Hello all! Excited to post today about a project... really a life goal... that I'd like to explore.
I want to produce a series of games targeted to the blind and low-vision. These would be games I love to both create and play. I'm low vision myself so understand the challenges of creating an interface and a text-to-speech or steaming audio challenges as well as simple Voiceover or Talkback friendly interfaces. Games would vary from simple brain games to strategy games, adaptations of board games, interactive fiction, competitive out-guessing, simulations, and such. They woud range from simple individual goal-based challenges to full-blown massively multi-player.
I'm a serious player. I developed many games back in the 90's until I had to switch to serious business work to raise a faimily. In the 2010s I created several phone applications as a side hobby, including one targeted to the blind and low vision community. This last app was Voicebook, an interface to Facebook for the blind and low vision which was fairly popular for a short time until Facebook changed a policy which cut off my ability to have the app continue to work. In short, I know both how to construct a computer game and how both web and app technologies work.
As I approach retirement, I'm finding myself prepared to not focus as much on making a living as I am on chasing my passions and making both myself and others happy based on the work I'm doing. What better than to make games that the blind and low-vision community both sorely need and desire. At the same time, I will need the project to be at least self-perpetuating if not create a modest income to sustain further development of additional games. My hope is to create a one-stop shop of several to over one hundred games that the community will want to play on a regular basis and support keeping them around as well as creating new games as time goes on. I frther hope that this will be a successful labor of love that I'll want to continue well into my retirement days for the love of it, as well as open the door to outside contributos to continue the work even after I may not be able to.
With all that said, I need to gather feedback from the potential gamers to know what would be viable and what is not as realistic. I know it's easy to dream big, but the real world dictates what actually works. For this reason, I want to gather feedback and ideas from a wide variety of people from different walks of life and with differing constraints to both validate ideas and generate new ideas I wouldn't come up with on my own. In this there is the best chance to produce fun, engaging, and realistically viable entertainmen for this community.
I'm posting all this to give you an idea of who I am and what this project is about. Next I will post some invitations for gathering information by surveys and conversation. Almost as important is ideas on what other forums are you aware of that I should explore to gather even more feedback. While this is a great place to discuss this, I'm sure there are other places to get even more feedback that you know of that I do not. Please feel free to suggest those locations in replies or by direct message to me.
I look forward to hearing back from you and working with the community to see what fun we can all have!
Comments
Perhaps
Perhaps check the forum at audiogames.net. I know it isn't quite what you had in mind but have you considered mods for existing mainstream games? Ones already exist for Stardew Valley, Factorio, Hearthstone, World of Warcraft and a number of others. You get the advantage of built in name recognition and in many cases the option for blind people to play not just with each other but sighted friends who wouldn't play a specifically designed accessible game. Many such projects accept donations including subscriptions via Patreon to fund themselves but I'm sorry to say mod or full fledged game you're unlikely to make a notable income past breaking even.
dawn caster kind of g ame
hi!
I am looking for or wait for something like dawn caster or any games like it..
it is sounds a good game!
Ludo?
You can't beat a bit of ludo, but as far as I know only 1 works with VoiceOver, and its no longer even on the app store, so probably a matter of time until it stops working?
Potential Ideas
Hello. I like the idea of creating more accessible games for people to play, and do have a few thoughts.
I agree with a previous poster, that making mods for existing games is a great way to give blind and low vision players the opportunity to play the same games as their sighted friends. Unfortunately, it's also hard to get sighted players to play purely audio games, because they just have to have the pretty colors thing... I also find that because mainstream games are designed for a wider audience, and can potentially sell more, many of these games have more replayability and variety than games designed specifically for blind players. I still enjoy these, but do find myself quitting accessible games quicker compared to visual games I am able to play.
That said, I'd love to see some blind accessible variations of some classic IOS games that I could see being translated into a more audio form. One early classic I still come back to is Jetpack Joyride, and I think there could be an audio version of this that would work pretty well. I'd have to go back and find a list of others I think would translate well, but that's another option.
