Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine was A Brief Tribute

2014-12-15 Thread shaun everiss
I just wish that the audyssey magazine could become more regular, 
fact is by the time the mag hits these days if it does most of the 
stuff ie news and stuff is out of date.

for whatever reason though I don't want to see the mag die off just like that.
Problem is it was in the days before broadband, now its almost not 
needed but then I really miss reading it.
I have always thought about putting something together even if you 
have to change from the origional format to reflect everything thats going on.
There are so many projects out there its hard to know what is good 
and what isn't.


At 12:04 p.m. 13/12/2014, you wrote:

Hi Charles and all

  Indeed I'm ready and just have to pick up from all that's happened.

  2015!  Let's rock!



On 12-Dec-2014 5:20 PM, Charles Rivard wrote:

What a project to begin the new year!

---
Be positive!  When it comes to being defeated, if you think you're
finished, you! really! are! finished!
- Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com
To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2014 3:38 PM
Subject: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine was A Brief Tribute



Hi Shaun,

While the Audyssey Magazine has been temporarily on hiatus the last
couple of years I happen to believe it will be back sooner or later.
Not what Ron's situation is and why he hasn't been able to put out an
issue for a while I don't foresee it lasting forever.

Besides Audyssey is so much bigger than the magazine these days. I do
intend to update the website in the not too distant future, plan to
work on converting the magazines to html, and may do a few other
things with the site such as have a news section that will supplement
the magazine when it comes back.

Cheers!


On 12/10/14, shaun everiss sm.ever...@gmail.com wrote:

Well I used to read audyssey with rellish.
It was good to just look at what the blind were doing.
Fact was i had no idea of what the net was back then.
I had started when win 95 was out.
In fact I never really left dos till 2005 when my old keynote gold
died completely.
In fact through highschool, the keynote gold was with me till just
before the end when I switched to my satelite 310.
However the keynote was more fun because it had games on it.
Dos actually got me friends with a group of hackers, I am friends
with one of them still, another couple I know the rest have gone away.
We played with games before the net.
Most of them ran windows 3.1 and dos then however jims games were one
of the things we often played.
Sadly audyssey is basically dead, I don't know though if its worth
bringing it back though.
There are rarely issues out these days, and the fact is the
audiogames forum has replaced it.
back in the dialup days it was good, saying if something can be done
with the mag, I have time to help out.
I have jarte plus as  my lightweight processer, and to be honest I
want to keep the magazine alive.
Jims stuff got me into that, the imortal gamer reminded me of the
comic strips and other stuff in old computer magazines now no longer
in production or online.
A lot of them came with software, cds disk, and the like.
my group and I would load things on systems till they died and decide
what was good or not, if it completely totaled the system usually the
cd was snapped into bits and shreaded, however those days are gone
with the web.
Once I tried to bring up an old project on some old systems machines
for book playback  but not much came of it.


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No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 2013.0.3495 / Virus Database: 4235/8722 - Release Date: 12/12/14




-
No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 2013.0.3495 / Virus Database: 4235/8722 - Release Date: 12/12/14


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All 

Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine was A Brief Tribute

2014-12-12 Thread Charles Rivard

What a project to begin the new year!

---
Be positive!  When it comes to being defeated, if you think you're finished, 
you! really! are! finished!
- Original Message - 
From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com

To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2014 3:38 PM
Subject: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine was A Brief Tribute



Hi Shaun,

While the Audyssey Magazine has been temporarily on hiatus the last
couple of years I happen to believe it will be back sooner or later.
Not what Ron's situation is and why he hasn't been able to put out an
issue for a while I don't foresee it lasting forever.

Besides Audyssey is so much bigger than the magazine these days. I do
intend to update the website in the not too distant future, plan to
work on converting the magazines to html, and may do a few other
things with the site such as have a news section that will supplement
the magazine when it comes back.

Cheers!


On 12/10/14, shaun everiss sm.ever...@gmail.com wrote:

Well I used to read audyssey with rellish.
It was good to just look at what the blind were doing.
Fact was i had no idea of what the net was back then.
I had started when win 95 was out.
In fact I never really left dos till 2005 when my old keynote gold
died completely.
In fact through highschool, the keynote gold was with me till just
before the end when I switched to my satelite 310.
However the keynote was more fun because it had games on it.
Dos actually got me friends with a group of hackers, I am friends
with one of them still, another couple I know the rest have gone away.
We played with games before the net.
Most of them ran windows 3.1 and dos then however jims games were one
of the things we often played.
Sadly audyssey is basically dead, I don't know though if its worth
bringing it back though.
There are rarely issues out these days, and the fact is the
audiogames forum has replaced it.
back in the dialup days it was good, saying if something can be done
with the mag, I have time to help out.
I have jarte plus as  my lightweight processer, and to be honest I
want to keep the magazine alive.
Jims stuff got me into that, the imortal gamer reminded me of the
comic strips and other stuff in old computer magazines now no longer
in production or online.
A lot of them came with software, cds disk, and the like.
my group and I would load things on systems till they died and decide
what was good or not, if it completely totaled the system usually the
cd was snapped into bits and shreaded, however those days are gone
with the web.
Once I tried to bring up an old project on some old systems machines
for book playback  but not much came of it.


---
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gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org.

You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at
http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org.
All messages are archived and can be searched and read at
http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org.
If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the 
list,
please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. 



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If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list,
please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.


Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine was A Brief Tribute

2014-12-12 Thread Ron Schamerhorn

Hi Charles and all

  Indeed I'm ready and just have to pick up from all that's happened.

  2015!  Let's rock!



On 12-Dec-2014 5:20 PM, Charles Rivard wrote:

What a project to begin the new year!

---
Be positive!  When it comes to being defeated, if you think you're
finished, you! really! are! finished!
- Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com
To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2014 3:38 PM
Subject: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine was A Brief Tribute



Hi Shaun,

While the Audyssey Magazine has been temporarily on hiatus the last
couple of years I happen to believe it will be back sooner or later.
Not what Ron's situation is and why he hasn't been able to put out an
issue for a while I don't foresee it lasting forever.

Besides Audyssey is so much bigger than the magazine these days. I do
intend to update the website in the not too distant future, plan to
work on converting the magazines to html, and may do a few other
things with the site such as have a news section that will supplement
the magazine when it comes back.

Cheers!


On 12/10/14, shaun everiss sm.ever...@gmail.com wrote:

Well I used to read audyssey with rellish.
It was good to just look at what the blind were doing.
Fact was i had no idea of what the net was back then.
I had started when win 95 was out.
In fact I never really left dos till 2005 when my old keynote gold
died completely.
In fact through highschool, the keynote gold was with me till just
before the end when I switched to my satelite 310.
However the keynote was more fun because it had games on it.
Dos actually got me friends with a group of hackers, I am friends
with one of them still, another couple I know the rest have gone away.
We played with games before the net.
Most of them ran windows 3.1 and dos then however jims games were one
of the things we often played.
Sadly audyssey is basically dead, I don't know though if its worth
bringing it back though.
There are rarely issues out these days, and the fact is the
audiogames forum has replaced it.
back in the dialup days it was good, saying if something can be done
with the mag, I have time to help out.
I have jarte plus as  my lightweight processer, and to be honest I
want to keep the magazine alive.
Jims stuff got me into that, the imortal gamer reminded me of the
comic strips and other stuff in old computer magazines now no longer
in production or online.
A lot of them came with software, cds disk, and the like.
my group and I would load things on systems till they died and decide
what was good or not, if it completely totaled the system usually the
cd was snapped into bits and shreaded, however those days are gone
with the web.
Once I tried to bring up an old project on some old systems machines
for book playback  but not much came of it.


---
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gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org.
You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at
http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org.
All messages are archived and can be searched and read at
http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org.
If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the
list,
please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.



---
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You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at
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All messages are archived and can be searched and read at
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If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list,
please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.


-
No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 2013.0.3495 / Virus Database: 4235/8722 - Release Date: 12/12/14





-
No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 2013.0.3495 / Virus Database: 4235/8722 - Release Date: 12/12/14


---
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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine was A Brief Tribute

2014-12-12 Thread Lisa Hayes

Hey thomas like you've got nothing else to do you're going to do this.
Lisa Hayes




www.nutrimetics.com.au/lisahayes

- Original Message - 
From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com

To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org
Sent: Saturday, December 13, 2014 8:38 AM
Subject: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine was A Brief Tribute



Hi Shaun,

While the Audyssey Magazine has been temporarily on hiatus the last
couple of years I happen to believe it will be back sooner or later.
Not what Ron's situation is and why he hasn't been able to put out an
issue for a while I don't foresee it lasting forever.

Besides Audyssey is so much bigger than the magazine these days. I do
intend to update the website in the not too distant future, plan to
work on converting the magazines to html, and may do a few other
things with the site such as have a news section that will supplement
the magazine when it comes back.

Cheers!


On 12/10/14, shaun everiss sm.ever...@gmail.com wrote:

Well I used to read audyssey with rellish.
It was good to just look at what the blind were doing.
Fact was i had no idea of what the net was back then.
I had started when win 95 was out.
In fact I never really left dos till 2005 when my old keynote gold
died completely.
In fact through highschool, the keynote gold was with me till just
before the end when I switched to my satelite 310.
However the keynote was more fun because it had games on it.
Dos actually got me friends with a group of hackers, I am friends
with one of them still, another couple I know the rest have gone away.
We played with games before the net.
Most of them ran windows 3.1 and dos then however jims games were one
of the things we often played.
Sadly audyssey is basically dead, I don't know though if its worth
bringing it back though.
There are rarely issues out these days, and the fact is the
audiogames forum has replaced it.
back in the dialup days it was good, saying if something can be done
with the mag, I have time to help out.
I have jarte plus as  my lightweight processer, and to be honest I
want to keep the magazine alive.
Jims stuff got me into that, the imortal gamer reminded me of the
comic strips and other stuff in old computer magazines now no longer
in production or online.
A lot of them came with software, cds disk, and the like.
my group and I would load things on systems till they died and decide
what was good or not, if it completely totaled the system usually the
cd was snapped into bits and shreaded, however those days are gone
with the web.
Once I tried to bring up an old project on some old systems machines
for book playback  but not much came of it.


---
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If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to 
gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org.

You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at
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All messages are archived and can be searched and read at
http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org.
If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the 
list,
please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. 



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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-08 Thread shaun everiss
Dark sadly I know a lot of sighted games that still run from the cd 
or need the cd for varification when run so I think while a lot don't 
that this seems to be an industry practice rather than a minority one.

I don't care for this either.
it puts extra ware on the drive and disks, and for a lot of programs 
that do it, it is not usually needed unless some files are not 
installed on the system.

Silent steel does this but you can get round it easily enough.
I have known friends that have brought games.
That they have cracked just to avoid running off the cd, because they 
hate it so much.

I still know modern games that still need the cd.
I do think this is being abused to much.
In the old days 1995 and earlier I realise why that was but with all 
the power we have now we shouldn't need to run   off a disk or 
anything like that at all, there is no real excuse.


At 03:04 AM 11/8/2013, you wrote:

Hi tom.

Even in the Uk, though the attitude of the rnib is held by some 
organizations, there are  some who are better. People may remember a 
few years ago the organization Guide dogs organization I've always 
been a major fan of for their generalized good attitude and habbit 
of pushing people to try and achieve things, albeit accessible 
computer games are sort of out of their perview. On the other hand, 
Action for blind people ran an audio games contest as part of their 
accessible technology blog, and when i wanted to test out an Iphone 
there was someone from the  technology section of the local society 
who was quite happy to come and do a demonstration for me.


It's generally a matter of finding the good ones and going with 
them, though I confess the prevailance of the rnib, the fact that 
when the Uk government or health service newly diagnoses someone as 
blind that! is who they are sent to does somewhat get on my whick.


Indeed, last time I went for an appointment with an optomatrist (as 
I do from time to time to check my eye pressure, remaining vision 
and medication), I noticed a man and his wife sitting behind me 
discussing talking watches in rather worried tones. Since they were 
uncertain about watches and asked about the one I was actually 
wearing I broke the ice and asked if they'd like a look.


I actually felt rather sorry for this couple since the lady had 
recently gone blind, was in her late 50's but had lived a highly 
active life, going on major camping trips around europe, cycling and 
the like, and had pretty much been told she'd now have to stop.


Indeed, she was a little amazed when she heard I lived on my own, 
and even more so when I explained I was at university finishing a 
doctorate since it just hadn't been explained to her that someone 
without vision could do those sorts of things.


While that didn't relate explicitly to games (this lady was 
obviously not really interested in such), it does sort of show the mentality.


In particular one thing that annoys me slightly about Aadvertising 
zabat's is their major insistance on running straight from the cd! 
as a major factor, as if running a program from a program shortcut 
such as one of the spoonbill games, pontes backgammon or Jim 
kitchins is beyond people, 
heck, even if you were dealing with an absolute computer novice it'd 
hardly be difficult to setup a shortcut key so all a person would 
have to do is press say control alt 1 to run the game.


My mum is a complete computer novice, (she struggles with sending 
e-mail or basically managing files on her machine), yet once I'd 
installed Bg Sudocue for her (her being a big Sudocue fan), she's 
got no problems running it from the programs menue.


I certainly have no problem with people producing card, word, puzzle 
or other traditional games, there are people who enjoy such things 
and the fact that they now come with innumerable peaces of 
technology (even my parents new sky plus Tv box came with monopoly, 
battleships and solitare), but why simplify more than needs be?


Beware the Grue!

Dark.

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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-08 Thread Thomas Ward
Hi Charles,

Smile. I just couldn't resist mentioning it seeing that it was ironic
you were busting Shaun's chops for not reading his messages and turned
out you obviously hadn't done that yourself.

Cheers!


On 11/7/13, Charles Rivard wee1s...@fidnet.com wrote:
 Yep, I missed that one, as we all do, occasionally.  The spell checker
 didn't catch it, because fond is a word.  I didn't listen to the message
 before sending.  Thanks.

 ---
 Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second.

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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-08 Thread Thomas Ward
Hi Shaun,

Well, these days most newer games come on DVD not CD, and the really
high-end games for Play Station III etc come on blue ray discs.  There
are many good reasons why companies do this. Besides being able to use
it as a type of copy protection, forcing people to physically own the
media, with the size of many games to day it is better that the
contents of the game remain on the DVD or blue ray disc than your hard
drive. Perhaps you don't realize this but many mainstream commercial
games are usually between 2 GB and 4 GB in size, and the really
high-end ones can be 20 GB or more. With that amount of data it would
easily fill up a good sized hard drive in no time at all.

To give you an idea of what kind of sizes we are talking about the
laptop I am using has a 300 GB drive in it. Now that drive is plenty
for most of my needs, but if I started installing commercial games on
it about 4 GB in size I'd quickly end up using most of that space on
games. If I had 25 games that is 100 GB spent on games alone. Plus the
more stuff a person stores on their boot drive the slower the
operating system will run, and as a performance fanatic I'd go nuts
having my OS dragging down to a snails crawl because I had x number of
games on it.

Cheers!


On 11/8/13, shaun everiss sm.ever...@gmail.com wrote:
 Dark sadly I know a lot of sighted games that still run from the cd
 or need the cd for varification when run so I think while a lot don't
 that this seems to be an industry practice rather than a minority one.
 I don't care for this either.
 it puts extra ware on the drive and disks, and for a lot of programs
 that do it, it is not usually needed unless some files are not
 installed on the system.
 Silent steel does this but you can get round it easily enough.
 I have known friends that have brought games.
 That they have cracked just to avoid running off the cd, because they
 hate it so much.
 I still know modern games that still need the cd.
 I do think this is being abused to much.
 In the old days 1995 and earlier I realise why that was but with all
 the power we have now we shouldn't need to run   off a disk or
 anything like that at all, there is no real excuse.

---
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You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at
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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-08 Thread Thomas Ward
Hi Dark,

Yeah, I agree with you. I don't have a problem with Azabat producing
card, puzzle, and board games. As I recall they were one of the first
to come out with an accessible Drafts game. What always got on my wick
is the way they implemented their games by running them directly from
the CD.

For one thing the Azabat games are very small, and most people today
have at least a 100 GB drive or larger so its not like space should be
a major concern. Most of Azabat's customers are likely to own some
screen reader weather it be Jaws, Supernova, Window-Eyes, or something
free like NVDA. Anyone who has used a computer for a while should be
able to install and run the game from the Start Menu like any other
program. If finding icons is a concern on XP, Vista, and Windows 7 an
icon can be placed on the desktop for convenience, and it can be
pinned to the taskbar in Windows 8 and Windows 8.1. Either way finding
and launching the game is not very complicated. Azabat is over
simplifying something that just does not need to be that simple.

The other issue is more a concern than a complaint. Azabat like so
many audio game developers has chosen the Visual Basic 6 route, and
now is facing serious problems with Windows 8 and 8.1. There is
absolutely no native Visual Basic 6 support in Windows 8.x so if
someone goes out and buys a new Toshiba, HP, or similar laptop the
Azabat games aren't going to work unless someone helps them install
all the missing components. Even then I've noticed some older games
tend to crash or fail to work correctly on Windows 8 and 8.1. So
Azabat is selling people on out dated technology, and I do not know
when or if they are going to correct those issues.

Cheers!


On 11/7/13, dark d...@xgam.org wrote:
 Hi tom.

 Even in the Uk, though the attitude of the rnib is held by some
 organizations, there are  some who are better. People may remember a few
 years ago the organization Guide dogs organization I've always been a major

 fan of for their generalized good attitude and habbit of pushing people to
 try and achieve things, albeit accessible computer games are sort of out of

 their perview. On the other hand, Action for blind people ran an audio games

 contest as part of their accessible technology blog, and when i wanted to
 test out an Iphone there was someone from the  technology section of the
 local society who was quite happy to come and do a demonstration for me.

 It's generally a matter of finding the good ones and going with them, though

 I confess the prevailance of the rnib, the fact that when the Uk government

 or health service newly diagnoses someone as blind that! is who they are
 sent to does somewhat get on my whick.

 Indeed, last time I went for an appointment with an optomatrist (as I do
 from time to time to check my eye pressure, remaining vision and
 medication), I noticed a man and his wife sitting behind me discussing
 talking watches in rather worried tones. Since they were uncertain about
 watches and asked about the one I was actually wearing I broke the ice and
 asked if they'd like a look.

 I actually felt rather sorry for this couple since the lady had recently
 gone blind, was in her late 50's but had lived a highly active life, going
 on major camping trips around europe, cycling and the like, and had pretty
 much been told she'd now have to stop.

 Indeed, she was a little amazed when she heard I lived on my own, and even
 more so when I explained I was at university finishing a doctorate since it

 just hadn't been explained to her that someone without vision could do those

 sorts of things.

 While that didn't relate explicitly to games (this lady was obviously not
 really interested in such), it does sort of show the mentality.

 In particular one thing that annoys me slightly about Aadvertising zabat's
 is their major insistance on running straight from the cd! as a major
 factor, as if running a program from a program shortcut such as one of the
 spoonbill games, pontes backgammon or Jim kitchins is beyond people, 
 heck, even if you were dealing with an absolute computer novice it'd hardly

 be difficult to setup a shortcut key so all a person would have to do is
 press say control alt 1 to run the game.

 My mum is a complete computer novice, (she struggles with sending e-mail or

 basically managing files on her machine), yet once I'd installed Bg Sudocue

 for her (her being a big Sudocue fan), she's got no problems running it from

 the programs menue.

 I certainly have no problem with people producing card, word, puzzle or
 other traditional games, there are people who enjoy such things and the fact

 that they now come with innumerable peaces of technology (even my parents
 new sky plus Tv box came with monopoly, battleships and solitare), but why
 simplify more than needs be?

 Beware the Grue!

 Dark.


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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-08 Thread Thomas Ward
Hi Charles,

I know, but I can see their rationality to a point. The fact of the
matter is most people world wide who are blind and low vision are over
the age of 50. So that much make sense. However, as Dark has stated
many times the majority of their funds are gotten through wills and
charitable donations so they play to the group whom they are most
likely to get money from. So as far as the RNIB is concerned anyone
below 50 just isn't worth their time unless they are willing to put up
a lot of money to get noticed.

Cheers!


On 11/7/13, Charles Rivard wee1s...@fidnet.com wrote:
 Maybe someone who would be served by the RNIB, or someone who is employed by

 them, can explain why the RNIB doesn't listen to, or realize that there are

 blind people from the age of 1 minute to over 90 years?  Sheesh.  It's
 common sense, isn't it?  Sure, there are people who lose their eyesight due

 to their age, or through an accident or a disease later in life, but there
 also people who are born blind.  Those people are young, and need
 entertainment, too.  And how about the 25 to 40 group?  That's like saying
 that all people who are deaf or hard of hearing are at least 70, or that all

 people who need to use a wheelchair are at least 70.  It makes no sense!

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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-08 Thread dark

Hi Tom.

