2019-05-16 01:42:07

Hey folks,

Before creating this thread, I tried searching to see if there was a similar existing thread, but didn't find a general one so thought I'd create it to see if there are others here who enjoy playing board games.

Last year I bought a couple of games to see if I can play them blind with my friends, and now I'm hooked. After my sight pretty much kicked the bucket, not allowing me to enjoy video games as I used to before, I stumbled upon a few board games that scratch the same itch, and wow, I had no idea about the amazing games available out there.

We tend to become socially isolated, especially if you are like me, losing your sight later in life, so this hobby has helped me immensely to stay in touch with my friends. After getting a regular weekly group together for a few months, I decided to create a podcast and hopefully introduce other blind and visually impaired people to the hobby. While looking for other blind board gamers to interview on my podcast, I met some amazing people who have been gaming for years. If you would like to check out the podcast you can find it here: https://sightless.fun/podcast/. In the last episode, we are talking about gateway games that are good to get introduced to the hobby.

Anyway, some of my current favorite games are:

- Ghost Stories, a cooperative board game where you are controlling Taoist monks protecting a village from Wu-Fen. It has a tower defense vibe, and can be brutally hard.

- Dice Forge, a competitive game where you are forging dice to gain resources and go on quests to earn victory points. The die faces on the dice are removable, and the main idea in the game is that everyone starts with the same dice and you gather resources to upgrade them.

- Colt Express, another competitive game where the players are cowboy outlaws robbing a train. The game plays in a few rounds and the player that steals the most money wins.

So, are there any other board gamers in here? If you have any questions or would like to try a game but you  don't know where to start or what game to buy, just let me know and I'd be happy to help!

Cheers,
Ertay

Host of Sightless Fun, podcast about visual accessibility in modern Board Games.

Follow on Twitter

2019-05-16 21:41:17

i would love to play some boadgames e.g battle star galactica, but don't know how to make it usable and the price tag for it's really putting me off if i'm not certain i can play it

2019-05-17 13:37:31

@shane, Battlestar Galactica is a game that is out of print and you can only get it used nowadays so that's why it is so expensive. The game can be playable if you can read braille and are willing to put some effort in brailling all the cards. Because they are hidden information, you can't simply do it with sighted assistance alone.

Now, I was having the same BSG itch as you, and I discovered a fan-made version called BSG Express. I found the print and play files for it, printed it out and  my brother helped with cutting all the cards, tokens and die faces. The game is a compressed version of the original that plays in about 1 hour rather than 3-4 hours that standard BSG plays in. I have played BSG Express around 10 times in the past year and it can be a lot of fun. I wrote about its accessibility in a blog post that you can find here.

For your sighted friends, you will need to buy indented blank dice so you can apply the custom die face stickers, or if you don't want to go through all the hassle, you can simply use a dice roller app. One that is VoiceOver accessible that I use is called Natural 20 Lite.

Host of Sightless Fun, podcast about visual accessibility in modern Board Games.

Follow on Twitter

2019-05-17 13:52:09

Hi, I'm a board gamer too! Well, I'm more of an rpg player, but when you play rpgs its kind a easy to enjoy board games too, so I've collected some of them myself. I tend to prefer party games such as Wherewolf, Secret Hitler, The Resistance, Mascarade, Dark Lord and Vudù, although I think those last two are only Italian games. BattleStar was very fun the few times I played it, and the same goes for Seven Wonders. Talisman, King of Tokio and Zombie dice are quite good too, even if a little bit random, and I enjoy also card war games. For those, I suggest Summoner Wars for who's just starting, because it has a small map that you can reproduce with velcro and the cards are limited. Now I'm considering buying Dungeon Fighter, a game where you have to hit a target throwing dice in crazy ways, such as while jumping or by using the hand of one of your friends. And I'd like to play Carcassonne, but I didn't find how yet a way to make the map accessible.

2019-05-17 15:15:38

Hi there,

I'd love to hear how you solved the problem of figuring out who your teammates are in Secret Hitler or The Resistance games when you are a bad guy. I personally coded a simple app that would randomize the roles and I added text to speech to it so the app can tell me who is on my team if I'm a bad guy.

CarcasCCarcassonne and other tile laying games are very inaccessible and I wouldn't really bother with those games if you can't see the map. Dungeon Fighter sounds like a dexterity game and  those games in general are also inaccessible, so I can't comment on that because I usually avoid those games, as well.

Does Summoner Wars have hidden hands of cards? How do you deal with that? Do you braille them? Also, I know of a solution for the hidden hands in 7 Wonders which another blind friend shared, but I'm curious to  hear how you're playing 7 Wonders blind. What my friend does is wait for all the other players to draft a card, and then he reveals his hand so the other players can tell him what cards he has and  he drafts his card last before he passes his hand to the next player.

Host of Sightless Fun, podcast about visual accessibility in modern Board Games.

Follow on Twitter

2019-05-30 19:14:28

Just discovered a command line implementation of a solo board game called Desolate. It's a fun little dice game that plays quite quickly. If anyone is interested you can get it from here:

https://kemp.itch.io/desolate-text

Host of Sightless Fun, podcast about visual accessibility in modern Board Games.

Follow on Twitter

2019-05-30 20:40:46

sorry really but it shouldn't belons in general game discussion room? if i'm wrong sorry

Yours kindly

2019-05-30 20:43:37

Yeah, I wasn't sure where to post this thread when I first created it initially, but if the mods feel like it should be moved, sure!

Host of Sightless Fun, podcast about visual accessibility in modern Board Games.

Follow on Twitter