2015-04-27 21:11:25

Hello, apologies if I have posted in the wrong place.  I was directed to this forum from the gaming charity Special Effect.  I am not a gamer so will not be good with technical terms, so please bear with me! I am a speech and language therapist who works with people who have sustained brain injuries.  I am currently working with a 16 year old boy who had a brain injury after heading a football.  He is currently in a wheelchair, and has lost his sight, although it is hoped that it will come back in time.  His main interest apart from playing football was playing Xbox.  Both are not possible at the moment.  It's a desperately sad case - this time last year he was a normal 16 year old boy.
My questions are:
Are there any xbox games that work if you can rely on audio only? Or any modifications that can be made?  His cognition is impaired, so it would be good if he could play games in the format he was used to.
Failing that, how would he get started with audio games - are there some brilliant ones to motivate a 16 year old boy? What platform are they played on and how would we get help getting him set up?
Thank you for your time

2015-04-27 22:34:51

@Jude, the problem with the XBox is none of the games were made with a blind person in mind so are fairly un accessible. Some blind players have managed to play a few XBox games through trial and error or through complex memorization. In either case given this person's diminished mental capacity I'm not sure I can suggest any that would suit him.

That said, as far as audio games goes there is quite a bit of choice. Most of them are for Windows, and there are quite a number for iOS devices like the Apple iPhone. If your client has access to either one of those operating systems I think I could suggest a number of games he might enjoy.

Sincerely,
Thomas Ward
USA Games Interactive
http://www.usagamesinteractive.com

2015-04-27 22:41:00

Thank you Thomas.  he does have access to both windows and an apple iPhone.
Jude

2015-04-27 23:00:41

Hmm, thats rough. Well the issue is not the lack of audiogames, it's the ability to learn new concepts so something simple. Well Death on the road by Oriol Gomez would be a good one. Think of it as blindie Frogger. You basically go mad from your O&M (Orientation and mobility) instructor nagging at you, so you cross the road over and over, it only uses the up and down arrows. enter and escape, and typing in a name for sending the score which is optional. There's The Road to Rage abbreviated RTR, which is a loose association with call of duty. Although it needs to have people on it to work. There's swamp, a zombie first person shooter, but that can be tricky. Hmm, I know someone can make better suggestions. There's the BGT shockshot example game, there all ya gotta do is center the sound, then get the highest pitch then hit space to fire the gun, do that 10 times then get a score.

Facts with Tom MacDonald, Adam Calhoun, and Dax
End racism
End division
Become united

2015-04-27 23:01:08

Jude, welcome to the forum, even if it is due to the unfortunate football accident the boy suffered.  There are indeed many games and I am sure you will find several that he will enjoy.  We may be able to help narrow down good games for him to start out with, but we would need to know both his gaming interests, and any helpful information about his current mental abilities.  I wish I had a more specific way to ask that  question.

For example, depending on how severe his injury is, a game like chess might be more than he can handle, or a game like tic-tac-toe might be too simple and boring.  Without any information we wouldn't be able to help guess what things he should start trying.

- Aprone
Please try out my games and programs:
Aprone's software

2015-04-28 10:00:49

Hi, and welcome to the forum.
Now, that the boy previously have played XBox, he is familior with the controller, how it Works etc. The mortal kombat games are very much playable. He have to remember the menus, but the storyline in the newest games, DC universe, MK 9 and the newest MK 10 are fully playable. Injustice is also very very much playable and highly recommended.
Here you can read my guide for Injustice and how to navigate this as a blind person:
http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?id=12302
Please note that I never made it as far as I ment to do, but that's a start.
MK x guide which is in Progress:
http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?id=15812
I have a ps4 guide in Works, just for your information if that would help in the future.
There are other playable console games as well, but the MK games are the easiest to pick up and play. Here is an other topic which might catch your interest:
http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?id=10067
Feel free to ask if you have more questions regarding to console gaming.

Audiogames:
Well, I'm in a bit hurry because I'm at my job where I really shouldn't write posts on the audiogames forum, but here goes:
The games on www.l-works.net
are pretty easy to learn. You're glad glad that English is your default language, so you should be able to read the manuals which comes with the game and easily understand how it Works. You're of course more than welcome to ask here on the forum as well.
Good luck, and please ask if you have more questions.

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/sorenjensen1988
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soerenjensen

2015-04-28 14:14:50

@Jude hello and welcome to the forum.

What Tward and the others here have said is true, actual Xbox games are not accessible via audio only. However, depending upon this boy's gaming preferences and also mental abilities, there is likely to be something kicking around in the audio market that might well involve familiar concepts, for example if this boy is an fps fan, games like shades of doom from Gma games, if he's a more horror/suspense fan, perhaps something like the games from somethinelse on the Iphone such as pappasangre and the night jar, while if he's more into rpgs, perhaps Entombed from driftwood audio. If  your looking for something more traditional or more simpler arcade style, perhaps some of Jim Kitchin's or Ian humphries spoonbill games.. Unfortunately, our site database is not in a working condition at the moment which is a shame sinse it is possible to sort audiogames by genre such as traditional games like Chess, action or first person shooter games. You can however find a very comprehensive audiogames list over at www.pcsgames.net and also http://www.applevis.com/ has listing of audiogames on Ios.

