2017-08-15 13:27:57

Hi everyone. I'm posting here to let you all know that Audiogame Jam is happening again this year in a few weeks.

Audiogame Jam is a game jam to raise awareness of accessibility issues experienced by blind/visually impaired players of videogames, encourage developers to make their games with accessibility in mind, and to highlight the work sight loss charities do in helping their customers engage with technology.

We also hope to raise money for these charities. As we are based in the UK we primarily work to raise money for the Royal National Institute for Blind People but participants in Audiogame Jam are welcome to try to raise money for their local charities instead.

If you're interested in Audiogame Jam there's more information on the Audiogame Jam website (Link: https://www.audiogamejam.org), and on the Audiogame Jam 2 page (Link: http://jams.gamejolt.io/audiogamejam2)

2017-08-15 14:32:24

Do you have any ideas as to what sorts of games we might be expecting this year? Last year I enjoyed playing them all although some of them were not fully accessible to the blind.

2017-08-15 15:29:03

There isn't any theme set for the jam. The only requirement is that the game submitted should be playable without sight.

In that sense this year's event is largely the same as last year. I did notice that many of the games submitted had serious accessibility problems. That's something I hope we'll see less of this year.

I believe one factor that led to these problems was the focus on audio-only games rather than being accessible to the average blind gamer. This year we're trying to communicate more clearly that the games should be playable by blind people rather than simply be audio only, and this is reflected in the submission requirements.

In addition to this we're also trying to head off some of the basic accessibility failings. Mouse use was common in the games from last year and this is clearly an issue for JAWS users, for instance.

2017-08-15 22:32:36

James, I have reviewed the dates of the competition and I think they may fit my time schedual for october I may have some disruption in the last 2 days of it but I should have adiquit time to do what I want to do.
Anyway, who judges this thing.
I never bothered last 2 times but I want to know what is involved and how to go about it.
Judging that is or reviewing or whatever you guys on the panel do.
I may just do something like this for the challenge of actually keeping my skills of testing in shape and for the hell of it.
I had a lot of contract work on my plate as of last year, but its all over and work from sonnar just isn't coming in I have a few things I want to do myself but these are for me.
The only reason I wasn't sure is I have some family about, however they won't be about till the 14th late and 15th, so even if I can't stay for the entire thing I should be able to stay to the 13th- 14th maybe.
And since they are going away, depending on what I have to finnish on the 15th I probably won't be effected.
I am no programmer but I'd like to try.

2017-08-15 23:01:47

Hi,
Will you please be able to keep us posted once the games will be available for the public to play? I am not a developer but I love playing the games.

2017-08-15 23:59:50

I'm confused at how something can be playable by audio only, but be inaccessible to the blind. Are we talking things like keeping the mouse in the game window, using keys that screen readers need, making everything but the menus audio? Are last year's games still around?

看過來!
"If you want utopia but reality gives you Lovecraft, you don't give up, you carve your utopia out of the corpses of dead gods."
MaxAngor wrote:
    George... Don't do that.

2017-08-16 14:50:11

Hi CAE,
Last year's games are around, but some of them are not acessible because you have to click on things to startt he game, and so while some of th games use audio as their feature, they aren't accessible because of their interfaces.

2017-08-16 16:03:36

aaron wrote:

Hi CAE,
Last year's games are around, but some of them are not acessible because you have to click on things to startt he game, and so while some of th games use audio as their feature, they aren't accessible because of their interfaces.

Also, at least one - Twinkle - relied on a connection to a web server that is no longer running and as such the game simply shows a black screen.

aaron wrote:

Hi,
Will you please be able to keep us posted once the games will be available for the public to play? I am not a developer but I love playing the games.

I will do my best to keep everyone updated on the progress of the game jam. I don't want anyone to miss out on making or playing the games.

crashmaster wrote:

James, I have reviewed the dates of the competition and I think they may fit my time schedual for october I may have some disruption in the last 2 days of it but I should have adiquit time to do what I want to do.
Anyway, who judges this thing.

Currently we have no judges. It isn't a competition in any way and there are no prizes. It's all just for fun and experimentation.

Don't worry if you're working on something and can't submit it in time. Games submitted after the jam ends don't immediately appear on the list of games, requiring a jam moderator to manually allow them. Aside from not appearing automatically on the jam page there isn't any difference between games submitted before or after the deadline that I'm aware of. I'll be checking for late submissions regularly and putting games through.

2017-08-31 14:40:41 (edited by daisyalesoundworks 2017-08-31 14:47:20)

aaron wrote:

Do you have any ideas as to what sorts of games we might be expecting this year? Last year I enjoyed playing them all although some of them were not fully accessible to the blind.

Aaron, I was kicking around an idea for a rock drummer game. I've followed this forum from a distance, as a sound designer and composer, and now I've jumped into game development so I'm participating a bit more. But tell me: are there many rhythm audio games out there? From a technical standpoint it would be decently easy to make I think. But I don't want to do it if there already are games out there like this.

I'm envisioning you're a garage band, just terrible. And the more accurately you can play the drums via certain letters on your keyboard along with the rest of the band, the better your music gets and it becomes a campaign of rising fame with lots of voice acting in there.

Is there a game out there like this now?

2017-08-31 17:16:21

Just off the top of my head the closest I can think of is Rhythm Rage, which is very like the Nintendo game Rhythm Heaven only in audio-only format. It may not actually be all that much like your idea but it's worth a look.

Rhythm Rage: https://www.audiogames.net/db.php?actio … thm%20rage

2017-08-31 20:23:58

Rhythm Rage is sort of silly and not quite like what you're talking about. There are some similarities, but none with sort of a cohesive storyline/Rock Band/Guitar Hero-esque vibe.

Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8ls3rc3f4mkb … n.txt?dl=1

2017-10-09 17:39:58

Audiogame Jam 2 is in full swing and maybe some of you are making games for it. If so then this might interest you.

I've been contacted by Michael Urbanek, a PhD student at Vienna University of Technology. He's conducting research into the design and characteristics of audiogames and is looking to interview some jam participants. Anyone interested?

2017-10-10 16:05:06

I have a few VI people looking to act as playtesters for any Audiogame Jam 2 games before they're submitted. If you want to take them up on this offer then send me a DM and I'll pass you their details.

2017-10-10 23:38:51

Hmmm I would actually like to be a tester as well to be honest.