Well the Vb issue is a separate one, but to just concentrate on design for 
the second, I agree taht there is a place for games like Azabat, and 
certainly they have produced some unique games, however what irritates me 
about their company isn't just the running from the cd it's the attitude of 
avoiding! adding basic features and other elements to their games  in an 
effort to keep them symple.


For example, in their anagram and mathematics style games, you have no 
ability to input an answer, or have the computer keep score, also, though 
the games run with the timer it is simply an audio sound file of a ticking 
clock that the user ignores or not as they wish. Effectively, the game is 
not using the power of the computer at all to create challenge, interest or 
extra possibilities for the puzzle, you could do pretty much the same thing 
with an audio timer and a bag of tactile scrabble letters.


Bare in mind This wasn't due to the developer's lack of skill, indeed he did 
add the feature to have the computer produce a generic list of answers with 
the anagram from the dictionary (albeit it is up to the user to do 
everything in his/her head as to whether he/she got any of those answers). 
The developer stated his decision to do this was because he wanted to have 
it as a game where people could just yell out but what is really the point 
of that?


Compare this to the Bg anagrams game of spoonbill or indeed the anagrams 
game from allinplay, both of which are considderably cheaper than azabat's 
version, have far more features (including in the case of allinplay online 
competition), and are customizable with respect to time, challenge, score 
etc, all of which customizations could be easily set for a person in the 
game and saved by someone else, (though they're not hard to set on their 
own).


Another example might be pontes backgammon, which impressed me so much I 
bought the game. Loads of features, customizable background, play against 
the computer on various difficculties, or play online, or indeed with 
someone else at the same machine, different rule sets, even different ways 
of viewing the board, (you can play witht the mouse if you wish), not to 
mention several language packs, yet to start a game you just start the 
program and hit enter, (everything is found in the settings menue).


While Azabat was certainly the first to create an accessible backgammon 
game, and they still have the only backgammon game with graphics, in terms 
of customization, features and just plane design Pontes is an amazingly well 
put together affair, (plus it's cheaper too).


while as I said I have nothing against card, word or puzzle games, and 
indeed enjoy them myself on occasion, like any games the better designed the 
better the game, and it just seems Azabat chose to design the games without! 
features, complexities or indeed in some cases much interaction at all in 
gthe guise of simplicity  and yet this is what the Rnib promotes as a 
standard for modern

and complete audio computer games for blind people!

Oh,nd to prvent this turning into a witchunt on Azabat, a very similar 
example is talking crossword puzzles, vs Bg crosswords from spoonbill, which 
even lets you import crosswords in different formats from actual newspapers! 
again, why do certain people and organizations have the idea that for the 
blind means skimping on decent design?


Beware the Grue!

Dark. 



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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-08 Thread dark

Hi Tom.

Your very right about games, however bare in mind what takes up a huge 
amount of space is graphics! especially the hyper complex, performance heavy 
3D nonsense that most games have nowadays, just look at the relative size of 
audio and visual files.


Of course, we've not had a complete commercial audio game with as complex a 
mechanic as most mainstream offerings, but I'd be willing to be just cutting 
out the graphics would reduce the size by at least half, if not more.
As one example, if I remember Rightly King of Dragon pass, which is about 
mechanically as complex a game as you will find, is I believe about 140 mb, 
and even that! has significant amounts of still pictures and images.


Papasangre 2 which has amazingly rich audio landscape is I believe around 60 
mb. Of course, we haven't seen an audio game with the complexity of 
something like dark souls, skyrim etc, so it's not quite possible to say, 
but still just based on what I know of data and programming I'm pretty sure 
the requirements are wy smaller.


This indeed might be another reason audio games are taking off on hand held 
platforms, since even with a 64 gb Iphone your still very limited in space.


BEware the Grue!

Dark. 



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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-08 Thread Charles Rivard
I took it as an ironic light hearted jab, with no offense meant or taken. 
Notta problem.


---
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- Original Message - 
From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com

To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org
Sent: Friday, November 08, 2013 7:17 AM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine



Hi Charles,

Smile. I just couldn't resist mentioning it seeing that it was ironic
you were busting Shaun's chops for not reading his messages and turned
out you obviously hadn't done that yourself.

Cheers!


On 11/7/13, Charles Rivard wee1s...@fidnet.com wrote:

Yep, I missed that one, as we all do, occasionally.  The spell checker
didn't catch it, because fond is a word.  I didn't listen to the 
message

before sending.  Thanks.

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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-08 Thread Thomas Ward
Hi Dark,

I do take your point, and for the most part agree with it. That is
very bad, and a very sad state of affairs when organizations like the
RNIB treat something like Azabat as the best solution in terms of
games when Jim Kitchen's or Spoonbill's games are cheaper and much
better examples of those types of games.

Cheers!

On 11/8/13, dark d...@xgam.org wrote:
 Hi Tom.

 Well the Vb issue is a separate one, but to just concentrate on design for
 the second, I agree taht there is a place for games like Azabat, and
 certainly they have produced some unique games, however what irritates me
 about their company isn't just the running from the cd it's the attitude of

 avoiding! adding basic features and other elements to their games  in an
 effort to keep them symple.

 For example, in their anagram and mathematics style games, you have no
 ability to input an answer, or have the computer keep score, also, though
 the games run with the timer it is simply an audio sound file of a ticking
 clock that the user ignores or not as they wish. Effectively, the game is
 not using the power of the computer at all to create challenge, interest or

 extra possibilities for the puzzle, you could do pretty much the same thing

 with an audio timer and a bag of tactile scrabble letters.

 Bare in mind This wasn't due to the developer's lack of skill, indeed he did

 add the feature to have the computer produce a generic list of answers with

 the anagram from the dictionary (albeit it is up to the user to do
 everything in his/her head as to whether he/she got any of those answers).
 The developer stated his decision to do this was because he wanted to have

 it as a game where people could just yell out but what is really the point

 of that?

 Compare this to the Bg anagrams game of spoonbill or indeed the anagrams
 game from allinplay, both of which are considderably cheaper than azabat's
 version, have far more features (including in the case of allinplay online
 competition), and are customizable with respect to time, challenge, score
 etc, all of which customizations could be easily set for a person in the
 game and saved by someone else, (though they're not hard to set on their
 own).

 Another example might be pontes backgammon, which impressed me so much I
 bought the game. Loads of features, customizable background, play against
 the computer on various difficculties, or play online, or indeed with
 someone else at the same machine, different rule sets, even different ways
 of viewing the board, (you can play witht the mouse if you wish), not to
 mention several language packs, yet to start a game you just start the
 program and hit enter, (everything is found in the settings menue).

 While Azabat was certainly the first to create an accessible backgammon
 game, and they still have the only backgammon game with graphics, in terms
 of customization, features and just plane design Pontes is an amazingly well

 put together affair, (plus it's cheaper too).

 while as I said I have nothing against card, word or puzzle games, and
 indeed enjoy them myself on occasion, like any games the better designed the

 better the game, and it just seems Azabat chose to design the games without!

 features, complexities or indeed in some cases much interaction at all in
 gthe guise of simplicity  and yet this is what the Rnib promotes as a

 standard for modern
 and complete audio computer games for blind people!

 Oh,nd to prvent this turning into a witchunt on Azabat, a very similar
 example is talking crossword puzzles, vs Bg crosswords from spoonbill, which

 even lets you import crosswords in different formats from actual newspapers!

 again, why do certain people and organizations have the idea that for the
 blind means skimping on decent design?

 Beware the Grue!

 Dark.


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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-08 Thread Thomas Ward
Hi Dark,

Yes, exactly. It is the high definition cut scenes, 3d graphics, etc
that accounts for 90% of the size of modern games. The sounds and
music is certainly a factor, but not as much as the graphics.

To give you an example I was looking at Star Wars Battle Front, that
is a game from a few years back, and about 1 GB of the Play Station
disc was sounds and music. The rest of the disc was videos, graphics,
and so on. If you use that as an average say one or two GB is sounds
and music just yanking the graphics out cuts a game in half if not
more.

Cheers!


On 11/8/13, dark d...@xgam.org wrote:
 Hi Tom.

 Your very right about games, however bare in mind what takes up a huge
 amount of space is graphics! especially the hyper complex, performance heavy

 3D nonsense that most games have nowadays, just look at the relative size of

 audio and visual files.

 Of course, we've not had a complete commercial audio game with as complex a

 mechanic as most mainstream offerings, but I'd be willing to be just cutting

 out the graphics would reduce the size by at least half, if not more.
 As one example, if I remember Rightly King of Dragon pass, which is about
 mechanically as complex a game as you will find, is I believe about 140 mb,

 and even that! has significant amounts of still pictures and images.

 Papasangre 2 which has amazingly rich audio landscape is I believe around 60

 mb. Of course, we haven't seen an audio game with the complexity of
 something like dark souls, skyrim etc, so it's not quite possible to say,
 but still just based on what I know of data and programming I'm pretty sure

 the requirements are wy smaller.

 This indeed might be another reason audio games are taking off on hand held

 platforms, since even with a 64 gb Iphone your still very limited in space.

 BEware the Grue!

 Dark.


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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-08 Thread shaun everiss

Yeah as games get bigger and bigger I can see the reason.
I have several games given to me which are 1 or 2 gb in size loaded 
on my drive.
And I have the old silent steel which I loaded on drive and made the 
cfg file run it all from the drive which is 2gb.

So having 20 gb of installed game on my drive um maybe not.
My friend that does play games often loads some games plays them and 
has to delete and load others  because of the size.


At 02:30 AM 11/9/2013, you wrote:

Hi Shaun,

Well, these days most newer games come on DVD not CD, and the really
high-end games for Play Station III etc come on blue ray discs.  There
are many good reasons why companies do this. Besides being able to use
it as a type of copy protection, forcing people to physically own the
media, with the size of many games to day it is better that the
contents of the game remain on the DVD or blue ray disc than your hard
drive. Perhaps you don't realize this but many mainstream commercial
games are usually between 2 GB and 4 GB in size, and the really
high-end ones can be 20 GB or more. With that amount of data it would
easily fill up a good sized hard drive in no time at all.

To give you an idea of what kind of sizes we are talking about the
laptop I am using has a 300 GB drive in it. Now that drive is plenty
for most of my needs, but if I started installing commercial games on
it about 4 GB in size I'd quickly end up using most of that space on
games. If I had 25 games that is 100 GB spent on games alone. Plus the
more stuff a person stores on their boot drive the slower the
operating system will run, and as a performance fanatic I'd go nuts
having my OS dragging down to a snails crawl because I had x number of
games on it.

Cheers!


On 11/8/13, shaun everiss sm.ever...@gmail.com wrote:
 Dark sadly I know a lot of sighted games that still run from the cd
 or need the cd for varification when run so I think while a lot don't
 that this seems to be an industry practice rather than a minority one.
 I don't care for this either.
 it puts extra ware on the drive and disks, and for a lot of programs
 that do it, it is not usually needed unless some files are not
 installed on the system.
 Silent steel does this but you can get round it easily enough.
 I have known friends that have brought games.
 That they have cracked just to avoid running off the cd, because they
 hate it so much.
 I still know modern games that still need the cd.
 I do think this is being abused to much.
 In the old days 1995 and earlier I realise why that was but with all
 the power we have now we shouldn't need to run   off a disk or
 anything like that at all, there is no real excuse.

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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-08 Thread shaun everiss

well its why I still use my xp laptop for gaming.
Most of the old vb6 games do not work right on 7.
The newer ones do thank goodness.

At 02:49 AM 11/9/2013, you wrote:

Hi Dark,

Yeah, I agree with you. I don't have a problem with Azabat producing
card, puzzle, and board games. As I recall they were one of the first
to come out with an accessible Drafts game. What always got on my wick
is the way they implemented their games by running them directly from
the CD.

For one thing the Azabat games are very small, and most people today
have at least a 100 GB drive or larger so its not like space should be
a major concern. Most of Azabat's customers are likely to own some
screen reader weather it be Jaws, Supernova, Window-Eyes, or something
free like NVDA. Anyone who has used a computer for a while should be
able to install and run the game from the Start Menu like any other
program. If finding icons is a concern on XP, Vista, and Windows 7 an
icon can be placed on the desktop for convenience, and it can be
pinned to the taskbar in Windows 8 and Windows 8.1. Either way finding
and launching the game is not very complicated. Azabat is over
simplifying something that just does not need to be that simple.

The other issue is more a concern than a complaint. Azabat like so
many audio game developers has chosen the Visual Basic 6 route, and
now is facing serious problems with Windows 8 and 8.1. There is
absolutely no native Visual Basic 6 support in Windows 8.x so if
someone goes out and buys a new Toshiba, HP, or similar laptop the
Azabat games aren't going to work unless someone helps them install
all the missing components. Even then I've noticed some older games
tend to crash or fail to work correctly on Windows 8 and 8.1. So
Azabat is selling people on out dated technology, and I do not know
when or if they are going to correct those issues.

Cheers!


On 11/7/13, dark d...@xgam.org wrote:
 Hi tom.

 Even in the Uk, though the attitude of the rnib is held by some
 organizations, there are  some who are better. People may remember a few
 years ago the organization Guide dogs organization I've always been a major

 fan of for their generalized good attitude and habbit of pushing people to
 try and achieve things, albeit accessible computer games are sort of out of

 their perview. On the other hand, Action for blind people ran an 
audio games


 contest as part of their accessible technology blog, and when i wanted to
 test out an Iphone there was someone from the  technology section of the
 local society who was quite happy to come and do a demonstration for me.

 It's generally a matter of finding the good ones and going with 
them, though


 I confess the prevailance of the rnib, the fact that when the Uk government

 or health service newly diagnoses someone as blind that! is who they are
 sent to does somewhat get on my whick.

 Indeed, last time I went for an appointment with an optomatrist (as I do
 from time to time to check my eye pressure, remaining vision and
 medication), I noticed a man and his wife sitting behind me discussing
 talking watches in rather worried tones. Since they were uncertain about
 watches and asked about the one I was actually wearing I broke the ice and
 asked if they'd like a look.

 I actually felt rather sorry for this couple since the lady had recently
 gone blind, was in her late 50's but had lived a highly active life, going
 on major camping trips around europe, cycling and the like, and had pretty
 much been told she'd now have to stop.

 Indeed, she was a little amazed when she heard I lived on my own, and even
 more so when I explained I was at university finishing a doctorate since it

 just hadn't been explained to her that someone without vision 
could do those


 sorts of things.

 While that didn't relate explicitly to games (this lady was obviously not
 really interested in such), it does sort of show the mentality.

 In particular one thing that annoys me slightly about Aadvertising zabat's
 is their major insistance on running straight from the cd! as a major
 factor, as if running a program from a program shortcut such as one of the
 spoonbill games, pontes backgammon or Jim kitchins is beyond people, 
 heck, even if you were dealing with an absolute computer novice it'd hardly

 be difficult to setup a shortcut key so all a person would have to do is
 press say control alt 1 to run the game.

 My mum is a complete computer novice, (she struggles with sending e-mail or

 basically managing files on her machine), yet once I'd installed Bg Sudocue

 for her (her being a big Sudocue fan), she's got no problems 
running it from


 the programs menue.

 I certainly have no problem with people producing card, word, puzzle or
 other traditional games, there are people who enjoy such things 
and the fact


 that they now come with innumerable peaces of technology (even my parents
 new sky plus Tv box came with monopoly, battleships and solitare), but why
 

Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-07 Thread shaun everiss
Well to be honest the best solution is to have an ftp server but as 
general users probably don't have the cash to afford a remote ftp or 
have the means to run one without going over their cap or unless 
spending more on the data it may as well be impossible.
Dropbox is good if you share folders as is sendspace, but a local 
server would be better by far.


At 11:52 PM 11/6/2013, you wrote:

Hi Dark,

Yeah, I know. That irritates me as well. I'll be going through the
Audio Games Forum, find a Dropbox link for something I want to
download, and discover the link has expired.  Dropbox has its use such
as sharing a podcast, with a friend or two, but not for storing weeks
or months of podcasts intended to be distributed to hundreds perhaps
thousands of listeners. A free Dropbox account just won't cut it.

Cheers!

On 11/5/13, dark d...@xgam.org wrote:
 Hi Tom.

 I also would not recommend dropbox unless you have the space money and
 bandwidth for perminant hosting, indeed it somewhat irritates me when
 someone on the audiogames.net forum asks for something, say an 
old copy of a


 now abandoned game, an audio demo or whatever and someone just provides a
 dropbox link which expires shortly after, since while that gives 
whatever to


 the immediate person it does nothing for the future.

 This is one reason I use perminant sendspace links for my own 
audio podcasts


 that are always downloadable, though obviously since audeasy has it's own
 server that is unnecessary.

 BEware the Grue!

 Dark.


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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-07 Thread shaun everiss

Well you can run wordpress off the audyssey server.
wordpress.com hosts your blogs.
wordpress.org allows you to download wordpress.
I have a site on wordpress.com but I have also co admin with someone 
that has a site directly on a server with wordpress.


At 11:20 PM 11/6/2013, you wrote:

Hi Shaun,

Well, that may be the case, but as I said earlier on list I think if
we do decide to setup a blog we will run it directly off the Audyssey
server. I would like to keep everything together on the same site,
same server, etc.

Cheers!


On 11/6/13, shaun everiss sm.ever...@gmail.com wrote:
 well I do use wordpress, and do in fact have it
 on 2 such blogs one of which I own.

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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-07 Thread Thomas Ward
Hi,

Well, it make sense that accessible games be aimed at a specific
target market. As I have said before reaching universal accessibility
is really difficult to do unless it uses very simple user interfaces
such as text which is good for blind, deaf, sighted, etc but is still
not right for everyone. There are disorders like Dyslexia  that effect
a person's ability to read and write and therefore there would have to
be speech combined with a menu to help overcome that person's
disability. The standard parser system used by Tads, Inform, Adrift,
and other such games wouldn't work for a person with Dyslexia.

Another case I can think of is people with motor impairments. Some can
be satisfied with simple one switch games, but I have known people who
could not even do that. I knew a girl in college who was paralyzed
from the waste down. She ran her computer by voice and a head tracking
unit. She was also partially blind so used Jaws too. The point being
in order to make a game that would be totally accessible to her
special needs a developer like myself would have to add speech
recognition support, probably Sapi output, and the game would probably
have to be turn based not real time so she could play it. Right there
that excludes a huge number of types of games just by the nature of
her disability. I don't see someone in that condition playing Raceway
or Rail Racer, because she doesn't have the fine motor skills to use a
racing wheel, mouse, or joystick let alone a keyboard, nor can she
dictate fast turns etc verbally to the game. About all she will ever
be able to play are card and board games, or games with a similar turn
based style of play.

Cheers!


On 11/6/13, shaun everiss sm.ever...@gmail.com wrote:
 I can see where you are coming from.
 Accessable games seem to be routed at one dissability or another.
 Now ofcause I am blind so I concentrate on that but it does get me
 thinking what others are out there.
 I do aggree with the universal access thing myself.

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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-07 Thread Thomas Ward
Hi Shaun,

Yes, I know that already. In case you have forgotten I am presently
running Wordpress on the USA Games site, but have not written a blog
entry on their in a long time. So I am quite familiar with downloading
and installing Wordpress on a website.

Cheers!

On 11/6/13, shaun everiss sm.ever...@gmail.com wrote:
 Well you can run wordpress off the audyssey server.
 wordpress.com hosts your blogs.
 wordpress.org allows you to download wordpress.
 I have a site on wordpress.com but I have also co admin with someone
 that has a site directly on a server with wordpress.

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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-07 Thread Thomas Ward
Hi Shaun,

Actually, running an FTP server is not all that expensive. If someone
wants to he or she can do it from home using an extra desktop PC and
some open source FTP software. Personally I'd setup a Linux server for
this purpose since I know all the software I need is free and
relatively secure, but it is possible to run an FTP server via Windows
too. If someone has a dynamic I.P. address, which most people do, they
can purchase a virtual domain for that system and run their FTP server
from home. Upload and download speeds will probably suck, but it can
be done fairly cheaply.

On 11/6/13, shaun everiss sm.ever...@gmail.com wrote:
 Well to be honest the best solution is to have an ftp server but as
 general users probably don't have the cash to afford a remote ftp or
 have the means to run one without going over their cap or unless
 spending more on the data it may as well be impossible.
 Dropbox is good if you share folders as is sendspace, but a local
 server would be better by far.

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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-07 Thread Thomas Ward
Hi Charles,

I just had to point this out to you, but I found a spelling mistake in
this message. You meant to spell find, f i n d, and you typed fond, f
o n d. Maybe you should practice what you preach? :D

Cheers!


On 11/6/13, Charles Rivard wee1s...@fidnet.com wrote:
 A good idea is to listen to your message before you send it.  If something
 sounds wrong, it probably is wrong.  If it goes on and on and on with no
 pausing, check the punctuation.  If a word sounds wrong, check the spelling

 or use a spell checker.  If you don't have one, fond one through a search
 engine.  There are free ones available.  HTH.

