters, not to mention, that the game is at the top of the app store right now.
I will also post too facebook and see if I can make contact. We need a big visionary though, I would think, this would be a big undertaking on their part.
Just my thoughts

I just posted a tweet to the username shown in the directory entry asking that the app be made accessible and inclusive for everyone.

I am like some others and do not think this game can be made accessible due to the complexity and visuals involved in this game. My sighted friends describe it to me and I just don’t see how. In addition, lets say they made it accessible, due to what would be involved if at all even possible, it will cost them money to perhaps do so which might make it a payed game to cover the extra cost. This is not to dash any hopes, however, this is reality with making some games accessible, it isn’t simply voiceover support, but much more would have to be worked around besides that to make it work. I am not saying it can’t be done possibly, I am just saying there is a real possibility of it not being accessible. I disagree with some, there is no way to make every game that comes out accessible, the NFB wanted all apps to be in there resolution a year or two ago, but this simply isn’t possible due to the visual nature. This is reality, a lot can be made to be accessible, but a lot can not be. It isn’t
just about layout and poor design, much more goes into the process them most people realize. Coding and programming is not easy. This is just one mans view. I hope they can make this game accessible some how, but I am not holding my breath. Also remember, when contacting the developer, be respectful and not pushy ore rude, this gets you no where and will only make them not respond or care.

It can be made accessible nothing can never not be its just a question of will it be. Someone said that we don't have a right to demand something be accessible but I tend to disagree. You can only be left out in the cold for so long before you get burned. Anyway here's dreaming and I have not given up hope that it will be unlike some people have.

I emailed Niantic again, but this time I included some specifics of what could be done to make Pokemon Go accessible. I also included the names of other audio game developers that they could use as a resource.

Kristen is correct, the game is written in a language (fairly certain it's unity) that does not support accessibility. In fact all text shows up as rendered video, so it is literally impossible to make things read. Access changes would literally have to be made from the ground up. In short, it will happen when hell freezes over.

Let's move on from the yes no back and forth arguments. There are those of us that will contact the company and hope and dream for Vo support. The rest of you can laugh at us for daring to dream but only time will tell what will happen. There is no use arguing over it. The thing is that 99% of the time you are right, we don't get accessibility support it has never happened for us yet on a game this large. But just because it has not happened yet does not mean it won't. When the Right Brothers dared to defy gravity they were laughed at and today there are thousands of planes in the sky. As someone stated Apple has gone and made a touch screen accessible for the blind. Sometimes big things do happen and shame on us for dreaming for trying. Would you have us give up and say oh well that will never happen? Well how will we know until we try? Even if we try this time and nothing comes of it you can bet that those that wish and hope will try and try again. So shame on me for being a dreamer.

We may not be able to make this game accessible, but why not games in the future? A while back, @Stirlock mentioned that it's entirely possible that they're using what's called Unity, which is a programming language with no accessibility added. so even if they used this language, they couldn't add VoiceOver support without having to rip everything apart and starting from scratch. They're wanting a look and feel from a visual standpoint that is attractive to the eye, which I can totally understand. So, I was thinking that maybe we could find a similar programming language that has accessibility hooks, and request that they write future apps in that language so they could add accessibility right from the start. This won't help for the current games but it could potentially help future ones. Is what i'm proposing even possible? Am I nuts for suggesting such a thing? See, I figure if you're going to request something from a developer, learning how they do things and, for lack of a better term, speaking their language may help us a bit.

Normally when games are somewhat accessible, i have hope because the devs will only have to make a fix here and there. In a case where a game is completely inaccessible, i have none. 100% Inaccessible = 100% do-over. A better idea is perhaps to ask some of the already dedicated devs out there, to make a pokemon game for us. Just my thoughts.

As everybody else here I would love the developers to make Pokémon Go more accessible as I have played the games and watched the show as a kid and teenager when I could still see.

However, in the meantime I found a way for myself to play at least some parts of the game even though I still need sighted help for other areas of the game.

I'm legally blind but still have some light/shadow perception, depending of the contrast level of my surroundings or, in this case, of the screen.

My sighted boyfriend helped me to set up my account and to get through the tutorial, i.e. choosing my first Pokémon - Charmander, if anyone wants to know *lol* - and creating my character.

