Colleen, indeed welcome. I have to admit I enjoy Ten Pin Alley a lot myself, though regarding the GMA games I tend to prefer tank commander to shades. I guess I just find the more open space and options for movement more to my tastes.

People tend to be pretty friendly around here so don't hesitate to ask anything any time, either in the game forum or the off topic room.

Hi again,

In the pinball classic game, my favorite table is the haunted house table. The reason I bought the game originally was the wild west table, but then I got hooked on haunted house. I also like the  histe table. What I find interesting abut the pinball tables is that there seems to be a level of challenge that is different for each table. For example, the soccer table has several elements, but the pacman table doesn't. In the pinball extreme I like the homerun table, and I like sud works and pinball extreme. The extreme table is much harder on the player in terms of luck, but sud works has more strategy in it. Is this making sense?

Our family does  all of the Jim Kitchen games. We enjoy them quite a lot. I once wrote to Jim and suggested he ask a small fee for his games, because they're good and families as well as individuals can enjoy them.

I have been stumped by technoshock at level 4, but I intend to finish. As well as Shades of doom, I've tried Terraformers. I like that game too. Actually, I think Terraformers is a good intro to the 1st person games, as it gives you a tutorial that sort of gets you thinking about how to approach this kind of game.  Probably the next 1st person game I buy would be Shades, just because I've worked with the demo for a while.

My university degree is animal research, behavioral training and observation. I've trained rats, birds, dogs and monkeys. I got the demo for monkey business, but stank at it. I tried it because of my field. I have colaborated on some research program at our animal laboratory. I have a guide dog too, but when I talk about training dogs, I don't mean guide dogs.

Since I'm kind of a dummy about some kinds of games, can anybody help me out with understanding how to access the online games? I went to a website that had a maze game, a "get out of the fire," game and others. I can't seem to do anything with them though. I have flash, but when I start the game, nothing happens. I'm sure I am not doing something right.

Thanks for listening to my rambling. I like reading posts here.

Colleen

Hmmm colleen, you mention mazes and fire, i wonder if that was the one site which provides accessible audio games in flash found at http://www.accessiblewebgames.com/ My first thought is if you have flash, is your computer's security blocking the games or the popups?

It's quite silly that the security measures in Ie in my experience cause more problems than any viruses or other nasties which their tring to prevent.

You could considder starting a new topic to discuss those games, to make it easier for other people who might have had the same trouble to comment or make suggestions.

The behavioural research stuff sounds fun, I've vaguely heard about such things when I studdied psychology, though not about what's being done in that area at the moment, and about the only contact I have with that area now is catching the odd documentary on Tv. I've always wanted to meet a monkey, ---- though probably not like the ones in monkey business lol!

I bought monkey business back before there was a demo, but I've made very bad progress with the game, sinse the sonar system is so hard to use and I've not found the navigation or scanning to be half as useful as in the gma engine which was used for Shades, Sarah and, ---- I believe, Technoshock.

Funny you should mention Terraformers, sinse I'm just trying out the demo of that game at the moment, and am most impressed (I'll probably be buying the game, ---- but I've already waffled on about it enough in the Terraformers thread so i won't start here.

As to Pb classic, thanks for the info. My favourite tables in pinball extreme are those with a lot of extra stratogy or goals to them, ---- like pinball extreme or sudworks or the revenge of shockra.

is there anything like that in the heist or haunted house tables? I'm glad to here that the simplicity of the packman table isn't carried through in the others.

Jim Kitchin's games are indeed good, in fact I was playing game of life with my parents the other day when i went home, ---- and it was really nice for my dad not to have to be lumbered with the task of reading the cards. It's also a great way to have an accessible board game around which doesn't come in a gigantic box for when my friends turn up.

I deffinately hope Jim will do more board games in the future, ---- especially journey style boardgames like game of life.

as there are several of you playing the game, have you tried the mississippi game from Mardy productions? It's an economic turn based stratogy game and struck me as something that might be fun with other players, though I found it to be slightly lacking when playing on my own, sinse there was no ability to play with a computer opponent. you can find it at http://www.odissa.de/en

Hello Angie and welcome to the forum.

your English seems fine to me, and is several million times better than my French lol! In fact I'm always impressed by people who can play and understand games, ---- not to mention talk about them, in a language isn't their first, ---- I know I certainly couldn't, but like any typical english person I'm very lazy about learning other peoples languages sinse a lot of people seem to speak mine ---- often better than I do rofl!

Have you played the various games with French translations such as topspeed 2 or Rail racer?

I'm guessing you'll already have played sound rts, sinse the developer Jeanluc Pontico is French but has recently been kind enough to provide an English version of his game.

Hi all!
FuriousD, you have tried and played a lot of games! I'm very late, but I have got time!