 ---
 Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second.

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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-07 Thread shaun everiss
I just don't aggree with asabat stuff being what the blind game 
should be represented as such.
Now don't get me wrong, they may be a good company, its just that I 
feel that they portray the blind as simple people that have no hope.
I have seen the games out there here and on the forum and it disgusts 
me that there are people that do not look at what is clearly in front 
of them or at least in easy reach.
It disturbs me that some will think that all blind can play is card 
and board games when we have clearly gone past that, well we still do 
play them but they are not our ownly source of entertainment.

I think organisations for the blind should have more choices.
Is it that they don't know or don't wish to know.
I wander sometimes if they even try, I am sure that its not the case 
sertainly I hope its not.
It is still a worry I guess of what other think of me something I 
really shouldn't be bothered about but I guess I am bothered.


At 09:59 PM 10/31/2013, you wrote:
You state: In Britain anything designed for the blind is 
automatically aimed at the over 70's more often than not, and 
frankly though there are some games with that ethos they're not the 
ones I play or am interested in, indeed had
shades of doom struck me as being aimed at the blind I likely 
wouldn't have got into audio games at all.


Whose fault is it that what is produced for blind people in Britain 
are produced for the older people?  It is the fault of those who 
produce the stuff.  As for Shades of Doom drawing your attention to 
it, and getting you into playing games, this was a good thing, 
wasn't it?  Why take a negative attitude toward games geared toward 
people who cannot see to play mainstream games?  I see it as being 
positive.  As for what is produced, the producers should listen to 
the potential customers rather than the stick-in-the-muds of ancient 
stereotypical history of ignorance.


---
Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second.
- Original Message - From: dark d...@xgam.org
To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org
Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2013 4:34 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine



Hi Charlse.

when it comes to games like swamp, shades of doom etc, I disagree 
they are! designed for the blind as you ubiquitously put it.


In britain anything designed for the blind is automatically aimed 
at the over 70's more often than not, and frankly though there are 
some games with that ethos they're not the ones I play or am 
interested in, indeed had shades of doom struck me as being aimed 
at the blind I likely wouldn't have got into audio games at all.


Plus, with how companies like somethinelse,  choiceofgames, the 
developers of codenamesignas etc work for the Iphone  they frankly 
don't! just make games for the blind


Indeed to be perfectly honest charlse, I rather resent being 
grouped myself into a big the blind category.


Beware the Grue!

Dark.

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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-07 Thread Thomas Ward
Hi Shaun,

Well, I think it goes without saying that many people have long
standing biases when it comes to the blind and that includes some
organizations and agencies who should know better. Organizations like
the R.N.I.B. mainly deal with the elderly on a daily basis so have
totally geared their program for people over 50 or 60. That is why
something like the Asabat games  that are simple card, board, and word
games are the only thing they support.  The R.N.I.B. only see the
blind as being elderly and more or less incapable of being interested
in something like Shades of Doom, Tank Commander, whatever.

However, not all organizations are quite that out of  touch with
reality. I remember a long time ago being able to purchase things like
Lone Wolf from Anne Morris and Independent Living Aids. I don't know
if they still sell the GMA games or not, but I know some places like
that did resell games besides typical card and puzzle games.

Something else I remember a few years ago N.F.B. use to have demos of
Troopanum and Pipe on their computers.  Justin had worked out some
deal with the N.F.B. to have them advertise the BSC game titles and
they did. So not all organizations are quite as bad as the R.N.I.B
when it comes to treating the blind as elderly  and pushing Asabat as
the only games for the blind.


On 11/6/13, shaun everiss sm.ever...@gmail.com wrote:
 I just don't aggree with asabat stuff being what the blind game
 should be represented as such.
 Now don't get me wrong, they may be a good company, its just that I
 feel that they portray the blind as simple people that have no hope.
 I have seen the games out there here and on the forum and it disgusts
 me that there are people that do not look at what is clearly in front
 of them or at least in easy reach.
 It disturbs me that some will think that all blind can play is card
 and board games when we have clearly gone past that, well we still do
 play them but they are not our ownly source of entertainment.
 I think organisations for the blind should have more choices.
 Is it that they don't know or don't wish to know.
 I wander sometimes if they even try, I am sure that its not the case
 sertainly I hope its not.
 It is still a worry I guess of what other think of me something I
 really shouldn't be bothered about but I guess I am bothered.

---
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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-07 Thread Charles Rivard
Yep, I missed that one, as we all do, occasionally.  The spell checker 
didn't catch it, because fond is a word.  I didn't listen to the message 
before sending.  Thanks.


---
Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second.
- Original Message - 
From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com

To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org
Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 4:53 AM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine



Hi Charles,

I just had to point this out to you, but I found a spelling mistake in
this message. You meant to spell find, f i n d, and you typed fond, f
o n d. Maybe you should practice what you preach? :D

Cheers!


On 11/6/13, Charles Rivard wee1s...@fidnet.com wrote:
A good idea is to listen to your message before you send it.  If 
something

sounds wrong, it probably is wrong.  If it goes on and on and on with no
pausing, check the punctuation.  If a word sounds wrong, check the 
spelling


or use a spell checker.  If you don't have one, fond one through a search
engine.  There are free ones available.  HTH.

---
Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second.


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list,
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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-07 Thread Charles Rivard
Maybe someone who would be served by the RNIB, or someone who is employed by 
them, can explain why the RNIB doesn't listen to, or realize that there are 
blind people from the age of 1 minute to over 90 years?  Sheesh.  It's 
common sense, isn't it?  Sure, there are people who lose their eyesight due 
to their age, or through an accident or a disease later in life, but there 
also people who are born blind.  Those people are young, and need 
entertainment, too.  And how about the 25 to 40 group?  That's like saying 
that all people who are deaf or hard of hearing are at least 70, or that all 
people who need to use a wheelchair are at least 70.  It makes no sense!


---
Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second.
- Original Message - 
From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com

To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org
Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 7:43 AM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine



Hi Shaun,

Well, I think it goes without saying that many people have long
standing biases when it comes to the blind and that includes some
organizations and agencies who should know better. Organizations like
the R.N.I.B. mainly deal with the elderly on a daily basis so have
totally geared their program for people over 50 or 60. That is why
something like the Asabat games  that are simple card, board, and word
games are the only thing they support.  The R.N.I.B. only see the
blind as being elderly and more or less incapable of being interested
in something like Shades of Doom, Tank Commander, whatever.

However, not all organizations are quite that out of  touch with
reality. I remember a long time ago being able to purchase things like
Lone Wolf from Anne Morris and Independent Living Aids. I don't know
if they still sell the GMA games or not, but I know some places like
that did resell games besides typical card and puzzle games.

Something else I remember a few years ago N.F.B. use to have demos of
Troopanum and Pipe on their computers.  Justin had worked out some
deal with the N.F.B. to have them advertise the BSC game titles and
they did. So not all organizations are quite as bad as the R.N.I.B
when it comes to treating the blind as elderly  and pushing Asabat as
the only games for the blind.


On 11/6/13, shaun everiss sm.ever...@gmail.com wrote:

I just don't aggree with asabat stuff being what the blind game
should be represented as such.
Now don't get me wrong, they may be a good company, its just that I
feel that they portray the blind as simple people that have no hope.
I have seen the games out there here and on the forum and it disgusts
me that there are people that do not look at what is clearly in front
of them or at least in easy reach.
It disturbs me that some will think that all blind can play is card
and board games when we have clearly gone past that, well we still do
play them but they are not our ownly source of entertainment.
I think organisations for the blind should have more choices.
Is it that they don't know or don't wish to know.
I wander sometimes if they even try, I am sure that its not the case
sertainly I hope its not.
It is still a worry I guess of what other think of me something I
really shouldn't be bothered about but I guess I am bothered.


---
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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-07 Thread dark

Hi tom.

Even in the Uk, though the attitude of the rnib is held by some 
organizations, there are  some who are better. People may remember a few 
years ago the organization Guide dogs organization I've always been a major 
fan of for their generalized good attitude and habbit of pushing people to 
try and achieve things, albeit accessible computer games are sort of out of 
their perview. On the other hand, Action for blind people ran an audio games 
contest as part of their accessible technology blog, and when i wanted to 
test out an Iphone there was someone from the  technology section of the 
local society who was quite happy to come and do a demonstration for me.


It's generally a matter of finding the good ones and going with them, though 
I confess the prevailance of the rnib, the fact that when the Uk government 
or health service newly diagnoses someone as blind that! is who they are 
sent to does somewhat get on my whick.


Indeed, last time I went for an appointment with an optomatrist (as I do 
from time to time to check my eye pressure, remaining vision and 
medication), I noticed a man and his wife sitting behind me discussing 
talking watches in rather worried tones. Since they were uncertain about 
watches and asked about the one I was actually wearing I broke the ice and 
asked if they'd like a look.


I actually felt rather sorry for this couple since the lady had recently 
gone blind, was in her late 50's but had lived a highly active life, going 
on major camping trips around europe, cycling and the like, and had pretty 
much been told she'd now have to stop.


Indeed, she was a little amazed when she heard I lived on my own, and even 
more so when I explained I was at university finishing a doctorate since it 
just hadn't been explained to her that someone without vision could do those 
sorts of things.


While that didn't relate explicitly to games (this lady was obviously not 
really interested in such), it does sort of show the mentality.


In particular one thing that annoys me slightly about Aadvertising zabat's 
is their major insistance on running straight from the cd! as a major 
factor, as if running a program from a program shortcut such as one of the 
spoonbill games, pontes backgammon or Jim kitchins is beyond people,   
heck, even if you were dealing with an absolute computer novice it'd hardly 
be difficult to setup a shortcut key so all a person would have to do is 
press say control alt 1 to run the game.


My mum is a complete computer novice, (she struggles with sending e-mail or 
basically managing files on her machine), yet once I'd installed Bg Sudocue 
for her (her being a big Sudocue fan), she's got no problems running it from 
the programs menue.


I certainly have no problem with people producing card, word, puzzle or 
other traditional games, there are people who enjoy such things and the fact 
that they now come with innumerable peaces of technology (even my parents 
new sky plus Tv box came with monopoly, battleships and solitare), but why 
simplify more than needs be?


Beware the Grue!

Dark. 



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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-07 Thread dark

Hi Charlse.

While I won't say the rnib's attitude makes sense I am quite aware why they 
have it.


Actually, where as with deafness or mobility issues there is a good 
proportion of people who have them in younger life, the majority of blind 
people actually are! over the age of 70. Last estimate I checked said that 
%80 were over 50, and %60 over 70. Of course, that isn't an excuse, but it 
is part of the reason, though the second part is far nastier.


Money!  Though the rnib is a charity in the Uk and has therefore tax 
excemption status, it actually functions much more as a business, with a 
managing director, share holders etc. %50 of their donations come from 
people leaving legacies to the rnib in their wills, indeed on th last 
information day I went to last year, the over two hours! the rnib spent 
telling people how important leaving money to them was in their wills 
boardered on brain washing.


I have attempted many times over the years to change this perception. I have 
encouraged production of rp resources, suggested braille gamebooks (at the 
time I didn't know about internet capabilities), and from the age of 7! have 
been asking their talking book library to please produce a few more titles 
which readers of younger age groups would be interested in, ie, sf, fantasy 
and horror.  no dice!


And the worst thing is this doesn't seem to change, indeed recently (since I 
have some time having finished my phd), when I found out the guide dogs 
holiday organization had shut down (a group who I had been on several 
interesting trips with, including both down hill and cross country skeeing 
in the alps, sailing and wind serfing in griece, touring egypt in 2010), 
when I asked the rnib if a similar organization was still around all they 
offered me were retreat breaks in their specially adapted centers for the 
eldily  which needless to say wasseveral million  miles away from what 
I was looking for!


Beware the Grue!

Dark. 



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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-06 Thread shaun everiss
well I do use wordpress, and do in fact have it 
on 2 such blogs one of which I own.


At 09:10 PM 10/31/2013, you wrote:

Hi Cara,

Well, that is an interesting suggestion to be sure. One advantage to
havig a blog such as Wordpress is that people could leave feedback for
the author's and comment on reviews, articles,  news postings, etc.

Cheers!

On 10/31/13, Cara Quinn caraqu...@caraquinn.com wrote:
 Hi Thomas,

 One idea is to have Audyssey articles be blog 
postings and have the magazine

 in its entirety either be links to those articles or have those articles be
 arranged on a single web page.

 This would be good on many levels, as not only would the entire issue be
 available for those who may want to read it all at once, and also each
 individual article could be an individual blog post every few days. So The
 magazine could be posted, and following that, each individual article could
 be posted to the blog for those who might like to have small doses filling
 the time between issues.

 Also, with this model, links could be posted easily to Twitter / FaceBook
 etc. One link for the entire mag, and a link 
to each blog post when it comes

 out.

 this would make for a great experience to satisfy many types of readers.
 Those who didn't have time or the desire to read the entire magazine, could
 have many articles more often.

 Additionally, as has been mentioned here, any audio addenda to the mag,
 could also be posted with the magazine as well as sent out along with each
 blog posting.

 Does this make sense?

 This way, each issue would come out, and then 
there would be a steady stream
 of material which could be automated to be 
posted every so often to keep the

 activity going until the next issue of the magazine comes out. Who ever
 assembles the magazine could simply queue up the articles and the blog
 client could be set to post different articles on different dates.

 What are people's thoughts?…

 Have a great night,

 cara :)
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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-06 Thread shaun everiss
Well editors should correct mistakes though those that do post should 
indevour to fix as much as they can.
Editors in some cases do put the magazine or whatever together unless 
its handled by someone that puts things ttogether before distribution

at least that is what I understand of the deal.

At 09:20 PM 10/31/2013, you wrote:

Hi,

Yeah, I don't really get Dark's comment either. The purpose of an
editor is to correct spelling mistakes, correct punctuation mistakes,
and occasional correct a grammatical error or two when they happen. I
know for instance in reading the mails from this list on a daily basis
that some people often use me when they should use I or they use a
double negative in a sentence etc. Those kinds of mistakes should be
corrected before publication, and any editor worth his/her salt will
find and correct such mistakes in any article, review, or news
release intended to be published. So I'm not sure why Dark thinks it
is so unfair for an editor to do what is basically his/her job anyway.

Cheers!

On 10/30/13, Cara Quinn caraqu...@caraquinn.com wrote:
 Dark, you say it is unfair for an editor to need to wade through an article
 to edit it?

 Sorry, but that's any editor's job. ;)

 Maybe I'm misunderstanding here, so apologies if that's the case.

 Smiles,

 Cara :)
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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-06 Thread shaun everiss

I aggree tom nothing is 100% accessable.
same as nothing is 100% secure.
I just got a notification of yet another ms security update.

At 09:25 PM 10/31/2013, you wrote:

Hi Dark,

Definitely true. No game in the universe is 100% accessible to
everyone else in the world. It can be something as simple as the menus
and status messages being in a different language, or something more
complex like an audio game being accessible to a blind player but not
a deaf one. There is no way humanly possible to write something that
is 100% accessible to everyone at the same time. Therefore
accessibility needs to be discussed in terms of the group or groups
being targeted.

On 10/30/13, dark d...@xgam.org wrote:
 Hi Darren.

 I don't think any game in the entire universe is accessible to everyone!
 that's just how things are.

 Even something like the gaembooks on the ff project couldn't be played by
 dislexic person.

 I'd myself simply talk about games being accessible to different
 disabilities. gma tank commander is an audio game so it is accessible to
 blind and vi gamers. The close captioned version of Doom 3 has full text
 output so is accessible to deaf gamers etc.

 Beware the Grue!

 Dark.


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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-06 Thread shaun everiss
Well sertainly I'd like some catogry system but I wouldn't like a 
entire giant list as I feel there would be to many though I aggree 
that that would be good.
I actually don't have to many, more things like catogries and extra 
indexes means more to track.


At 09:40 PM 10/31/2013, you wrote:

Hi Dark,

Woe, let's slow down a bit here. I don't think I was actually
suggesting creating sections for one switch games, closed captioning,
and so on. Those are important, but as you said they are discussed
elsewhere. I was thinking more in terms of having sections of games
that are more universal in terms of accessibility such as gamebooks
that are accessible to blind, deaf, and sighted user's alike without
necessarily creating specific sections for one switch, motion
impaired, closed captioning, etc as all of those categories would more
or less be covered by that one genre of game. Something like Sryth by
its very nature would be accessible to multiple disabilities than
would be Shades of Doom or Tank Commander which target blind users
with reasonably good hearing. Sryth is not 100% accessible to
everyone, but because the medium is mostly text based it is reasonably
accessible to blind, deaf, motion impaired, and sighted alike without
having to do anything to specialize it for people with special needs.
Therefore I would put it in a section of games with almost universal
accessibility.

Cheers!

On 10/30/13, dark d...@xgam.org wrote:
 Hi Tom.

 While I do see your point about access for people with other disabilities,
 with respect I don't entirely agree that this is something we particularly
 need to do simply because there are many places it's done already.

 go to a site like able games, penny arcade or even retroremakes, and there
 is plenty of information for gamers with motion imparements. Lots of games
 have one switch or mouse control, or close captioning or similar none sound

 options for deaf gamers, (as indeed there should be),  yet there is nothing

 at all about access for vi or blind gamers, indeed colourblindness is
 about as far as such adaptations go.

 To show a great example of this, the game that won the 2008 retroremakes
 accessibility competition was a game called pyramid that was entirely
 graphical! it had innumerable customizations, control configurations,
 options to play without sound, but was utterly and completely inaccessible
 if you couldn't see the graphics,  indeed even for me with my level of
 sight I had to specifically write to the developers to request a menue
 description of the huge huge huge! textual menue in the game 
in order to


 try it.

 Of course not every game can be accessible to everyone, but it does seem
 some sorts of accessibility get far more publicity than others.

 Of course there are likely social reasons for this, the distinctly
 misleading term video games which makes games sound implicitely!
 inaccessible to visually  impared people the way the visual arts are, the
 higher proportion of  younger people with motion or hearing 
imparements, the


 fact that disability in general social consciousness is always associated

 with a wheel chair etc, however for this reason I don't 
necessarily feel we,


 say need to start writing specificc sections of the audeasy site about
 motion imparement access, alternative control schemes, text alternatives
 tosound etc.

 Of course we certainly could! note in individual game reviews how different

 games might have access features that appeal to other groups of disabled
 gamers, eg, text games for people who are deaf and blind, orcodename signus

 use of voice control, but I wouldn't suggest say making a major section on
 close captioning for audeasy, since that sort of thing is coered 
extensively


 elsewhere, and after all sites like oneswitch.co.uk have far more expertees

 and do a much better job than we could on such matters anyway.

 Beware the Grue!

 Dark.


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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-06 Thread shaun everiss

I aggree with dark.
I am a bit lazy in this reguard, but then
I can't remember my last article I did so who knows.

At 11:29 PM 10/31/2013, you wrote:

Hi Kara.

What I meant is it is unfair to lumber an editer with the job of 
spellchecking every single article. An editer certainly can check 
for content or length or whatever, but just the dull mechanics of 
getting words spelt write is really up to the author.


Heck, if you submitted an academic article for publication or even a 
marked peace of workk without! spellchecking you'd get a rejection in a hurry.


Much as I admit I am absolutely casual about spellings on list etc, 
if your essentially writing a publication you need to write at 
publication standard.


Beware the grue!

Dark.

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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-06 Thread shaun everiss

One thing that is not touched on as  ar as I know is the dictionary used.
When I used to use office, it always used the us dictionary.
 and the program made it quite fiddly to make 
that change to another dictionary stick.

so some words were wrongly spelt by the checker for my country.
Yes I could change it but even so.

At 01:50 PM 11/1/2013, you wrote:

Hi Bryan,

While I understand someone's concern usually a good spell checker will
accept both spellings for a word. For instance, ambiance can be
spelled a m b I a n c e or a m b I e n c e, and LibreOffice will
accept both without complaint.  So I don't know that Americanizing
someone's article is that much of a concern if we have a good editor
at the helm.

Cheers!

On 10/31/13, Bryan Peterson bpeterson2...@cableone.net wrote:
 I think too thathe was concerned about te fact that we in the US and folks
 over in the UKhave different spellings for 
the same word and he doesn't want


 some editor Americanizing his work.



 Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul,
 Ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.

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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-06 Thread Thomas Ward
Hi Shaun,

Well, that may be the case, but as I said earlier on list I think if
we do decide to setup a blog we will run it directly off the Audyssey
server. I would like to keep everything together on the same site,
same server, etc.

Cheers!


On 11/6/13, shaun everiss sm.ever...@gmail.com wrote:
 well I do use wordpress, and do in fact have it
 on 2 such blogs one of which I own.

