Category: Accessible Games
Hi everyone,
I am a blind parent with a sighted daughter who loves gaming. I have never been much into gaming, but we are trying to find multi-player games that we can play together. She usually plays games like Minecraft, Roblox, etc. but none of these are accessible with Voiceover on IOS or even on a Windows PC. Are there similar games that we could get that we could play as two players? She wanted me to try playing Minecraft by her showing me what to do at every step, but it doesn't make sense to me because it is based on pictures and has sounds, but you can't really tell what you are doing.
Thank you.
There's always RS games, or the playroom.
Also there's a program called VIPMUD. It makes MUDs accessible the way they used to be when DOS was around. If you've been around long enough, you might have seen someone posting about Altereon. It's a text-based multiplayer game that's accessible if you get VIPMUD. They even have an interface that allows the player to hear sounds. Very cool. I think VIPMUD only costs about $39 or so.
I would definitely look into text based muds. Aardwolf is a popular one as well as Alter Aeon.
I hate to burst anyones bubble, but let's face it, no audio game will compare to the mainstream.
Sure there are games like Swamp that's 3d based audio, but the graphics are represented by letters and basic shapes.
Not to mention todays generation tend to base things on how graphics look.
I have 2 nephews, one is 17 the other 14, and while one of them was interested in audiogames for a while, it's not quite the same.
Unless someone actually does something aboutit, and people are attempting to do so, it's not gonna happen.
I remember reading somewhere a father in the UK was designing a game so his daughter could play with her friends, but it wasn't a complex game like minecraft.
If you can convince a sighted person to try an audio game, the more power to you.
My nephew can play audio archery, he actually managed to get archery master.
For a sighted person, I'd say that's pretty damn good.
Now he also tried to play a blind legend, and was completely lost.
Text games, for todays generation would also appear boring.
Maybe I'm basing this on my nephews, cause they have no imagination.
Text games simply aren't appealing for this generation.
Yup, I think you're right.
There are people who play games like those from Somethin' Else but for the most part sighted people need something to look at. And text games were getting old in the 90s when I was in college.
If you can get them to play a text game it's going to be because it's retro.
Now, MUDs like AlterAeon are mostly sighted players. But I think most people blind or sighted don't have the patience for a MUD.
if you already have or are willing to shell out a bit for a console and are willing to put some time into learning how, there are many games that while not fully accessible, are quite playable and much better than any audio multiplayer games in the blind community, at least IMO
but that's me being subjective since my entire family plays, so
I've heard you can play almost any fighting game by ear, the kinds where you are more physical, swinging / punching, etc. I'd actually really like to try that someday.
you can, a large amount of new games do have PC ports so you don't necessarily need a console, but it's always way more fun on console
as far as games goes, here is just a single example
a game I picked up last month when it came out, naruto shippuden: ultimate ninja storm 4
the story of this game continues from the ones before it, but unfortunately those have a lot of free-roam sections so they are unplayable unless you have help, but fortunately this game just features a story mode divided into chapters
I will post 2 videos, both the same section of the game being the first part, but in different languages
firstly, in japanese
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOW7S04fztE
second, in english
word of warning though, in my own opinion the english acting of this game, and, well... the whole series this game is based on is... not good to put it mildly
so for those who want to hear better acting, watch the japanese one first then watch the english to know what the actual story is, or the other way round works too I suppose
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlEsc09xYk8
this game is on PC as well and has a multiplayer mode, or you could just both play singleplayer and switch players between fights
The only fighting games I'm decent at are the Tekken and Virtua-fighter series.
Dead or Alive is similar to Virtua-Fighter because of the mechanics used to control the characters.
I suck at mortal Kombat for some reason, probably because I can't tell which side of the screen I'm on.
Street Fighter's mechanics just confuse the hell out of me.
Same mechanics are used for Killer instinct.
There's a discussion similar to this on applevis, if I can track down the link, I'll post it here.
I generally don't like dubs, because the acting is exaggerated.
I've come accross a few films on turkish television, and it's enough to make me want to change the channel.
There is a movie I watched recently on netflix called crouching Tiger hidden dragon, sword of destiny. That movie is dubbed.
That one isn't too bad, plus it's audio described.
I think I've gone off topic so I'll just end here.
are you kidding? street fighter is actually the easiest of all of them to pick up, at least if you're speaking casually since it's all about the strategy rather than the combos
mortal kombat's not too hard since everything's in stereo
Fighting games aren't the only mainstream games blind people can play, but they are by far the easiest.
Mortal kombat X is rather easy to follow, IMO.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udd_UoIuVKQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5ti0BK-l-s
Street fighter 5 isn't bad in that respect, but its honestly a little boring to me, IMO. It just feels bland, uninspired. I really love a few of the songs in the soundtrack, but after 9 hours in game, I'm just left feeling meh.