For Dark Empathy, yes, I ply to SoundRts, a very good game, but I didn't know that top speed 2 and rail racer had translations in french! what an interesting new! Thank you!
The audio games make me try  to write more often in English, but I am lazy too with others languages that I liked so much at shool...

I would like to tell a lot of things but the school is so far! I wasn't so bad before...

hi all. my name is valentin. i'm from romania and i am 13 ears old.
i am fan of audio games.
my first game was tarzan junior. than i continue with techno shock. i am a student so my english is not better.

Hi Angie,

Welcome to you. I've just started writing on this forum, but since we all like these games, it's been fun.

My first language was French, I was born in Ontario Canada. The French is a little different, but I'm guessing we could understand each other. I live in Arizona, where the second biggest language is Spanish. Very few people speak French here. I almost never speak French anymore, but I can read it fine.

I forgot who asked about the pinball tables, but the "soccer star" has the most strategy, and "histe" and "haunted house" have some as well.

Colleen

Dark,

You have a point about the differences in English. I read a lot of one author's books, Dick Francis, who is from England. I remember trying to figure out what a "boot" of a car was, until I learned it is the trunk. There's quite a few things like that.

My secret dream, if I'm allowed to say so, is to go to England to watch the Grand National. If any of you aren't from England, the Grand National is a major horse racing event. It's steeple chase racing which is one kind of jump racing. Anyway, I've read many books about it. I subscribe to "The Racing Pages" and the "Horse and Hound." I follow the thorough breds and would one day love to see the racing. There's also the Cheltnum gold cup, and the darby. Forgive the spelling if it's wrong.

Okay, is that more than any of you wanted to know? Sorry, it just came to mind when I was reading the post from Dark.

Colleen

Bonjour Angie et Colleen,

My French is so limited that I won't plague your ears with it here.
But I lived in Fontainebleau many years ago and love to visit Paris and Montreal.
(In fact, I got Happy Birthday sung to me in French last week at my favorite restaurant in Paris.)

My company, 7-128 Software, makes mainstream computer games which are also accessible to people who are blind, low vision, or have other special needs.

Our games are programmed so that they can be translated into non-English languages.

We haven't translated any of the games yet because we're just a small company.

Could you please tell me if there are any games that are blind-accessible in French?
I know that there are lots of French computer games. I was looking at a bunch of them at Prentemps while we were over there.
But I didn't have time to investigate to find out if many of them were blind-accessible.

I'm considering translating our Inspector Cyndi in Newport mystery games and am curious about the market for them.

Merci et Bienvenue,

John Bannick
CTO
7-128 Software

Hello kate, welcome to the forum.

I'm really sorry i didn't pick up on your post earlier, i was quite busy yesterday. Nice to meet someone else who's a Hal user.

As far as descent into madness goes, I'd agree it's a really well-put together game with wonderful atmosphere and puzles. If you went to the mane website of the game, there should I believe be a contact link there for you to E-mail the developers. the audio games you mention I assume are those on the playcenter? some of the flash panes can indeed be a miner pest. I'd recommend you make certain your in live focus rather than virtual focus mode, and perhaps press alt and tab to make sure your on the right window.

I'm afraid I haven't got around to trying out some of the games up there yet, sinse my old university internet connection used to block them, so I can't be too much more help at the second.

As far as audio games go, there are plenty available in a variety of styles and genres, everything from action sport games, to 3D to more interactive fiction type games like descent into madness.

first, there are the games sold by 7-128 software. they are commercial games, but do come with a free trial. they don't work with Hal at the moment, and you have to use a default synth voice to read some text in the games, ---- though they also come with sound clips and music, and I know for a fact more support for Hal reading the text is being investigated at the moment. find out more at http://www.7128.com/

Then, there is bavisoft who sell a couple of games on Cd which are incredibly similar to descent into madness with some very nice voice acting and music. to find out more go to http://www.bavisoft.com/chillingham.htm

There are also a large number of interactive fiction games and other similar things (mostly free), which will work with Hal, ---- see for example http://www.ffproject.com/  please let us know if you'd like more information about this sort of thing.

But interactive stories are just the tip of the iceberg. there's loads of stuff available, from action arcade games, to full 3d audio adventure games, some commercial, some free, but all available for trial and all accessible.

To get some ideas just have a look at the game list on the front page of the site, or this fantastic games list from pcs games (which at the moment is more up to date), http://www.pcsgames.net/

Just don't be afraid to try things out, and please come back here and let us know what you think of any games you've tried, and what sorts of games you might like to play.

there's certainly plenty out there.

Hi Kate,

Our games at www.7128.com do self-voice, so HAL really isn't necessary.
We have some memory puzzles, some word puzzles, and six Inspector Cyndi in Newport mysteries.

Try out the free demos and let me know what you think of them.

John Bannick
Chief Technology Officer
7-128 Software