As usual, you're absolutely spot on in this assessment.
There are only certain parts of a game that can be translated into sound
or vision - but without the visual esthetic in terms of the blind, we'd
be missing out on tons of things that really can't be explained.
What I would love to see is a realistic racing game. Top speed is close
but nowhere near close enough - although I'm sure that's a lot more
difficult than it sounds in reality. Funding is likely another issue and
interest in racing games is probably a lot less than something like an
FPS like Swamp etc.
On 05-Jun-2018 1:54 PM, Jeremy Kaldobsky wrote:
I agree with Charles. What he is trying to say is that if you modify
certain games to make them accessible, they are no longer the same
game. If we took one of those dance dance revolution games and had a
deaf player try it, they would be bored and not understand why anyone
would like the game. There would be no music, no beat, and basically
no reason why they should enjoy stepping on the pads at the correct
intervals. Yes you could argue that the game was accessible to them,
but it isn't the same game anymore.
Minecraft is a game that really hinges on the art style and the
free-form way you can create the environment. I've seen many topics
where people suggest making it blind accessible by just having
everything labeled somehow (insert magic here). Even if such a system
worked, it would be just like the dancing game example. You'd be on
the minecraft server, be able to walk around and do a few things, but
you would not be playing minecraft. Sure if you didn't know any
better you'd possibly Believe you were playing the game, but by any
sighted player's standards you would be playing some extremely watered
down game that happened to have several of the features of
minecraft... but not minecraft.
Going back to another hearing example, you can not make a beautiful
song accessible to a deaf person by just writing out the notes and
handing them the paper. Yes you've translated the notes into a format
they can input into their brain (using their eyes), but it is so far
from experiencing a song that it doesn't actually count.
I know there are people in the blind community who want to believe any
game can be made accessible, but that is not the case. Just like the
song being turned into a page of sheet music, there are probably ways
you can technically sort of translate concepts from the game into a
new blind friendly format, but it will not be the original game
anymore. You can play it and maybe fool yourself into believing
you're playing the game now, but it would only be sweet sweet
ignorance. Many games can never ever be made blind accessible, just
like there are many things that can never be made deaf accessible.
There are concepts and experiences that exist in the realm of sight,
or the realm of sound, and trying to translate them into something
else simply destroys them.
- Aprone
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