Description of App
**** Selected as App of the month on AppleVis
**** Just wait till I play against my sighted friends - I will so beat them. - 16 year-old blind girl
**** This is completely different - You play in your head, not on the screen. Amazing. - a Dad.
**** This is fun! - I never liked app games before - 70 year old blind veteran.
**** It feels like a brain training game - like Luminosity - a Mom.
**** Is this how blind people get around? - a Kid.
Think you can drive a car better than a blind person?
Take your courage for a spin… try to drive with your ears instead of your eyes!
Listen carefully so you don't crash into fences and watch out for animals crossing the street.
Finish each level quickly to get points... cross all the finish lines and prove you're the Champ!
PS: Watch out for trolls, bears and bridges!
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Blindfold Racer was created for blind and visually impaired folks with help from the students in the app club at Cushman School, Miami FL. Thanks to the
students at Lighthouse for the Blind Miami and Broward and the veterans at the VA Med Center for their suggestions. And thanks to the dozens of children
and adults that told us that Blindfold Racer a great game for everyone.
This game does not require iPhone or iPad accessibly turned on, and everything in the game is spoken to you.
Comments
Hey sounds nice. I'll try the
Hey sounds nice. I'll try the game when I"m out today and post my full comments if I remember to do so. *smiles*
Glad to have a racing game up there that we can play. I love racing games.
Blindfold racer
Hi.
First off, great job on making an amazing game!
I played it and got to the 10th level
now for the bugs, the steering seems to be quite buggy. If you turn to the left it turns to the right and if you turn to the right it turns to the left. also there's no indication that the game is played by holding your phone flat left to right.
Well there is, but it's not in the beginning of the game.
Sometimes, if you've completed a level and tap the bottom right of the screen to continue it either doesn't work or says you have to complete the level again.
There's no indication that you need to swipe your finger around the settings screen to find the options.
One more thing, the Icon on the IPhone screen is spelt wrong, on the screen is, blind fold racr, when it should be blindfold racer.
So, I'd give this game a 3 out of 5.
Oh and there's no way to contact the people who made the game. There's an email link in the game but not on this page.
If someone could put an email link on this page, that would be great.
Racer
This game is pretty good. My only problem is that after you get to level 19, with the troll, it starts crashing. I unlocked all the levels, but level 20 crashes as well. Very disappointing.
Just got done beating every
Just got done beating every level I can play without it. There are 34 levels in all, but the talking of adding more.
Hi are there real car sounds
Hi are there real car sounds in the game or just the music? Thanks for making this game awesome job!
Please contact me if you have problems...
Send me an email at marty@kidfriendlysoftware.com
Bugs you found
We worked for a long time on trying to keep the introduction as short as possible. For the next version, we'll add something for the iphone to tell you to keep it "with the home button on the right". I'm starting to write up the blogs about how we developed this, and holding it was a major issue to solve, without being overly wordy.
As to SETTINGS, when you enter the settings screen, it should tell you to move your finger right & left to hear the options, and press and hold for 5 seconds to get an option. If that didn't happen, please let me know. If you can think of a better way to do this, let me know. Our goal was to completely remove VOICE ASSIST so the app remained friendly.
We changed from BLINDFOLD RACER to BLINDFOLD RACR because on some devices, it was too long. We will go back and check that issue again.
The only place where RIGHT and LEFT are reversed is around level 34 (the rainstorm). I guess you encountered a bug - we didn't find this in testing. In the SETTINGS screen, there's a way to send me your diagnostic log, so we can figure out what happened. If you remember what level the reverse happened in, it would really help us.
When did you tap the bottom right and have it tell you to repeat the level again? Usually you need a score over 50, but if you crashed into something (like an elephant), it you have to repeat the level. Perhaps it didn't tell you, or when you touched the screen, that stopped the talking, so you didn't hear it. In any event, knowing which level that occurred on will help us solve the problem.
We generally took the attitude that when you tap the screen, it stops talking to you, assuming that you've heard whatever its about to say before. I think that may have happened with your experience a few times. If that's the case, do you think we should never stop talking unless that specific sentence has already been said at least once?
Level 20 crashes?
In the SETTINGS screen, there's an option to send an email to the developer, and that includes the diagnsotic log. That would be very helpful. Or, if you could tell me more-or-less what you did in level 20, I can try to emulate it. Was it on a iphone or ipad?
Real car sounds
No there aren't. We tried them, but it became too annoying. For example, when we give you the speed sound (a kettle drum), we first tried showing you how fast you are going by making the engine speed faster. However, with everything else you need to concentrate on, it became obnoxious and everyone wanted to throw their iphone out of the window. We tested lots of sounds - only the kettle drum sound was sufficiently pleasant.