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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-06 Thread Thomas Ward
Hi Shaun,

Well, that could be a problem, but I think what we are looking for in
terms of article submissions that are submitted using international
English. I'm not sure but I believe that is usually U.S. English
unless otherwise noted. Plus there are plenty of other proofreading
tools besides Microsoft Office. I myself use the free LibreOffice
suite for Linux which supports just about every language in the world
if I install those language packs and proofreading tools.

Cheers!


On 11/6/13, shaun everiss sm.ever...@gmail.com wrote:
 One thing that is not touched on as  ar as I know is the dictionary used.
 When I used to use office, it always used the us dictionary.
   and the program made it quite fiddly to make
 that change to another dictionary stick.
 so some words were wrongly spelt by the checker for my country.
 Yes I could change it but even so.

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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-06 Thread Thomas Ward
Hi Shaun,

Well, I know a lot of people are a bit lazy in regards to spelling,
proper grammar, punctuation, etc but I think the also forget that
practice makes perfect. The more a person gets use to spelling words
correctly, adding correct punctuation, and using proper grammar in a
casual document like an email those habits will pay off when it comes
to writing a professional or semi-professional article, essay, etc.
The more you get in a habit of doing it right the first time the less
complicated and difficult it will be to do it when it is necessary.

That is why in math a student may have to do 20 problems in class and
often times will get the same problem written a different way like 10
times 5 on one page and 5 times 10 on the next. The more a person
practices doing it the more likely it is the student will see a
problem like 10 times 5 and automatically know 50 is the answer.
Spelling, grammar, good punctuation, etc are no different. The more
you do it casually you'll be better able to do it when writing an
article for a publication or writing an important letter to someone in
authority.

Cheers!

On 11/6/13, shaun everiss sm.ever...@gmail.com wrote:
 I aggree with dark.
 I am a bit lazy in this reguard, but then
 I can't remember my last article I did so who knows.


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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-06 Thread Thomas Ward
Hi Shaun,

As I said before the senior editor of the magazine actually puts the
magazine together. If we were talking a professional magazine like
News Week, Readers Digest,  Popular Mechanics, etc there is a senior
editor who goes through and selects the articles that will go in the
magazine, organizes them, and puts it in its final form before it goes
to press. Under the senior editor their may be lower ranking editors
who proofreads the submissions sent in from their journalists and
writers for errors, and send it back to the author with suggestions to
correct, change, modify, etc.   When the article is in a publishable
form they submit it to the senior editor for possible selection and
inclusion into the final draft of the magazine. Make sense?

Cheers!


On 11/6/13, shaun everiss sm.ever...@gmail.com wrote:
 Well editors should correct mistakes though those that do post should
 indevour to fix as much as they can.
 Editors in some cases do put the magazine or whatever together unless
 its handled by someone that puts things ttogether before distribution
 at least that is what I understand of the deal.


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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-06 Thread Thomas Ward
Hi Dark,

Yeah, I know. That irritates me as well. I'll be going through the
Audio Games Forum, find a Dropbox link for something I want to
download, and discover the link has expired.  Dropbox has its use such
as sharing a podcast, with a friend or two, but not for storing weeks
or months of podcasts intended to be distributed to hundreds perhaps
thousands of listeners. A free Dropbox account just won't cut it.

Cheers!

On 11/5/13, dark d...@xgam.org wrote:
 Hi Tom.

 I also would not recommend dropbox unless you have the space money and
 bandwidth for perminant hosting, indeed it somewhat irritates me when
 someone on the audiogames.net forum asks for something, say an old copy of a

 now abandoned game, an audio demo or whatever and someone just provides a
 dropbox link which expires shortly after, since while that gives whatever to

 the immediate person it does nothing for the future.

 This is one reason I use perminant sendspace links for my own audio podcasts

 that are always downloadable, though obviously since audeasy has it's own
 server that is unnecessary.

 BEware the Grue!

 Dark.


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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-06 Thread shaun everiss

I can see where you are coming from.
Accessable games seem to be routed at one dissability or another.
Now ofcause I am blind so I concentrate on that but it does get me 
thinking what others are out there.

I do aggree with the universal access thing myself.

At 12:22 AM 11/1/2013, you wrote:

Hi Dark,

That's precisely what I am talking about. Having a page where people
can look up largely universally accessible games, or stating in a
review that game x is almost universally accessible. That is basically
all I was getting at to begin with.

Cheers!

On 10/31/13, dark d...@xgam.org wrote:
 Hi Tom.

 Well if in effect  what we're saying is that textual games such as
 gamebooks, brouser games etc are accessible to anyone with an 
alternative to


 read print even if they cannot hear, why not just have a page somewhere on
 the site saying as much or note it in appropriate reviews of games.

 Beware the Grue!

 Dark.


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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-06 Thread Charles Rivard
A good idea is to listen to your message before you send it.  If something 
sounds wrong, it probably is wrong.  If it goes on and on and on with no 
pausing, check the punctuation.  If a word sounds wrong, check the spelling 
or use a spell checker.  If you don't have one, fond one through a search 
engine.  There are free ones available.  HTH.


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- Original Message - 
From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com

To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org
Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2013 4:40 AM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine



Hi Shaun,

Well, I know a lot of people are a bit lazy in regards to spelling,
proper grammar, punctuation, etc but I think the also forget that
practice makes perfect. The more a person gets use to spelling words
correctly, adding correct punctuation, and using proper grammar in a
casual document like an email those habits will pay off when it comes
to writing a professional or semi-professional article, essay, etc.
The more you get in a habit of doing it right the first time the less
complicated and difficult it will be to do it when it is necessary.

That is why in math a student may have to do 20 problems in class and
often times will get the same problem written a different way like 10
times 5 on one page and 5 times 10 on the next. The more a person
practices doing it the more likely it is the student will see a
problem like 10 times 5 and automatically know 50 is the answer.
Spelling, grammar, good punctuation, etc are no different. The more
you do it casually you'll be better able to do it when writing an
article for a publication or writing an important letter to someone in
authority.

Cheers!

On 11/6/13, shaun everiss sm.ever...@gmail.com wrote:

I aggree with dark.
I am a bit lazy in this reguard, but then
I can't remember my last article I did so who knows.



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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-05 Thread Charles Rivard
That's absolutely true.  I always checked articles I sent to Audyssey.  I 
think that it is my responsibility to check for spelling and typos, but it 
is also the editor's job to, well, edit, as necessary.


---
Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second.
- Original Message - 
From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com

To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org
Sent: Thursday, October 31, 2013 6:18 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine



Hi Charles,

Well, yes, but I think Dark's point was that the author's rough draft
should attempt to be spell checked and proofread for errors before
being submitted to the editor therefore making the editors work a bit
easier. I know in my own case whenever I write a document in
LibreOfficeOrca alerts me when a word is misspelled or unknown by
Writer, and I can correct it as I type the document or go back and
edit the errors after I am finished.  Plus the built-in spell checker
comes in handy for anything I may have missed during composition.
Point being there is little excuse for someone submitting an article
to submit something filled with lots of spelling mistakes.

Cheers!

On 10/31/13, Charles Rivard wee1s...@fidnet.com wrote:
The job of an editor is, well, to edit.  This includes spelling and 
grammar


if necessary.

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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-05 Thread Thomas Ward
Hello Shaun,

I don't think that we need a bunch of editors. One or two dedicated
editors is really all we need. It is just a matter of getting the
editors we do have to set aside personal time etc and get it done. We
can do it, and it doesn't require an army of editors to put together a
basic e-magazine on a quarterly basis.

As far as putting it in a markup language such as HTML, XML, etc I
already have plans to do that as soon as Ron gives me what he has. It
is not very difficult to markup a document like the Audyssey magazine
and give it a professional look and feel. So the conversion to a newer
more professional format is already under way.

As far as an audio podcast I have mixed feelings on that topic. Wile I
am not apposed to it I still maintain it is an addition to the
magazine not a replacement. I am looking towards January or so before
I can really do anything on that front as there is a lot of personal
issues in my life that requires my full attention right now.

As far as content goes I still intend for Audyssey to primarily be
about accessible games be they audio games, accessible card and board
games, and so on. I don't think we need to add anything else other
than perhaps have more content on the various new platforms such as
iOS, Android, Mac, Linux, etc. I suppose we could discuss some
hardware like joysticks, mice, headphones, etc but that is all
dependent on end user submissions and not the editor or editors.

As for offering a Dropbox account I appreciate the thought, but
everything we do in terms of magazine submissions and the podcast will
be handled via our own servers. We want to keep everything that we can
on site if possible and don't want it just dumped on Dropbox or
somewhere else.

Same goes for a blog. I know how to setup Wordpress, configure it,
create the necessary SQL database entries, etc and if we add a blog to
our site it will be on the Audyssey server and not on someone else's
server.So I don't really see much for you to do other than perhaps
submitting articles for us to post to the site or magazine from time
to time.

Cheers!

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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-05 Thread dark

Hi Tom.

I also would not recommend dropbox unless you have the space money and 
bandwidth for perminant hosting, indeed it somewhat irritates me when 
someone on the audiogames.net forum asks for something, say an old copy of a 
now abandoned game, an audio demo or whatever and someone just provides a 
dropbox link which expires shortly after, since while that gives whatever to 
the immediate person it does nothing for the future.


This is one reason I use perminant sendspace links for my own audio podcasts 
that are always downloadable, though obviously since audeasy has it's own 
server that is unnecessary.


BEware the Grue!

Dark. 



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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-03 Thread shaun everiss

Well you sertainly have hit  the zombie right there.
I know our local blind org has experimented with audiogames sertainly 
knows about them.
Would they publish an interesting mag, probably but I am not sure 
about the reviewing process.
We would need editers and people in all countries that had orgs at 
least it would use fewer resources.

Now how many would be interested would be the thing.
Especially if there are those that think the poor blindies can play 
asabat games or games that support something else and not the normal 
games probably wouldn't care.
At any rate we don't want the poor, super mentally mangled blind as 
the image for the magazine.
How many organisations have been excluded, I am not sure but with the 
attitude  going round I suggest enough to make a dent righ there.
I am also not a socal blogger, I have a twitter for viewing tweats 
and a wordpress but find it hard to write on either.

I wouldn't hold myself to post something per week, its really hard to do.
To be honest my local org is only just now investigating nvda as a 
reader that is not jaws only now.
How long the review processes will take and how long would it take to 
geet a rejection if ever it surfaced again.

And the coverage.
in the news released last month, the mention of nvda was 2 lines.
1 its being investigated
2.  it has some issues which jaws does not have.
and there you go.
no description of what the issues were nothing.
Its a pitty.
Immediately I wrote to the devs to solve this and was requested info.
A trackback found no one to talk to at all, and this worries me.
Its a flat rejection right there.
at least officially.
Ok, so I know now nvda eventually came out but no publication what so ever.
My suspician is the poor blind, super blind, mental blind, and stupid 
dumb helpless blind nut which has been growing thicker and thicker 
may be a quite hard nut to crack and will need a godly sized hammer 
to smash if it can ever be smashed.

Yes its todays world but the old habbits still exist in some shape or form.
I am not confordent that anyone will change without rocking the 
blindy boat unless there is a reason and sertainly nothing big.

I am not saying don't try but still.
The next we can do is try to get with magazine distributers themselves.
Now a spaciffic blindness mag has no market value I tried to get a 
mag I read blind use.

So we would our mag as a section of a mag if we ever got it going.
Now that may not happen either.
We would need someone in each contry to represent us at events and such.
But mainstream events who would play a blindy games when there is graphics.
Blind games are after all crap to sighted, maybe not all but enough 
that it would not make it a worthwhile thing at least not without 
some major something.

And it all comes to cash to.
I don't think any of us has millions of dollars, the sighted on here 
may have more resource.
But us poor blindies really don't all have work and may be dependant 
on handouts and schemes.
In fact if I did not live at home I probably wouldn't have resources 
to even go online!

At least not broadband.
The abismal fact is we need a large ammount of capital to even start 
sinking this no matter the running costs of this.

That is if we want to expand.
We can expand right now but its going to be different.
1.  I hate facebook and twitter but someone not me well ok if no one 
else will do it I will, needs to be able to stay online 24/7 and 
handle the mag on social media.

That is hard enough.
we need more forums than the audiogames forum.
game devs need to have the magazine on all their networks.
We need to put the mag to as many places online at once and as quick 
and as regular as we can.

That may trickle down, but its not garanteed to be honest.
Next we need to contact orgs to see if they will even carry the mag 
as an interest and thats it or at least link to it.

That may get a responce especially with libraries going digital.
The distribution with organisations is another step, but if they approved that.
there are blind consumer organisations courses, etc, there is 
potentual for  distribution right there if we could get that far.
Now thats fine and good, but we need to  get the mag outside the 
blindness community if we are able to make a dent.
the web distribution should be easy enough the rest will be the 
problem and even then.

Next we need the media.
Thats good and bad.
We need coverage constantly or at regular intivals online on news 
articles on on broadcasts.
We do not need the poor helpless blind playing games by asabat and 
jaws, yuck yuck yuck!!!

We need power.
large power!
How to get it is the issue.
If we pulled all resources, I wander how much we could put in if we 
really thought about it.
maybe we could spread this to the forums on audiogames.net, that 
would open up a few more people as I said before.
However the disabled really have no resources thats why we are 
disabled, most of the cash a lot of us get is from normals so normals 

Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-11-03 Thread shaun everiss

you are right there tom.
If you still think there is a need then I'll definate like to help edit it.
If we are serious in turning this magazine from old crappyness into 
the wow I had about 10 years ago we need a few things.
1.  A group of editers and such  that handle things, true a lot 
does  come from the forums on audiogames.net.
We also need people that will search the net for info and have enough 
time to do some of this.

Next we need some sort of format.
my idea is a html web page complete with headings as well as a text document.
We should also concidder electronic braille though I have no idea how 
to produce it.
We need an audio podcast,  not necessarily the entire magazine but 
reviews, dev news articles etc so the people we read have more than 
the speech synth  so to speak.

We need exposure to though I am not sure what to do there.
We need a bit more than blind games here.
mainstream gaes and the blind, maybe expand into technology for 
gamers, that is accessable or that has good writeups or things.

Things would include headsets, mice, joysticks and game pads.
os spaciffic especially with the xp-ers like myself moving to 7 and 8 
especially 8 where their security uac really means old games will 
have some issue.
we have the japanese games and other language games and then there 
are all the tablets iphones androids, I may end up on a nexus, 
because of price and such.

Then we need to keep it all going.
And we need to be constant.
we need also something in vms and vertual machine software.

I'm not saying that its easy, but we need to.
I can previde the following resources right now.
1.  a folder for submitions of stuff in dropbox maybe, if this gets 
off the ground and I have to pay for a subscription then I may have 
to impose a small fee maybe a buck well 50 cents to a dollar to keep 
things going if I ever need it though text and other stuff is small.
I am willing to try to set a site though to be honest, I am not made 
of cash but if I get a server in the future I may invest in it down the road.
I can make a wordpress blog for the mag though I know audyssey has a 
server so maybe thats ok.
I have time to do things as long as I get them a day in advance so I 
don't get lumped, holidays excluded though I will recieve submitions 
at any time ofcause real life things like house modifications and 
things will get in the way.

Reviewing games.
I can do this to maybe, at least have a hand at it though I never got 
my hd card in the new box ballenced right.

Right now I can previde the dropbox and a promise of more if I am able.
I have a job that requires a paypal and when I get a debit card 
depending on finances I could start donating 10-80 maybe 100 a month 
but that would be my limit.
Ofcause I can't really do this just with myself, I will eventually 
need more space, and other things some wf which I may be able to 
cover myself some of which I may need assistance with.
Then there are the games, if devs could give free coppies of games to 
be reviewed that would make it a bit better rather than buying games 
my resources are not limitless.
This excludes tablets and companies which has prices of 10 bucks or 
less but even so.
Any extra hardware ofcause will have to come from somewhere and with 
several family retiring in the next 2 years or less, funding is going 
to majorly reduce to a fraction of what i can currently afford.
If people want to keep the mag going I'll gladly try to take up the 
rope but its not lone ranger, I will need help more than me and my 
little resources to keep it going.


At 11:39 PM 10/29/2013, you wrote:

Hi Shaun,

I definitely think there is still a place for the Audyssey Magazine.
For one thing not everybody is on the Audyssey List or Audio Games
Forum. Many people who are busy with work, family, and other aspects
of day to day life don't necessarily want to spend all their time
browsing the forum or reading the list. For them the Audyssey Magazine
is a nice quarterly summary of what has been going on in our community
complete with news, reviews, and other things that may not be on the
list or the forum. Any failure in the Audyssey Magazine in any of
those areas is really the fault of the editor for not providing a
consistent schedule and possibly for not encouraging enough readers to
submit new content.

Cheers!



On 10/29/13, shaun everiss sm.ever...@gmail.com wrote:
 To be honest, do we even need a magazine.
 Its been overridden with the email list and the forums of
 audiogames.net and there is so much out there and so little.
 Yes if you are in the middle of a project like me its all on but
 don't take it the wrong way but there is basically f**ck going on.
 Not actually the case but not as much as it was in the early days of the
 mag.
 All  or most dev news is outdated and the only sections I ever read
 were game rescue unit, the imortal gamer, the dnd game stories though
 of late these have been less humerous than usual but well.
 Truth be told its 

Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-31 Thread Thomas Ward
Hi Cara,

Well, that is an interesting suggestion to be sure. One advantage to
havig a blog such as Wordpress is that people could leave feedback for
the author's and comment on reviews, articles,  news postings, etc.

Cheers!

On 10/31/13, Cara Quinn caraqu...@caraquinn.com wrote:
 Hi Thomas,

 One idea is to have Audyssey articles be blog postings and have the magazine
 in its entirety either be links to those articles or have those articles be
 arranged on a single web page.

 This would be good on many levels, as not only would the entire issue be
 available for those who may want to read it all at once, and also each
 individual article could be an individual blog post every few days. So The
 magazine could be posted, and following that, each individual article could
 be posted to the blog for those who might like to have small doses filling
 the time between issues.

 Also, with this model, links could be posted easily to Twitter / FaceBook
 etc. One link for the entire mag, and a link to each blog post when it comes
 out.

 this would make for a great experience to satisfy many types of readers.
 Those who didn't have time or the desire to read the entire magazine, could
 have many articles more often.

 Additionally, as has been mentioned here, any audio addenda to the mag,
 could also be posted with the magazine as well as sent out along with each
 blog posting.

 Does this make sense?

 This way, each issue would come out, and then there would be a steady stream
 of material which could be automated to be posted every so often to keep the
 activity going until the next issue of the magazine comes out. Who ever
 assembles the magazine could simply queue up the articles and the blog
 client could be set to post different articles on different dates.

 What are people's thoughts?…

 Have a great night,

 cara :)
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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-31 Thread Thomas Ward
Hi,

Yeah, I don't really get Dark's comment either. The purpose of an
editor is to correct spelling mistakes, correct punctuation mistakes,
and occasional correct a grammatical error or two when they happen. I
know for instance in reading the mails from this list on a daily basis
that some people often use me when they should use I or they use a
double negative in a sentence etc. Those kinds of mistakes should be
corrected before publication, and any editor worth his/her salt will
find and correct such mistakes in any article, review, or news
release intended to be published. So I'm not sure why Dark thinks it
is so unfair for an editor to do what is basically his/her job anyway.

Cheers!

On 10/30/13, Cara Quinn caraqu...@caraquinn.com wrote:
 Dark, you say it is unfair for an editor to need to wade through an article
 to edit it?

 Sorry, but that's any editor's job. ;)

 Maybe I'm misunderstanding here, so apologies if that's the case.

 Smiles,

 Cara :)
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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-31 Thread Thomas Ward
Hi Dark,

Definitely true. No game in the universe is 100% accessible to
everyone else in the world. It can be something as simple as the menus
and status messages being in a different language, or something more
complex like an audio game being accessible to a blind player but not
a deaf one. There is no way humanly possible to write something that
is 100% accessible to everyone at the same time. Therefore
accessibility needs to be discussed in terms of the group or groups
being targeted.

On 10/30/13, dark d...@xgam.org wrote:
 Hi Darren.

 I don't think any game in the entire universe is accessible to everyone!
 that's just how things are.

 Even something like the gaembooks on the ff project couldn't be played by
 dislexic person.

 I'd myself simply talk about games being accessible to different
 disabilities. gma tank commander is an audio game so it is accessible to
 blind and vi gamers. The close captioned version of Doom 3 has full text
 output so is accessible to deaf gamers etc.

 Beware the Grue!

 Dark.


