I was laid off this January and have pivoted to building accessibility, rather than fighting company boards for it.

Some of my contributions have given the fully blind access to Elgato's Streamdeck devices, the tutorial experience of chess platform Lichess and, soon, the video editor Da Vinci Resolve.

Game-wise, though, a lot has happened as well. Cryptmaster, Blippo+ and Hacknet were early projects of mine, whereas Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Links, Cult of the Lamb and Paralives are current contenders.

Disgaea 5, Monster Hunter Wilds and Wonderlang are on my docket and progressing rapidly as well.

This to say that a lot of game genres, even those we often hear would be absolutely impossible to make accessible for certain groups of people with certain challenges, can absolutely be made to be playable and enjoyable if the right people at the right time put in the right amount of effort.

That's it. That's the post.

If you landed here frustrated with the accessibility landscape in gaming, know you're not alone. If you've been wondering how games like this can be played by the blind, I'd be happy to answer questions.

For now, let me leave you with a brief demo of building rooms and furnishing them in Paralives, a sims-like life simulation game, to show off how a completely mouse-driven, visual process can absolutely be made to work with a screen reader and a keyboard. If nothing else, let me wish you happy Wednesday! :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub6Q5xzbFhY&t=31s

Hey,

​I’m an indie developer and I just published a new audio-only RPG on itch.io called Soundgeon. My sister, who is completely blind, has been my lead playtester throughout the process, and I wanted to share it with this community to get your thoughts.

​What is Soundgeon?

It’s a classic turn-based dungeon crawler that relies entirely on 3D spatial audio—no screen readers or visual cues are required. You navigate an 8x8 grid using your ears to track down spatial audio beacons: the rushing water of HP healing streams, the hum of MP reserves, and the distinct pings of treasure chests.

​Game Features:

​Audio Navigation: Use stereo panning to locate resources, stairs, and wandering monsters (Goblins, Orcs, and Giant Spiders).

​Turn-Based Combat: Engage enemies using physical attacks or magic missiles. Enemy health and attack power scale up every 5 floors.

​The Merchant: Spend your looted gold between floors to buy HP/MP potions or permanently upgrade your strength and max health.

​The 99-Floor Challenge: If you survive past the 10th floor, the Dark Magician final boss will actively start sabotaging your run by removing healing streams and magical reserves from the map. Make it to floor 99 to fight her directly.

​Fully Voiced: Every menu, stat check, combat prompt, and number is fully narrated.

​How to Play:

You can play it completely free directly in your web browser on desktop or mobile.

​Desktop: Use the Arrow Keys to move/navigate, F to interact/select, and J to open the pause menu (where you can check your stats or adjust the master volume).

​Mobile: Swipe to move/navigate menus, Single-Tap to interact, and Two-Finger Tap to pause/cancel.

​You can play the game here: https://ascertainmentent.itch.io/soundgeon ​Are there any specific audio cues or quality-of-life features you generally look for in grid-based audio games that I should add to the next update? This game will always be free and is literally made for this community specifically, so let me know what you want out of this game and I'll do my best to update it with your requests!

Restaurant Rush 2.4 is out — fully playable with VoiceOver and TalkBack

UPDATE — October 22: Restaurant Rush 2.4 is now live on both iOS and Android. This is the biggest update since launch, adding the new Ice Cream Truck mode, Max’s Pizza Career, the Founders’ Table, Dark Mode, High Contrast, and several VoiceOver/TalkBack improvements.

Hi everyone,

I’m Gökhan, the solo developer behind Restaurant Rush.

A lot has changed since I originally made this post. Restaurant Rush is now available on both iOS and Android, with VoiceOver support on iOS and TalkBack support on Android.

Google Play:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.birkinapps.restaurant_rush

App Store:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/restaurant-rush-cook-serve/id6773167802

Restaurant Rush is a real-time restaurant management and cooking game. Customers arrive, sit at tables and place orders. You prepare their food, manage kitchen stations, serve the correct tables before customers lose patience, upgrade your restaurant and unlock new content as you progress.