I still enjoy word and text adventure based games, but there are so many of these. I know people are craving more action and audio games, especially with the loss of devs like Somethin' Else Games.
I'd be glad to chat or offer more ideas privately. You can find me on social media and YouTube at IllegallySighted.
For the sake of success but…
For the sake of success but also just because we do live in a world where most are sighted, games that both blind and sighted can play would be excellent. I don't have any blind friends, boo hoo, but do like playing games with sighted friends. There are obviously some barriers between us which precludes certain games, but building just for the blind and partially sighted, might narrow your market without needing to.
I'd go the other way. Make cool games that blind people can play rather than making blindness the centre of the experience... If that makes any sense at all. I, for one, switch off when something is named, Blind, or is designed for the blind etc. It just feels exclusive, and not in a good way. Bridging gaming experiences between people of all abilities, I believe, is the way forward. We're all good at certain things and supporting each other through game play, or competing, is all part of the great social experience.
Shamelessly promoting IllegallySighted
The IllegallySighted YouTube channel will definitely get some attention to your product. Jesse does an awesome job of reviewing accessibility in all kinds of hardware and software, especially video/Audio games.
PS I am in no way affiliated with IllegallySighted, I am just a huge fan. 😇
IllegalySighted
Going to check this stuff out... as someone who has carried the "Legally Blind" label all his life, I love the play on words here.
Target Practice
Well, this is why I like asking the crowd... hadn't really thought of the bridging sighted and not sighted in the same system. I will tell you that I enjoy text-based games as that was my first love in gaming and it translates to text-to-speech so well with a little thoughtfulness on organization of information and designing interfaces to consider how gestures work for phone input under accessibility overlays. I'm also very aware that they are being popular as retro at this point, although that's only a minor bonus.
But, yeah, seeing the desire for bridging between siggted and non-sighted makes sense. I see that feedback here as well as other recent posts on AppleVis and some Facebook forums I'm trolling. I will tell you having graphics is probably the hardest part of selling to the mass market... I have no talents there and selling to the mass market visually interesting things takes talent... and I have little interest in building flash over substance games as it's just not my thing.
Nothing says games that can appeal to both groups can't be done if the graphics are window dressing... enough to be pleasing to the eye if the gameplay is the centerpiece could work.
I call things that are built for the mass market but are generally accessible "accidentally accessible", but always have grave concerns as they are always but potentially one update away from breaking that accessibility. I could certainly jive to making a platform of games where accessibility is guaranteed, organization of information and interface around the unsighted is priority, but built and branded to be inclusive. Gameplay would have to be the centerpiece always though. I think the lack of exciting visuals could be a drag on the sighted end of the stick though and adds complications and therefore development time. I have to think through this a bit.
I could certainly try and ride the retro gaming wave... but guarantee that will peter out at some point and I'm pretty sure that's got limited appeal on the mobile platform... more length in the computer based interface.
Call them out
A few games people would love to seee translated into an accessible platform have been mention. Keep calling those out. I've got a list, but happy to expand it. Of course, I'm not going to copy or steal ideas... but just like in music, I can incorporate the interesting bits along with my own unique ideas into a new piece of work... or just use them as inspiration that I can take in a sideways direction into something entirely new.
Accessible means not fun?
For a comment made above of games designed to be accessible often have limited replay-ability, I agree with that for simple games. I would want to make some of these, but balance them with more complex games... generally along the strategic lines with multiple players interacting or Massively Multi-player type games. As examples of the more complex games, think of running a space empire where you have to send out fleets to colonize planets to capture resources for further expansion, patrol your belongings, attack other players to take over their planets, create trade routes and protect them, create and break alliances via internal mechanics and player-to-player communications, deal with the lead time in communicating with other players and your fleets because of communication delays in speed-of-light limited communications to outer fringes, etc... Build and expand this over a period of several months until you're declared the galactic overload on the leaderboard and your name is on the brag board for the next few years... then do it all again taking a new shot in a virgin universe.
