2016-03-14 17:19:20

Does anyone here have any experience of adding screen reader support to games made in Unity 3D? I'm working on a game I intend to be fully blind accessible but haven't done anything like this before and need advice on the best approach.

Aside from screen reader support the other approach is to use pre-recorded audio. Does anyone here have any experience of sourcing/recording such audio? What's the best way to do this?

2016-03-14 22:12:29

Welcome, I don't know about the first question, but if you do a google search for voice actors I'm sure you'll be able to track one down and get a good deal on voicings, the only problem is voicing things like announcing the players health and location can get a little tedious, so a mixture is always the best solution I find.

The universe is a rain storm. We are droplets sent to quench the problems of the world, yet we are blown sideways by the winds of distractions.

2016-03-14 23:17:53

Hi,

Unity3D , at least on iOS, has no VoiceOver support. I don't think the situation is different on other OS's.
The best way I've found that works for developers is to sort of mimick the screenreader experience by custom-building for examplea menu that uses the same geestures.

2016-03-15 00:10:35

I don't use Unity3D, but understand that it uses Mono under the hood and allows you to use C#.
Which platforms are you targetting?
The solution will be different for each one and you will probably use pre processor macros to incorporate the correct one for your build target.

For windows you could try Tolk, which has a C# wrapper, (LGPL3):
https://github.com/dkager/tolk
Or Quentin C's Universal Speech, adding your own CFFI bindings using PInvoke, (GPL, or closed source if your app is free, or commercial license available by contacting Quentin):
https://github.com/qtnc/UniversalSpeech

Hope that helps.

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2016-03-16 12:28:17

Thanks everyone. I'm targeting Windows PCs at the moment, with iOS/Android later if I'm able. I'll likely just go with pre-recorded voice samples so that I can have a unified approach across multiple operating systems if I choose to do that later on.

2017-05-03 22:00:25

Hi James,

not sure if you are still working on this, but I wrote a plugin that recreates screen reader functionality for Unity UI, and it does exactly what you need. It just got approved by Unity last night:
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/87935

2017-05-03 23:54:01

Hi Mikrima, thanks for pointing this out to me. I'm not working on that project any more but I'll add this plug-in to my wish list on the asset store so I don't forget about it. I certainly see myself needing it for future projects.

2017-05-04 15:51:37 (edited by ianhamilton_ 2017-05-04 15:51:49)

It would also be a perfect fit for audio game jam smile