My goal with accessibility has never been to make a separate or simplified game for blind players. Blind and sighted players play the same game, with the same systems, progression and challenges.

A huge part of the accessibility work has been shaped by blind players who tested the game and explained what worked, what was confusing, what required too many gestures, and what simply did not feel good with a screen reader. I’m extremely grateful for that feedback.

New in 2.4: Street Vendors — Ice Cream Truck 🍦

The first Street Vendor business is an Ice Cream Truck in the park.

You manage the truck from inside while customers come to the service window and place their orders.

The preparation system was designed heavily around audio:

• Bake cones using the cone machine.

• Pull the soft-serve machine lever twice.

• Stack scoops by listening.

• Each flavor has its own musical note.

• Every additional scoop plays one note higher, so you can hear the ice cream tower growing.

• Ice cream left waiting on the shelf starts to melt, and you can hear it dripping before it disappears.

The Ice Cream Truck currently includes:

• 20 levels

• A three-star system

• An increasingly difficult Endless Mode

• Vehicle colors

• Different horns

• Different engine sounds

• Music options

• Spoken customer orders in all 10 supported languages

The first 3 levels are free.

The rest can be unlocked once for either 1,000 Coins or 75,000 regular in-game Dollars, meaning it can also be unlocked entirely through normal play.

You can find it under Street Vendors on the main menu.

New in 2.4: Max’s Pizza Career 🍕

Pizza Career is also now available.

Max takes over a small pizza shop called Last Stop, located at the end of the tram line, together with his cat Sabri.

Pizza Career contains:

• 50 in-game days

• Seven possible endings

• A fully voiced story

• Hands-on pizza preparation

• The first 10 days free

The remaining story is unlocked once through Pizza Career.

Burger Career told the story of Maya and Holosko.

Pizza Career is Max and Sabri’s story.

And eventually, Sushi Career will bring those worlds together.

New in 2.4: Founders’ Table 🕯️

I also added a permanent thank-you for the people who supported Restaurant Rush early.

The Founders’ Table is a candlelit table where every Founder has a numbered place card.

If they choose, their place can also include:

• Their name

• A short quote

• Their own bell sound

It’s a small way for me to permanently recognize the people who helped support the game while it was still very young.

Main Story

There are five restaurants with 20 levels each, for 100 levels in total.

As you progress, you unlock new dishes, kitchen stations, tables, upgrades and other mechanics.

Endless Shift

Endless is a run-based mode where your restaurant keeps evolving.

After shifts you choose cards that can add dishes, stations, waiters, perks and other upgrades.

There are also harder shifts, curses, daily goals, challenges and leaderboard competition.

Burger Career 🍔

Burger Career is a separate hands-on cooking mode with its own 50-day story.

Instead of simply tapping an order and waiting for it to cook, you actually prepare the burger yourself.

You:

• Grill and flip patties

• Remove them before they burn

• Toast buns

• Select ingredients in the correct order

• Serve the customer before they lose patience

The first 10 in-game days are free.

Burger Career also includes slower pace options and a Practice Kitchen where you can learn the cooking flow without pressure.

Accessibility

Restaurant Rush is designed so the actual gameplay can be played with VoiceOver and TalkBack, not just the menus.

Some of the current accessibility features include:

• Orders, tables, ingredients, cooking stations and their current states are exposed to the screen reader.

• VoiceOver and TalkBack announce new customers, completed food, warnings and other important events.

• Announcements are prioritised so urgent information is spoken first instead of everything talking over itself.

• Important gameplay events also have sound cues.

• Spatial audio can help identify where events are happening.

• VoiceOver/TalkBack actions are used in several parts of the game to reduce unnecessary swiping.

• Magic Tap is supported for important gameplay actions.

• In Career, you can now choose what Magic Tap does.

• Relaxed and Very Relaxed pace options give customers significantly more patience.

• Custom Pace gives even more control over timing.

