enough with simplistic games

I have some sympathy for your point of view here, the amount of card, word, dice, number and co-ordination test games constantly coming out gets to me. Song tests, quiz games, Simon like games, it doesn't interest me. Then we have interactive novels, I've tried those too and I usually get so fed up with them that I stop halfway. It's rare I find something I like and can play. But if I were a game developer I'd see two reasons why I'd think twice before developing something for us.

First of all, developing any game costs time and a lot of money, and if you're going to do it properly I do mean a lot, and I know this from experience. I was asked by someone I won't name if they could develop one of my games for the iPhone. They wanted me to pay them to do it. Four thousand dollars was the sum mentioned, and that game was what I think you'd call fairly simplistic, so think what the kind of game you'd be wanting to play might cost. Of course, if someone is doing the coding themselves the cost is less, but good sound and the graphics you need these days costs money, and that has to be paid for somehow, and with the plethora of free games around, people are less likely to want to pay for a game they've never played.

But there is another problem, and this runs deeper. Any new game that comes out is likely to be criticised, not to say savaged by the community it was developed for. Look how you dismissed Tank Battle Endless Gunner. When you've worked on a game and given it your absolute best shot for months, maybe years, done the best you can with it, only to be told it's rubbish, you don't particularly feel like sticking your neck out again to the tune of several thousand dollars and doing it again. Constructive feedback is one thing, but that's not a lot of what we see when a more ambitious game comes out.

So, speaking for myself, I'm very glad we have devs out there who bring out games for us of whatever kind, even if they're ones I don't want to play, and particularly glad for games like Feer and Tank Battle Endless Gunner which are pushing the envelope away from dice, cardes, numbers etc. Being positive and supporting game devs is the way forward to my mind, not bemoaning what we haven't got.

brandon I agree with your point, although developers should be commended for trying to create games for us, I don't see what's so wonderful about this tank battle game that just game out, to be honest I bought the game and within about 2 minutes it was deleted from my phone. I was tempted to ask for a refund but I thought well the game is accessible just doesn't hold my attention, I know you can do things like upgrade your tank, but the amount of tapping involved to play the game I felt like a mindless phone zombie. sadly though I don't think mainstream big developers will ever be interested in us, I would have loved to play games like monopoly etc but they are not interested in making it accessible.

I disagree, games with stories in my experience have no replay value.

Once you're done playing, that's it, the game gets put aside.

My brother's been playing Kratos (God of War) and he said once the story's over, that's it, may as well trade it in and get something different.

It's the same for the Final Fantasy games, granted those have mini games you can keep coming back to.

Some of those mini games were so popular that the company released some of them in a collection, triple triad, anyone?

I actually don't mind the tank battle game, It's something I'll play to pass time, same goes for feer, feer has the little quests you can do to level up.

As they say, different strokes for different folks, or something along those lines.

Everything is crap once you've finished it. Achievements are dead, so I don't consider them worthy of replay value. I like rewards like hidden passwords, cheatcodes, skill points, higher or lower difficulties, extra ammo, level select, level skip, developer interview scenes and backgrounds. In short, a tun of unlockables should do the trick, one for each playthrough. Every Playthrough should unlock an additional reward in my opinion. Of course, there is only so much you can do with a game until you have done it all.

I could care less if a game has 3 or 3,000 achievements, whether it's on or offline. I would much rather prefer rewards instead.

I actually don’t mind text games. If it has a good story, I’ll try it out and if I like it I will buy it. Same goes with any other game. I’m not just going to buy an audio game that doesn’t sound appealing to me. And about the online mode, that would be nice to have, but it would probably cost a lot of time and money to develop. So I’m fine with what we have already. And games with story do have good replay value especially if it has an online mode.

Six ages is an example of a good text game. It has great replay value, because each playthrough will be different and there is so much else to discover in the game that you might not have discovered in your previous playthrough. This is my 5th playthrough and I haven’t stopped playing because I still have a lot to find out. Clearly, six ages is not A mindless simplistic game.