Or the classic medieval style multiplayer system where you develop a party of characters, interact with others, create a business or risk adventuring for spoils, level up your skills with training, forge magical weaponry, build onto towns with your named and flavored businesses, fight exocytic creatures in the dungeons or who raid the established towns, hang out in the pub and socialize, create new civilizations by building fortresses that support like-minded people, etc.
Or, start a band and work social media to get your art to the world, choose how and when to publicize, who you will work with to promote, dodge the grifters, grind the clubs and the streaming platforms until your single makes it to the top of the streaming platform charts against the other players who are striving for the same accolades...
Given gameplay such as the above, feel like there would be good replay-ability in that?
Of course, there can be the classic resource management games where you try and beat the system or the audio-based shoot 'em up arcade games, but I view those more as "fun for a while" and the first few as the real engagement scenarios.
I think you could certainly…
I think you could certainly have turn based games including notifications. A factor in space battle, for example, is the time to travel there. It might take several hours in your flavour of FTL. Another player gets a notification they're under attack, or under threat, with a huge fleet surrounding the home world, will you comply with demands, fight and maybe die?
There is a lot of scope for that in a text based game. I too don't know about graphics, or what is expected. But it's narrative driven, people playing people can talk, take actions, etc. Space war over whatsapp, kind of a thing. You could frame it as your phone becoming a communicator to your fleet commander, your home world etc. This could turn it into something more like a chat app, maybe you could get some images down the road with altogether text, commanders sending images of the aftermath, etc.
I think text based, turn based is a great call. It's sight agnostic, and I think that's where things really get interesting. Let us play games that are just games, not blind games. It just feels so much more inclusive. I don't eat blind sandwiches, drink blind tea, use a blind phone or computer, so I don't want to be playing a blind game. I'm quite aware I am blind, I don't really want to be reminded about it.
Ha! As you can tell, I feel quite strongly on the matter. Sorry about the rant!
Re:Accessible means not fun?
I suspect the biggest issue here is a lot of accessible games are hobbyist or side projects without the time, resources and/or experience to make real depth. It can be overcome but the more you put into the game the harder it is to break even later as the Windows game Rail Racer found out.
I could absolutely see myself going for an accessible version of a game like Game Dev Tycoon, it's frustrating that it's inaccessible given how easy it would be to adapt.
A Few More thoughts
I like the ideas of either some kind of space, midieval, or music type game. I haven't been traditionally a fan of the turn based combat in many RPG's over the years, but have warmed up to this type of combat some in recent years. I guess I've more preferred games where I actually have control over my character, and feel like my skill determines whether I succeed or fail in battle. I used to jokingly call the Final Fantasy series Menu Fantasy with a few friends.
There are some pretty cool card battlers already, and some RPG's on mobile. I feel that some of the RPG's don't keep my attention for as long because they boil down to pressing a button and watch numbers get bigger. Lost Vault and Warshovel are fun, and have a good amout of things to do, but I'd like something similar with more actual gameplay instead of everything being automated.
Here are some games I play visually on IOS that I think could be turned into accessible audio games: Jetpack Joyride, Tiny Wings, Crossy Road, Fruit Ninja, Maximum Car, Super Mario Run (would need to use different characters but would work), Giant Boulder of Death, Threes!, Ridiculous Fishing, etc.
A couple of these may no longer be available in the App store, but I've covered most of them.
Hope that helps.