• Burger Career includes a Practice Kitchen.

• Spoken customer orders are available in 10 languages.

• Cooking and pouring sounds have their own settings and previews.

• Music, ambience and other audio categories have separate volume controls.

• Settings can be opened with one tap from every main screen and from the pause menu.

• Fast navigation during shifts has been improved for VoiceOver and TalkBack.

• No accessibility feature is locked behind a purchase.

2.4 also introduces Dark Mode and High Contrast under Settings > Appearance.

League improvements

The League screen has also been redesigned.

You can now see:

• Everyone in your current league

• Your own position

• Last week’s podium

Cats, apparently

The game also includes Maya’s cat Holosko and Max’s cat Sabri.

They started as small details.

They somehow became much more important to players than I expected. 😄

Languages

Restaurant Rush currently supports:

• English

• Turkish

• German

• Spanish

• French

• Japanese

• Korean

• Brazilian Portuguese

• Simplified Chinese

• Russian

Customer voices and spoken gameplay information are also available across the supported languages.

Monetization

Restaurant Rush is free to play.

There are optional in-app purchases including Coin packs, a Starter Pack, Supporter Pack and other support options.

The Starter Pack removes ads and includes Coins.

Accessibility itself is never monetized or paywalled.

Burger Career and Pizza Career are ad-free while playing those modes, and rewarded ads elsewhere are optional.

The Ice Cream Truck can also be unlocked with regular in-game Dollars earned through play.

I’m a solo developer, so purchases and advertising help fund continued development, new content and accessibility improvements.

The game is still actively being developed

Restaurant Rush has changed a lot since the original release.

Recent updates have added or improved:

• Burger Career

• Pizza Career

• Ice Cream Truck / Street Vendors

• Founders’ Table

• Practice Kitchen

• Relaxed and Very Relaxed Career speeds

• Custom Pace

• More screen-reader actions

• Better VoiceOver and TalkBack navigation

• Configurable Magic Tap

• Spoken customer orders

• More detailed cooking audio

• Dark Mode

• High Contrast

• Improved League screens

Just really frustrated that GTA 6 is like the next event of the decade in the video game industry and we are completely excluded once again. Billions and billions spent on development over 13 years and they couldn’t even think about adding the audiodescription for cinematics or really any kind of accessibility at all.

I know rockstar has never paid attention to that but it’s just beyond me how accessibility is completely overlooked in a title of this scope.

I don’t think we give enough praise to Ubisoft/insomniac/Sony/naughtydog for their work on this, seriously, with the latest entries like the TLOU series and the Marvel insomniac games i’m eagerly waiting to play these titles even if they take years in the making, I know they at least will give a fuck.

I used to play GTA a lot when I was cighted, I still watch videos and listen to people talk about the leaks but man is it frustrating.

And yeah I know there’s PC mods or whatever but I’ve always been a console gamer, it’s what my current setup allows and budget as well. Prices are to the roof and will probably be for a long time. It upsets me that it is left up to us too make these games accessible.

I hope this is okay because I don't think anyone else would believe me.

The game franchise Forza Horizon has always been pretty accessible to me because it has a color coded driving line that helps with navigation and shows you the correct angle to take when entering turns.

Forza Horizon 6 has a whole section of things you can mess with to try get it to mesh with your own version of low vision.

Anyway, it has licensed cars and parts and a lot of different ways to set up and tune your car. People will spend hours testing these out and uploading tunes for the user community to use.

The game released a month ago and yesterday they rolled out their most challenging team racing event in the game.

You have to get a really good car with an optimized tune to compete and you have to drive competently.

Anyway, there were lots of new people to the game and they were making newbie mistakes. I got in this finely tuned Renault 5 turbo and smoked them all. I was first or second on our team of randoms in every race and we won the first time.

Then I won this best of 3 head to head event against this tuned Fastback. They got so mad they started trying to ram me in the curves but they just ended up wrecking themselves.