I'm looking forward to the 3rd season of killer instinct, now that its launching on PC. The game has a very different look and feel compared to MKX, and some aspects of it really make the game stand out, like the announcer giving you so much information about the match, and the way the music changes to reflect the fight. The announcer can get a little too much for me at times. But its a really interesting change from the standard formula. Probably the best game in that respect to help a blind person understand fighting game basics, because the announcer is always telling you about things like frame advantage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4HPMFmmVaU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRcbsUyjWxk
later on this year, we should be getting tekken 7, and maybe some news about soulcalibur 6. The fighting game landscape isn't bad these days.
Fighting games aren't the only mainstream games blind people can play, but they are by far the easiest.
I'm just getting tekken 7 for akuma, rofl
I actually haven't played street fighter V, but ultra SFIV was pretty damn good and many hours of fun were had with that one
SFIV was not my kind of game at all. It felt so damn clunky.
I remember Killer Instinct from the days it was on Super Nintendo.
Is it a reboot, or are they actually continuing, 20 years later?
I think Microsoft own the rights to it now, the announcer sounds the same at least, plus a few new characters.
Did they combine Killer Instinct with Killer Gold?
I don't recognise some of the characters.
And going back to the original disscussion, these games are probably a no no for young children.
Still, that didn't stop my cousin from playing the original Mortal Kombat at the age of 7.
Speaking of tekken, what ever happened to the namco version of streetfighter vs tekken?
I didn't want to get the capcom version because I hate the streetfighter controls, I prefer the tekken controls.
@storm
clunky? you crazy there bud, lol
Anyone know when Killer Instinct is supposed to launch for the PC?
Killer instinctis a reboot of the classic. It has most of the old characters, and several new ones.
drops march 29th.
The system requirements aren't bad by modern pc gaming standards. Somewhat annoying its only available from the windows 10 store, with no steam launch, but ah, well.
Minimum
◾ OS: Windows 10 64-bit
◾ PROCESSOR: Intel Core i5-750 @ 2.67 GHz/ AMD Phenom II X4 965 @ 3.4 GHz
◾ MEMORY: 4 GB RAM
◾ GRAPHICS: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480/ AMD Radeon HD 5850
◾ DIRECTX: Version 11
◾ NETWORK: Broadband Internet connection
Recommended
◾ OS: Windows 10 64-bit
◾ PROCESSOR: Intel Core i5-4670K @ 3.4GHz/ AMD FX-4300 @ 3.8 GHz
◾ MEMORY: 8 GB RAM
◾ GRAPHICS: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670/ AMD Radeon HD 7950
◾ DIRECTX: Version 11
◾ NETWORK: Broadband Internet Connection
and yeah, SFIV was hella clunky. Granted, I never played USFIV I just played SFIV and SSFIV AE but still. Its nowhere near as fluid as tekken or soulcalibur. Hell, even MKX is less clunky than SFIV. lol
Not sure when tekken x SF will come out, but its still in the works.
you're forgetting a key difference though, that being all the fighters you mentioned are based off combo strings and juggling, where as SF is more focused on the mixups and strategic hits, with move cancels and linking
hell if you play ultimate marvel VS capcom 3 that is I think still the smoothest game I ever played on the PS3
and probably the most broken game. lol
how was it broken? :P
You are right about text-based and audio games. My daughter tried A Blind Legend and a couple of other audio games and didn't get them, and she said they were boring too. She is the type that needs to have all kinds of graphics, or she will get bored lol.
I will have to look into the computer games and stuff you all have mentioned here. That is interesting that the fighting games are the easiest to play because of the sound and everything. It would be nice if Minecraft was a little more acfessible. That is her favorite, because you can do so much in it and there are different mods and worlds and things like that where the stories are different, and they have lots of game servers too. She wanted to just help me play, but I told her it wouldn't make any sense to me as a blind person, especially on an iPad Mini where it is a touch screen and Voiceover doesn't work in Minecraft.
if you want to check out some of these games, the first one I would personally recommend is naruto, simply because it's the simplest one out of all of them to get a hang of because it's not very technical, plus if it turns out the gaming isn't for you your daughter might still like it, since it's got online battles, as I already posted a fully cinematic story mode as well as a free-roaming adventure mode
edit: I also just remembered another simple but very entertaining game that I happen to have, but unfortunately I won't be able to actually record anything until tomorrow
but unlike the rest of the games we've all suggested so far, it's not a fighting game! so there's that
I apologize for the triple post, but since there's no post editing here, this'll have to do
I present to everyone who doesn't know, you don't know jack
it's a trivia game presented in game show format
the console version supports up to 4 players, but the pC unfortunately only supports 2 players
here's a recording I made with a friend of the first episode of the game
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11419213/you%20don%27t%20know%20jack.mp3
That game might not be age appropriate, but the suggestion is solid indeed. I would about recommend Rock Band 4, if you're willing to endure the learning curve.
depends what age we're talking about here, rofl but even if not it's still an amusing game, at least to me
Indeed; it is amusing.
RS games, I believe, does not have any visual elements where the playroom does. I'd love to be able to play call of duty, mindcraft, world of warcraft, etc, but screen reader access is not an option for those games.
Board games like chess and scrabble, card games like uno skipbo and such are also valid options if you want to play without the use of too much screen time.