While the Final Fantasy Games and God of War have little replay value, especially the earlier FF games, look at how long it takes to complete one single playthrough of these games. Final Fantasy 13 took me about a week to play the stuff that blind people could play, and that's a whole hell of a lot. Once you beat the main story of that game, there is post-content after chapter 13 that essentially consists of hours of grinding for achievements etc.

Also, achievements are not dead--I'd be interested in an XBox or PlayStation gamers response to that. I don't think achievement hunting is as common as it once was ten years ago... gotta get every single achievement, but people still want them. GameCenter achievements are dead but honestly nobody really cared about them much to begin with unless the game has replay value, such as A-Sharp's games. alt-Frequencies also does have achievements, and that's where its replay value is.

I do agree that the card and dice games are a bit much at this point. The new Westopia game is introducing us to a fighting card game genre that's unique and different and also has a story, if a short one and will probably have little in the way of replay value.

Do you know how you fix the replay value in any game, no matter what it is, and it's been working for the video game industry for ages now? Online modes. Fortnight and Call of Duty continue to sell millions, Fortnight with in-app purchases, and Call of Duty created the eSports genre and we're starting to see video game tournaments broadcast on the big networks such as ESPN.

What really gets me is your formulation in this post. You seem very dismissive toward devs who actually do make games accessible, and that's not a good look for the community. I'm not a big gamer, but I'd love more options in terms of accessible gaming. Being constructive instead of trashing existing titles is what's going to fix it though. Either that or code one yourself.

Hi Joel,

Do you know of an online game with a good story that happens to be accessible on iOS? I'd like to know about it if so, text or otherwise. Totally agree about Six Ages.

Not yet. There is downtown Mafia, Battlecry, and turf wars, but those get boring after a while. They also have very little story.

I don't mean it in terms of popularity. It's more like dead dead, as in Laying still dead, as in not being able to do anything with it.

You calling a game "simplistic junk" is hardly being constructive. Honest feedback is great, don't get me wrong, but that's not the way to go about it imo.

I really, really can't stand text adventure and also card games.

1. No sound for text adventure games

2. Not enough shooter and action games for iOS and

3. Boaring. Just boring. that is all I can say. We need more action shooter games that have an endless mode, and also VR games even.. Sure I'm all about inclusivity and accessibility but,, card games are not gonna cut it for me. Example: if I find a text adventure game I just disregard it.. However, I do like MUDs, and sound packs. They go well with each other. Alter Aeon for example is something I really enjoy because of Mush z and one of their sound packs. Now, here is the thing, it is not for mac, so you need to get a windows VM in order to play it.. Ahh well, but at least that is something instead of just adventure games with no sound, that just ruins it for me..

And what are you trying to accomplish by whining about it on some internet forum? Solve the problem then. The only thing you're doing right now is alienating the developers that do want to code stuff that is accessible.

Games that you called mindless are designed that way. They are designed to kill some time when you’re bored and have nothing to do. And some games that you call mindless are actually strategy games. You need to be able to think to play.

Lets take this into a different prospective:
When you're primarily a Galaxy S10E user, ya wonder all the time, why Audio Game devs don't wish to port an iOS game on over to Android.
Not enough blind people use Android? Too hard to program? Oh, and about this "Tank Game" that people feel is "bad" as it were...Well... If I didn't have an IPod Touch 6th gen 32GB in gold, (will soon be replaced by an iPad Mini 64GB in Space Gray,) I wouldn't have been able to play it regardless!

By the way, has anyone tried playing https://playhearthstone.com/en-us/ on an IOS device? It can be done on Android now, though not through "Google's' offering of a screen reader.
NB. Harth Stone, is a "mainstream" card game adventure.

So yes, I would love to see more of these "expansive" and "immersive" games be more accessible/come to both platforms.
Anyway, those are my thoughts on the matter.