While there aren't many audiogames over all, now we are getting to the point where most genres are represented, so you can find a choice.

Just as a start you could consider terraformers from http://terraformers.nu/ it is first person thus uses positional audio in detail, and involves an evolving story and plot, but plays at an over all slower pace with an emphasis on puzzles and audio challenges. it has very good quality audio and atmosphere, but does not require amazingly fast reflexes.

While a commercial game at one time it's sinse been made freeware, so is available to everyone.


As I said, otherwise, it'll depend upon the boy's abilities and interests, but hopefully his gives you an idea. While the number of available audiogames as compared to graphical ones is still ludicrously small, at least now we're at the point where most genres are represented.

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.)

2015-04-28 15:53:56

Something to add here, if the boy likes to play complex adventure with good plot and adicting challenges, he can try soul trapper on his iOS device.
Also he can try the bavisoft games like chillingham, code factories time adventures, and ticon blue's the inquisitor series.
If he like fighters he can try skullgirls on windows, which is fully accessible than in the console version.

going in to the wilds, collecting pokedex, and capturing them are my kind of thing,
training them, making them evolve, and generally making them stronger is my ultimate goal,
fighting other manamon tamers, winning the tournament, and fighting octoros are what these manamons like to do,
and ultimately, I become the master of mana!

2015-04-28 16:02:47

I'm not sure about skull girls, sinse it still takes soun memorization and all the clipboard to sapi and emulation stuff would be dam hard for someone who hasn't even used a screen reader.

Bavisoft's titles would probably seem rather too simple and maybe slightly insulting,  to someone used to mainstream gaming, indeed I found them slightly that way myself, however if he is into adventure puzzle style games the  ticonblu stuff might be good.

And of course if we're talking adventure games on Ios, don't forget codename sygnas, which has incredibly easy gameplay (you can even play by speech), but high levels of action in it's cutscenes and plot.

I also wonder if Solara might be a good option if he's a fan of multiplayer rpg style battle games, particularly sinse everything in Solara is very well described, although the down side to that is the need to use voiceover.

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.)

2015-04-28 17:48:47

If he's comfortable typing (he probably isn't), then muds are a great option for the blind.  They're huge multiplayer text games, where people can team up and work together - similar to world of warcraft, but text and sound only.

If he's interested I run one called Alter Aeon, and we have a special blind/VI client that makes it easy to get into the game and adds a lot of sounds.  The main website is at:  http://www.alteraeon.com

Good luck!

2015-04-28 21:20:06

One thing of note, since this boy's a previous Xbox player, there are Xbox 360 controllers which have a cable attached instead of being wireless, they plug into a computer's USB port. This way if he plays fighting games like injustice or MKX, he will have a controller that feels familiar to him. Not a lot of audio games require or even accept that form of input, however, some do, such as Mach1 by Jim Kitchen, and Puppy1 by the same author / dev.

Games like Deek out, or quick tap might even do more for him than just act as a form of entertainment, they might go a step closer to repairing those neural pathways that have been disrupted due to his injury.

Any information that you can give which does not go beyond the legalities of confidentiality between you and your client, which could give us more insight to what he is able to do, and which areas he has trouble would help us recommend more specific titles as Aprone said.

Facts with Tom MacDonald, Adam Calhoun, and Dax
End racism
End division
Become united

2015-04-28 22:15:55

If we're talking brain training, something reaction based like beatstar or quicktap see http://oriolgomez.com/en_index.php might work, and of course aprone's audio puzzles dog who hate's toast and obsessive compulsive are directly based on brain training exercises.

See  http://www.kaldobsky.com/audiogames/ for details on those.

On that basis  it is a shame that the Bsc titles arent' around anymore sinse something like pipe 2 or hunter would be perfect for brain training with  reversal, reaction, judgement and other exercises not to mention interest with it's immersive sound. Sadly the company who made those sank like the titanic in 2013 and took all their games with them so there is no legal way to obtain copies anymore.

@Dentin, my only concern with muds, even a mud like Alter with such a complete soundpack that it's virtually a full audio rpg in itself is that for someone who has never used screen reading technology before, understanding synth voices at speed and reacting in time to assimilate information and play accordingly could be difficult, particularly if stuck with the default Windows sapi voice and neither a better quality synth nor a screen reading program with a decent voice to fall back on. Ios does at least come with high quality synths for voiceover, whether the realspeak ones or apple's own.

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.)