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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-31 Thread Thomas Ward
Hi Dark,

Woe, let's slow down a bit here. I don't think I was actually
suggesting creating sections for one switch games, closed captioning,
and so on. Those are important, but as you said they are discussed
elsewhere. I was thinking more in terms of having sections of games
that are more universal in terms of accessibility such as gamebooks
that are accessible to blind, deaf, and sighted user's alike without
necessarily creating specific sections for one switch, motion
impaired, closed captioning, etc as all of those categories would more
or less be covered by that one genre of game. Something like Sryth by
its very nature would be accessible to multiple disabilities than
would be Shades of Doom or Tank Commander which target blind users
with reasonably good hearing. Sryth is not 100% accessible to
everyone, but because the medium is mostly text based it is reasonably
accessible to blind, deaf, motion impaired, and sighted alike without
having to do anything to specialize it for people with special needs.
Therefore I would put it in a section of games with almost universal
accessibility.

Cheers!

On 10/30/13, dark d...@xgam.org wrote:
 Hi Tom.

 While I do see your point about access for people with other disabilities,
 with respect I don't entirely agree that this is something we particularly
 need to do simply because there are many places it's done already.

 go to a site like able games, penny arcade or even retroremakes, and there
 is plenty of information for gamers with motion imparements. Lots of games
 have one switch or mouse control, or close captioning or similar none sound

 options for deaf gamers, (as indeed there should be),  yet there is nothing

 at all about access for vi or blind gamers, indeed colourblindness is
 about as far as such adaptations go.

 To show a great example of this, the game that won the 2008 retroremakes
 accessibility competition was a game called pyramid that was entirely
 graphical! it had innumerable customizations, control configurations,
 options to play without sound, but was utterly and completely inaccessible
 if you couldn't see the graphics,  indeed even for me with my level of
 sight I had to specifically write to the developers to request a menue
 description of the huge huge huge! textual menue in the game in order to

 try it.

 Of course not every game can be accessible to everyone, but it does seem
 some sorts of accessibility get far more publicity than others.

 Of course there are likely social reasons for this, the distinctly
 misleading term video games which makes games sound implicitely!
 inaccessible to visually  impared people the way the visual arts are, the
 higher proportion of  younger people with motion or hearing imparements, the

 fact that disability in general social consciousness is always associated

 with a wheel chair etc, however for this reason I don't necessarily feel we,

 say need to start writing specificc sections of the audeasy site about
 motion imparement access, alternative control schemes, text alternatives
 tosound etc.

 Of course we certainly could! note in individual game reviews how different

 games might have access features that appeal to other groups of disabled
 gamers, eg, text games for people who are deaf and blind, orcodename signus

 use of voice control, but I wouldn't suggest say making a major section on
 close captioning for audeasy, since that sort of thing is coered extensively

 elsewhere, and after all sites like oneswitch.co.uk have far more expertees

 and do a much better job than we could on such matters anyway.

 Beware the Grue!

 Dark.


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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-31 Thread Charles Rivard
Who did David Greenwood have in mind as a target market when he developed 
Shades of Doom?  Who did he advertise it toward?  It is a game designed for 
people who cannot see, of which I am one.  I see no problem with being 
classified as a blind person.  After all, my amount of vision is 0 over 0. 
No doubt about it, and I am not one bit ashamed of saying so, I! am! blind! 
There is no getting around the fact that I can not see anything through my 
eyes.  SOD was designed for people whose eyes do not give feedback to the 
brain.


As for being in a group, who does that?  Other people.  I do not mind be 
categorized as a blind person, because, after all, I cannot see a darned 
thing.  I do not like being stereotyped as haven to be spoken to at a high 
volume, being retarded mentally, or other such garbage because I am blind, 
but that is something else entirely.


Some games for the iPhone are not designed with blind people in mind, but 
blind people can play them.  But some game developers have developed games 
specifically for people who cannot see.  I see nothing wrong with that. 
Fact is, I greatly appreciate it.  I also appreciate games for iDevices that 
just happen to be playable by blind people.  I refer to blind people not 
ubiquitously, but specifically and honestly.  They are people who cannot 
see.

---
Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second.
- Original Message - 
From: dark d...@xgam.org

To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org
Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2013 4:34 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine



Hi Charlse.

when it comes to games like swamp, shades of doom etc, I disagree they 
are! designed for the blind as you ubiquitously put it.


In britain anything designed for the blind is automatically aimed at the 
over 70's more often than not, and frankly though there are some games 
with that ethos they're not the ones I play or am interested in, indeed 
had shades of doom struck me as being aimed at the blind I likely 
wouldn't have got into audio games at all.


Plus, with how companies like somethinelse,  choiceofgames, the developers 
of codenamesignas etc work for the Iphone  they frankly don't! just make 
games for the blind


Indeed to be perfectly honest charlse, I rather resent being grouped 
myself into a big the blind category.


Beware the Grue!

Dark.

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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-31 Thread Thomas Ward
Hi Shaun,

Sigh...I think you are making a big deal out of nothing. There are
always solutions for the things you seem to think are barriers to
developing high quality accessible games.

Let's take licensing. If a developer is only interested in developing
games based on trademarked and licensed characters like Star Wars,
Star Trek, DC Comics, Harry Potter, whatever then he or she is out of
luck. However, a creative and relatively intelligent game developer
doesn't need to use those licenses to create good games. All he or she
needs to do is use them as a template as for the type of game they
want to create and then use their own ideas and imagination to come up
with something similar but different. Then, there will be no licenses
involved.



As far a other disabilities goes there are already some types of games
with a high degree of accessibility for a number of groups. No game is
100% accessible to everyone, but I know of a number of games such as
browser based, text based, etc that could be seen as having near
universal accessibility as they can equally be played by someone who
is blind, deaf, motion impaired, sighted, etc. It is merely a matter
of trying to maximize the number of groups that the product can
support without much effort on the developers part.

Cheers!

On 10/30/13, shaun everiss sm.ever...@gmail.com wrote:
 I aggree fully with tom.
 now question is how do we do that.
 firstly other disabilities.
 I know of them physical, interlectial and a few other things.
 I do not know how to adapt for them though and even if we did that,
 how would get abled people on our side in a big way.
 Ideally we need the power and cash for sound licencing and other
 licencing as well as any suits and legal ranglings we need to handle
 in the real world.
 Lets face it we don't have the resources to even come close to licencing.
 And if we get sued we have to fall over and grovel like the poor
 helpless blind we are!
 I am not sure how we can build the power to hold our own but right
 now we may as well shoot fish in a barrel.
 The only reason we are not being sued left and right and centre is we
 are viewed as poor and helpless.
 We are not worth bothering with.
 Now what happens when we become worth bothering with.
 Thats fine if we can fight back but I doubt we can or at least a
 single of  us could even for normals its like this but what sort of
 group could be able to handle a fight should we need it to.
 I am not sure about all of us but quite a few of us are actually
 getting support from the governments of our country so in essence the
 government tells us what we do or they stop helping.
 If we can't stand on our own what chance do we have of becoming to
 well known and not being able to tish out the punnishment ourselves.
 it may be better to be poor and helpless because no one hardly does
 dish on us right now.
 And if we wish to become well known we will need  to or bump into
 this more frequently and sooner rather than later.
 Even the normal powerfulls fight sometimes they loose sometimes they win.
 d difference is if they win or loose they may loose reputation and
 some cash but can for the most part continue fighting.
 If we ever got to the point even if we were able to fight, if we
 lost, then thats it we would probably be done.
 And it would have to be a big group.
 World wide we may have a chance but who knows.

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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-31 Thread Charles Rivard
You state: In Britain anything designed for the blind is automatically 
aimed at the over 70's more often than not, and frankly though there are 
some games with that ethos they're not the ones I play or am interested in, 
indeed had
shades of doom struck me as being aimed at the blind I likely wouldn't 
have got into audio games at all.


Whose fault is it that what is produced for blind people in Britain are 
produced for the older people?  It is the fault of those who produce the 
stuff.  As for Shades of Doom drawing your attention to it, and getting you 
into playing games, this was a good thing, wasn't it?  Why take a negative 
attitude toward games geared toward people who cannot see to play mainstream 
games?  I see it as being positive.  As for what is produced, the producers 
should listen to the potential customers rather than the stick-in-the-muds 
of ancient stereotypical history of ignorance.


---
Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second.
- Original Message - 
From: dark d...@xgam.org

To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org
Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2013 4:34 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine



Hi Charlse.

when it comes to games like swamp, shades of doom etc, I disagree they 
are! designed for the blind as you ubiquitously put it.


In britain anything designed for the blind is automatically aimed at the 
over 70's more often than not, and frankly though there are some games 
with that ethos they're not the ones I play or am interested in, indeed 
had shades of doom struck me as being aimed at the blind I likely 
wouldn't have got into audio games at all.


Plus, with how companies like somethinelse,  choiceofgames, the developers 
of codenamesignas etc work for the Iphone  they frankly don't! just make 
games for the blind


Indeed to be perfectly honest charlse, I rather resent being grouped 
myself into a big the blind category.


Beware the Grue!

Dark.

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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-31 Thread dark

Hi Kara.

What I meant is it is unfair to lumber an editer with the job of 
spellchecking every single article. An editer certainly can check for 
content or length or whatever, but just the dull mechanics of getting words 
spelt write is really up to the author.


Heck, if you submitted an academic article for publication or even a marked 
peace of workk without! spellchecking you'd get a rejection in a hurry.


Much as I admit I am absolutely casual about spellings on list etc, if your 
essentially writing a publication you need to write at publication standard.


Beware the grue!

Dark. 



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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-31 Thread dark

Hi Tom.

Well if in effect  what we're saying is that textual games such as 
gamebooks, brouser games etc are accessible to anyone with an alternative to 
read print even if they cannot hear, why not just have a page somewhere on 
the site saying as much or note it in appropriate reviews of games.


Beware the Grue!

Dark. 



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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-31 Thread Thomas Ward
Hi Dark,

Ah, that makes sense, and I agree that the person submitting the piece
should do his or her best to spell check and proofread the document
before submitting it to the editor for final editing and inclusion in
a publication.

On 10/31/13, dark d...@xgam.org wrote:
 Hi Kara.

 What I meant is it is unfair to lumber an editer with the job of
 spellchecking every single article. An editer certainly can check for
 content or length or whatever, but just the dull mechanics of getting words

 spelt write is really up to the author.

 Heck, if you submitted an academic article for publication or even a marked

 peace of workk without! spellchecking you'd get a rejection in a hurry.

 Much as I admit I am absolutely casual about spellings on list etc, if your

 essentially writing a publication you need to write at publication
 standard.

 Beware the grue!

 Dark.


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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-31 Thread Thomas Ward
Hi Dark,

That's precisely what I am talking about. Having a page where people
can look up largely universally accessible games, or stating in a
review that game x is almost universally accessible. That is basically
all I was getting at to begin with.

Cheers!

On 10/31/13, dark d...@xgam.org wrote:
 Hi Tom.

 Well if in effect  what we're saying is that textual games such as
 gamebooks, brouser games etc are accessible to anyone with an alternative to

 read print even if they cannot hear, why not just have a page somewhere on
 the site saying as much or note it in appropriate reviews of games.

 Beware the Grue!

 Dark.


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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-31 Thread dark
Fair enough tom, that sounds like an idea, I just wasn't sure how much you 
were going to go into this, after all while I completely and absolutely 
agree that looking outside vi access is a good idea, at the same time it 
does need to be  part of the considderation.


Just to give an example, when on the retroremakes forum everyone was 
pointing out how accessible the  wii menue structur was withe wii mote  and 
pointing for motion imparements, when I remaked that that same menue 
structure made the basic wii interface just about impossible for myself 
(apart from from wonderful white on white pointer), people didn't like that 
at all!


Beware the grue!

Dark. 



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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-31 Thread Charles Rivard
The job of an editor is, well, to edit.  This includes spelling and grammar 
if necessary.


---
Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second.
- Original Message - 
From: dark d...@xgam.org

To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org
Sent: Thursday, October 31, 2013 5:29 AM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine



Hi Kara.

What I meant is it is unfair to lumber an editer with the job of 
spellchecking every single article. An editer certainly can check for 
content or length or whatever, but just the dull mechanics of getting 
words spelt write is really up to the author.


Heck, if you submitted an academic article for publication or even a 
marked peace of workk without! spellchecking you'd get a rejection in a 
hurry.


Much as I admit I am absolutely casual about spellings on list etc, if 
your essentially writing a publication you need to write at publication 
standard.


Beware the grue!

Dark.

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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-31 Thread dark
Actually charlse, for editing articles for academic publication at least, I 
can tell you for certain that they don't!


Editers are responsable for length, content, suggestions of alterations, but 
spelling and grammar is held to be the responsability of the author, as is 
layout and references.


During my masters we were even given the submission guidelines for  writing 
for several academic jernals, and expected to submit  all our essays 
according to those guidelines.


I'm not sure how it is in terms of writing for newspapers, magazines or the 
like, but certainly in academic circles  spelling and grammar is the 
author's responsability and if it's not up to standard you'll get a very 
quick rejection.


Beware the Grue!

Dark. 



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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-31 Thread Thomas Ward
Hi Charles,

Well, yes, but I think Dark's point was that the author's rough draft
should attempt to be spell checked and proofread for errors before
being submitted to the editor therefore making the editors work a bit
easier. I know in my own case whenever I write a document in
LibreOfficeOrca alerts me when a word is misspelled or unknown by
Writer, and I can correct it as I type the document or go back and
edit the errors after I am finished.  Plus the built-in spell checker
comes in handy for anything I may have missed during composition.
Point being there is little excuse for someone submitting an article
to submit something filled with lots of spelling mistakes.

Cheers!

On 10/31/13, Charles Rivard wee1s...@fidnet.com wrote:
 The job of an editor is, well, to edit.  This includes spelling and grammar

 if necessary.

 ---
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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-31 Thread Thomas Ward
Hi Dark,

Submitting articles for newspapers and other publications such as
magazines is the same. It is the author who is responsible for his or
her spelling and proper use of grammar. Although, the editor may make
corrections or point out errors that need to be made before the
submission is accepted for publication.  However, in a lot of those
cases the people submitting the articles at hand are professional
writers, journalists on assignment, and can be trusted to have a
reasonable degree of good spelling and grammar. As the people on this
list are not professional writers, and if their emails are any judge,
many listers are poor spellers as well as have a poor understanding of
grammar so may need more help in those areas.


Cheers!

On 10/31/13, dark d...@xgam.org wrote:
 Actually charlse, for editing articles for academic publication at least, I

 can tell you for certain that they don't!

 Editers are responsable for length, content, suggestions of alterations, but

 spelling and grammar is held to be the responsability of the author, as is
 layout and references.

 During my masters we were even given the submission guidelines for  writing

 for several academic jernals, and expected to submit  all our essays
 according to those guidelines.

 I'm not sure how it is in terms of writing for newspapers, magazines or the

 like, but certainly in academic circles  spelling and grammar is the
 author's responsability and if it's not up to standard you'll get a very
 quick rejection.

 Beware the Grue!

 Dark.


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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-31 Thread Thomas Ward
Hi Dark,

Point well taken. Obviously, Audyssey has always been primarily
concerned with games for the blind and low vision, and that will
remain our primary focus. Really, what I said earlier was a throw away
comment and too much has been made of it as my actual meaning and
intent got lost somewhere along the way. All I meant initially was
using more inclusive language when describing our games as to make
people aware that they are not necessarily a blind only product.

To give you an example quite some time back I wrote a simple Blackjack
game in Python for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Okay, it was text based,
really simple, and if I advertised it as a blind game or game for the
blind
most non-blind player's would automatically assume
it is something specially made for the blind and the blind only.
However, as it is text based there is no reason a sighted person
couldn't play it as well as someone who was deaf, deaf-blind,
had motor impairments, etc. So the wording when advertising  such a
product is very important as by advertising something as a game for
the blind can be misleading to people who aren't aware of what a game
for the blind is. Do  you get my meaning now?

Cheers!



On 10/31/13, dark d...@xgam.org wrote:
 Fair enough tom, that sounds like an idea, I just wasn't sure how much you
 were going to go into this, after all while I completely and absolutely
 agree that looking outside vi access is a good idea, at the same time it
 does need to be  part of the considderation.

 Just to give an example, when on the retroremakes forum everyone was
 pointing out how accessible the  wii menue structur was withe wii mote  and

 pointing for motion imparements, when I remaked that that same menue
 structure made the basic wii interface just about impossible for myself
 (apart from from wonderful white on white pointer), people didn't like that

 at all!

 Beware the grue!

 Dark.


 ---
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 please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.


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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-31 Thread Bryan Peterson
I think too thathe was concerned about te fact that we in the US and folks 
over in the UKhave different spellings for the same word and he doesn't want 
some editor Americanizing his work.




Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul,
Ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.
-Original Message- 
From: Thomas Ward

Sent: Thursday, October 31, 2013 6:18 PM
To: Gamers Discussion list
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

Hi Charles,

Well, yes, but I think Dark's point was that the author's rough draft
should attempt to be spell checked and proofread for errors before
being submitted to the editor therefore making the editors work a bit
easier. I know in my own case whenever I write a document in
LibreOfficeOrca alerts me when a word is misspelled or unknown by
Writer, and I can correct it as I type the document or go back and
edit the errors after I am finished.  Plus the built-in spell checker
comes in handy for anything I may have missed during composition.
Point being there is little excuse for someone submitting an article
to submit something filled with lots of spelling mistakes.

Cheers!

On 10/31/13, Charles Rivard wee1s...@fidnet.com wrote:
The job of an editor is, well, to edit.  This includes spelling and 
grammar


if necessary.

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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-31 Thread Thomas Ward
Hi Bryan,

While I understand someone's concern usually a good spell checker will
accept both spellings for a word. For instance, ambiance can be
spelled a m b I a n c e or a m b I e n c e, and LibreOffice will
accept both without complaint.  So I don't know that Americanizing
someone's article is that much of a concern if we have a good editor
at the helm.

Cheers!

On 10/31/13, Bryan Peterson bpeterson2...@cableone.net wrote:
 I think too thathe was concerned about te fact that we in the US and folks
 over in the UKhave different spellings for the same word and he doesn't want

 some editor Americanizing his work.



 Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul,
 Ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.

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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-30 Thread shaun everiss

hmmm I am interested in hybred games.
audio and text would make best of both worlds.
voiceovers and such to maybe if we can handle it to with audio and 
also spoken text that appears on screen a screenreader can read who knows.

Pure text maybe depends what the game is.

At 06:20 PM 10/30/2013, you wrote:

Hi Shaun,

For some people the lack of graphics will always be a point of
contention, but that does not mean everyone will feel that way. I
think what we need here is a different strategy in marketing audio
games. As someone said instead of advertising them as blind games we
need to market them as games based on audio environments and emphasize
they are audio games not blind games. To some that might be just
semantics, but when dealing with the mainstream public advertising it
that way could go a long way to
increasing interest among non-blind gamers.

Another thing that may help is developing more text based games. Yeah,
I know that sounds like a step backwards, but text is and has always
been the universal medium blind and sighted gamers share. Young gamers
might think of text based games as boring, crappy, whatever, but
people from the 80's and 90's still play text based games all the
time. Interactive Fiction still has quite a large following, and there
are still people who play roguelike roll playing games like Angbang,
ADOM, and Nethack, etc. Text based games haven't gone away just have
been moved to the background as newer 3d graphical games have become
the in thing for allot of younger gamers. We could renew interest in
text games by developing newer games that might be of interest to
them.

Cheers!

On 10/29/13, shaun everiss sm.ever...@gmail.com wrote:
 Well we really need to make the audio game format interesting.
 Not sure how we would do that.
 for some of my friends, the interactive fiction really makes them rock.
 they like old games.
 For some audio games cool.
 For others no graphics = crap rubbish and nothing much doing.
 audio games are crap because they have no graphics.
 I am not sure how to change that we can't vary well add graphics up
 the wazoo especially since the blind can't really afford the best
 stuff all the time.
 I have only just this year because of a breakage in my keyboard on
 this laptop brought a win7 system.
 And even so I find myself still using xp 90% of the time because of
 older games and the fact none of my major stuff is cpu or memmory
 intensive.
 Apart from the net, bgt testing eudora, and note pad the only program
 I really use is winamp which streams radio and other stuff when I am
 not doing much else apart from running mush z.
 My plan is to get a tablet maybe an iphone for family use and maybe
 later an android for my use or something like an iphone though who knows.


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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-30 Thread Charles Rivard
I know that I have sent an article twice.  As a reminder, it is the second 
part to my article on Hi Q, a puzzle that you can make yourself, along with 
the solution.  Now that you have found a copy of issue 55, I suggest that 
you send it out.  Thanks.


