I am going to have to respectfully disagree; for an audio game, for people with no visual acuity, visual elements are both a waste of time and resources.
If I were, for example, to try and develop a role-playing game along the same lines as Baldur's Gate, production time would be increased by at least a factor of two. A visual interface is very different than an audio one-especially for role-playing games. This might sound a little petty (and if it does, I could not care less), but the mainstream gaming industry has made it very clear that accessibility and inclusiveness for blind players is not anything like a priority. Why should we, as blind gamers/game developers, make any sort of effort to include that group of gamers? Put differently, if a sighted person wants to play an audio game, there is nothing stopping them from doing so, but it is not our problem if they complain over the lack of a visual interface/feedback. This is my chief complaint with A Hero's Call: Out of Sight Games is attempting to prostitute itself to a community that does not give a damn about an indi developer trying to make a game for both blind and sighted people. Unless Out of Sight Games has a hidden art department as a part of their team, no sighted person (other than the curious) will purchase their game. Why would they? They have Skyrim, Diablo III, Path of Exile, Fallout 4, and so on. On 12/18/17, Liam Erven <liamer...@gmail.com> wrote: > I disagree. There are times where having visual feedback is important. > Especially in a game that you’d want to put in schools. > There should never be a reason not to include visual elements. Access for > all works both ways. > > > Sent from Mail for Windows 10 > > From: Damien Sykes > Sent: Monday, December 18, 2017 11:09 AM > To: blind-gamers@groups.io > Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games > > Hi, > I don’t know why, but I like the fact that there’s no visual element. I know > that a UI won’t make or break an audio game, but if there’s no UI then you > have no choice but to go fully audio, and it really makes you think about > what information needs to be conveyed. Almost like writing your own mini > and/or virtual screen reader, I guess. I must say, it was a fun challenge > conceptualising and writing the audio form. > Cheers. > Damien. > > From: Liam Erven > Sent: Monday, December 18, 2017 3:52 PM > To: blind-gamers@groups.io > Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games > > My biggest issues are lack of cross-platform, lack of environmental effects, > and no way to do any sort of visual UI. That’s been an issue in Brain > Station unfortunately. > This is the problem when you get too comfortable with a scripting language > like what was stated earlier. You don’t want to learn anything else. > > > > Sent from Mail for Windows 10 > > From: Damien Sykes > Sent: Monday, December 18, 2017 9:39 AM > To: blind-gamers@groups.io > Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games > > Hi Justin, > Indeed there are workarounds for these issues, but they are trivial compared > > to some of the bigger limitations. No 3d. No audio effects (filtering, > reverb etc). Not cross-platform. Can't really do anything with binary data > unless you do all the calculations and conversions yourself. Tantrums from > the garbage collector from time to time, which of course will reduce > performance. No real way of totally resetting the state of execution. Of > course you can reset all the variables, but the call stack will still show a > > call to reset... > The binary data and reset state aren't big showstoppers for me. Even the > cross platform isn't a big deal for me. I only ever use Windows for my main > > work, only ever use Linux for server admin through SSH and I don't see > myself getting a mac or phone anytime soon. But performance is definitely > important in any product, and since I'm seeing more and more games make use > > of 3d audio and environmental effects, if I made another game I'd want to be > > able to use that. > Cheers. > Damien. > -----Original Message----- > From: Justin Jones > Sent: Monday, December 18, 2017 3:11 PM > To: blind-gamers@groups.io > Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games > > One example of this sort of limitation is that BGT will only allow for > the reading of string data types from a file and nothing else. For > example, if you tell BGT to output a series of numbers into a text > file, it does this just fine, but if you try to read those numbers > back into a piece of code as integers, i.e. assigning the values to an > integer data type, BGT kicks back an error. Of course, there is a > work-around for this, but you have to use the string conversion > functions to convert a string data type to an integer data type. This > is an odd limitation, considering that the other programming languages > I've worked with in the past do not have this problem. > > Another example of a limitation for BGT is data validation. If you > were to have the user input a number, there is no built-in > functionality for the input box function to perform data validation. > Again, there are work-arounds for this, but this ought to have been > something that is a part of the input box function. > > I freely admit that I could be wrong concerning both of these examples. > > On 12/18/17, Liam Erven <liamer...@gmail.com> wrote: >> It’s still a scripting language by definition. It’s good for games, but >> not >> much else. Also has several limitations which could be problematic. >> >> >> >> Sent from Mail for Windows 10 >> >> From: Josh Kennedy >> Sent: Monday, December 18, 2017 6:36 AM >> To: blind-gamers@groups.io >> Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games >> >> Sam tupy’s elaborate survive the wild game was written entirely in bgt. >> >> >> Sent from Mail for Windows 10 >> >> From: Justin Jones >> Sent: Monday, December 18, 2017 07:31 >> To: blind-gamers@groups.io >> Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games >> >> So long as you understand that BGT isn't a real programming language, >> as it falls under scripting. >> >> It's not a bad start though, as it can do plenty of cool things and >> also serves as an intro to game programming, but it is only an intro. >> >> >> >> On 12/17/17, Josh Kennedy <joshknnd1...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> Try the free bgt toolkit. Free blind game makers toolkit. Just google >>> search >>> bgt blind game makers toolkit. >>> >>> >>> Sent from Mail for Windows 10 >>> >>> From: Marvin Hunkin via Groups.Io >>> Sent: Sunday, December 17, 2017 20:23 >>> To: blind-gamers@groups.io >>> Subject: [blind-gamers] developing accessible games >>> >>> Hi. maybe this is too technical. But do you know of any blind developers >>> developing an accessible game framework and also an accessible >>> diagramming >>> software. If so, let me know. And also what’s the steps to develop an >>> accessible game say for windows. >>> Thanks. >>> Ps: also for like mobile, ios, android, x box, etc. thanks. >>> Ps: thinking of doing a diploma of interactive gaming from my school,and >>> they have like a few subjects, 3d interactive gaming and designing 3d >>> graphics, etc. any one done these type of courses. Thanks. >>> >>> >> Virus-free. www.avast.com >> >> >>> >>> >> >> >> -- >> Justin M. Jones, M.A. >> atreides...@gmail.com >> (254) 624-9155 >> 701 Ewing St. #509-C, Ft. Wayne IN, 46802 >> >> >> >> >> >> > > > -- > Justin M. Jones, M.A. > atreides...@gmail.com > (254) 624-9155 > 701 Ewing St. #509-C, Ft. Wayne IN, 46802 > > > > > > > > -- Justin M. Jones, M.A. atreides...@gmail.com (254) 624-9155 701 Ewing St. #509-C, Ft. Wayne IN, 46802 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#118113): https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/message/118113 View All Messages In Topic (12): https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/topic/7625742 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/7625742/21656 New Topic: https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/post Change Your Subscription: https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/editsub/21656 Group Home: https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers Contact Group Owner: blind-gamers+ow...@groups.io Terms of Service: https://groups.io/static/tos Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/leave/607459/1071380848/xyzzy -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