Quality of audio games over mainstream
Disclosure, I am partially sighted, and have been playing games since the days of the NES. SO I've seen mainstream gaming in all its many forms. I've also played enough audio games, and read descriptions of others enough to find for myself, games designed for the blind are usually more casual in nature and often of different quality than ones aimed at sighted players. Pale immitations. I don't believe that is a result of poor development, but more supply and demand. Resourses and not enough noteriety. Games are complicated to make, and one needs some return on the time and effort it takes. A lot of blind people I've run into or read comments from aren't really interested in paying for products. There are likely personal and financial reasons for this. All this to say I don't think the aim should be games "designed with the blind in mind", but as others have said, to bridge the gap between the sighted and blind. Some games are doing this, and quite successfully. Here are just a few I can think of that have total, or near total accessibility.
The Last of Us I and II.
As Dusk Falls
Mortal Kombat One
Brock the InvestiGator - way less silly than it sounds
1498 Shadows over Solesia
There may be others, but all of these demonstrate a level of quality accessibility rarely seen. Many other mainstream games have some accessibility, and lend themselves well to greater accessibilty potential. I think it's more about company's willingness and know-how. Point and Click adventure games, RPGs - especially 2D but Last of Us proves 3D could work too, and fighting games have a great potential here. Accessibility is indeed possible, and I think it would help to have a greater push towards it, when it is viable.
That being said, my oppinion is based on me enjoying these kinds of games. I'm not generally into the casual games scene. SO I'm basing this on the kinds of games I like. In my experience the quality between games of these types between mainstream and audio games are vastly different.
Concur with Remy
I am totally blind. However, I spent the first 33 years of my life with 20/20 vision, so like Remy, I understand a little about the complexity in mainstream gaming as well as the simplicity of the games currently available exclusively for the blind. I have 2 of the games of Remy's list above, plus one more though it is an older 2D fighter; SkullGirls 2nd Encore.
Needless to say I play the pants off of my mainstream games whereas the dozen or so audio games and/or IF games are collecting the proverbial dust on my iPhone's home screen.
I do have hopes that one day, games like the aforementioned will be the rule, rather than the exception. 🙂
Target Practice
It's pretty clear that the opinion, at least in this forum, is to Bridge the gap between the mass market and making a game in a way that is accessible. This does color my opinion of what I was aiming at and I'm still digesting it a bit.
I do think, with dedication, good games for just the blind community is viable. From some searching, it appears there is about 4 million English speaking individuals in this community. Of course, only a portion would end up playing games, and only a portion of those would be willing or able to play. Counter to that, there would be a lot of English as a second language people to throw into the market potential as well. All that said, a safe estimate of potential English speaking blind and low vision people would be around 600,000. If well crafted games could capture 5% of that market, that's 30,000 players. At a couple of dollars a year from that crowd, it's more than viable for an indie group to make quality stuff.
All that said, if we took the tactic of making the games blind friendly but mass market capable, the numbers only go up and support the "play with all your friends" mindset, as long as the sighted experience is compelling.
I was originally going to put all the games under one application experience for two reasons: 1. Name recognition and expansion. If you include all sorts of games then you get buzz going among all sorts of types of gamers (serious, casual, occasional) over different gaming experiences (strategy, simulation, RPG, pass-the-time) and adding new titles to keep people coming back is easier. I will say this does introduce problems such as glut and making discoverability (finding the game you want or seeing the new titles) more difficult. The 2nd real factor was payment... if you could get a wealth of games for only a single subscription (assuming compelling and regularly new content) then it's an easier proposition for someone to give up a few dollars rather than having to sell each title individually. I know a good chunk of the market would be on low or fixed incomes so think it's a real consideration.
So, this brings up some interesting wrinkles if targetting the mass market
1. Do you sell the titles as individual games?
2. How do you handle ease of interface for VoiceOver? I was going to design an interface that was quick/simple for VoiceOver swiping, but putting that into the hands of the sighted complicates the options considerably. Perhaps making a VoiceOver friendly interface an option that is turned on is the way to go? A little more complicated on my end, but may serve everyone the best.
Simple vs. Complex game goals?