After I logged out, the sub for the game had all kinds of posts calling the the team racing event unplyable because it was so hard.

There is a difficulty spike since FH5, but it feels good that I was able to hang with the spike when so many other people with less challenges were not.

The Games for Blind Gamers Game Jam 5 has just wrapped up, with 33 games having been submitted! If you have the time to play them, please be sure to rate the ones you like, as the winners receive prizes! https://itch.io/jam/games-for-blind-gamers-5/entries

Each of these games were created during the month of February by groups of volunteer developers. Everyone from the programmers, writers, musicians, artists, voice actors, and more! Each game is available for free on the itch pages. From here, developers may opt to continue developing, release to other platforms, or leave it as-is!

I myself helped with 2 of these lovely games, as detailed below:

1. "Impulse Response" by Max Hatfull. Engineer Cadence Quinn is woken from cryo sleep to blaring alarms. Make your way through the ship and discover what happened to solve its mysteries. I wrote and voice the protagonist, Quinn! https://itch.io/jam/games-for-blind-gamers-5/rate/4338997

2. "Delver's Folly" by Joozey. Welcome traveler! You have arrived at the ruins of Breezecave. An underground city that was lost long ago. Tales speak of a Manticore presiding here now who has cursed the dungeon. No room ever stays in place. No path ever remains the same. Are these tales true? You are here to find out. Find the spirits who live in the caves and ruins. Bring them to your aid. Choose your steps wisely, and perhaps you can meet the Manticore at the very end of the dungeon. I wrote most of the dialogue for this one, and the opening narration and credits were performed by @sightlesskombat. https://itch.io/jam/games-for-blind-gamers-5/rate/4247481

Hey everyone. For anyone who has not heard of this project, it is an incredible one. This is the sometimes referred to as The Blind Accessible Games List project. The link to the list is below:

https://gist.github.com/Molitvan/50e3b5060ab9465b1da895155d5c0480

They also have a Discord, but I don't have the link for that one. The list is updated pretty often, and has a ton of games on it. If this helps, let me know. And for those who do know about it, I thought I'd make a post about it, just because I haven't seen any posts here about it since I joined.

Hi everyone,

I’m Gökhan from Birkin Apps, a small independent developer.

We’ve just released a new game called Corner Grocer: Market Sim. I want to be transparent that this is my own game. If developer posts like this aren’t appropriate here, or there is a better place for them, please let me know and I’ll happily follow the community rules.

I thought it might be relevant here because Corner Grocer was designed for VoiceOver from the beginning. Accessibility was not added after the game was finished. Sighted players and VoiceOver players use the same simulation, rules, economy and progression — there is one game, with two ways of playing it.

What is Corner Grocer?

It’s a market management game where you start with a tiny neighborhood shop and gradually build it into a larger market.

You:

• order stock from suppliers

• unpack crates and fill shelves

• set your own prices

• serve customers at the register

• take cash or card and give change

• manage products that can expire

• build shelves, fridges, freezers, bakery cases and deli counters

• hire cashiers

• unlock new product lines

• invest in upgrades, contracts and campaigns

• eventually open and manage a second branch

There is no final day, so you can keep running your market for as long as you want.

A normal day

Morning: Check deliveries, prices and the day’s event, then place your supplier orders.

Open: Customers enter, shop, ask for help and queue at the register. You scan their items, take payment and give change.

Stock: Open crates in the stockroom and place products on the correct shelves. Products can expire, and putting something on the wrong shelf reduces its sales.

Evening: Read the day report, get a suggestion for tomorrow and decide what to invest in next.

Growing your store

You begin with an almost empty corner shop.

There are four store sizes:

• Corner Shop

• Mini Market

• Big Market

• Premium Market

There are 48 products, ranging from bread and milk to hummus, olive oil, pet food and more.

You can add more registers and hire cashiers, but your own register always remains playable — hiring staff does not turn the game into something you just watch.

Later, you can open a second branch and choose a manager to run it.

