Hi Tom.
Interestingly enough my brother also! mentioned that a newer company is
producing a full retro console, which needless to say I'm highly interested
in myself for low vision access reasons.
it's not just the pc markit however. I've also noticed flicking through
games on the ap store, many are remakes of arcade style classics, or are
simpler games just by nature of being on the mobile platform. A great
example of this is robo E, the game phil recently mentioned. Sokoban is just
as old a concept as packman or joust being first developed I believe in
1986, yet it's one of those really simple but addictive ideas.
In 2008, actually from retro remakes I discovered the series of tyle based
puzzle games such as boulderdash, supaplex and emerald mine, and of course
sokoban, and I have many of thes eon my hard drive which I play, ---- much
as Jk rowling does mine sweeper as a way of clearing my brain, especially
since there are some really nice, but graphically very symple forms of those
sorts of puzzles available making them absolutely perfect on the low vision
access front.
The only thing I will say, is that I've noticed far too many people doing
remakes of actual! classic games but with slightly different concepts,
rather than coming up with a new idea. Take robo E for instance. It's the
same gameplay as sokoban, but with a robot and set in space, rather than
being a worker in a warehouse pushing crates into position the way the
original sokoban is.
It would be possible to create quite easily with the completely free, open
source rocks n diamonds tyle puzzle game editer by simply modding the
original sokoban graphics then using the level editer to create more levels.
Heck, if I used the level editer for the game igor the time machine and the
standard graphics we'd still have a robot as the protagonist :D.
I don't say this as a cryticism, since if! robo E is accessible using the
iPhone touch screen (which I'll know when I've tried it), then it will have
one major advantage over rocks n diamonds, and one I will be very pleased
with myself since having those puzzle games that have stumped me accessible
to everybody will be fantastic, however it can't be denied that robo E is
essentially a new package on an old idea rather than a new idea.
That being said, in the case of robo E the old idea is simply a type of
puzzle game, where as in something like the latest tomb raider from what I
have read, it isn't even a new take on an old idea, it's just a very generic
set of plots and action sequences chucked together (I read one review which
claimed the game was designed entirely by looking at corporate statistics
and seeing what sells). it would therefore be more like a chef creating a
curry pie, ie, a slightly new twist on an older idea, rather than a generic
ready meel that you shove in the microwave, ie, something which has simply
been designed with little thought to be quick and convenient but nothing
else.
Getting back to game access though, given that it looks like indi devs are!
taking over, perhaps this is the point when guidelines such as those 7-128
created on their http://www.blindcomputergames.com/ site need to be sent to
sites like retroremakes or game hippo so that if! a developer were! enclined
to create an audio game, or add some accessible text to the big stratogy rpg
they were working on, the information would be readily to hand rather than
either A, the dev having to come and seak out the information themselves, or
B, as usually happens, the dev being contacted by someone from the community
after the game has been finished and a discussion about adding access
occurring.
Beware the Grue!
Dark.
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