2015-04-28 22:56:13

Thank you so much for your replies, I'm overwhelmed by the time you've taken to think this through. 
Cognitively - his short term memory is impaired but his intellect is intact.  He mental responses are slower, but if he is playing a game which is fairly familiar, he is likely to have laid down good neural pathways pre-brain injury which will help carry him through.  I've no idea if he played games like Mortal kombat before - I will check - but I like the idea of this being playable even with sight problems.  Also  great that the xbox controller can be plugged into the computer and used for the windows based games. 
I will email his mum now and find out what games he played previously and come back to you.  He can't type at the moment - he has not started going down the route of using screen readers although that might happen in the future. 
I need to take time to read through all your replies and make sure I understand everything or ask clarification questions - I will do this over the weekend when i have a little more time. 
Thanks again

2015-04-29 00:31:07

Just to clarify, its a separate controller, you cannot simply use the one you already have, it is about $30 USD for one of these. There are also alternatives. I personally own one of these controllers and use it too.

Facts with Tom MacDonald, Adam Calhoun, and Dax
End racism
End division
Become united

2015-04-29 09:43:48

Glad to help. Note that "playable" in the case of mortal combat is a fairly relative term, sinse to play the game a person would need to carefully listen to it's sounds and have a clear knolidge and memory of which each sygnifies to act accordingly, (and with a lot of different characters, voices and special moves this could be a long process), it is certainly not an instant apprehention process where all information is presented to the player the way playing an actual audio game would be, indeed to someone who has previously played the game graphically the process could well be quite frustrating.

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.)

2015-04-29 17:39:49

I tend to agree with Dark here. That is why I did not reference any games like Mortal Kombat because while some blind players find them playable in this case playable is a very relative term and state of affairs. We must keep in mind the person we are talking about is a 16-year-old boy who has only recently lost his sight and has cognitive issues with short term memory. Both of those make playing a game like Mortal Kombat very difficult. Since most blind players depend on sounds and their short term memory quite a lot to play they might be providing false hope to this person who might not be up to that type of rigorous memorization and as adept at using sound to figure out to do what when. Moral of the story try and give suggestions based on this person's potential capabilities not your own.

Sincerely,
Thomas Ward
USA Games Interactive
http://www.usagamesinteractive.com

2015-04-30 07:24:10

Hi.
The reason for I mentioned console games was only because, as mentioned in the first post, he already have a XBox. So he knows what mainstream console games are about, he know the XBox, the controller etc. If someone tells him to press the right arrow on the d pad and a to make a special move, he would know what to do. If the XBox wasn't mentioned, I would never have mentioned the console and those games. I didn't said Mortal kombat is fully playable without any help at all, but playable with some help and explanations for someone who already know the console.

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/sorenjensen1988
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soerenjensen

2015-04-30 11:14:00

@Jude, just to let you know the site database is now fixed and in working order. If you go to This link you can search the database by genre such as rpgs, you can also exclude say games that use text meaning that a screen reader would be needed.

@Slj, while I take your point, I suspect for someone who is used to playing the games graphically and seeing all information available, having to be "told instructions", not to mention learn a huge number of sound and voice kews would be a rather frustrating, and indeed quite daunting prospect.

One thing I have noticed is that very compitant blind people have a habbit of under estimating the amount of information, and consequently the amount of effort taken by sighted people whether in gaming or in other things. As someone who has extremely limited vision and has been in the position of playing some graphical games without assistance or effort, and others with a lot of effort, I can say that there is a world of difference between listening to and learning the sounds of something over time, (even with assistance), and simply seeing and instantly apprehending something with direct perception.

For example, even the most absolutely novice just played the game for the first time sighted player sees their opponent in a beatemup chuck a fireball, they will be able to attempt some form of evasion, sinse they will have a clear idea of the fireball's position relative to their character, and will have some way of reacting, eg, jumping, ducking, parrying etc. Of course, being a novice player and still unfamiliar with game properties such as the relative movement speeds of the characters and projectiles, whether they manage to do this successfully might be another matter, but sinse they have the information there they will be able to guess.

A blind player however won't know the fireball's position, won't be aware that whatever sound signifies a fireball, and while they can certainly take a guess, they are far more likely (indeed almost inevitably so), to get hit. of course, the blind player will go off and learn the sound, and read a faq which tells them character x has a fireball, she/he might even stick on practice mode, chuck a fireball at the unmoving computer opponent and track the time it takes to hit, however, for something a sighted player gets at an instant, less than a second glance at the screen, a blind player needs to go and read documentation, learn sound kews, and likely perform experiments to get the same information.

This is certainly not to discourage anyone, indeed I personally find it a mark of many player's ingenuity and persistance that several blind gamers have attained such a degree of skill at beatemups using these methods, however the difference in access is still pretty dam extreme, which is precisely why something like Mortal combat isn't described as "an accessible game" Sinse the informational content given to blind and sighted players is so much at varients, and the amount of effort required by blind and sighted players to attain equal levels of skills is so different.

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.)