An accessible alternative to scrabble in beta!

By Wenwei, 3 April, 2023

Forum
iOS and iPadOS Gaming
Hello everyone!

If you enjoy playing crossword puzzle games, Themis games has created Wordvoyance, which is an accessible, asynchronous, two-player alternative to scrabble. My personal favorite aspect of the game is that its design enables both screen reader users and sighted people to play together—i.e., I've roped all of my friends into playing with me!

While Wordvoyance was originally only available on the web, Themis Games developers have been working on building dedicated mobile applications. The iOS application is currently on TestFlight, and they are developing the Android counterpart as I type this post!

The game, though in beta, is still pretty stable. VoiceOver swipe gestures have been implemented to make board navigation faster. Here's what you need to know:
  • Three finger swipes left and right move by word. Please note that navigating might appear to be redundant. This is because focus jumps from the top left to the bottom right of the board. VoiceOver will read all intersecting words.
  • Three finger swipe down adds custom landmarks.
  • Three finger swipe up switches between word landmark mode and custom landmark mode.
  • You can jump to all important menus via heading navigation.
  • Two finger scrub removes tiles from board. Note that this doesn't always function as expected—i.e., it doesn't always remove tiles in reverse order in which you placed them.
  • The magic tap brings up the "play word" confirmation screen.
  • Drag and drop functionality has been implemented (not as an action item). This is most useful if you want to move a tile a few squares over.
  • Please note that you must add vertical navigation to the rotor for best results

    The developer is committed to optimizing the user experience and is receptive to feedback. In future updates, I expect that speech output will be less verbose, making game board navigation even more efficient. I have also brought other bugs to his attention.

    If you are interested in playing, here is the TestFlight invitation. Happy scrabbling!

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