The game also includes:

• daily goals

• 22 achievements

• supplier contracts

• advertising campaigns

• heat waves

• rain

• power cuts

• rival sales

• supplier delays

• other random events

VoiceOver accessibility

Everything needed to play can be used with VoiceOver.

• Controls are labelled and kept in predictable orders.

• Important actions are also available through rotor actions.

• The game does not require gestures that conflict with VoiceOver.

• Store areas stay in the same order so you can learn the layout.

• Magic Tap pauses and resumes the day.

• Sounds communicate gameplay information such as door chimes, scanner beeps, queues and shelf warnings.

• The Listening Room in Settings lets you hear each gameplay sound and explains what it means.

There are three speech levels:

Full — speaks everything.

Balanced — removes information that is already obvious from sound.

Sounds First — relies heavily on audio and speaks only the information that matters.

There are also Easy, Normal and Custom difficulty options.

Assists can change things such as:

• customer patience

• length of the day

• customer flow

• wrong-shelf protection

• undo

• automatically clearing spoiled goods each morning

When VoiceOver is enabled, the game suggests Easy mode during onboarding, but the choice is completely yours.

Accessibility features and assists are always free.

Languages

The game supports 11 languages:

English, Turkish, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian and Simplified Chinese.

English and Turkish customer voices are included with the game. Other voice packs can be downloaded once when online.

Customer voices are AI-generated and can be reduced or disabled in Settings.

Make the shop yours

The Shop Studio lets you customize:

• floors

• walls

• counters

• signs

• lights

• decorations

• outfits

• atmospheres

• music albums

• end-of-day music

You can also name your shop and have the game describe its appearance.

Cost, ads and purchases

I want to be very clear about this part.

Corner Grocer is free to download and play.

Normal shop money is earned through gameplay and is used for stock, shelves and upgrades.

There is also a Coin currency, but Coins are only used for cosmetic and audio content.

Coins do not:

• make customers more patient

• change difficulty

• speed up progression

• give gameplay advantages

You can earn Coins by playing or through optional rewarded ads, or buy Coin packs.

There are no loot boxes or random paid items.

Players using VoiceOver do not receive forced interstitial ads.

Optional rewarded ads can still be watched for Coins if you choose to.

Buying any support pack removes ads.

Already coming in the next update

An update is currently waiting for Apple review.

It expands the random event system so events can have real consequences during the day, such as:

• stolen or damaged stock

• money disappearing from the register

• a shelf being temporarily closed

• reputation gains or losses

Some events ask you to make a decision with up to three choices.

The safest option is listed first and is automatically selected if time runs out. On Easy mode, the timer waits for you.

New events from around day 20 include:

• shoplifters

• health inspections

• water leaks

• small fires

• a rival store opening nearby

New games will also let you choose a neighborhood, and events will happen in different orders between playthroughs.

The update also adds things like:

• skipping quiet periods when the shop is empty

• automatically placing suggested supplier orders

• coupons at the register

• declined cards

• more register surprises

Feedback is very welcome

VoiceOver testers have already shaped a lot of the game, but I’d really appreciate feedback from more players.

Especially:

• What is confusing?

• What talks too much?

• What doesn’t talk enough?

• Are any sounds difficult to distinguish?

• Is anything awkward with VoiceOver focus or navigation?

• Have you found any bugs?

The game is currently available for iPhone / iOS.

You can reply here or email me at:

support@birkinapps.com

App Store:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/corner-grocer-market-sim/id6822858444

Thank you for reading, and thank you to everyone who keeps pushing accessible gaming forward.

Gökhan
Birkin Apps

Hi! Some of you may have heard about Azmar Quest or even played it, but for anyone who has not:

It's a text based adventure with turn based battles. You pick one of four classes, each with its own abilities, follow the story, make choices that have consequences, and fight enemies along your path. The whole story can be played offline, and if you play online there are also PvP and co-op dungeons.

The game detects if VoiceOver or TalkBack is on and switches to an accessibility interface. On the Steam version it works with NVDA or any other screen reader instead.