PS. If anyone's wondering about that "non-google" screen reader, and ya do have an Android device alongside an iOS one, feel free to message me on Twitter via the link on my profile on here.

This is a interesting thred. Brandin I understand what you are trying to say for shure. I can remember when I had my sight I used to play games like mortal combat 2 and super marrio brothers 3. those games had a story and I enjoyed playing them. those are the kinds of games I would like to see develipt for ios. as far as blind games I have played that I think have a story and re play value I have played games like monkey bizzness, q nine, and on the ios side of things a blind ledgond. and also the night jar. all of those had stories and I think that we should have more games like those or first person shuter games with a story in them. it would be nice to have games like call of dudey or grand theth audo for the blind comunidey how ever I am not shure if we are ever going to get games like that do to the cost etc. To your point of beaing able to play on line I have always wanted a game where you could play with others on line using a hed set and mike and be able to talk to others on line wile playing the game. I have not seen a game for the blind comunidey that you are able to do that with yet.

I also don't like text addventure games or card games eather. I like games where it has actors voicing diffrint people and things like that.

Actually, I really want to play Witcher games. If you know Witcher universe, then you know what I'm trying to say. I believe both in books and games, Witcher is a very great experience.
I hope some day we can also play RPG games like Witcher, Baldur's Gate, Dragon age, Pillars of Eternity or Divinity Series.
Additionally, I think if we talk with cd Progect Red, they may think about adding accessibility features on their games.

I love playing games on my phone: Godville, Land of Livia, and any of the Choice of Games/Hosted Games titles are right up my ally. I also enjoy dice world from time to time, and Seven Little Words. With that being said, though, I do wish we had access to more mainstream games: for me at least, I'd love to be able to play some of the word games that my best friend and her husband play. By the definitions of this original post, the games they play would probably be deemed simplistic, but they sound like a lot of fun, and as was pointed out somewhere in this thread, that is the point of many games: just to kill time when there's nothing better to do. Lulu is right, though: if someone does try to provide us with a different kind of game, there is often so much criticism and complaint that it probably pushes developers away from wanting to make their apps accessible. I still miss Solara; that was a really great game, and audio games such as Papa Sangre and Night Jar are missed as well. For now, I have my list of favorite time-wasters and am just thankful for those, but if games like Cookie Jam or Cody Cross were to ever become accessible, that would be super awesome!

I just wanted to say that to my mind, there are way, way too many shooting-related games out there, accessible or otherwise. I'd much rather enjoy a nice word game, text adventure or even dice game than try to mindlessly shoot things. I love fantasy games with a combat component such as A Hero's Call, Entombed, Manamon and Paladin of the Sky, but the battles in those games, for the most part, require some planning and strategy, not just shooting at things. Just my opinion, of course, and I think its great that there's something for pretty much everyone out there.

the problem as I keep saying with the blind community and games is that high quality audio games cost money to produce in terms of actors, coding etc. and sure people might like to make a one off payment for a game, but if they do that then its a one off purchase, no more money for the developer. But if they charge subscription prices for games that brings them an income stream, but of course does mean they have to keep coming up with new content, but long term I think subscriptions are better than one off purchases as with those how do they then monetize customers who have already paid for the game once.

Sure i'm not a fan of many of the card, dice and word games, but some of their games really are good enough for even me. Can't expect all games from 1 dev to be likable.

I’ve read all the comments on this forum, and, I really do appreciate what you were saying about wanting more main stream it typed games that are accessible. But I agree with what some have said, that just because you don’t like some of the games that are out, doesn’t mean other people won’t. These developers go to a great deal of trouble to make these games for us, and personally, I think we should be a little more grateful.

