Re: Audio games as an alternative for someone who has recently lost sight
@Jude, just to let you know the site database is now fixed and in working order. If you go to This link you can search the database by genre such as rpgs, you can also exclude say games that use text meaning that a screen reader would be needed.
@Slj, while I take your point, I suspect for someone who is used to playing the games graphically and seeing all information available, having to be "told instructions", not to mention learn a huge number of sound and voice kews would be a rather frustrating, and indeed quite daunting prospect.
One thing I have noticed is that very compitant blind people have a habbit of under estimating the amount of information, and consequently the amount of effort taken by sighted people whether in gaming or in other things. As someone who has extremely limited vision and has been in the position of playing some graphical games without assistance or effort, and others with a lot of effort, I can say that there is a world of difference between listening to and learning the sounds of something over time, (even with assistance), and simply seeing and instantly apprehending something with direct perception.
For example, even the most absolutely novice just played the game for the first time sighted player sees their opponent in a beatemup chuck a fireball, they will be able to attempt some form of evasion, sinse they will have a clear idea of the fireball's position relative to their character, and will have some way of reacting, eg, jumping, ducking, parrying etc. Of course, being a novice player and still unfamiliar with game properties such as the relative movement speeds of the characters and projectiles, whether they manage to do this successfully might be another matter, but sinse they have the information there they will be able to guess.
A blind player however won't know the fireball's position, won't be aware that whatever sound signifies a fireball, and while they can certainly take a guess, they are far more likely (indeed almost inevitably so), to get hit. of course, the blind player will go off and learn the sound, and read a faq which tells them character x has a fireball, she/he might even stick on practice mode, chuck a fireball at the unmoving computer opponent and track the time it takes to hit, however, for something a sighted player gets at an instant, less than a second glance at the screen, a blind player needs to go and read documentation, learn sound kews, and likely perform experiments to get the same information.
This is certainly not to discourage anyone, indeed I personally find it a mark of many player's ingenuity and persistance that several blind gamers have attained such a degree of skill at beatemups using these methods, however the difference in access is still pretty dam extreme, which is precisely why something like Mortal combat isn't described as "an accessible game" Sinse the informational content given to blind and sighted players is so much at varients, and the amount of effort required by blind and sighted players to attain equal levels of skills is so different.
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