---
Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second.
- Original Message - 
From: Ron Schamerhorn blindwon...@cogeco.ca

To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org
Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2013 5:38 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine



Hey all

  Let me first begin by saying that I discovered a copy of #55 just a day 
or two ago.  Yes it was a combination of personal and computer issues that 
delayed publication of the issue.  I'm still willing and able to be editor 
of the magazine and yes I agree some changes are certainly in order.
  For one thing in #55 I'd skip over the Dev section only because there's 
been numerous games which have been developed thus making the majority of 
the content irrelevant.  I believe it would be better to recommend folks 
check out either audiogames or PCSGames listings for current titles.
  I'm open to any and all suggestions to revive the mag before anyone 
rants at me yes I'll admit to dropping the ball though only partly. 
Computer crashes are beyond my control but I could at least salvage the 
articles sent in for that issue and rework 55.
  I want to continue the mag and distribution is an area that needs some 
work definitely, again suggestions of organizations, websites, or whatever 
are welcome.  I'd gladly work on that.
  Basically what I'm saying is let's be constructive about breathing some 
new energy in Audyssey.  I love doing the job but need folks to help out 
to make it bigger and better.  Whatever form that takes be it an article, 
a site that would be willing to have a link, etc.  Let's look forward.


Ron Schamerhorn
Audyssey Editor


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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-30 Thread Charles Rivard
No offense taken.  I agree that we should branch out, but the tree trunk 
should remain intact.


---
Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second.
- Original Message - 
From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com

To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org
Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2013 12:00 AM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine



Hi Charles,

No offense I don't think many sited people would join this list.
Mailing lists are for the most part a thing of the past in the minds
of most people today. No one wants their email inboxes filled up with
messages on topics they may or may not have any interest in. That's
why I think we need to expand into other social media outlets such as
have a Facebook or Twitter presence, or a blog. Those are the sorts of
things that sighted people are drawn to because they can read the
topics of interest to them, and don't have to get anywhere from 25 to
50 emails from this list in their inbox. Our target audience is
changing and if we want to continue to be relevant we need to change
with them.

Cheers!

On 10/29/13, Charles Rivard wee1s...@fidnet.com wrote:
Spreading the word through tools available on the Web is a good idea. 
Any

form that draws, go for it.  I actually think it would be great to have
sighted people subscribe to this list as well.  Maybe game developers 
could


find out about what's done by and for blind gamers and developers, and 
more


game could become of it.

---
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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-30 Thread Charles Rivard
There are a lot of text games and audio games that are made for iDevices. 
These are not for blind people, but we can, and do, play them.  So do people 
who have good eyesight.  In a lot of these games, you must rely on your ears 
to play, not your eyes, and they are popular with gamers.


---
Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second.
- Original Message - 
From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com

To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org
Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2013 12:20 AM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine



Hi Shaun,

For some people the lack of graphics will always be a point of
contention, but that does not mean everyone will feel that way. I
think what we need here is a different strategy in marketing audio
games. As someone said instead of advertising them as blind games we
need to market them as games based on audio environments and emphasize
they are audio games not blind games. To some that might be just
semantics, but when dealing with the mainstream public advertising it
that way could go a long way to
increasing interest among non-blind gamers.

Another thing that may help is developing more text based games. Yeah,
I know that sounds like a step backwards, but text is and has always
been the universal medium blind and sighted gamers share. Young gamers
might think of text based games as boring, crappy, whatever, but
people from the 80's and 90's still play text based games all the
time. Interactive Fiction still has quite a large following, and there
are still people who play roguelike roll playing games like Angbang,
ADOM, and Nethack, etc. Text based games haven't gone away just have
been moved to the background as newer 3d graphical games have become
the in thing for allot of younger gamers. We could renew interest in
text games by developing newer games that might be of interest to
them.

Cheers!

On 10/29/13, shaun everiss sm.ever...@gmail.com wrote:

Well we really need to make the audio game format interesting.
Not sure how we would do that.
for some of my friends, the interactive fiction really makes them rock.
they like old games.
For some audio games cool.
For others no graphics = crap rubbish and nothing much doing.
audio games are crap because they have no graphics.
I am not sure how to change that we can't vary well add graphics up
the wazoo especially since the blind can't really afford the best
stuff all the time.
I have only just this year because of a breakage in my keyboard on
this laptop brought a win7 system.
And even so I find myself still using xp 90% of the time because of
older games and the fact none of my major stuff is cpu or memmory
intensive.
Apart from the net, bgt testing eudora, and note pad the only program
I really use is winamp which streams radio and other stuff when I am
not doing much else apart from running mush z.
My plan is to get a tablet maybe an iphone for family use and maybe
later an android for my use or something like an iphone though who knows.



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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-30 Thread Thomas Ward
Hi Shaun,

I agree the best of both worlds are highbred's like Destination Mars
or Dodge City Desperados precisely because they don't need lots of
graphics, are fully accessible using a screen reader, and still have
plenty of game sounds etc to qualify as an audio game. Interesting
enough I have been doing some research in this area, and I've noticed
a sighted gamer is more likely to sit down and play a game like
Atlantic City Blackjack which has text on screen rather than Jim
Kitchen's Blackjack which uses speech output.  What I am beginning to
conclude is sighted people are really put off when there is nothing on
the screen to look at, they hate a black screen, but give them a bit
of text to read and they'll play it.So adding text will go a long ways
to giving sighted gamers something to look at instead of graphics.

Cheers!



On 10/30/13, shaun everiss sm.ever...@gmail.com wrote:
 hmmm I am interested in hybred games.
 audio and text would make best of both worlds.
 voiceovers and such to maybe if we can handle it to with audio and
 also spoken text that appears on screen a screenreader can read who knows.
 Pure text maybe depends what the game is.


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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-30 Thread Darren Harris
hi tom.

i do think text based games do have their place for sure. unfortunately if you 
look at a lot of browser based text games there isn't much imagination put into 
them a lot of the time. with acceptions like core exiles or space odacey. i 
think this is why people are losing interest in them. text games not only need 
to be very playable but they need to fire the imagination of the player. i 
think this is where a lot of people fall down who code these games. but yes 
they do definitely have their place and it's certainly a market i think. 

Sent from my iPad

 On 30 Oct 2013, at 05:20, Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 Hi Shaun,
 
 For some people the lack of graphics will always be a point of
 contention, but that does not mean everyone will feel that way. I
 think what we need here is a different strategy in marketing audio
 games. As someone said instead of advertising them as blind games we
 need to market them as games based on audio environments and emphasize
 they are audio games not blind games. To some that might be just
 semantics, but when dealing with the mainstream public advertising it
 that way could go a long way to
 increasing interest among non-blind gamers.
 
 Another thing that may help is developing more text based games. Yeah,
 I know that sounds like a step backwards, but text is and has always
 been the universal medium blind and sighted gamers share. Young gamers
 might think of text based games as boring, crappy, whatever, but
 people from the 80's and 90's still play text based games all the
 time. Interactive Fiction still has quite a large following, and there
 are still people who play roguelike roll playing games like Angbang,
 ADOM, and Nethack, etc. Text based games haven't gone away just have
 been moved to the background as newer 3d graphical games have become
 the in thing for allot of younger gamers. We could renew interest in
 text games by developing newer games that might be of interest to
 them.
 
 Cheers!
 
 On 10/29/13, shaun everiss sm.ever...@gmail.com wrote:
 Well we really need to make the audio game format interesting.
 Not sure how we would do that.
 for some of my friends, the interactive fiction really makes them rock.
 they like old games.
 For some audio games cool.
 For others no graphics = crap rubbish and nothing much doing.
 audio games are crap because they have no graphics.
 I am not sure how to change that we can't vary well add graphics up
 the wazoo especially since the blind can't really afford the best
 stuff all the time.
 I have only just this year because of a breakage in my keyboard on
 this laptop brought a win7 system.

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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-30 Thread dark

Hi Tom.


That idea of separate categories sounds like a good one, plus then of course 
I could add the links to reviews or walkthrus to relevent entries on 
audiogames.net. I've already been doing this with sites like applevis, and 
it would be no trouble to do it with audeasy either.


Beware the Grue!


Dark. 



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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-30 Thread Darren Harris
hi tom

you could use stattic graphics in the game to illustrate a given situation. so 
as well as a bang that you'd hear you'd see a static version of the explosion 
as well. a few games use this tactic as well and this also has encouraged 
people to write in and submit additional graphical content. as long as the 
textual descriptions were still there it wouldn't take anything away from the 
game. 

Sent from my iPad

 On 30 Oct 2013, at 07:33, Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 Hi Shaun,
 
 I agree the best of both worlds are highbred's like Destination Mars
 or Dodge City Desperados precisely because they don't need lots of
 graphics, are fully accessible using a screen reader, and still have
 plenty of game sounds etc to qualify as an audio game. Interesting
 enough I have been doing some research in this area, and I've noticed
 a sighted gamer is more likely to sit down and play a game like
 Atlantic City Blackjack which has text on screen rather than Jim
 Kitchen's Blackjack which uses speech output.  What I am beginning to
 conclude is sighted people are really put off when there is nothing on
 the screen to look at, they hate a black screen, but give them a bit
 of text to read and they'll play it.So adding text will go a long ways
 to giving sighted gamers something to look at instead of graphics.
 
 Cheers!
 
 
 
 On 10/30/13, shaun everiss sm.ever...@gmail.com wrote:
 hmmm I am interested in hybred games.
 audio and text would make best of both worlds.
 voiceovers and such to maybe if we can handle it to with audio and
 also spoken text that appears on screen a screenreader can read who knows.
 Pure text maybe depends what the game is.
 
 ---
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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-30 Thread dark

Hi Tom.

While I do see your point and generally speaking would agree, at the same 
time the Iphone has seen more than a few interactive audio dramas which 
directly buck this trend.


Codename Signus, the Freq, Blindside and quite a few others, even to a large 
extent games like papasangre which present themselves more as interactive 
audio drama and work on their atmosphere rather than their gameplay.


I know in the past few years radio drama has seen something of a renaesance 
in popular culture, and you can clearly see it with how major companies like 
big finish and Graphic audio have heavily expanded their operations, (and 
certainly they! don't just sell to blind people).


It'd be rather interesting if games like swamp or shades of doom could tap 
into this, since clearly there is now a cross section of sighted gamers who 
are interested in audio atmosphere.


Take Shades of doom as an example, the game who's atmosphere actually 
encouraged me to play audio games in the first place. If David greenwood 
entirely removed the word blind from his website, (albeit not from the 
documentation), and described shades of doom as an interactive survival 
horror trapped in pitch darkness you'd probably get a lot more sighted 
gamers playing it.


Or to take another example, suppose you redesigned a casino game with full 
voice acting, lots of audio ambience and drama like bits of description. So 
instead of being told you draw a ten of spades you get the dealer's thin 
fingered hand flips a card kneetly out of the shoe and slips it across the 
green base to you,  it is the ten of spadess


Such a game could be billed as an audio ambience experience of a casino, as 
much as a numerical game of blackjack, and again, would have appeal to at 
least a certain cross section of the sighted gaming public, just as textual 
games and gamebooks do to another.


Beware the Grue!

Dark.
-  



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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-30 Thread dark
I Agree on that one darren, more than a few text games just don't use 
themedium particularly well, and don't include descriptions, atmospheric 
text or anything else. It's really quite disappointing.


Fortunately though ther are still a few good ones out there.

Beware the Grue!

Dark. 



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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-30 Thread Thomas Ward
Hi Darren,

I've noticed that as well. A lot of text based games such as browser
based games have a lack of a good storyline which is a real problem
for that genre of game since those sorts of games are really Dependant
on a good storyline and decent writing. All the same if we had one or
two authors here who were good at both we might be able to produce
some text games that makes that genre of game viable for blind and
sighted players alike. As you said we just need games that inspire the
imagination, and can get people interested in the game.

Cheers!



On 10/30/13, Darren Harris darren_g_har...@btinternet.com wrote:
 hi tom.

 i do think text based games do have their place for sure. unfortunately if
 you look at a lot of browser based text games there isn't much imagination
 put into them a lot of the time. with acceptions like core exiles or space
 odacey. i think this is why people are losing interest in them. text games
 not only need to be very playable but they need to fire the imagination of
 the player. i think this is where a lot of people fall down who code these
 games. but yes they do definitely have their place and it's certainly a
 market i think.

 Sent from my iPad

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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-30 Thread Thomas Ward
Hi Dark,

I see your point. That is in fact why as I am working on the
descriptions for the Audyssey Magazine, list, etc I am strongly
considering removing the word blind from the website, and am going to
focus more on what types of games etc are discussed here. I think as
long as we act as though we are a separate group of gamers with our
own interests and unique style of gaming we will not be able to
interest mainstream gamers who have similar interests. Gamebooks and
interactive fiction, for example, are not exclusive to blind gamers
yet we don't see anyone from the mainstream public discussing them
here. That's because up until now we have always declared Audyssey to
be for blind gamers rather than for certain games such as audio games,
interactive fiction, muds, and so on.

Cheers!

On 10/30/13, dark d...@xgam.org wrote:
 Hi Tom.

 While I do see your point and generally speaking would agree, at the same
 time the Iphone has seen more than a few interactive audio dramas which
 directly buck this trend.

 Codename Signus, the Freq, Blindside and quite a few others, even to a large

 extent games like papasangre which present themselves more as interactive
 audio drama and work on their atmosphere rather than their gameplay.

 I know in the past few years radio drama has seen something of a renaesance

 in popular culture, and you can clearly see it with how major companies like

 big finish and Graphic audio have heavily expanded their operations, (and
 certainly they! don't just sell to blind people).

 It'd be rather interesting if games like swamp or shades of doom could tap
 into this, since clearly there is now a cross section of sighted gamers who

 are interested in audio atmosphere.

 Take Shades of doom as an example, the game who's atmosphere actually
 encouraged me to play audio games in the first place. If David greenwood
 entirely removed the word blind from his website, (albeit not from the
 documentation), and described shades of doom as an interactive survival
 horror trapped in pitch darkness you'd probably get a lot more sighted
 gamers playing it.

 Or to take another example, suppose you redesigned a casino game with full
 voice acting, lots of audio ambience and drama like bits of description. So

 instead of being told you draw a ten of spades you get the dealer's thin

 fingered hand flips a card kneetly out of the shoe and slips it across the
 green base to you,  it is the ten of spadess

 Such a game could be billed as an audio ambience experience of a casino, as

 much as a numerical game of blackjack, and again, would have appeal to at
 least a certain cross section of the sighted gaming public, just as textual

 games and gamebooks do to another.

 Beware the Grue!

 Dark.
 -

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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-30 Thread dark

Hi Tom.

It is what I actually wrote in the 4th chapter of my phd. The over whelming 
social reaction to any sort of disability is that it's something different, 
that a person with none working body parts or a medical condition that 
causes them to live life differently is intrinsically another sort of human 
being, and the more people emphasise differences the more evident they may 
be.


At the same timeI however, I do think it's legitimate to talk about 
accessibility for blind/visually impared gamers and to hold audio or text 
games responsable to include it.


It's a balance question really, but certainly on the front of site, and in 
intraductory material access should come at the end of remarks about 
possibilities of text and audio, not at the start so that the games 
themselves are the focus not blind gamers


Indeed, I personally really dislike any applying of the word blind to 
objects. Reever, My dog is a guide dog not a blind dog (a blind dog really 
wouldn't be much help with mobility), I do not have a blind computer, blind 
cane, or blind anything else.


I have various peaces of equipment and software that assist me! to fulfill 
my desires in life as a visually impared individual, but since none of those 
things themselves can see, the word blind is incorrect to apply to them.


Indeed if you don't mind me referring to my own research again, this is also 
why I would love to see the word accessibility become a more common one. 
After all, a person with a condition like dispraxia or dislexia who finds 
complex graphics and 3D spacial relations hard to comprehend would equally 
bennifit from audio and  synthesisor friendly text based games.


Beware the Grue!

Dark. 



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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-30 Thread Darren Harris
I think that's a big part of the problem. Too much enphesis I think is put
on the word blind. Which isn't all together a bad thing as with any game
there needs to be elements of accessibility built in so blind people can
play them. But I think the enphesis is way to big. I mean for example and
this is just a generic statement, you got blindsoftware blindcooltech
blindbargins blindmicemart the list goes on. 

-Original Message-
From: Gamers [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Ward
Sent: 30 October 2013 12:30
To: Gamers Discussion list
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

Hi Dark,

I see your point. That is in fact why as I am working on the
descriptions for the Audyssey Magazine, list, etc I am strongly
considering removing the word blind from the website, and am going to
focus more on what types of games etc are discussed here. I think as
long as we act as though we are a separate group of gamers with our
own interests and unique style of gaming we will not be able to
interest mainstream gamers who have similar interests. Gamebooks and
interactive fiction, for example, are not exclusive to blind gamers
yet we don't see anyone from the mainstream public discussing them
here. That's because up until now we have always declared Audyssey to
be for blind gamers rather than for certain games such as audio games,
interactive fiction, muds, and so on.

Cheers!

On 10/30/13, dark d...@xgam.org wrote:
 Hi Tom.

 While I do see your point and generally speaking would agree, at the same
 time the Iphone has seen more than a few interactive audio dramas which
 directly buck this trend.

 Codename Signus, the Freq, Blindside and quite a few others, even to a
large

 extent games like papasangre which present themselves more as interactive
 audio drama and work on their atmosphere rather than their gameplay.

 I know in the past few years radio drama has seen something of a
renaesance

 in popular culture, and you can clearly see it with how major companies
like

 big finish and Graphic audio have heavily expanded their operations, (and
 certainly they! don't just sell to blind people).

 It'd be rather interesting if games like swamp or shades of doom could tap
 into this, since clearly there is now a cross section of sighted gamers
who

 are interested in audio atmosphere.

 Take Shades of doom as an example, the game who's atmosphere actually
 encouraged me to play audio games in the first place. If David greenwood
 entirely removed the word blind from his website, (albeit not from the
 documentation), and described shades of doom as an interactive survival
 horror trapped in pitch darkness you'd probably get a lot more sighted
 gamers playing it.

 Or to take another example, suppose you redesigned a casino game with full
 voice acting, lots of audio ambience and drama like bits of description.
So

 instead of being told you draw a ten of spades you get the dealer's
thin

 fingered hand flips a card kneetly out of the shoe and slips it across the
 green base to you,  it is the ten of spadess

 Such a game could be billed as an audio ambience experience of a casino,
as

 much as a numerical game of blackjack, and again, would have appeal to at
 least a certain cross section of the sighted gaming public, just as
textual

 games and gamebooks do to another.

 Beware the Grue!

 Dark.
 -

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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-30 Thread Charles Rivard
That's because of who they are designed for.  The blind.  No negativity 
intended.  The problem might be the way in which the word blind is taken.


---
Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second.
- Original Message - 
From: Darren Harris darren_g_har...@btinternet.com

To: 'Gamers Discussion list' gamers@audyssey.org
Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2013 8:13 AM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine



I think that's a big part of the problem. Too much enphesis I think is put
on the word blind. Which isn't all together a bad thing as with any game
there needs to be elements of accessibility built in so blind people can
play them. But I think the enphesis is way to big. I mean for example and
this is just a generic statement, you got blindsoftware blindcooltech
blindbargins blindmicemart the list goes on.

-Original Message-
From: Gamers [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Ward
Sent: 30 October 2013 12:30
To: Gamers Discussion list
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

Hi Dark,

I see your point. That is in fact why as I am working on the
descriptions for the Audyssey Magazine, list, etc I am strongly
considering removing the word blind from the website, and am going to
focus more on what types of games etc are discussed here. I think as
long as we act as though we are a separate group of gamers with our
own interests and unique style of gaming we will not be able to
interest mainstream gamers who have similar interests. Gamebooks and
interactive fiction, for example, are not exclusive to blind gamers
yet we don't see anyone from the mainstream public discussing them
here. That's because up until now we have always declared Audyssey to
be for blind gamers rather than for certain games such as audio games,
interactive fiction, muds, and so on.

Cheers!

On 10/30/13, dark d...@xgam.org wrote:

Hi Tom.

While I do see your point and generally speaking would agree, at the same
time the Iphone has seen more than a few interactive audio dramas which
directly buck this trend.

Codename Signus, the Freq, Blindside and quite a few others, even to a

large


extent games like papasangre which present themselves more as interactive
audio drama and work on their atmosphere rather than their gameplay.

I know in the past few years radio drama has seen something of a

renaesance


in popular culture, and you can clearly see it with how major companies

like


big finish and Graphic audio have heavily expanded their operations, (and
certainly they! don't just sell to blind people).

It'd be rather interesting if games like swamp or shades of doom could 
tap

into this, since clearly there is now a cross section of sighted gamers

who


are interested in audio atmosphere.

Take Shades of doom as an example, the game who's atmosphere actually
encouraged me to play audio games in the first place. If David greenwood
entirely removed the word blind from his website, (albeit not from the
documentation), and described shades of doom as an interactive survival
horror trapped in pitch darkness you'd probably get a lot more sighted
gamers playing it.

Or to take another example, suppose you redesigned a casino game with 
full

voice acting, lots of audio ambience and drama like bits of description.

So


instead of being told you draw a ten of spades you get the dealer's

thin


fingered hand flips a card kneetly out of the shoe and slips it across 
the

green base to you,  it is the ten of spadess

Such a game could be billed as an audio ambience experience of a casino,

as


much as a numerical game of blackjack, and again, would have appeal to at
least a certain cross section of the sighted gaming public, just as

textual


games and gamebooks do to another.