I think I understand what you're saying. Though, at the moment, I am more just tired of developers thinking that they have to create a game for the blind that will /only/ be used by the blind. I, personally, am sick of endless "audio-only" titles that really do not reach beyond our small community. I don't mind playing card games, dice games or word games, honestly, as they /do/ fill a specific need. However, I am sick of feeling walled off from the rest of the gaming community in regards to being able to play these titles with sighted users, as well. The first time I felt this acutely was when "Pokemon Go" was released and the rest of the world seemed to be enjoying this game, including my sighted husband, yet we were shut out despite the fact that, if the Unity platform had been built to accept accsesibility hooks in the first place, the game would be very easy to make accessible. I'm already prepping for disappointment with the new Harry Potter augmented reality iPhone game, as the very same developer (Niantic) is developing it.

This is where I think I sort of agree with your statement regarding "mainstream" developers not really keeping us in mind. I would not go so far as to call every other accessible game released for us as "trash", but I agree the titles are stagnated in the variety we are given.

Unfortunately, it does not cross many mainstream developer's minds that accessibility is even possible or something that would even work with their game. I recently spoke wiht the developer of the Dresden Files cooperative card game application and they were admittedly shocked that accessibility could even be something they could add to a cooperative card game, but admitted that likely all of the cards do have text that could probably be read. I pointed them to the accessibility plugin on Unity that the developer of Crafting Kingdom made and they were very receptive, saying they would like to consider maybe adding it in the future and/or maybe adding it to a future game now that they knew it was a possibility from the start. (Yes, this is a "card game", but is more of a strategic card game ala Hearthstone or Magic the Gathering, which is a sort of card game I always like to try out.)

Another telling comment that this developer made was that they always wanted to make a game for the blind, and they were thinking about looking into an audio game. Which relaly was an eye-opener for me, as they immediately equate the blind community as "only" being able to handle audio-only games.

This is the major problem we face:
- Mainstream developers do not know about accessibility hooks.
- Mainstream developers do not think/know accessibility can be added to their games.
- Mainstream developers think only audio-only games/text games are things that are "accessible".
- Mainstream developers have a harder time adding accessibility after a game goes to production, as they likely think this iwll add extra resourcse they do not awnt to spend on a "niche" section of the community. (Though if they had just thought of it from the beginning, it would be very cheap to fit in with the development.)

I really wish we could have a sort of outreach campaign for developers. The Unity plugin for accessibility costs $75, apparently, but for a mainstream developer that would be extremely small of a price.

The big issue is getting them to /think/ of accsesibility from the beginning of the design. If it gets all the way to production, they will dig in their heels and balk at adding it, as it may be already too far in another direction or they will not want to spend what they think will bea lot of resources redoing things.

I totally agree with you.
As I am currently working for Electronic arts I fully understand your anoyance.
Accessibility should not mean simplisity. While there is definetly a place for the games you have described, I would love to see games like Madden, and other types of fighting games there. Complex rpgs, and other games should not be denied our player base because we use voice Over.

While I agree that there are some genres of games that do not have many titles in them that are accessible, I agree with other people that have said that we need to be grateful for all of the games that are accessible to us. Developers could have refused to make their games accessible, but they did. I feel that this is a lesson the whole community needs to learn, myself included, to be thankful for what we have.
However, Brandon, I would strongly advise you to be more open-minded to what other people enjoy and have to say, and not label games as "junk" just because they do not fulfill what criteria you have for a mobile game: having the same depth and professional quality of a console game. Even if there are games that are simplistic, there are many games (like the games from A-Sharp, Path of Adventure, a Few Minutes of Glory, etc.) that give you tons of replay value. Most if not all of the comparisons to mainstream games you have made have been comparing mobile games to ones on console, and that's the main issue. Those two markets are vastly different: while the console market wants high-quality, high-budget games with either a good story or replay value, while most mobile gamers are much more casual, as anyone who bephone is, by extention, a mobile gamer if they ply games on it. That's why mobile games are simplistic: it allows more people to understand how the games work without the majority of people getting confused.
On an attitude level, it is difficult for me to agree with you. While you have some valid points, you make very large assumptions about various people, and phrase your statements inan accusatory manner. When I read your posts, I do not see respect for what other people write, because it seems to me (and this could be wrong) that you believe that what you are saying is correct, and that no one else is. You dismiss any valid points other people have that may hurt your claim, and you are unwilling to even listen, while passive-aggressively attacking their character, with statements such as "living in a cave." If I were a game developer, and I was emailed the message that you posted here, I would probably ignore you, because the message oozes entitlement, andz a game developer, I would not want to be ordered around by someone who demanded things from me without speaking politely and maturely. These are just my two cents, but I hope that you think about I have stated here.