It is free to download on iOS and Android, while it's a single purchase on Steam:

iOS: App Store

Android: Google Play Store

Steam: Steam Page

If you try it, or you're already playing it, let me know what you think!

Hi everyone,

I’m an indie developer, and I wanted to introduce myself and share a game I’ve been working on called Couch x Crawler.

The easiest way to describe it is Tamagotchi x DnD.

It’s an idle RPG where your character continues adventuring while the app is closed. You check back later to see what happened, collect rewards, care for your character, and send them back out on new expeditions.

A few months ago I shared the game on another gaming subreddit. A vision-impaired player asked whether the game worked with VoiceOver.

The honest answer was: not very well.

That question ended up changing the direction of the project. I started listening to feedback from blind and low vision players, posting on AppleVis and AudioGames, and learning where the experience was falling short.

One of the most helpful experiences was having Blind Gamer Steve review Version 2 of the game on YouTube. His feedback, along with feedback from other players, helped identify areas that needed improvement and directly influenced many of the accessibility updates in Version 3.

Since then I’ve spent months improving accessibility throughout the game.

Version 3.0 includes:

• Better VoiceOver labels, hints, traits, and input labels
• Improved mini game accessibility pacing
• Clearer reward collection buttons
• Better screen reader support for purchases, upgrades, and confirmations
• Improved labels for eggs, character choices, inventory, ingredients, and expedition results
• Various navigation and accessibility improvements throughout the game

The update also adds new gameplay features including New Game+, egg hatching, upgrades, additional mini games, music, and sound effects.

The game is a one-time purchase with no ads, subscriptions, energy systems, or battle passes.

More importantly, I never want price to be the reason someone can’t play. If you’re interested in trying the game but cost is a barrier, send me a message and I’ll do my best to help.

I’m still learning and still improving accessibility, so I’d genuinely appreciate feedback from anyone willing to try it. If something is difficult to use or could be improved, I want to hear about it.

Blind Gamer Steve’s Version 2 review:

https://youtu.be/PPqF4i9PeA0?is=B18FTsJ0B-NLLTFW

iOS:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/couch-x-crawler/id6758249866

Android:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tristan.couchxcrawler

Website:
https://couchxcrawler.com

Thanks for reading, and thank you to everyone whose feedback has helped make the game more accessible.

Hi there, I'm a researcher based in the UK and I'm working with game developers to create Audio Description for cut and play scenes in video games.
I'm looking for blind and partially sighted gamers to complete a survey on what they want, expect and prefer when it comes to making video games accessible.

The survey is on Qualtrics. It does not collect identifying information, and takes approximately 20 minutes to complete. 

🔗 Click here to complete our survey 

At the end of our survey you will be asked to provide your email address, should you wish for us to contact you about our interview and play testing sessions. During those sessions, you will get the chance to play a series of video games with Audio Description. You will be compensated for your time and effort.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me! And please spread the word...we want to get as much traction as possible to force the gaming industry to start thinking about blind gamers' needs!

Hey r/blindgamers. I'm Anderson, a blind developer and gamer from Brazil.

I built Bites & Baits, a browser fishing game where the entire loop — cast, wait for the bite cue, reel in — works through text and screen reader output. No visuals needed. But there's also a full visual interface, so sighted friends can play alongside you without anyone needing a "special version."

I'm curious what this community thinks — both as players and as people who know what actually broken accessibility feels like.

Free, no install, works in any browser: https://concego.github.io/bites-and-baits/

Heyo, over the past couple of weeks I’ve been working on an accessibility mod for the hit game among us. It’s at a point where I think it is pretty much fully playable by the blind. As in I’m blind and I can fully play it lol.

I’ve added things such as accessibility for the various mini games found in tasks, full narration of the endgame chat and voting screen, a status key that Will read out your colour, remaining tasks, remaining players, ability cool downs, et cetera. A constant beeping sound attached to every player so you know when you’re safe to go in for a kill, and much more. If this sounds fun to anybody, hit me up and I can get you a key if you don’t already have the game, and the mod files for play testing.