Beware the Grue!

Dark.
-


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list,
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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-30 Thread darren_g_harris
The point is that there is way too much placed on that word. Yes i'm blind i 
don't care about saying that i an but i don't go about saying blind this blind 
that. It's silly.

-original message-
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine
From: Charles Rivard wee1s...@fidnet.com
Date: 30:10:2013 2.52 pm

That's because of who they are designed for.  The blind.  No negativity 
intended.  The problem might be the way in which the word blind is taken.

---
Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second.
- Original Message - 
From: Darren Harris darren_g_har...@btinternet.com
To: 'Gamers Discussion list' gamers@audyssey.org
Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2013 8:13 AM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine


I think that's a big part of the problem. Too much enphesis I think is put
 on the word blind. Which isn't all together a bad thing as with any game
 there needs to be elements of accessibility built in so blind people can
 play them. But I think the enphesis is way to big. I mean for example and
 this is just a generic statement, you got blindsoftware blindcooltech
 blindbargins blindmicemart the list goes on.

 -Original Message-
 From: Gamers [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Ward
 Sent: 30 October 2013 12:30
 To: Gamers Discussion list
 Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

 Hi Dark,

 I see your point. That is in fact why as I am working on the
 descriptions for the Audyssey Magazine, list, etc I am strongly
 considering removing the word blind from the website, and am going to
 focus more on what types of games etc are discussed here. I think as
 long as we act as though we are a separate group of gamers with our
 own interests and unique style of gaming we will not be able to
 interest mainstream gamers who have similar interests. Gamebooks and
 interactive fiction, for example, are not exclusive to blind gamers
 yet we don't see anyone from the mainstream public discussing them
 here. That's because up until now we have always declared Audyssey to
 be for blind gamers rather than for certain games such as audio games,
 interactive fiction, muds, and so on.

 Cheers!

 On 10/30/13, dark d...@xgam.org wrote:
 Hi Tom.

 While I do see your point and generally speaking would agree, at the same
 time the Iphone has seen more than a few interactive audio dramas which
 directly buck this trend.

 Codename Signus, the Freq, Blindside and quite a few others, even to a
 large

 extent games like papasangre which present themselves more as interactive
 audio drama and work on their atmosphere rather than their gameplay.

 I know in the past few years radio drama has seen something of a
 renaesance

 in popular culture, and you can clearly see it with how major companies
 like

 big finish and Graphic audio have heavily expanded their operations, (and
 certainly they! don't just sell to blind people).

 It'd be rather interesting if games like swamp or shades of doom could 
 tap
 into this, since clearly there is now a cross section of sighted gamers
 who

 are interested in audio atmosphere.

 Take Shades of doom as an example, the game who's atmosphere actually
 encouraged me to play audio games in the first place. If David greenwood
 entirely removed the word blind from his website, (albeit not from the
 documentation), and described shades of doom as an interactive survival
 horror trapped in pitch darkness you'd probably get a lot more sighted
 gamers playing it.

 Or to take another example, suppose you redesigned a casino game with 
 full
 voice acting, lots of audio ambience and drama like bits of description.
 So

 instead of being told you draw a ten of spades you get the dealer's
 thin

 fingered hand flips a card kneetly out of the shoe and slips it across 
 the
 green base to you,  it is the ten of spadess

 Such a game could be billed as an audio ambience experience of a casino,
 as

 much as a numerical game of blackjack, and again, would have appeal to at
 least a certain cross section of the sighted gaming public, just as
 textual

 games and gamebooks do to another.

 Beware the Grue!

 Dark.
 -

 ---
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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-30 Thread Ron Schamerhorn

Hi Tom

  For sure I'll send out 55 to you shortly and by all means we can 
colaberate on having Audyssey rise again like the phoenix.

 Talk soon


On 30-Oct-2013 1:05 AM, Thomas Ward wrote:

Hi Ron,

If you'd be willing to collaborate on it you could send me what you
have for issue 55 and I can  begin converting it into HTML, and
convert it into an online e-zine with links and so forth. I have some
ideas where to take the magazine and perhaps you and I can work off
list  on it together to breath new life into the magazine.

Cheers!




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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-30 Thread Thomas Ward
Hi Darren,

Agreed. I don't might tellig people I am blind, but I don't go around
actively labeling thing with the blind label either such as blind
games, blind computer software, blind computer, whatever. That's a bit
silly.


On 10/30/13, darren_g_har...@btinternet.com
darren_g_har...@btinternet.com wrote:
 The point is that there is way too much placed on that word. Yes i'm blind i
 don't care about saying that i an but i don't go about saying blind this
 blind that. It's silly.

---
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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-30 Thread Thomas Ward
Hi Charles,

Well, that's precisely the problem. A lot of audio games etc are
developed especially for the blind and while that does not in of
itself preclude sighted users from playing the word blind has a
negative stigma attached to it which can adversely effect their
opinion of the game or games at hand.

Take for instance the games like Run for President, Destination Mars,
Atlantic City Blackjack, and so on. On the face of it those are just
Dos text games with some sounds. If called text games a sighted user
would accept it as that. Call them a blind game and immediately they
will probably draw the wrong conclusion about the game and assume it
is exclusively a blind thing which isn't true.

The point being coming out and saying this or that game is made for
the blind can and probably will carry negative connotations weather
intended or not. What we need to do is use more inclusive language
that makes sighted gamers share in our experience rather than isolate
them. Make people aware they are accessible to a visually impaired
user, but include it more as a feature rather than its soul purpose
for existing. :D

I think what we need to do here is broaden our horizons and go above
and beyond thinking of just blind friendly games. We could do more to
think about accessibility in general and how to bring together people
with other disabilities too who may not be able to play standard
mainstream games for some other reason besides blindness.

Cheers!

On 10/30/13, Charles Rivard wee1s...@fidnet.com wrote:
 That's because of who they are designed for.  The blind.  No negativity
 intended.  The problem might be the way in which the word blind is taken.

 ---
 Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second.

---
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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-30 Thread darren_g_harris
Exactly. The main reason why for example i would call games like tank commander 
blind friendly and not accessible is because they are not accessible to some 
groups. How would a def blind person play that game? They couldn't because if 
memory serves there is no text generated to send to a brail display. so you 
can't use an inclusive word like accessible games in  situations like that. 

-original message-
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine
From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com
Date: 30:10:2013 3.45 pm

Hi Charles,

Well, that's precisely the problem. A lot of audio games etc are
developed especially for the blind and while that does not in of
itself preclude sighted users from playing the word blind has a
negative stigma attached to it which can adversely effect their
opinion of the game or games at hand.

Take for instance the games like Run for President, Destination Mars,
Atlantic City Blackjack, and so on. On the face of it those are just
Dos text games with some sounds. If called text games a sighted user
would accept it as that. Call them a blind game and immediately they
will probably draw the wrong conclusion about the game and assume it
is exclusively a blind thing which isn't true.

The point being coming out and saying this or that game is made for
the blind can and probably will carry negative connotations weather
intended or not. What we need to do is use more inclusive language
that makes sighted gamers share in our experience rather than isolate
them. Make people aware they are accessible to a visually impaired
user, but include it more as a feature rather than its soul purpose
for existing. :D

I think what we need to do here is broaden our horizons and go above
and beyond thinking of just blind friendly games. We could do more to
think about accessibility in general and how to bring together people
with other disabilities too who may not be able to play standard
mainstream games for some other reason besides blindness.

Cheers!

On 10/30/13, Charles Rivard wee1s...@fidnet.com wrote:
 That's because of who they are designed for.  The blind.  No negativity
 intended.  The problem might be the way in which the word blind is taken.

 ---
 Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second.

---
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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-30 Thread Thomas Ward
Hi Darren,

Yes, exactly. I cringe every time I see a site calling itself Blind
Software, Blind Bargains, Blind Games, or anything else that
advertises a blind specific clientele. I think too much emphasis is
made on the fact that the website caters to the blind, and we end up
shutting out sighted and other people with disabilities who could
benefit from the same software just by advertising our products and
services that way.

I know a lot of the stuff Justin wrote and sold on Blindsoftware.com
wasn't necessarily blind specific. Most of those apps had fully
featured graphical user interfaces, and could have been sold to a much
wider range of customers than just the blind. Why Justin emphasized
they were blind software is anyone's guess, but I always thought he
would have been better off naming his website BSC Software or
something like that which would sound both professional and avoid the
stigma of selling software made specifically for the blind.

Cheers!

On 10/30/13, Darren Harris darren_g_har...@btinternet.com wrote:
 I think that's a big part of the problem. Too much enphesis I think is put
 on the word blind. Which isn't all together a bad thing as with any game
 there needs to be elements of accessibility built in so blind people can
 play them. But I think the enphesis is way to big. I mean for example and
 this is just a generic statement, you got blindsoftware blindcooltech
 blindbargins blindmicemart the list goes on.

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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-30 Thread Thomas Ward
Hi Darren,

I would classify Tank Commander as an audio game. That would let the
end user know right away that the primary medium of interaction is
audio rather than visual, and there is no text or braille available
for deaf-blind or deaf players. So the term accessibility is one with
specific application in that case.

Cheers!

On 10/30/13, darren_g_har...@btinternet.com
darren_g_har...@btinternet.com wrote:
 Exactly. The main reason why for example i would call games like tank
 commander blind friendly and not accessible is because they are not
 accessible to some groups. How would a def blind person play that game? They
 couldn't because if memory serves there is no text generated to send to a
 brail display. so you can't use an inclusive word like accessible games in
 situations like that.


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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-30 Thread darren_g_harris
Yes exactly. Things do need to be opened up there for sure. The mag does need 
revamping, it needs propper distribution and it needs to attract attention. If 
this isn't done then its pointless and a waste of time doing the mag at all.

-original message-
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine
From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com
Date: 30:10:2013 3.57 pm

Hi Darren,

Yes, exactly. I cringe every time I see a site calling itself Blind
Software, Blind Bargains, Blind Games, or anything else that
advertises a blind specific clientele. I think too much emphasis is
made on the fact that the website caters to the blind, and we end up
shutting out sighted and other people with disabilities who could
benefit from the same software just by advertising our products and
services that way.

I know a lot of the stuff Justin wrote and sold on Blindsoftware.com
wasn't necessarily blind specific. Most of those apps had fully
featured graphical user interfaces, and could have been sold to a much
wider range of customers than just the blind. Why Justin emphasized
they were blind software is anyone's guess, but I always thought he
would have been better off naming his website BSC Software or
something like that which would sound both professional and avoid the
stigma of selling software made specifically for the blind.

Cheers!

On 10/30/13, Darren Harris darren_g_har...@btinternet.com wrote:
 I think that's a big part of the problem. Too much enphesis I think is put
 on the word blind. Which isn't all together a bad thing as with any game
 there needs to be elements of accessibility built in so blind people can
 play them. But I think the enphesis is way to big. I mean for example and
 this is just a generic statement, you got blindsoftware blindcooltech
 blindbargins blindmicemart the list goes on.

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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-30 Thread Thomas Ward
Hi Dark,

That  is pretty much how I feel about it as well. I don't have a
problem with stating that a game is accessible to blind gamers as long
as it is written in such a way to make sighted mainstream gamers aware
that the game is playable by them as well. The point is not to
emphasize the blind friendly design over all else.

Take for example a game like Sryth. Now, that happens to be a standard
mainstream browser based game that happens to be accessible to the
blind. The difference is how it is presented to its customers. If the
author had advertised it as this new fangled blind browser based RPG
chances are many sighted players would have given it a pass just
because it was advertised as being exclusively for the blind. However,
since it was marketed  as a mainstream game and it was accessible
Sryth benefits from a wide range of sighted and blind players on a
regular basis. I think we need to begin developing games with a more
mainstream audience in mind while keeping accessibility standards
high.

Cheers!



On 10/30/13, dark d...@xgam.org wrote:
 Hi Tom.

 It is what I actually wrote in the 4th chapter of my phd. The over whelming

 social reaction to any sort of disability is that it's something different,

 that a person with none working body parts or a medical condition that
 causes them to live life differently is intrinsically another sort of human

 being, and the more people emphasise differences the more evident they may
 be.

 At the same timeI however, I do think it's legitimate to talk about
 accessibility for blind/visually impared gamers and to hold audio or text

 games responsable to include it.

 It's a balance question really, but certainly on the front of site, and in
 intraductory material access should come at the end of remarks about
 possibilities of text and audio, not at the start so that the games
 themselves are the focus not blind gamers

 Indeed, I personally really dislike any applying of the word blind to
 objects. Reever, My dog is a guide dog not a blind dog (a blind dog really
 wouldn't be much help with mobility), I do not have a blind computer, blind

 cane, or blind anything else.

 I have various peaces of equipment and software that assist me! to fulfill
 my desires in life as a visually impared individual, but since none of those

 things themselves can see, the word blind is incorrect to apply to them.

 Indeed if you don't mind me referring to my own research again, this is also

 why I would love to see the word accessibility become a more common one.
 After all, a person with a condition like dispraxia or dislexia who finds
 complex graphics and 3D spacial relations hard to comprehend would equally
 bennifit from audio and  synthesisor friendly text based games.

 Beware the Grue!

 Dark.


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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-30 Thread Bryan Peterson
Always assuming of course that they can get past the lack of graphical cues 
for what's going on.




Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul,
Ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.
-Original Message- 
From: Thomas Ward

Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2013 10:13 AM
To: Gamers Discussion list
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

Hi Dark,

That  is pretty much how I feel about it as well. I don't have a
problem with stating that a game is accessible to blind gamers as long
as it is written in such a way to make sighted mainstream gamers aware
that the game is playable by them as well. The point is not to
emphasize the blind friendly design over all else.

Take for example a game like Sryth. Now, that happens to be a standard
mainstream browser based game that happens to be accessible to the
blind. The difference is how it is presented to its customers. If the
author had advertised it as this new fangled blind browser based RPG
chances are many sighted players would have given it a pass just
because it was advertised as being exclusively for the blind. However,
since it was marketed  as a mainstream game and it was accessible
Sryth benefits from a wide range of sighted and blind players on a
regular basis. I think we need to begin developing games with a more
mainstream audience in mind while keeping accessibility standards
high.

Cheers!



On 10/30/13, dark d...@xgam.org wrote:

Hi Tom.

It is what I actually wrote in the 4th chapter of my phd. The over 
whelming


social reaction to any sort of disability is that it's something 
different,


that a person with none working body parts or a medical condition that
causes them to live life differently is intrinsically another sort of 
human


being, and the more people emphasise differences the more evident they may
be.

At the same timeI however, I do think it's legitimate to talk about
accessibility for blind/visually impared gamers and to hold audio or 
text


games responsable to include it.

It's a balance question really, but certainly on the front of site, and in
intraductory material access should come at the end of remarks about
possibilities of text and audio, not at the start so that the games
themselves are the focus not blind gamers

Indeed, I personally really dislike any applying of the word blind to
objects. Reever, My dog is a guide dog not a blind dog (a blind dog really
wouldn't be much help with mobility), I do not have a blind computer, 
blind


cane, or blind anything else.

I have various peaces of equipment and software that assist me! to fulfill
my desires in life as a visually impared individual, but since none of 
those


things themselves can see, the word blind is incorrect to apply to them.

Indeed if you don't mind me referring to my own research again, this is 
also


why I would love to see the word accessibility become a more common one.
After all, a person with a condition like dispraxia or dislexia who finds
complex graphics and 3D spacial relations hard to comprehend would equally
bennifit from audio and  synthesisor friendly text based games.

Beware the Grue!

Dark.


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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-30 Thread Charles Rivard

Good points that I do see.

---
Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second.
- Original Message - 
From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com

To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org
Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2013 10:45 AM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine



Hi Charles,

Well, that's precisely the problem. A lot of audio games etc are
developed especially for the blind and while that does not in of
itself preclude sighted users from playing the word blind has a
negative stigma attached to it which can adversely effect their
opinion of the game or games at hand.

Take for instance the games like Run for President, Destination Mars,
Atlantic City Blackjack, and so on. On the face of it those are just
Dos text games with some sounds. If called text games a sighted user
would accept it as that. Call them a blind game and immediately they
will probably draw the wrong conclusion about the game and assume it
is exclusively a blind thing which isn't true.

The point being coming out and saying this or that game is made for
the blind can and probably will carry negative connotations weather
intended or not. What we need to do is use more inclusive language
that makes sighted gamers share in our experience rather than isolate
them. Make people aware they are accessible to a visually impaired
user, but include it more as a feature rather than its soul purpose
for existing. :D

I think what we need to do here is broaden our horizons and go above
and beyond thinking of just blind friendly games. We could do more to
think about accessibility in general and how to bring together people
with other disabilities too who may not be able to play standard
mainstream games for some other reason besides blindness.

Cheers!

On 10/30/13, Charles Rivard wee1s...@fidnet.com wrote:

That's because of who they are designed for.  The blind.  No negativity
intended.  The problem might be the way in which the word blind is 
taken.


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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-30 Thread shaun everiss
well thats good tom but if this could progress to more advanced games 
like shooters and such at least for sighted who knows.
those games for what they are are good to waste 30 mins of time but 
not much more than that.
I usually pull these out when I can't be bothered playing audio games 
with headphones like the time my ears got blocked.
For small time wasters they are good this way but for big time 
wasters I  guess if all games if all they did at least for text 
output what was spoken to the screen even if they used sapi that 
would work but I have no idea how to make things go.
We also need to get into screen readers doing the text like nvda more 
as we can then use our synths and such and be sapi  indipendant.

Which would make the games more portable.

At 08:33 PM 10/30/2013, you wrote:

Hi Shaun,

I agree the best of both worlds are highbred's like Destination Mars
or Dodge City Desperados precisely because they don't need lots of
graphics, are fully accessible using a screen reader, and still have
plenty of game sounds etc to qualify as an audio game. Interesting
enough I have been doing some research in this area, and I've noticed
a sighted gamer is more likely to sit down and play a game like
Atlantic City Blackjack which has text on screen rather than Jim
Kitchen's Blackjack which uses speech output.  What I am beginning to
conclude is sighted people are really put off when there is nothing on
the screen to look at, they hate a black screen, but give them a bit
of text to read and they'll play it.So adding text will go a long ways
to giving sighted gamers something to look at instead of graphics.

Cheers!



On 10/30/13, shaun everiss sm.ever...@gmail.com wrote:
 hmmm I am interested in hybred games.
 audio and text would make best of both worlds.
 voiceovers and such to maybe if we can handle it to with audio and
 also spoken text that appears on screen a screenreader can read who knows.
 Pure text maybe depends what the game is.


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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-30 Thread shaun everiss
thats all well and good darren but my sighted friends like moving 
graphics, there are other things to.
The issue with audio games in general if we want to keep them blind 
friendly is they need to be restricted.
No blind or disabled or at least not many would have the state of the 
art i7 with 16 gb ram a couple tb hard drive space and the soundcard 
and high quality video cards.

Ok, maybe the cpu but sertainly not the cards.
Lets face it, the sound cards and video cards in stock systems are 
crap but to get their better counterparts depending where you live 
can cost a load.
Then there is the cost of the net and such, nz seems to have one of 
the most expensive nets I know of but even so, we can take it that no 
one will have the latest hardware.

so we are talking at best
i3-i7 or celeron.
2-8gb ram
And maybe a dedicated graphics but probably not sound.
At worst we are looking at core2 duos with 2gb or less or single 
cores 1gb and less.

As for systems win 7 8 8.1 maybe.
however if you are a gamer like me with old programs you tend  to 
hang on to that slightly broken laptop with xp a bit longer than is necessary.
With people like me though you may upgrade for security and stuff you 
don't really use that new system till the old one fails and even then 
if an os still works you don't really leave it.

Xp will drop support next year but this system will still be in full use.
I have a win7 system that yes at 32 bit I can play games with, but 
not the same.
Eventually I may get a vm or a server with many oses but who actually 
knows how far that will go though that may be closer than I think it may be.
Point to my message is the blind user gamer and general will not 
unless he has to or his stuff explodes on him taking half his face 
off in the process upgrade or at least fully upgrade unless he 
really, really has to especially when his system and what he does 
does not need the extra security or power.

A simular situation is going with my dad.
His power fan is dieing, and so he is going to upgrade the system but 
not only does he not need a new os but what he has done has not 
changed for the last 30 years.

Within the next few years he will reach the age where he doesn't need to work.
I know what happened with me when I left uni.
At uni I demanded office, and a load of apps.
email, extra programming things.
When I left uni, I did a cleanout, a reformat and reloaded things.
most of what I loaded, most of what I brought is now sold, in the bin 
or in a dusty drawer.

half of what I used I don't.
eudora7, 7zip, notepad, ie and winamp are about the only things I 
need to use on a daily basis.