From there on, everytime I'm starting the game, it will take me right to the view of the map.
Now when there is a Pokémon around, my phone will either vibrate or play the Pokémon's sound, depending on my phone settings.
I will now start to tap around the map and try to find the Pokémon - sometimes successful, sometimes it will be long gone, but that's fine for me.
If I manage to find the Pokémon on the map, the sound of the Pokémon will be played again and I'm tapping that again until I can recognize that my phone is switching to the camera screen.

Now I put one finger directly on the camera so that the screen turns all dark. The Pokémon is now projected on a dark background rather than on the real life picture.
With my remaining contrast and light perception I can now actually tell if something is appearing on the dark screen while I'm moving the phone around to find the little Pokémon. Also, the pokéball is located on the same dark background right above the home button and I can flick it towards the Pokémon.

The sounds will tell me if I successfully caught the Pokémon and after that, two pop-ups appear to inform you about the Pokémon you just caught.
The first pop-up has the "Confirm" button pretty much in the middle of the screen, the second one right above the home button. According to my sighted boyfriend, there can't be done much wrong here so I just tap around until I notice the pop-ups to disappear.

Now I'm back on the map, just as in the beginning.

From time to time, a very jolly sound will play and announce an achievement or an level-up, but these pop-ups disappear after tapping them once.

I obviously cannot use the feature to look for Pokémon close by, I have actually to wait for them to come by and my phone vibrating. Also I cannot do anything like leveling them up or sending them to the Professor, I need sighted help to do that.

So I know this is not a real workaround as it requires a certain level of contrast and light perception and will therefore not work for everyone, unfortunately.
Also this is still far from accessible as it allows me to play only a small fraction of the game by myself and still requires a lot of sighted assistance to do the rest.

But I'm quite happy to be able to catch at least some Pokémon, kudos to my BF for coming up with the idea to create a darker background to increase the contrast.
If there are any questions to this method, please feel free to ask as I know my explanationn may be a bit confusing, haha.

I still hope they will put in some thought towards making the game more accessible, but in the meanrtime I wanted to share this little blackening out the camera trick with you, hoping that it might help some of you.

Have a lovely weekend everyonne :)

According to a sighted friend of mine, the game states right in the start menu that it is made with Unity, research confirms that, too.
I do not know much about programming, but according to those of you around here who do, this might dash some of the accessibility hopes, right?

So would it not be wiser to contact unity and get them to get them to incorporate voice over?

I downloaded the game and yeah was a complete failure. But still do not see why it would be completely impossible to make it accessible. After all, so many sites and products, such as the iPhone have done it.

The reason I think the game can be made partially accessible is because certin aspects seem possible. Down below I have listed some of the features I think that can be incorporated with voice over:

The login page – I have been loged out of the game several times, and have to re-login. Re-loging in does not see to be an issue as it seems to work with voiceover. However, I could not begin the game as a fresh user [the initial set-up] as voice over goes completely dead. So having the actual text box fields and stuff should not be to hard, by allowing voice over to read the images. When designing a character, provide a skip button, which will automatically generate one for you.

Now the game has 3 aspects to it: the finding of pokemons, gym battles and PokeStops.

To be honest, I wouldn’t care to much on missing out on the gym battle aspect of the game. This would also be the hardist in my eyes to incorporate, as it is such a visual aspect.
The PokeStops would require some sort of thought to it, and I have none right now, as I am completely typing what ever comes to my head. Good or bad, I let you decide.

The main aspect and most important in my eyes, is the finding and capturing of pokemons. If they could make this accessible I would be more than happy. But where to begin would be the issue.

I don’t think making the map accessible matters to much. As we are blind or close to it, we do not really use a map, unless we know where we are roughly going. And with pokemon, you really don’t know where you are going, just that you need to find a pokemon.

Now finding a pokemon is half accessible, as the phone vibrates when you are close enough to capture a pokemon. I am not sure what kind of noise it makes, when you have the sound feature on, but from other posts, I have gathered that it does indicate when a pokemon is close by.
So the only issue is selecting the pokemon so the capture screen loads up, and then capturing it.
There could be several ways to help with this issue, one of them is by the introduction of the watches. I am using the watches as an a example, as it will clearly illustrate that blind/VI people are more than willing to spend money, as long as the game is accessible/playable.

