2017-11-28 05:34:53 (edited by r3dux 2017-12-22 23:09:57)

Hi all,

I'd like to invite you to participate in a user trial of my SoniFight software which aims to add additional sonification cues to video games to increase accessibility for players who may be blind or visually impaired. The idea of the study is to try to identify to what extent the software works to assist players.

I'm looking for somewhere between 5 and 15 people who own at least one of the following three games on Steam on the Windows platform:
1. Street Fighter 4,
2. Mortal Kombat 9, and/or
3. Day of the Tentacle Remastered.

Participants must be aged 18 years old or above to be eligible to participate.

The trial itself is quite straight forward and is broken down into three main stages as outlined below:

1. You provide a little information about yourself and the games or genres of games that you enjoy playing,
2. You play roughly 10 to 15 minutes of one or more of the games in the above list and provide some feedback on your ability to play the game(s) from an accessibility standpoint, and then
3. You play another 10 to 15 minutes of the same game, but this time using SoniFight to provide additional sonification cues designed to improve your knowledge of the game state, and then provide some feedback on your ability to play the game(s) with these additional sonification cues provided.

Completing the trial for each game will likely take between 30 to 50 minutes, and when the questionnaire is completed you just email it back to me (address is in the questionnaire) and that's it.

The trial itself will be open for two weeks from 28/11/2017 to (new - new closing date!) 01/02/2018, after which the results will be analysed and incorporated into a research paper titled "Playing by Ear: A qualitative study of game audio, accessibility and sonification".

If you meet the participation criteria and are interested in taking part then you can find the latest version of SoniFight at https://github.com/FedUni/SoniFight/rel … v1.1.2.zip.

While the plain language information statement and questionnaire (available in both Microsoft Word and Libre/Open Office formats) can be found here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/363r8uwphpyi0 … k.zip?dl=0

Thanks so much,
Al

2017-11-28 10:28:15

This is absolutely ridiculous! Why must the  criteria  be 18 or over? Why must we only have one of those specific games? I understand it’s because they are the only ones supported, but can’t there be other files developed for some other genres of games? The Game of Thrones game could be a very good example. I understand this might be difficult, but the thing I really don’t like is the age restriction. Well I don’t have any of these games, I would have still loved to help.

Hopefully, we'll get a fully accessible open world game someday.

2017-11-28 13:18:54 (edited by r3dux 2017-11-28 20:47:10)

Hi RTT,

The reason for the 18 or over criteria is simply one of red tape. When performing human research with people who are 18 or over then they're considered adults and the ethics paperwork is relatively reasonable (if you consider filling out a 25 page document reasonable, and that's the 'quick' version for low risk-projects). But when your research involves people less than 18 it's considered working with minors and the amount of paperwork I have to do to get clearance to proceed goes absolutely nuts. That's the only reason for the 18 or over requirement.

The reason for just using the games mentioned is because those are the configs that currently exist and work. I haven't created a Game of Thrones config for a further two reasons. Firstly, because I'm working on another project to aid visually impaired people to play different types of video games, and secondly because I don't own it on PC. When I built SoniFight the hope was that people would create their own configs for the games they wanted, but due to a combination of reasons (not least of which is the screen-reader unfriendlyness of Cheat Engine), that hasn't panned out just yet. As Cheat Engine's open source I'm planning on going in there and trying to add a bunch of accessibility cues and making it a friendlier process - but as mentioned, I have to smash out this other project first due to some really tight deadlines.

I would have obviously appreciated your help with the trial - but it's okay, I don't need a huge number of people to get a relatively clear picture of what's working and what's not. Perhaps for the next one I'll grit my teeth and go for the full ethics-apocalype paperwork and then under 18's can provide feedback if they'd like to as well.

Also, the next project will be involving free games - although in all honesty that might be somewhat of a grey area ;-)

2017-11-29 05:22:53

sonifight with DOTT??

sounds intriguing

2017-11-29 11:14:07

Hi.
I would like to join, but I don't have the time to more projects at the moment. December is a very busy month for most people, so for me, this is bad timing. I'll hope you'll get enough people to join the test.

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

2017-12-02 16:01:12

Everyone's busy, man.

But if you can't find 30 mins in a fortnight then your work/life balance is likely skewed and you should do something about that.

Current number of responses: Zero.

2017-12-02 18:22:48

well, i have mk 9, but i'm 14 and i cant help

2017-12-02 21:12:35

hey i have a question.... how can i use this app? my windows is 64 bit and there's no MKKE config for 64 bit windows can you help me how to get it working

2017-12-02 23:20:25

hi,
i downloaded your zip file and i hope i can help

2017-12-03 03:18:09

Hey there,
I am willing to help out. I've tried this program out before, and although I've only gotten a few things to work, I am still willing to help in any way that I can.
I own both MK9, and Ultra Street Fighter IV. My main game is USFIV though.
I've been playing fighting games ever since I was a kid. I especially love playing the different Street Fighter games. I play a lot of Street Fighter V right now but, I'd say that I'm pretty kick ass in Ultra Street Fighter IV as well. I've been playing Ultra Street Fighter IV ever since it came out in 2009. Back then, it was just called Street Fighter IV.
Helping out is no problem but, I'm so use to playing the game with no accessibility features that it's a bit weird, when I actually play with the different cues. I will still try it though, and let you know how everything goes.

You can add me on Steam.
Here is my Twitch profile page Follow me if you want.
You can also follow me on Twitter.
Kong!