Also, an addendum to my earlier comments - not everyone enjoys the same types of games. I do enjoy card games and word games, as I said before, but I agree I'm feeling a bit "meh" on them lately due to the sheer amount of them and nothing new.

However, I despise action/FPS/shooting games and never liked them even when I could see. I prefer simulation games (The Sims, Sim City, Civilization, Age of Empires, Tropico, etc.) and strategy games, as well as RPGs. I don't mind fighting sequences, of course, but Call of Duty/Halo or any of those games never really were my "thing" before and aren't now. But, even so, there are few of the games I prefer available in an accessible format other than maybe Crafting Kingdom and Six Ages/King of Dragon Pass.

My main annoyance with the lack of acceptance from mainstream mobile gaming devs is that I'd like to be able to play games with my sighted friends/family and join in on some of the fun they are having, especially with augmented reality games like Pokemon Go and the upcoming Harry potter game. I'm not expecting anything as complex as a console game, for sure, but there should be some way to allow for these augmented reality games to include those who use Voice Over.

I am still very appreciative of any game that comes out that is made for us, I just wish we weren't shoehorned into a box and forced to play with our own little corner of the App Store with no chance to play anything that is coming out mainstream.

Although I disagree with the card game word game opinion thing, I certainly agree. Developers need to start making these games accessible, this is really really bad. Something else too, Apple doesn't put audio games on the top top game charts because, well, not sure why. But that should be don to raise awareness of this type of issue. And, Apple Arcahaid came out, so, not sure if that's gonna be accessible..

Harry Potter is one of my favorites, an accessible game would be nice, as well.. Like I said I do like text games with sound, not those ones without it.. But,, I can agree, we gotta do something.

I agree we should be grateful for accessible IOS games. There are certain game genres I also despise, but I am not going to trash the developers or refer to their games as junk. My favourite game genres are arcade games and shooting games. I am personally looking forward to CMR, audio wizards and Westopia. As for simplistic games, in my opinion, there isn't anything wrong with these every once in a while. Yes, it would be nice if more mainstream games would become accessible but in reality this isn't going to happen. I would have loved to have played "Angry Birds" when it was popular but alas, I couldn't. Again, I think we should be grateful for what we have and respect each other's opinions.

Has any other games from asharp been made accessible? It's been so long since I've paid atension to applevis that I"m out of the loop.

yeah! I agree.
there are too many quiz , text, and puzzle games.
we are blind and visually inpaired!
but, it doesn't mean that we just can play thiese kinds of thing.
I also playing some video games like street fighters and king of fighters series.
in the video games consil !

it is great!
and I hope in the futures the game developers can think about the accessibility thing in their games.

we have had some great games. like audio defence, papasangree, and six sense
but, because the developers have stoped updating it. so, they didn't issist anymore.
so sad.
so, I think we can not ask that all things free.
we hhave to paid for the great games.
and help the developers to keep on their good work.

If we want console game quality, we should probably go get those X boxes and playstations. I have done it before and just recently I seriously considered getting myself a PS4 again. The problem in my case, was that while the games were good, I had no independence. I always had to ask family members or any sighted person to read me the game menus a few times in order to memorise it. Perhaps there is another factor to consider. iOS devices are not game consoles. Yes, they do support games, but they are not primarily used for games. My brother has a PS4 as well as an IOS device, yet I never see him play any games on his iOS device. His reason? Games simply suck on iOS. Now that's coming from a sighted person playing visual games. So, where does this leave me? I could get a PS4, sacrifice my independence and become a pain in the ass for family members, or I could stick to iOS gaming, sacrifice game quality and stay out of people's hair.

