Hi all.
I’m so extremely proud to announce this, and I’m still in a phase where I find it difficult to believe that it’s true.
I have just completed the first episode of Game of thrones called Iron from ice. The series is made by Telltale games, which makes some very playable games. I have tried others of their games, but I’ve always got stuck at some point, mostly because something wasn’t playable at all. But the first episode of Game of thrones is fully playable without sighted help at all. I only needed some explanation on what to do once in the first episode, and I can easily explain that for others who'll need that. The game is still playable when you know what to do.
Introduction to the Telltale games and how they work.
Please note: All what I have written here in this post so far have taken me very long time to figure out, mainly because I don’t have sighted assistance very often. I got my ps4 at the easter, where I started to mess around with the games from Telltale. There are still a lot of things which I haven’t figured out yet, and I hope you will help me to figure out the rest, so we hopefully can get as much out of those games as possible.
All the Telltale games works the same way, which some people find boring and others find it really great. This is like the games from Choice of games where you make your own choices which can change the gameplay. You have to walk in the game, but you don’t have to walk much. That is of corse very different from game to game. But you usually don’t have to walk much.
So, the games are like a movie where you have to interact with things to either make your own choice or to continue the game.
The controls:
I have only played the games on my Playstation 4, but I know some of their games are made for ps3, XBox 360, XBox one and other consoles as well. I’m not sure if there are any pc versions of their games.
Here is the controls for the ps4 versions of the games:
Left analog stick: Moves the character. It is quite important to know how the character moves, since it makes the games much more accessible. I don’t remember what that’s called in english and I’m sorry that I’m not very good at explaining this, but you are looking down at the character from above, and when you move the character, the character is moving in and out of the screen and the picture of the room is following your characters movements. It is also very important to know that when you move the analog stick left or right, you don’t turn the character, but sidestep as far as I know. I’ll correct this information regarding to sidestepping in the future if I’m wrong on this.
The right analog stick:
The right analog stick is used to look around, and again, this does not turn your character. This is very important to know how the analog stick works, since this is your primary control in the game. And yes, believe me or not, this is accessible if used correctly, and I’ll do my best to explain how this works.
When moving the right analog stick, the character is looking in the direction you are moving the analog stick in, and always keep in mind that the character is looking from his own perspective. That means you can’t look at everything in the room without walking.
So here is how all this is doable:
Imagine all this as a coordinad system. You push the right analog stick forward and hold it for a few seconds to make sure that you are looking up in the air, and then push it left until you’re sure that you are looking to the left. Then, you can move it right until you are sure you are looking to the very right, quickly press it down once, start moving it to the left, push down once, move it to the right and continue until you are sure you have looked in any directions.
Please note: You can not turn your character, which means you can only look to the left and to the right, and not look in 360 de grees like all the way around.
Interacting with objects, speaking to someone and making your choice:
When you wanna interact with something, this is mostly done by pressing x. When you are looking at something or when you wanna talk to someone, this is mostly done by pressing triangle. Please note that this is different from game to game and different depending on the situration in the game. There are times where you can interact with objects in more than one way, say different things to people etc. but x and triangle are used for this in most siturations.
Making your own choice is done by pressing either x, circle, triangle or square. There are something to keep in mind: 1: The choices can be spred out on all those 4 buttons depending on how many choices you have. The buttons never change for the same question if you play the same chapter again, but you never know what kind of answer you are giving, if you for example just press x to move on. I’m not totally sure on this, but it seems like x will give the most positive answer and circle or triangle will give the most negative answer.
2: In some siturations, if you don’t react, the game might move on. In other words, there is a timer on most choices.
3: Sometimes it can be difficult to know when you have to make a choice.
So, when you have to look for something to interact with, you have to do the following:
Start to look like described above. When moving the right analog stick left or right, keep tapping either x, circle, triangle or square very fast when holding the right analog stick left or right. In this way, you will activate whatever object the character looks at. you can also imagine this as a cursor, if that helps to get a better understanding on how this works. If you need to talk to someone or want to get more information about something, look like described above, and use the triangle button. If you need to interact with something like open a door, move something etc. you need the x button. I’ll recommend you to try the other buttons as well, circle and square, because they are also used sometimes.
The rest of the buttons on the controller aren’t used very often. In game of thrones, they are used for one or two QTE’s. That’s individuel in the game if those buttons are used.
The menus:
The menus seems to be the same in all of their games. The first option is story, then you have extras and options. I haven’t looked in the options menu or in the extras yet. In the story menu, you just have to press x to continue from where you left the game, and you can use the left or right arrows to select a previous played chapter. Be careful when doing that though. I have lost my saved game when doing that, and I need to figure out how to make sure you don’t loose your saved game when doing this.
Back to the Game of thrones:
What really makes this game fully playable and not fully accessible is all what I have explained above. In this first episode which I have played so far, you don’t need to walk much, but you have to deal with QTE’s which are not impossible because they don’t change, you have to make a lot of choices which makes the game inaccessible but still playable, and you have to look a lot and interact with lots of people and objects which is doable but requires some patience.
I would love to record a demonstration of the game, but I’m not doing this for a cupple of reasons:
1: Currently, I don’t have the right equipments so I can record from the ps4 and from a mic at the same time. If I recorded it all using my Olympus, I think it would be bad because it would be difficult to hear all the sounds from the game as well as what I’m saying.
2: I think it’s better to have all the descriptions regarding to the controls on text, so you easily can look it up to see how for example you can look at objects instead of having me to explain it in a recording. I’m not sure if I have explained this detailed enough, and I would like to add more information to this if needed, or if I sooner find out that I’m wrong on something.
3: This game can’t be reviewed without spoiling anything from the story, which means I can’t show you how the battles works, how to look, how to make your choice etc. without spoiling the story. Therefore, I’m telling you how it all works in generel, and then feel free to ask if you are stuck somewhere in the game.
Game of thrones: The iron from the ice is highly recommendable for all who likes a great story, lots of action, strong language etc. The voice acting is done very well, the audio is amazing accept for it could pan better when moving around and you’ll get so addicted to the game so you won’t leave your console until you have played the whole episode. I will recommend this to everyone who have a console, but please note that for blind gamers, this still requires a lot of patience. I look very much forward to play the second episode, hoping that is fully playable as well.
If you have any questions, wanting to give this a try, if you are willing to help at any point regarding to find more informations about the game which makes it even more accessible or if you just have any comments at all, good or bad, I would love to hear from you. I hope other people wants to give this a try as well.
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.
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