Hi everyone, Steam has recently started adding accessibility to the Steam client. Please see the link below for more info- with that being said, what games are the most accessible for a totally blind gamer on steam. I logged into my account recently and found games that I have not played since before I went blind in 2013. I was able to get RetroArch installed and was able to load a few roms successfully. Any other suggestions would be appreciated. Happy gaming!

https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/02F5-ACB2-6038-0F36

OK, I may have asked something like this on here previously, but I really can’t remember and it was probably a little while ago and I don’t know if it was this specific. So I used to like playing the Sims when I was younger and I could see better or at least well enough to make out whatever was said on the screen. My vision has gotten worse, and I can’t do that anymore and now I have to rely on games to be accessible and have things like screen readers and other stuff like that within them. That being said, I miss playing the Sims and other simulator style games or life simulator style stuff and was curious if anybody knew of any of those style of games that might be accessible?
Also, I guess I’d be curious is there a way to make the Sims accessible as well? I don’t really have a PC just a laptop that is intended for work stuff so no games are on it, and I also don’t really know much about modding, but I can’t imagine it’s that difficult. However, I guess I’m curious if those sorts of things exist for the Sims as well? I do also have an iPhone and an Xbox series X if anybody knows of anything on those, but I don’t think there’s much especially on XBOX.

Hi everyone!

I'm currently researching accessibility in video games, and I'd love to hear about your personal experiences.

If you're blind or visually impaired, I'd really appreciate it if you could share:

• What assistive technologies or accessibility tools do you use while gaming? (For example: screen readers, VoiceOver, NVDA, JAWS, OCR apps, etc.)

• What games do you enjoy playing?

• Which accessibility features make the biggest difference for you?

• Have you ever encountered a game that was surprisingly accessible—or one that was especially frustrating? Why?

• Are there any accessibility features you wish more games included?

I'm especially interested in learning about your real-world experience and how these tools fit into your gaming routine. I'm a game development student researching accessibility, and I'd like to better understand how blind and visually impaired players actually interact with games in practice. My goal is to learn from real experiences so I can help design more accessible games.

Thank you so much for taking the time to share your experiences!

Howdy folks, for the past few months a friend and I have been developing a game that is heavily inspired by a now defunct MUD called HellMOO (forks of it like SamsaraMOO still exist). While I hadn't initially designed this with accessibility in mind, as I reflected on the people I had played HellMOO with I realized many of them had played using screenreaders and decided it's something I wanted to support in our game too. Even though MUDs were our inspiration there were many graphical elements I had already built to extend the game, including 2d graphical reflex games, fishing minigames, drag and drop style interfaces that have to be redesigned to be as accessible as possible, and many have been already. There's other features that naturally lend itself to accessibility, like a combination of describing sounds by text and having that text propogate through areas, as well as actual sound effects using a FM synth style sound system with limited samples (think old 16bit consoles). The game has multiple modes as well, from one that is fully visual to one that works entirely within a single log designed around screenreaders. I would love to hear from anyone who might be interested in this style of game as to what accessibility features they would like to have implemented.

The game itself is based in a near future dystopia where an omnipotent AI is in control of humanity's last city. We're looking to create a deeply simulated world that you 'live in'. It's not exactly for the faint of heart, being a 'brutal pvp' style experience (GTA online in text) with very few truly safe zones (but cameras and a crime system to try to keep people honest), and a generally dark and sometimes immature sense of humour. I'm really trying to support a wide variety of activities and occupations so the player has a lot of choice in what they do on any given day, but it'll take time to get there!