The xbox 1 seems to be accessible, soI've heard. However, I like gaming with iOS.

I just wanted to say that I 100 percent agree that we should show more gratitude for the games we do have. If there are games you don't like out there, you don't have to play them, but bashing what might be someone else's favorite game is in no way productive. For example, for a variety of reasons, even though I have purchased more of them than I'd care to admit, I am not a fan of the Blindfold games. I have a lot of them installed, but don't find myself playing them very often; IMO, they should all be under a single app umbrella the same way the hosted games and choice of games are, but that particular rant is not relevant to this discussion.
What frustrates me is when I find really great and accessible games that I **think* my sighted friends might enjoy too, but then I discover that they have no exciting visuals or anything: best example of this I can think of off the top of my head is Knight Commander. I thought that had exciting graphics and stuff, but my friend told me it was just blocks of text and she didn't even try to play it for more than a minute or two. I also agree that it would have been awesome to have games like Pokimon Go to have been accessible. Even when I'm just hanging out with my best friend and her husband, I find myself feeling left out because I can't enjoy the same word games they spend many happy hours playing. The only game we can somewhat enjoy together are 7 little words and I Associate 2, and as much as I love both of those games, the word games that my friends play sound even more fun. I wish there was a way to spread the word about the unity pluggin so that maybe more developers would use it. Until that happens, though, I, for one, will just be thankful that there are plenty of accessible games out there for me to enjoy.

I agree. There are many great games that were made for windows such as GMA, final conflict star trek game even a football game. We have many developers why one can create games such as GMA? A game in which you are driving a sub. Can you picture it, you are driving a nu sub and you are hunted by others. You need to nu a base but other subs are looking for you. You can destroy others sub, ships and so on. You can play against other people. You can create a wolf pack or go alone in your mission. It is so much to ask something like that? If a game like that came out, I will pay for it and I know most will do so. Tire of baby games that even my cat Bella will not play because she feels that does not challenge her mind.

1812 heart of winter would have been a gem. I was able to finish the polish version through trial and error. Even though i didn't understand that language, it was still super cool. About blind characters in games, maybe that's another problem. How about forgetting about blind characters and use sighted characters instead? The player is blind, but the game character doesn't have to be. The player needs sounds to interact with things around them, but the game character can act sighted. I hope this make sense to someone?

Hey,
Not to be critical, but like malthe had mentioned, it did seem like you were throwing some devs out the window. Words like "junk" in that context can be pretty powerful if you're not careful. Whatever we say to the devs impacts what the audiogame production in upcoming years will be. So let's bring those devs back into the room and shut that window, so that we can be respectful to those who took months, probably even years, developing their game, or games.
If you don't like card games, or word games for that matter, there's no reason to criticize. If you think something is possible, rather than complaining, how about a new word for you. Asking. Even that can show the developer you really care for what they're developing.
When I told Marty Schultz about the pet game, approximately 2 years ago, I suggested some things. Developers aren't going to like criticism to get them to develop what you want. By asking, like said above, it shows care.
I hope you understand my point of view on this whole issue.

@DMNagel

Ah, similar to the old "Time Adventures" game for Windows?

@brandon armstrong

Yep, Play Station ain't the way to go. Especially if ya are outside of North America! That TTS thing is "region" specific, to where that TTS is like built-in to the ROM or something.

Characters can be sighted, but the game should contain audio queues for pickup items, targets and doors. In resident evil for example, the characters are sighted, but there is an auto aim feture that allows me to kill off those zombies. Now i don't want to encourage auto aim fetures and weird stuff like that. What i'm trying to say is that audio game characters should act all normal, while the game still provide us with audio queues in the background to find our way and to find stuff.

Maybe the critics wouldn't be all that bad. He could have been normal and acted normally. The game elements could have stayed the same.