Racing game
When we tested this at Lighthouse for the Blind in Miami, several teens thought we should make a version that's like FLAPPY BIRD - in other words, as soon as you crash, you need to restart the entire game. If people think that's a good idea, we'll release another version that removes the logic puzzles (such as the troll or the jetpack) and keep it with longer and longer roads and more and more animals. We can also do a leaderboard - and let people post their scores. Thoughts?
More levels...
We have about 34 levels in the game; what kind of levels do people want? Should it be more logic puzzles (like finding all of the guitars), or should it be a longer track with more obstacles and prizes?
jet pack
I love this game but I'm finding it very hard to launch the jet pack where you have to double tap exactly in the middle of the screen. It seems very picky where you double tap so keep hitting the brick wall.
never mind
I figured the jet pack thing out but I am disappointed that it crashes on level 19. I'm sure this'll be fixed soon hopefully.
Great game
Hi,
this really is a great game, I like it very much!
The only problem I also have is, that sometimes when I tap the bottom right corner of the screen to go to the next level, it simply doesn't react. I often have to tap multiple times for it to work.
I could not find other problems though.
When you do more levels, please do more puzzle ones. I really like these! Just avoiding stuff becomes to repetitive after a while, and having to start the whole game over because of one crash would be far too frustrating to me, I wouldn't play that. I like puzzles more.
Thanks for this cool game!
Double-tapping for jet pack
I assume you are playing on an iphone, and we probably set the limits for edge taps versus center taps too close. The edge taps are for speeding up and slowing down. We'll change it so that double tapping anywhere will work. Right now, its only double tapping when not near the edge. Thanks!
Need Advice
Apple takes about a week to review an update once we do it, so I want to make sure the next update not only resolves the problems people have found, but has a handful of new logic puzzles, and maybe some more tracks. If you have ideas for some logic puzzles, please let me know.
Each level is just a text file (we create that in about 10 minutes), and if there's some special logic going on, that programming takes us usually under an hour. The hardest part tends to be finding good sound samples for whatever we need. It was very important to us in the design to make the sound and voices the exciting part of the app, so it is equally accessible to everyone.
So again - if you have ideas, let me know. If each person who plays this game contributes one idea, it will have hundreds of levels in a few months. I think that would be great! Most of these levels were thought up by students in my App Club at a middle school in Miami. Most of the interaction of the product was revised by teens at Lighthouse for the Blind in Miami and in Broward. Suggestions also came from some 70 year old veterans who are visually disabled - this was the first app game they ever played and they loved it.
On another note, having a racing game between multiple cars is hard because with just two speakers - one in each ear - you can't really tell the difference between a car in front of you versus a car behind you. There are some 3D sound software libraries we can use, but we want to know that the game is popular before we re-build that part of the app. This app took about a year to build - we spent a lot of time testing it with both sighted and visually impaired people of all ages.
I haven't played this game
I haven't played this game yet but it sounds awesome and I shall download it tonight.
I agree with someone above when they say it would drive her mad to have to start the whole game again because of one crash; Games already like it annoy the hooter out of me. Lol
Can't wait to play this. :)
I did a podcast on the game.
I did a podcast on the game. I had to end it at level 20 as it crashed at the troll, or maybe that's level 19? I can't remember. I do think I had a bit too much fun. the odd thing wad though I had to putmy ear buds on backwards even though I know I had them on correctly. You will hear that in the recording.it was a bit freaky. maybe it was an osx setting? I dunno. but yeah this was very odd. I have never encountered this before. I use a set of ear pods where the mic is on the right hand side so I know I had them on right. Enjoy.
Great Podcast!
Thanks!
jet pack
It seems that the work around for the jet for now is to do a two finger double tap anywhere and that seems to activate the jet pack. I would like to have car sounds instead of music. Afterall, it is a racing game. Thank you for listening to our suggestions.
blindfold racer
This sound's like a excellent game. I will be trying this game out later today.
Hi guys, great job, and also
Hi guys, great job, and also I agree with Kerby
Good potcast Marrie, I
Good potcast Marrie, I enjoyed it! also nice intro with the aircraft passing by! lol!
ear buds reversed
Thanks for your comment. When the game starts off, it even tells in your left ear to make sure that you are hearing this in your left ear.
I've seen some iPhones being set for mono output, but I think the app now detects that.
If you have suggestions for more levels, please let me know.
We will start a YouTube channel or something for all the people video recording themselves playing the game. Not only is this game designed to be fully accessible, but educators have told us that its great for children with auditory attention and listening issues. It helps train their brains to listen as opposed to just hear.
ear buds reversed
Thanks for your comment. When the game starts off, it even tells in your left ear to make sure that you are hearing this in your left ear.