Some of the above discussion has been that "simple" games targeted for the blind audience do not have a lot of reply. I saw three major reasons for that:
1. Game is too simple, nothing new to see on replay
2. Game is based on making the biggest numbers... fun for a minute but then lose interest
3. Games are goal based (Like Interactive fiction) and once the goal is achieved there's no reason to keep playing it.
I think the simple low-content game is simple to deal with... don't make them or only target them to the very casual player and expect them to only play it for a while. I was thinking of having some of these on a free tier that celebrated the old style of computer games that came out of the 70's.
Games based on making the biggest numbers I was going to deal with by competitive play. Instead of being told you made 3,487 points, it's better to say your in 4th place on your leaderboard, where the leaderboard is either global gamers or your own personal circle of friends. Circle of friends leaderboards tend to be the most effective as you really don't want to be behind your buddy and take the razing.
Goal based games are going to have lower replay ability just by their nature. However, having variation within the game and making people want to discover the content that may have missed is the mitigations I look toward. This does require the game maker to have good depth of complexity and payoffs in the content, so it's about creating compelling stories and situations to the point where the player says "I wonder wohat would happen if..." and replays.
Now that I think about it, the replay ability factor is another reason why having all the games in one app experience is helpful. Even if you beat some of the goal-based games, there will be more and since you've already paid for it, you don't have to pay again.
Research
There are a couple of games that you may be interested in checking out for the purpose of research. The first one I will mention is a game made for both the sighted and the blind. That is to say that it is a video game, that is blind accessible. The next one is designed more or less exclusively for the blind, and it is an app, that has a series of games built into it.
FEER, this is an endless runner where you dodged zombies while collecting coins/points. Very fun to play, very addictive, and an excellent time waster when you have nothing better to do.
Audio Game Hub, this is an application that has a series of audio games inside of it. Some are free, some are behind a paywall. The games are very easy to use, and you do not even need to have VoiceOver running, as it is "self voiced".
So, the reason I mentioned those is because if you are considering a game that is a mainstream video game, but is accessible to the blind, FEER would be a good game for you to check out.
On the other hand, Audio Game Hub might interest you, if you're considering designing an app that hosts a series of games in an all-in-one package.
Different Strokes, Different Folks
It's not like there's ever enough entertainment, so allow me to be the counterpoint player and say that eclectic, whimsical, original, novel, artistically pleasing, or otherwise interesting games that happen to be targeted primarily at an audience of listeners (but not, as discussed, exclusively) is not at all a bad idea. Audio games don't have a monopoly on simplicity. And Interactive Fiction is most certainly not impossible to replay, as you say the storycraft may leave avenues for replayability, but so does sheer artistic beauty. I'm a big fan of IF.
Of course, mainstream games will often have big budgets behind them—no doubt about that. If you can do something to add accessibility to one, that would be awesome. But as someone who's done that already together with my old uni friend (Audioquake), I can honestly say that I've never regretted tracking the audio game scene and enjoying many of the games that have been released, old and new, before and since. There's a lot of whimsy in that simplicity, especially on iOS where the medium really fits and is very well suited to circumstances where those games are played. Feer and Audiogame Hub are indeed superb examples.
JMO.
Two IF by 'see'
If you decide to go with the IF route, might I make a suggestion?
There is a choose your adventure game on the App Store, it has been around for a number of years now, made by Hosted Games LLC, called "The Lost Heir, The Fall of Daria".
This came, more or less, follows the traditional rules of role-playing games. Whereas you get gear and items too booster stat points, so that you can fight more monsters and get more gear and loot, etc. what made this game unique, was that whenever you gained a stat point you would get a text notification that would pop up in the middle of the gameplay, for example say if you happened to get a dagger, and the little pop-up said something like +3 to strength.. It made the game a little more interactive, and made it a lot more enjoyable to play, since even though it was a text based game, it felt a little more involved than your typical text base games. If that makes sense?
So they're in lies my suggestion. If you go the IF route, do something to it to give it a little more thrill.