2017-12-03 03:32:11

Hey again,
I'm not sure who else downloaded the questionnaire pack but, the .docx file is missing questions. Unless that's just me.

You can add me on Steam.
Here is my Twitch profile page Follow me if you want.
You can also follow me on Twitter.
Kong!

2017-12-03 13:29:08

@AlirezaNosrati - No worries about not being able to help. Also, it's fine to run 32-bit processes on a 64-bit OS, and MK9 is a 32-bit process so you'll want to run the 32-bit (i.e. x86) version of SoniFight. Take a look in the documentation folder for instructions on how to use software.

@Atlan - Thanks!

@Deng - Thank you! I assure you the questions exist in the document, but I've just uploaded a text file version of the questionnaire if that would be easier to work with. Just add your response after each question and that'll be fine. Cheers!

Text version link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/jpfgv9hfk9orv … e.zip?dl=0.

2017-12-03 17:15:44

what's the exact version you need to install? i have both mkke steam version and cracked version, i tried them both but it didn't worked what's the version you need to install?  i did as instruction said, i launched the game,   turned on my screenreader, then run the  app, but,      i couldn't hear my screenreader

2017-12-04 00:55:16

Wo, the text file is weirdly formatted but, it will do.

You can add me on Steam.
Here is my Twitch profile page Follow me if you want.
You can also follow me on Twitter.
Kong!

2017-12-06 13:09:34

@AlirezaNosreti - Looking at the Steam Mortal Kombat Komplete Edition properties | local files tab shows that the current version (and hence the one the config was developed for) is Steam Build ID 344915. When in the properties window it's also worth going to the languages tab and setting the game language to English as it's unlikely that other language settings will work.

Supported screen readers are: NVDA, JAWS, WindowEyes, SuperNova, System Access and ZoomText. Just make sure at least one of those is running before you select the Mortal Kombat config from SoniFight's dropdown menu and click the Run Selected Config button. When you click that, the title of the SoniFight window will change to say that's it's running.

If it's still not working then you might want to launch a command prompt, navigate to the directory that the 32-bit version of SoniFight is installed in (which is in the bin/x86 folder inside the main SoniFight folder), then launch and run SoniFight like this:

SoniFight_x86.exe > log.txt

Then select and run the MK9 config, navigate the menus and/or play the game a little, then quit both the game and SoniFight. SoniFight might error on close - don't worry about it. If you then send me the log.txt file which will contain debug output about what the program's doing I may be able to figure out what's going on. You should be able to direct message it to me through this forum, if not just contact me via direct message and I'll give you an email address to send it to.

@Deng - Not having a lot of luck with documents, am I? Sorry if formatting isn't ideal - I just saved the text version from the Word document, which is nicely formatted and has Accessible Name attributes added to all the response boxes (which are actually just single cell tables). Thanks again & looking forward to your feedback.

2017-12-07 20:44:55

Number of responses: 1

Thank you so much, GameMan! big_smile

2017-12-09 17:29:38

hi,
sf4 works fine for me but a friend has windows 7 and sonifight dont speak i turn gamelanguage to english
what can we do?

2017-12-12 11:23:19

Number of responses: 2

Thanks, Deng!

In general updates, as the response count is currently lower than I can reasonably use, I'll extend the closing deadline for the trial to Wednesday the 20th of December. After that it's unlikely that I'll be able to put together a paper for submission with a December 31st deadline and will have to seek alternate sources of feedback and an alternate journal to submit to.

So if you meet the submission criteria and think you could find half an hour or so between now and then I would be massively grateful if you were able to submit any feedback by Wednesday the 20th.

@Atlan - Hmm, I'm not sure - are they using the latest version of SoniFight (i.e. v1.1.2) and SF4? I wouldn't have thought that different versions of Windows would result in different memory layouts, but it's possible that SF4 is detecting the different OS versions and loading slightly different versions of things which then throws off the pointer trails identifying the game aspects. Unfortunately I don't have access to a machine running Windows 7 at the moment, so there isn't a lot to be done right now. I may be able to try to dig up an old license key and install Windows 7 to test it out, but I won't have a chance to do this for at least another 10 days.

2017-12-12 12:36:44

hi maybe you can join my teamspeak server then we can test it with windows 7 my fried has it and you can take a look with teamviewer.
do you have skype then you can add derbruedi thanks

2017-12-13 05:20:57

@Atlan - I'd be happy to have a look via teamviewer, but I won't be able to do that until the new year unfortunately. Hopefully we can find a fix then. Will contact you when it's coming up to the time I can do so.

2017-12-22 23:09:06

Well, deadlines come and go - and unfortunately I only received two responses to the SoniFight survey, which isn't enough to use for a paper, so there's no way to write anything up by December 31st and I'll have to go back to the drawing board.

Current thinking is to try to find different sources of users, and maybe even have them come on-campus and test some games without and then with the software. Will also incentivise it with a draw for some kind of prize or prizes, as I'm sure I could find some money in my research budget for a fightstick or headset or an iPad or something.

In more positive news, the feedback I did receive was really encouraging, so that's great. Thanks to those who took the time - I'll add you to the prize draw when I've re-submitted the ethics stuff in January.

As that Dec 31st deadline is now out the window, if you'd still like to submit some feedback then it would be gratefully accepted and of course you'll then be added to the prize draw (assuming I can get it through ethics approval, but that shouldn't be a problem at all - it just needs to be declared). Then, if I got maybe 15 responses, your chances of winning something neat would be 1 in 15, which are pretty good odds!

Best wishes and hoping you have a fantastic Xmas & New Year!
-Al