So if you have got one of the watches, when your phone vibrates, you press a button on the watch and it will take you to the capture screen. You can press the button again, and it will capture the pokemon for you. Otherwise, methods on making the capturing action accessible will have to be thought off.

Remember these are quick points, and they could be better.

If we covd ask to make Unity accessble, imagine how many games would become accessible if Unity had VO hooks. So let's be UNited and see what we can do about Unity.

There are some app developers such as something else, kid friendly software, Ananse productions LLC, and LWorks. I mentioned this in a previous email to Niantic stating that they could use them as a resource.

Contacting Unity is an awesome thing to do, but also contact the developers of the apps who use it and encourage them to use hooks into VoiceOver and other accessibility stuff right from the very beginning. This way they won't feel like they're having to re-write the code for the app from scratch, just for a very small group of people. It means the world to the people who use it, but these guys are looking at things from the bottom line, which is number of downloads, good reviews in the appstore, and people recommending the app to their friends. What they're not getting is if they make the app accessible it opens up the app they're developing to an entire audience that they didn't even realize. We're not on their radar screens, so we need to make them aware that a. we'd use the app, and b. that the work that goes into it would be time well-spent for them, and work to their advantage. In other words, they have to have a reason to do it. unfortunately sometimes, it's the right thing to do isn't always going to be enough of a reason to inspire them.

There is one game out there which uses Unity... and is fully accessible. It's Freeq by Psychic Bunny. It's totally incompatible with VO, so they added vocal support. Other than that, I really am ticked about Unity, because if their platform were accessible, we'd have access to hundreds of games, including most gamebooks. I wish Apple could inclue some OCR tech in the next release of iOS. Imagine its impact on Voiceover!

Actually swift can be compiled to work both on iOs and android so I see no reason why this game were not written in swift. I'm no coder, I only work on improving design of apps, but just some thoughts.

First, here is one guide on how to play Pokémon Go without vision: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?id=19300. You might also find it helpful to read some of the comments as they also provide information about gameplay for players with visual impairment.

I do not think that it is a good investment of the developer's time to rewrite the app to support VoiceOver for iOS and Talkback for Android. This would require the whole app to be redesigned for nonvisual access, including rewriting every part of the app. What I can reasonably imagine that the developer could do (and I doubt that the developer will do this as the blind community is practically a non-existent market to them) is that they could introduce an "audio mode". Tapping in a certain part of the screen when the app first launches could introduce a mode where there is voice feedback and more use of sounds to make it possible for players with visual impairment to play the game. In time, the two modes could eventually merge so that complete sound access is provided in the regular game modes; this would increase the usability of the game for many more people.

Has anyone gotten a rewponse from their twitter or the developers email? I don't think we have but let's keep trying.. I'm not a pokimon fan, but I would love to give the game a try one day. I used to watch the cartoons when they came out and I was like in my 20s. Lol!

I have not received an email from Niantic yet.

Is this an issue that the ADA could assist with?

I sent them a new request through the link provided above. I included the Unity accessibilit plugin info. Actually that plugin is quite functional it seems
https://icodelikeagirl.com/2016/06/25/unity-accessibility-plugin-update-7-explore-by-touch/

I tried providing feedback to Niantic through their online form but when I click submit, I don't get any confirmation whatsoever. Is there something I am missing?

There are two drop-down menus: Device manufacturer and Operating system. What I did is press VO+Space on one, arrowed down until I found the one I wanted and I clicked on the option. To do thas I pressed VO+CMD+F5 to place the mouse on the VO cursor and then VO+Shift+Space to click.

has anybody tried the game with other assistive software? talkback?
or has anybody tried to get it to work on their laptop? if so, would love to know if jaws or if NVDA would work on it.

I was able, with some sighted help, to select those two drop downs, but I am using Windows 7 with JAWS.

I did figure out though, if you navigate by line passed the field title, focus lands on a blank line, but if you press on the space bar, the drop down does appear and you are able to select an option. It doesn't look like they've coded the drop downs properly using techniques from the WCAG guidelines.

I've added something in my feedback advising them that they should perhaps revisit their site and test it for accessibility with WCAG.

You can't play this game in Windows, it is only available on iOS at this time I believe. It simply is not accessible at the moment, no matter how you slice it.