I've seen some iPhones being set for mono output, but I think the app now detects that.
If you have suggestions for more levels, please let me know.
The smiles that I see on people's faces, and what they say, when they first start playing the game has made this project really meaningful to everyone who participated.
I want to share that with others - I was thinking of starting a YouTube or audio-sharing channel so people can record themselves playing the game.
Any suggestions?
Car sounds
What kind of car sounds would you like? If its for detecting the fence on both sides of the road, I would think that would get boring after a while.
Some teens suggested we let you pick from your playlist as additional sources of music.
We can do that, but sometimes the music in your playlist may have too much going on, it will would be hard to hear the prizes and animals on the road.
Comments anyone?
car sounds
A racecar sound would be nice. If it's too loud to hear other things on the road, you should be able to adjust the volume of the car sound. Also, there seems to be an issue with trying to feed the trolls pop corn and soda. The game freezes.
No mine is not set for mono
No mine is not set for mono output. and all sounds in my ear pods are in stereo na din the right direction. Hmm very odd. and I was hearing it in my right ear. The recording even shows that.
In regard to the plane that could not have been better planned. lol! Good job in the game. I did email you my crash logs so hope you got them.
Take care and be blessed.
Troll
We will be releasing a new version in a few weeks with those bugs fixed. If anyone has ideas for more levels, let me know ASAP, so we can include them in the new version
Wrong ears
iphone or ipad or ipod?
what version of iOS?
when you started it, even the "you should hear this in your left ear" was in your right ear?
ios7.1.1 is my ios version
ios7.1.1 is my ios version on an iphone 5.
I tested it wiht out my mixer and I could hear it properly. Mayve it was my wet up although I can't think how unless I have my wires on my board crossed. lol!
I'll say this much if that was the case, I'll feel pretty stupid for posting this. lol!
Take care and be blessed to all.
Bluetooth headphones?
Hello, I'd like to use my new Bluetooth headphones with this game, but it only accepts plugged in ones. Apparently the game can detect if there's something plugged into the headphone jack. If this could be reworked, I'd appreciate it, since then that would free up the need for a phone with a cord plugged in.
For the upgrade
Hi again all,
First of all, I think it's fantastic that the developper of this game is so willing to read and take our comments on board for new versions; thanks so much.
Second, I am listening to mary1's podcast now, and I also agree with her when she says it'd be nice if, during the animal and other levels , the game would just resume on its own, or even wait til the end of the level to congratulate you; that would be so much smoother in my opinion; do you agree?
Even though the car sounds would make it more realistic, I love the music so far and not sure I'd want it to go away completely; mm not sure about that one.
Overall, awesome stuff here and I didn't get to download it last night so def doing so tonight. :)
I dunno about a carsound.
I dunno about a carsound. That would be a bit distracting for me personally. and the music is very intertaining. Hehaha. I don't have any ideas at present, how ever i might play a few levels back jut to see if I can improve my score a bit.
Take care to all andbe blessings.
Bluetooth headphones
When it asking you to plug in the headphones, swipe the screen from the bottom to the top. It will take a few seconds, but will skip that requirement.
Continuing on its own
It only waits for you to tap the screen in the first few levels; once you pass level 5, I think, it continues on its own. When testing, we found too many people (sighted, not visually impaired) were confused at all the sounds, and needed to know what happened, and fully understand what it meant. I didn't find this with the students at Lighthouse for the Blind, but I did find it when testing with adults (as opposed to children or teens). Let me know if you find it waits for your tap in higher levels.
I believe it stopped after a
I believe it stopped after a certain level, but I can't remember. Lol! I was gabbing about the podcast when doing the podcast so was not paying attention. Hey I found it a good time to update some users on what was happening in regard to the podcast. I think though it did stop saying congratulations in the middle of the thingy at some point. I have to go back maybe a few levels and play a bit to see. Lol!
Good job on the game.
Car Sounds & Playlists
Do you think we should let the player select from their playlist or music library?
leave the music
I happen to like the music the way it is, now if only I could get past level 13.
I can't seem to steer well on that level, not sure if it's because I'm using a 4th gen iPod or if I'm just not very good at steering.
I don't think that should make a difference though.
Is the gyroscope more sensitive on the newer devices?
