Warning! This post contains some seriously major storyline spoilers!!! If you haven't finished the demo yet, read on at your own risk!
Hi Kevin,
I'm bowing down as deep as I can to you and your friend. Just hope it's not Soli. :-D
I have just finished the demo and I really admire the amount of work that must have been put into making this accessible, when accessibility obviously was not built right into the design process. It does actually work very well. And the story is so incredibly atmospheric, immersive, creepy. I mean it, I still have goosebumps even after a few minutes since I finished the game, and I can't remember if any game ever managed to do this to me before! I have played and seen several mainstream games before, not that I was ever sighted but I did have my brother and a friend who showed some games to me a few years ago, but I have no idea which game genre or particular titles inspired this but still, it's such an unique experience. And the story line is really engaging! I mean, actualy entering the commands on a computer within the game, then revealing you are in fact that very computer, then... Just wow! I'm typing this in a very hurried way, so excited, so it's probably one big mess, but I hope you can see what I mean anyway.
The Sam actress is just absolutely amazing! There were times I really felt sorry for her. When trying to override the robot, I was actually panicking. I had the elevator door integrity at 25% and it still took me a while to get the job done even after that, so I probably managed to save her only in the last few seconds, as the Sapi voice the game chose for me is too slow and laggy. Still, I enjoyed the atmosphere immensely!
I was so sorry for Alex at the end. I mean, the ending is so emotional! How did you manage to convey so much in such brief technical messages? When she read unknown identity, I was like what the hell? Then the message could not be sent, and the final words: I am Alex. I am Soli. I am Alex. Just wow, so creepy! Cybernetic schizophrenia? :-D
What do the decisions for a given episode actually mean? I mean, it does read the percentages, which probably means how much a particular choice is going to shape the future storyline development, but it's not clear to me what I chose. Does it say "you chose this" before or after the decision choice?
There definitely needs to be a way for the player himself to manually choose the Sapi voice they want to use, and it should recognize even 32-bit voices if any are installed. I know the possibilities of the Unity Sapi plugin are probably pretty limited, so I hope this is at all possible to program, because the only 64-bit voice which is available for me to configure in the Windows 10 text to speech control pannel is Microsoft Zira, which sounds pretty good but she is just so slow and unresponsive that it forces me to play at the pace of a snail, and even that is probably too fast. :-D
I'm so sorry I won't probably manage to support your campaign until it ends! It just really sucks but I have purchased a pretty expensive audiogame just a few days before I found Code 7 and I'm also in the process of starting up my own business, so I'm pretty tight on money until the end of the month. Really sincerely sorry about that, it feels frustrating, I really wish I could send some cash your way. This game deserves it a lot!
By the way, I do think Soli actually doesn't seem villainous at all. Judging by its remarks, and how it tries so hard to learn to lie, I tend to think its motives might in fact be good, in a twisted sort of way. Perhaps the truth it found out is really too dangerous for mankind to know or something, so it's trying to do all it can not to be forced to reveal it eventually. I almost wished I could teach it how to lie. But then I would probably be dead anyway, or rather erased, so yeah. :-) And I'm really itching to know what the heck Code 7 actually means and does!
You've done the nastiest thing a game developer or story writer can ever do, you've left us stuck at such an incredible cliffhanger! :-)
Seriously, though, this is just incredible work! I'm almost tempted to say I don't care about the mini games for the time being, if only I could actually play the rest of the story right now. :-)
Did you have the time to check out any other audiogames listed on the site, even if just briefly? I think many of them could perhaps provide you with some inspiration to overcome some of these accessibility challenges.
Keep up the great work, and please do keep us updated on the progress. I really wish your campaign succeeds.
By the way, if I may ask, what brought you to the idea to make this accessible to visually impaired players in the first place?
Lukas
I won't be using this account any more or participating in the forum activity through other childish means like creating an alternate account. I've asked for the account to be removed but I'm not sure if that's actually technically possible here. Just writing this for people to know that I won't be replying, posting new topics or checking private messages until the account is potentially removed.