If i need office I still have an old crappy but valid xp disk.
I don't nore care to upgrade to a ribbon rich interface when I do not need to.
And thats the same thing with gamers.
we can not expect them to use the latest and greatest, we need to 
always be a step behind.

So once we are all 64 bit it maybe the 128 bit stage or something like this.

At 08:50 PM 10/30/2013, you wrote:

hi tom

you could use stattic graphics in the game to illustrate a given 
situation. so as well as a bang that you'd hear you'd see a static 
version of the explosion as well. a few games use this tactic as 
well and this also has encouraged people to write in and submit 
additional graphical content. as long as the textual descriptions 
were still there it wouldn't take anything away from the game.


Sent from my iPad

 On 30 Oct 2013, at 07:33, Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hi Shaun,

 I agree the best of both worlds are highbred's like Destination Mars
 or Dodge City Desperados precisely because they don't need lots of
 graphics, are fully accessible using a screen reader, and still have
 plenty of game sounds etc to qualify as an audio game. Interesting
 enough I have been doing some research in this area, and I've noticed
 a sighted gamer is more likely to sit down and play a game like
 Atlantic City Blackjack which has text on screen rather than Jim
 Kitchen's Blackjack which uses speech output.  What I am beginning to
 conclude is sighted people are really put off when there is nothing on
 the screen to look at, they hate a black screen, but give them a bit
 of text to read and they'll play it.So adding text will go a long ways
 to giving sighted gamers something to look at instead of graphics.

 Cheers!



 On 10/30/13, shaun everiss sm.ever...@gmail.com wrote:
 hmmm I am interested in hybred games.
 audio and text would make best of both worlds.
 voiceovers and such to maybe if we can handle it to with audio and
 also spoken text that appears on screen a screenreader can read who knows.
 Pure text maybe depends what the game is.

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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-30 Thread shaun everiss

true tom and also blind games were  vastly different from the sighted.
That gap is largly no more.
Yes there is still a difference but we are finally after quite a few 
years are close enough that we have the same level of tech the 
sighted has with maybe a few less things with graphics and3d fx even 
so we are close enough to be within the range of the sighted world 
now if not in some cases over it.


At 01:29 AM 10/31/2013, you wrote:

Hi Dark,

I see your point. That is in fact why as I am working on the
descriptions for the Audyssey Magazine, list, etc I am strongly
considering removing the word blind from the website, and am going to
focus more on what types of games etc are discussed here. I think as
long as we act as though we are a separate group of gamers with our
own interests and unique style of gaming we will not be able to
interest mainstream gamers who have similar interests. Gamebooks and
interactive fiction, for example, are not exclusive to blind gamers
yet we don't see anyone from the mainstream public discussing them
here. That's because up until now we have always declared Audyssey to
be for blind gamers rather than for certain games such as audio games,
interactive fiction, muds, and so on.

Cheers!

On 10/30/13, dark d...@xgam.org wrote:
 Hi Tom.

 While I do see your point and generally speaking would agree, at the same
 time the Iphone has seen more than a few interactive audio dramas which
 directly buck this trend.

 Codename Signus, the Freq, Blindside and quite a few others, even 
to a large


 extent games like papasangre which present themselves more as interactive
 audio drama and work on their atmosphere rather than their gameplay.

 I know in the past few years radio drama has seen something of a renaesance

 in popular culture, and you can clearly see it with how major 
companies like


 big finish and Graphic audio have heavily expanded their operations, (and
 certainly they! don't just sell to blind people).

 It'd be rather interesting if games like swamp or shades of doom could tap
 into this, since clearly there is now a cross section of sighted gamers who

 are interested in audio atmosphere.

 Take Shades of doom as an example, the game who's atmosphere actually
 encouraged me to play audio games in the first place. If David greenwood
 entirely removed the word blind from his website, (albeit not from the
 documentation), and described shades of doom as an interactive survival
 horror trapped in pitch darkness you'd probably get a lot more sighted
 gamers playing it.

 Or to take another example, suppose you redesigned a casino game with full
 voice acting, lots of audio ambience and drama like bits of description. So

 instead of being told you draw a ten of spades you get the dealer's thin

 fingered hand flips a card kneetly out of the shoe and slips it across the
 green base to you,  it is the ten of spadess

 Such a game could be billed as an audio ambience experience of a casino, as

 much as a numerical game of blackjack, and again, would have appeal to at
 least a certain cross section of the sighted gaming public, just as textual

 games and gamebooks do to another.

 Beware the Grue!

 Dark.
 -

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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-30 Thread shaun everiss

well I think the word blind could be substatuted as graphicless.
after all being blind is in fact not  far from the truth of being 
graphicless or imagless.

We are for the most part only audio enabled.
I joke with my computer and hacker friends when they ask me what is 
being blind like.

And I say, no video card, no tv card, no screen just a box and speakers.

At 01:44 AM 10/31/2013, you wrote:

Hi Tom.

It is what I actually wrote in the 4th chapter of my phd. The over 
whelming social reaction to any sort of disability is that it's 
something different, that a person with none working body parts or a 
medical condition that causes them to live life differently is 
intrinsically another sort of human being, and the more people 
emphasise differences the more evident they may be.


At the same timeI however, I do think it's legitimate to talk about 
accessibility for blind/visually impared gamers and to hold audio 
or text games responsable to include it.


It's a balance question really, but certainly on the front of site, 
and in intraductory material access should come at the end of 
remarks about possibilities of text and audio, not at the start so 
that the games themselves are the focus not blind gamers


Indeed, I personally really dislike any applying of the word blind 
to objects. Reever, My dog is a guide dog not a blind dog (a blind 
dog really wouldn't be much help with mobility), I do not have a 
blind computer, blind cane, or blind anything else.


I have various peaces of equipment and software that assist me! to 
fulfill my desires in life as a visually impared individual, but 
since none of those things themselves can see, the word blind is 
incorrect to apply to them.


Indeed if you don't mind me referring to my own research again, this 
is also why I would love to see the word accessibility become a 
more common one. After all, a person with a condition like dispraxia 
or dislexia who finds complex graphics and 3D spacial relations hard 
to comprehend would equally bennifit from audio and  synthesisor 
friendly text based games.


Beware the Grue!

Dark.

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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-30 Thread shaun everiss


well true.
Ofcause a lot of people that are sighted wouldn't think twice about 
how bad some blind software is because its not for sighted.
However I have used both sighted and blind enabled programs for admin 
and guess what the simpler programs without all the extra guff are 
more userfriendly  and use less time to run so go figure.
Sometimes I wander if those that don't have dissability just do 
things without thinking anymore.
If you are not normal you tend to think within your limits and thus 
are usually better for it.

For example if I am untidy I will trip and fall over.
I can't be bothered cleaning up, so I try to make as little mess as I 
can in the first place so I don't need to bother much.
I know I can't go off like that for no reason just because so I don't 
and take a more relaxed outlook.
Those that are not otherwise challenged take so much for granted it 
is sometimes hard to think outside the ssquare.
And if you are locked into your little pleasure box and have no need 
to leave then you don't.

I know people born today don't know what to do if something breaks.
replace it if it  breaks.
put in a disk and a reformat later its fixed.
In the old days pre the net it was different.

At 02:13 AM 10/31/2013, you wrote:

I think that's a big part of the problem. Too much enphesis I think is put
on the word blind. Which isn't all together a bad thing as with any game
there needs to be elements of accessibility built in so blind people can
play them. But I think the enphesis is way to big. I mean for example and
this is just a generic statement, you got blindsoftware blindcooltech
blindbargins blindmicemart the list goes on.

-Original Message-
From: Gamers [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Ward
Sent: 30 October 2013 12:30
To: Gamers Discussion list
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

Hi Dark,

I see your point. That is in fact why as I am working on the
descriptions for the Audyssey Magazine, list, etc I am strongly
considering removing the word blind from the website, and am going to
focus more on what types of games etc are discussed here. I think as
long as we act as though we are a separate group of gamers with our
own interests and unique style of gaming we will not be able to
interest mainstream gamers who have similar interests. Gamebooks and
interactive fiction, for example, are not exclusive to blind gamers
yet we don't see anyone from the mainstream public discussing them
here. That's because up until now we have always declared Audyssey to
be for blind gamers rather than for certain games such as audio games,
interactive fiction, muds, and so on.

Cheers!

On 10/30/13, dark d...@xgam.org wrote:
 Hi Tom.

 While I do see your point and generally speaking would agree, at the same
 time the Iphone has seen more than a few interactive audio dramas which
 directly buck this trend.

 Codename Signus, the Freq, Blindside and quite a few others, even to a
large

 extent games like papasangre which present themselves more as interactive
 audio drama and work on their atmosphere rather than their gameplay.

 I know in the past few years radio drama has seen something of a
renaesance

 in popular culture, and you can clearly see it with how major companies
like

 big finish and Graphic audio have heavily expanded their operations, (and
 certainly they! don't just sell to blind people).

 It'd be rather interesting if games like swamp or shades of doom could tap
 into this, since clearly there is now a cross section of sighted gamers
who

 are interested in audio atmosphere.

 Take Shades of doom as an example, the game who's atmosphere actually
 encouraged me to play audio games in the first place. If David greenwood
 entirely removed the word blind from his website, (albeit not from the
 documentation), and described shades of doom as an interactive survival
 horror trapped in pitch darkness you'd probably get a lot more sighted
 gamers playing it.

 Or to take another example, suppose you redesigned a casino game with full
 voice acting, lots of audio ambience and drama like bits of description.
So

 instead of being told you draw a ten of spades you get the dealer's
thin

 fingered hand flips a card kneetly out of the shoe and slips it across the
 green base to you,  it is the ten of spadess

 Such a game could be billed as an audio ambience experience of a casino,
as

 much as a numerical game of blackjack, and again, would have appeal to at
 least a certain cross section of the sighted gaming public, just as
textual

 games and gamebooks do to another.

 Beware the Grue!

 Dark.
 -

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If you have

Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-30 Thread shaun everiss

I aggree.
With the level of tech these days most things do work.
I do mention it if I need to, navigation wise, tech wise and other 
things wise sertainly a different outlook.
I never say because I am blind I am entitled to this or can't do that 
or don't need to do that though.
In some cases like with my training excercise I may get in a position 
where I may have difficulties doing something or not able to do 
something if it needs me to see things.

Classic point I need to do some holds.
I can't tell the time for those and end up concentrating on how it 
hurts and such more than on what my time is.

I do these with a stopwatch that beeps and counts back over speech.
Straight away I am concentrating on that watch fully.
So yes there are some points where you need to say I am blind and I 
can't do this or that or need to adapt that but you take it as it 
comes its likely not to be all of it or none of it.
Being concious of being is fine but blabbing that you are as if you 
are some retard or some shop display model really does not make me 
that happy about doing so.

You are blind so what.
you are disabled so what.
Ok if you were really disabled like really, really it would be 
different but if you can still function with little help and adaption 
to moderate help you can still go.

I see no reason to banter blindness around.
at least not as the main point a secondary is fine.

At 04:01 AM 10/31/2013, you wrote:
The point is that there is way too much placed on that word. Yes i'm 
blind i don't care about saying that i an but i don't go about 
saying blind this blind that. It's silly.


-original message-
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine
From: Charles Rivard wee1s...@fidnet.com
Date: 30:10:2013 2.52 pm

That's because of who they are designed for.  The blind.  No negativity
intended.  The problem might be the way in which the word blind is taken.

---
Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second.
- Original Message -
From: Darren Harris darren_g_har...@btinternet.com
To: 'Gamers Discussion list' gamers@audyssey.org
Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2013 8:13 AM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine


I think that's a big part of the problem. Too much enphesis I think is put
 on the word blind. Which isn't all together a bad thing as with any game
 there needs to be elements of accessibility built in so blind people can
 play them. But I think the enphesis is way to big. I mean for example and
 this is just a generic statement, you got blindsoftware blindcooltech
 blindbargins blindmicemart the list goes on.

 -Original Message-
 From: Gamers [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Ward
 Sent: 30 October 2013 12:30
 To: Gamers Discussion list
 Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

 Hi Dark,

 I see your point. That is in fact why as I am working on the
 descriptions for the Audyssey Magazine, list, etc I am strongly
 considering removing the word blind from the website, and am going to
 focus more on what types of games etc are discussed here. I think as
 long as we act as though we are a separate group of gamers with our
 own interests and unique style of gaming we will not be able to
 interest mainstream gamers who have similar interests. Gamebooks and
 interactive fiction, for example, are not exclusive to blind gamers
 yet we don't see anyone from the mainstream public discussing them
 here. That's because up until now we have always declared Audyssey to
 be for blind gamers rather than for certain games such as audio games,
 interactive fiction, muds, and so on.

 Cheers!

 On 10/30/13, dark d...@xgam.org wrote:
 Hi Tom.

 While I do see your point and generally speaking would agree, at the same
 time the Iphone has seen more than a few interactive audio dramas which
 directly buck this trend.

 Codename Signus, the Freq, Blindside and quite a few others, even to a
 large

 extent games like papasangre which present themselves more as interactive
 audio drama and work on their atmosphere rather than their gameplay.

 I know in the past few years radio drama has seen something of a
 renaesance

 in popular culture, and you can clearly see it with how major companies
 like

 big finish and Graphic audio have heavily expanded their operations, (and
 certainly they! don't just sell to blind people).

 It'd be rather interesting if games like swamp or shades of doom could
 tap
 into this, since clearly there is now a cross section of sighted gamers
 who

 are interested in audio atmosphere.

 Take Shades of doom as an example, the game who's atmosphere actually
 encouraged me to play audio games in the first place. If David greenwood
 entirely removed the word blind from his website, (albeit not from the
 documentation), and described shades of doom as an interactive survival
 horror trapped in pitch darkness you'd probably get a lot more sighted
 gamers playing it.

 Or to take another example, suppose you redesigned a casino game with
 full

Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-30 Thread Darren Harris
Well we are in the age of the loyer these days and not in the age of common
sense. Which is why people simply don't have a clue as to what to do when
something goes wrong. That really is the long and the short of it. is it any
wonder games are 5 minute wonders with the sorts of mentality we see these
days.

-Original Message-
From: Gamers [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of shaun everiss
Sent: 30 October 2013 20:32
To: Gamers Discussion list
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine


well true.
Ofcause a lot of people that are sighted wouldn't think twice about 
how bad some blind software is because its not for sighted.
However I have used both sighted and blind enabled programs for admin 
and guess what the simpler programs without all the extra guff are 
more userfriendly  and use less time to run so go figure.
Sometimes I wander if those that don't have dissability just do 
things without thinking anymore.
If you are not normal you tend to think within your limits and thus 
are usually better for it.
For example if I am untidy I will trip and fall over.
I can't be bothered cleaning up, so I try to make as little mess as I 
can in the first place so I don't need to bother much.
I know I can't go off like that for no reason just because so I don't 
and take a more relaxed outlook.
Those that are not otherwise challenged take so much for granted it 
is sometimes hard to think outside the ssquare.
And if you are locked into your little pleasure box and have no need 
to leave then you don't.
I know people born today don't know what to do if something breaks.
replace it if it  breaks.
put in a disk and a reformat later its fixed.
In the old days pre the net it was different.

At 02:13 AM 10/31/2013, you wrote:
I think that's a big part of the problem. Too much enphesis I think is put
on the word blind. Which isn't all together a bad thing as with any game
there needs to be elements of accessibility built in so blind people can
play them. But I think the enphesis is way to big. I mean for example and
this is just a generic statement, you got blindsoftware blindcooltech
blindbargins blindmicemart the list goes on.

-Original Message-
From: Gamers [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Ward
Sent: 30 October 2013 12:30
To: Gamers Discussion list
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

Hi Dark,

I see your point. That is in fact why as I am working on the
descriptions for the Audyssey Magazine, list, etc I am strongly
considering removing the word blind from the website, and am going to
focus more on what types of games etc are discussed here. I think as
long as we act as though we are a separate group of gamers with our
own interests and unique style of gaming we will not be able to
interest mainstream gamers who have similar interests. Gamebooks and
interactive fiction, for example, are not exclusive to blind gamers
yet we don't see anyone from the mainstream public discussing them
here. That's because up until now we have always declared Audyssey to
be for blind gamers rather than for certain games such as audio games,
interactive fiction, muds, and so on.

Cheers!

On 10/30/13, dark d...@xgam.org wrote:
  Hi Tom.
 
  While I do see your point and generally speaking would agree, at the
same
  time the Iphone has seen more than a few interactive audio dramas which
  directly buck this trend.
 
  Codename Signus, the Freq, Blindside and quite a few others, even to a
large
 
  extent games like papasangre which present themselves more as
interactive
  audio drama and work on their atmosphere rather than their gameplay.
 
  I know in the past few years radio drama has seen something of a
renaesance
 
  in popular culture, and you can clearly see it with how major companies
like
 
  big finish and Graphic audio have heavily expanded their operations,
(and
  certainly they! don't just sell to blind people).
 
  It'd be rather interesting if games like swamp or shades of doom could
tap
  into this, since clearly there is now a cross section of sighted gamers
who
 
  are interested in audio atmosphere.
 
  Take Shades of doom as an example, the game who's atmosphere actually
  encouraged me to play audio games in the first place. If David greenwood
  entirely removed the word blind from his website, (albeit not from the
  documentation), and described shades of doom as an interactive survival
  horror trapped in pitch darkness you'd probably get a lot more sighted
  gamers playing it.
 
  Or to take another example, suppose you redesigned a casino game with
full
  voice acting, lots of audio ambience and drama like bits of description.
So
 
  instead of being told you draw a ten of spades you get the dealer's
thin
 
  fingered hand flips a card kneetly out of the shoe and slips it across
the
  green base to you,  it is the ten of spadess
 
  Such a game could be billed as an audio ambience experience of a casino,
as
 
  much as a numerical game of blackjack

Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-30 Thread shaun everiss
ron what about sending the list 55 if its finnished at least we get 1 
normal issue this year if its ready.

after that though we will need to get our act together on what to do with it.
All issues should still be downloadable as text and things.
My idea for the cast could either be.
1.  a pdcast as seperate to the mag, or a podcast that came with the 
magazine archive obviously you would have the ability to just get text.

We should also work on exclusive content.
stuff that just is not published anywhere else or at least have a 
deal with devs to publish stuff they want on the same day the mags 
came out or a day after it all came out so then we  would get a 
bigger base of things.
A lot of stuff that appears in the mag is already out there in 
advance of the mag.
some of it should be out when the mag is round or stuff set to 
be  realeased at magazine publication.

then there would be the need to read it.
that could be hard but even so.

At 04:13 AM 10/31/2013, you wrote:

Hi Tom

  For sure I'll send out 55 to you shortly and by all means we can 
colaberate on having Audyssey rise again like the phoenix.

 Talk soon


On 30-Oct-2013 1:05 AM, Thomas Ward wrote:

Hi Ron,

If you'd be willing to collaborate on it you could send me what you
have for issue 55 and I can  begin converting it into HTML, and
convert it into an online e-zine with links and so forth. I have some
ideas where to take the magazine and perhaps you and I can work off
list  on it together to breath new life into the magazine.

Cheers!



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Re: [Audyssey] Audyssey Magazine

2013-10-30 Thread Dennis Towne
I've actually got an archive copy of the first 54 audyssey releases on
the main alter aeon server.  I grabbed it a few years ago when there
was some concern about people mirroring it, or if it was even around
anymore.  I plan to be around for quite a few years, and could host
the site if the community wants to do it.

Dennis Towne

Alter Aeon MUD
http://www.alteraeon.com

On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 1:47 PM, shaun everiss sm.ever...@gmail.com wrote:
 ron what about sending the list 55 if its finnished at least we get 1 normal
 issue this year if its ready.
 after that though we will need to get our act together on what to do with
 it.
 All issues should still be downloadable as text and things.
 My idea for the cast could either be.
 1.  a pdcast as seperate to the mag, or a podcast that came with the
 magazine archive obviously you would have the ability to just get text.
 We should also work on exclusive content.
 stuff that just is not published anywhere else or at least have a deal with
 devs to publish stuff they want on the same day the mags came out or a day
 after it all came out so then we  would get a bigger base of things.
 A lot of stuff that appears in the mag is already out there in advance of
 the mag.
 some of it should be out when the mag is round or stuff set to be  realeased
 at magazine publication.
 then there would be the need to read it.
 that could be hard but even so.

 At 04:13 AM 10/31/2013, you wrote:

 Hi Tom

   For sure I'll send out 55 to you shortly and by all means we can
 colaberate on having Audyssey rise again like the phoenix.
  Talk soon


 On 30-Oct-2013 1:05 AM, Thomas Ward wrote:

 Hi Ron,

 If you'd be willing to collaborate on it you could send me what you
 have for issue 55 and I can  begin converting it into HTML, and
 convert it into an online e-zine with links and so forth. I have some
 ideas where to take the magazine and perhaps you and I can work off
 list  on it together to breath new life into the magazine.

 Cheers!


 ---
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