Games for the blind?

Video-games have come a long way since the arcade days. What started out as a niche for nerds is now one of the most popular forms of entertainment in the world. Yet, despite this boom in popularity, it’s a form of entertainment that remains mostly inaccessible to those suffering from various forms of visual impairment. However, this is something that seems to be changing with more and more games being made with the blind in mind. We’re talking everything from triple A action-adventure games to specially tailored audio-games made specifically for blind gamers.

The Last of Us 2 – fully accessible to blind gamers?

The Last of Us 2 sparked a fair amount of controversy at the Game Awards this year, with people arguing over whether or not it deserved to win GOTY.  Good fun! However, something that was drowned out by all of the noise was the objectively well-deserved accessibility award. It’s an undeniable fact that Naughty Dog accomplished something amazing with this game, and that was making it pretty much 100% accessible to visually impaired gamers. This was achieved by the use of special filters designed for those with low vision, a variety of audio techniques for those with total blindness and a wild amount of customizability to suit the needs of all players.

I’m not exaggerating either. I’ve posted a video below of a totally blind gamer making use of these features to do an entire playthrough on YouTube. Something you’ll notice straight away is the low-visibility filter. It uses strong colours to highlight and help to differentiate between allies, enemies and points of interest.  You’ll also notice the use of text-to-speech and sound pings to help with interactions and navigation. It’s honestly impressive to watch.

Purple Jam’s Audio-Games – How binaural audio can help with accessibility

Purple Jam is a small studio, made up of just three binaural audio specialists. They’re also the inspiration for this article. Their primary focus is to create audio-games specifically designed for the blind. And of course, they do this by using binaural audio to create realistic and immersive 3D environments using nothing but sound. If you’re unfamiliar with binaural audio, I’ve posted a video from Purple Jam below that demonstrates the effect and what it sounds like (you’ll have to use headphones).

You can also check out the Purple Jam Website by clicking the red text to learn more about the team and browse their recently released audio-games. I think they’re onto something here and I hope to see binaural audio being implemented into more games in the future, and not just for accessibility reasons. Whilst it’s certainly something that can help to improve games for blind and low-visibility users, it would also be an overall improvement in general.  Just imagine playing an FPS game and listening to the bullets fly past your head in 3D. Or the level of terrifying immersion this could add to a well designed horror game. There’s a lot of possibilities.

Text-games with Voice-Over support for the blind

I understand that audio-games may not be of interest the average gamer. But if you’re looking for further proof of concept, look no further than Untold RPG. Untold is technically a text-game with “choose your own adventure” mechanics. However, with Voice-Over support, it’s transformed into an audio-game. Which makes it fully accessible to the blind community. This is something Untold was awarded a “Golden Apple” for by the AppleVis community in 2020. This is no participation-trophy either. Untold boasts over 50,000 downloads on the Google play-store and a score of 4.6/5 on the Apple Store. When it comes to games for the blind, this is likely the most profitable way to do it. A good incentive for indie developers.

Fighting games – No problem for the blind

Fighting games are another blind-accessible genre. And that’s how this blind gamer manages to play Street Fighter at a professional level. He listens intently to sound cues and reacts within milliseconds to beat his opponents. With fighting-games being based primarily around reaction time and muscle memory, it’s a genre with plenty of potential for developers to add a variety of accessibility options.

Steve Saylor – Blind Gamer, YouTuber and Accessibility Consultant

This article wouldn’t be complete without mentioning Steve Saylor. Steve is a blind YouTuber with some of the best and most informative videos out there. His channel is a great resource for both developers and members of the VI-gamer community. It’s also a great place for people who are simply curious or perhaps looking for some gift ideas for a blind friend or family member.

The video below is a discussion between Steve and Grant Stoner about the accessibility features in Gears Tactics. Grant is another great resource on this topic and runs the website caniplaythat.com. A site that’s incredibly useful for both developers and gamers with disabilities.

Check out Purple Jams latest audio-game -> A Detectives Demise