2007-02-20 19:20:53 (edited by dark empathy 2007-02-20 19:27:26)

I'm not sure if there's something in the air at the moment, but recently hitherto unsuspected teams of accessible game programmers seem to be independently springing up all over the place. The latest of these is 7-128 Software, a small group of programmers living, working and producing games together.
They have several series of games, many of which are playable by visually impaired gamers, while others may be played without using a keyboard or by gamers with hearing impairements, in the time it takes to read a magazine or watch a film.

Their game series include word games, "Tyler games", a series of memory and matching puzzle games, and the "Inspector Cyndi in Newport" series, menu-driven interactive detective mystery games set in the 1890's.

To run their games, it is necessary to purchase and download the gamebook program which initially comes with four games, however then several of their games are free, with a new game produced each Thursday (a free game on alternate weeks).

Many of their games are known to be compatible with Jaws 6.0, but can also be directly self-voicing using the Free TextToSpeech system developed by Carnegie Mellon university. However a few of their games are not playable by visually impaired gamers. Please check the rating system on the 7-128 Software website for details of individual games. The 7-128 site may be found here.

And Technoshock, another recent and very welcome addition to the audio gaming world, has recieved an update which fixes some bugs and adds the long-awaited 'Learn Game Sounds'-feature. The Technoshock update can be found here.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)