How do blind people play (computer) games?
Mario Lang
Outline
- Text based games
- Audio games
There was a time when computer games didn't have graphics
- Roguelike (turn-based RPGs)
- Text adventures or Interactivee Fiction (IF)
- Multi-User-Dungeon (MUDs)
- Board and card-games
- Tetris?
Roguelike
- Randomization for replayability
- Turn-based movement
- ASCII graphics
- Example: NetHack
Interactive Fiction
- Games are executed by interpreters
- InfoCom (zCode): fizmo, frotz, jzip, xzip
- Text Adventure Development System (TADS): frobtads
- Other systems also exist...
- Many games can be downloaded from www.ifarchive.org
- Example: Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Multi-User-Dungeon (MUD)
- A combination of
- role-playing
- inteeractive fiction
- online chat
- Blind and sighted people can play together without even noticing!
Text-based board, card and word-games
Dropping blocks?
- Tetris-alike games work with a bit of cheating (pause-key)
- At least for me as a braille display user
- T.V. Raman once wrote a tetris mode for Emacspeak
Audio games
- A comprehensive list: www.audiogames.net
- Almost all are written especially for and maybe by blind people
- We want mainstream games to have audio playing modes!
- WARNING: Some of this is non-free software,
feel inspired to clone them!
SoundRTS
- Style: Real-time strategy
- Platform: Linux, Mac, Windows
- Language: Chinese, Dutch, French, German, English, Italian, Polish, Spanish, Russian
- Game versus computer
- online multiplayer support (cross-platform, cross-langauge)!
Top Speed II (playing in the dark)
- Style: automobiles vehicle simulation
- Objective: Keep car sound centered
- Curve announcer
- Multiplayer capable!
- Platform: Windows
- Runs in wine
Tomb Hunter: Mysteries of the Ancients (USA games interactive)
Shades of Doom (GMA gamess)
- Style: First-Person shooter
- Platform: Windows
- Language: English