I would like to be able to
I would like to be able to choose between a race car sound and the music. Personally, I'd rather have the racecar sound as I think it would be a little year to judge where on the road it was. I would also like to be able to choose the sounds for when I'm getting close to the fence. The sound of a car going on the shoulder of the road… That would be a lot more realistic than dings and beeps, but again that's up to preference I would like to see things like nitrous boosts to give you even more speed, levels were you have to race other cars that are trying to run you off the road, and a multiplayer mode where you can race against other people. Also, I love the logic puzzles and would like to see more of those. I wouldn't even be disagreeable to mazes, with numerous dead ends and only one way out. I would also like the driving mechanics to be fixed so that they are more like a real driving experience. When you're driving on a road straight, and have to make a turn, if you go to far and then straighten out again, the car will veer because it's not aligned with the road properly. similarly, if you didn't turn quite far enough before you straightened out, the car would veer the other way. I wouldn't recommend this driving mechanic for anyone who is on the easy difficulty level, but I would certainly like to see it for the hard difficulty level. You also might consider creating a level editor, so that people could make their own levels. That would actually be very nice to see as well. I know how hard you guys are working on this game, and I appreciated very much. You guys are doing a great job! by the way, just because I feel like bragging I'll tell you that I beat every level that didn't crash.
puzzles and mazes
I totally agree with the last poster. I'd love to see puzzles and mazes in later levels. As far as the game stopping to tell you that you've successfully missed an animal on the road or successfully got the prize and hit the screen to continue, I think that should be up to the user to decide whether that should be announced in earlier levels. You can do that by putting that in the easy level of difficulty. In the hard level of difficulty, the user shouldn't have to be prompted to hit the screen to continue at any level. Thanks and I too love this game. Just for the record, I haven't had any problems with sounds being in the wrong ear.
Driving...
I need to process a lot of your comments, but one thing I wanted to point out - we originally developed the app using the same mechanisms as a car - in other words, once you turn to the right, after you complete the turn, the car is driving 90 degrees from where it was, but straight. Which means, the entire world has shifted 90 degrees, and now you need to keep the steering wheel straight to continue turning to the right. Or, if you turned the steering wheel 30 degrees to the right, and waited long enough, the car would turn in a complete circle. That made it much harder to control the car - including things like inertia or other concepts seemed the right way to go, but made it almost impossible for me to even play. I will look at those concepts again, but for now, I will look into more levels as the next big improvement. The other thing that is built into the app, but not enabled (or completed), is the ability to create your own track (by dragging your finger on the screen). You would not believe how much trigonometry goes back into figuring out where the road is (haven't played with trig since high school), but it was a requirement. We've been working on the blog that talks about how we developed the app, and this will be discussed there. Once we know the path of the track, it automatically computes the left and right fence (which is nontrivial because you have to know which direction the car is moving and which direction the track is heading).
Another cool thing is how much better people who don't rely on their eyes are compared to people who do. The best comment I've heard was from a 16 year old teen from the Lighthouse for the Blind in Broward Country, Florida. "I can't wait to play against my sighted friends. I will so beat them."
Hard vs. Easy
Has anyone played the game at the hard level? Have any of you playing the game used the SETTINGS screen - is it sufficiently accessible? I'm not sure what we will do once we have more options than fit on the screen on the iPhone, without going into voice assist mode. As we add more features, we'll need buttons for inventory, picking music, etc.
We wanted the entire game to sound friendly - that's why we didn't use voice assist of the iPhone.
Any suggestions?
Engine Sound
If we add engine sound for the left and right side of the fence, should it be just one engine, or a variety of them, and if a variety, should it pick randomly at each level? It seems to be, in real life, the engine sound would tell you how fast, not where the sides of the road are. But, on the other hand, if you were driving in a tunnel, you would hear the echo of the engine sound bouncing off the tunnel wall. So maybe it makes sense after all to have that option. We'll probably keep the music, but let you switch to an engine sound.
Car sound
Hi I agree with the last poster about the engine sound. Will you also make the sound pitch increase as the car speeds up? And a gear transmition system would be fine. Good job keep it up
Realise the more sounds that
Realise the more sounds that are added the bigger the game will get. I think it would be ideal to keep the game below 50 mb so that users on 3g/4g can still dl the game.
good job.
Download Limits
Aren't download size limits 100 megabytes now?
re: app size in regard to blindfold racer and 3g/4g
Oops? That's what happens when you are working on a thesis. Well, I would still want to keep the app size down in case someone does have a data cap. hence why I'm kind of against the car sounds and all of that stuff. Plus it would get mighty confusing at times.
easy/hard levels
I do find it a bit confusing when I switch from easy to hard in settings because while it does say which level you just switched to, it doesn't stay that way. I know you're supposed to tap and hold to switch levels it doesn't always work unless I'm doing something wrong.
Hi again all,
Hi again all,
I swear, as all the bugs are all ironed out in the latest upgrades, this will be the best IOS game ever so far in my opinion;I absolutely love it so much; I'm not usually into puzzle games so didn't think I'd be so enthused about it.
I played right up until a phone call interupted me - about level 14; more tonight though since it's the weekend.
Exceelent work all involved in making this game. :)