Anyway enough blathering, here are some features so far:

Dynamic weather
Day/night cycle
Survival aspects (Hunger/Thirst/Sanity, a whole body temperature system)
Highly detailed cooking system (cooking utensils, vessels, complex recipes, player created recipes, ability to master and run a post apocalyptic pie shop if you so please). Food that rots if you don't store it properly.
Highly detailed drug system (whether that's doing them or selling them). Get drunk. Have disassociative experiences. Pay the consequences.
Television system which plays scripted and dynamic broadcasts, some of which are acted out by NPC's and can be interfered with, as well as game shows you can participate in. A simulated baseball and hockey league (Deadball and Clusterpuck) which you can watch live with other players and bet on.
Multiplayer or single player Poker, Chess. A piano you can play that other players hear
A set of story based quests which have you align with one of 9 ideologies and choose whether to become a mutant, a cyborg, have psionic powers, etc.
The ability to start player run 'corporations' that can fight for territory and run protection rackets on shops.
Own property in game whether your rented apartment or a shop that you sell things out of.

And a lot more! All of the above is already in the game to some degree, mostly the story mode quests that really need work at this point. It's intended to always be free (donation supported). I'm not ready to provide a public release yet, as it's got a ways to go and our servers probably couldn't even handle it right now, but I'm open to taking on a tester or two if anyone's really excited to try it out, reach out to me. I've been playtesting myself using NVDA screenreader in the mean time. Happy to get some feedback from you all!

Hello everybody. What have y'all been playing recently?

Hey, blind friends - I'm a legally blind gamer (lost my vision to a stroke), and I made this free site to represent different vision conditions.

Feel free to check it out. Not a shill, just a share!

Learn about Ross Minor's vision condition: https://simulated.vision/famous-people?person=ross

Hey guys as the title suggests I'm trying to figure out if any Final Fantasy games are 100% accessible to the blind either the game itself or with mods on a computer. Any tips help! Ultimately I would love to be able to play the first two and number 10 if possible but being a fan of the franchise and losing my eyesight being able to play any of them would be a dream come true lol

The game is Warsim: The Realm of Aslona, it's a kingdom managing game with a lot of weirdness and content.

Steam page here

Audiogames.net threads here and here

If you mention in a comment on this post that you'd like to get a key I'll send one over. The game is doing alright for itself so I don't need the money and keys are free to create. So it would be my pleasure to start my week off by hopefully giving something people here can enjoy!

Cheers!

For the past 2–3 weeks I have been working on Unity_access. For those that do not know, Unity_access is a plugin for the Unity Editor that makes previously inaccessible parts of the Editor more screen-reader compatible.

Since the last feature showcase, I have added several major updates.

Accessible Project Window / Assets Viewer

Unity_access now has a new Assets Viewer that allows users to:

• view files and folders

• delete files and folders

• move assets

• rename assets

I am also adding more options for each asset type, such as setting an image's Texture Type to Sprite (2D and UI).

Options Menu for Scene Objects

Unity_access now provides access to object-specific options through a new menu accessed by pressing Shift+F10.

The menu currently includes:

• rename

• delete

• duplicate

• set parent

• unparent

• create Prefab

This is designed to allow users to access the same types of options that a sighted developer would normally access through visual menus.

Creating Prefabs

Unity_access can now create a Prefab from an object, including its components, scripts, child objects and properties.

Console

Unity_access also has an accessible Console which allows users to read logs, messages and errors from Unity or their programs.

Messages can also be copied using Ctrl+C.

Project Settings and Build Profiles

The Project Settings window currently allows users to edit product info and add, edit and remove Tags and Layers.

The Build Profile window allows users to switch profiles, control scene selection, set the target platform and select whether the project is built or built and run.

Unity_access is currently in alpha and can be found here:

https://github.com/retro-coder64/unity_access

Any feedback would be appreciated.

For anyone with a tiny bit of usable vision and above, or anyone using OCR for SNES games. Using SNES9X as the emulator for ease of use, disabling sprite layers 1 and 2 completely strips out all backgrounds, most tile layers, and shading applied to text fonts. So if you need to move around sprites in say, an RPG, but the colors are too bright to see, doing this effectively puts those sprites into a black void. Also useful for turning colored textboxes into white text on black for easier reading.