2020-05-22 02:53:13 (edited by defender 2020-05-23 00:34:08)

edit: it seems that this game is currently not fully accessible to totally blind players.
I am sorry to have to give this bad news, but thankfully it seems as if the issue in question could be solved relatively easily as long as the publishers are made aware of it, So this may not be true forever.
I would still encourage players with some usable site to try the game though, And if totally blind players are willing to pay for the game in its current state, I'm sure their input would be valuable.
Hey all,
So youtube channel "Illegally Sighted" just uploaded a video walkthrough of the new text to speech support in the 20th anniversary  relaunch of this famous medieval strategy game for Global Accessibility Awareness Day, and I have to tell you, it seems legit.
It's not just menus and diologues that are spoken, it's the information needed to play the actual game as well.
The main catch is that you still need to point and click with a mouse and many things aren't laid out in a simple left to right or top to bottom format, but still, everything under the cursor seems to be spoken as you move over it and with some memorization and patients wile exploring the screen I'm confident that it's quite doable.
Here's the video.  It's a long one, but he explains some important things so it's worth watching.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHqQT7sNnxw
I wish I could give you guys more information, but I'm too busy with school and Voc Rehab right now to get into this my self.  I wanted to make sure it was brought to everyone's attention though, because it sounds pretty damn playable to me, and with tons of missions and multiplayer support, it definitely seems worth giving it a try.

2020-05-22 03:59:47

hey! thanks for the info, i'm watching the video and loving the fact that everything speaks, i just wish it worked with the keyboard for the menus.
does anyone know if the steam version has tts as well?

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2020-05-22 06:12:35

This is great i’m so glad the audiogames community has a new old game to play!

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2020-05-22 07:36:23

Hi.
As he explains in the video, the game is not accessible to blind people.
Even if we have the patience to use the mouse, the flag does not talk, and we have to drag things together, which there doesn't seem to be keyboard shortcuts to do.
The TTS is amazing, but the game is not playable by totally blind people, unless someone find alternatives to do those things.

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2020-05-22 07:49:10

That is a huge step forward even if blind can't play it yet!

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2020-05-22 09:39:43

Hi.

Well I still think I will pick this up and give it a run, you never know what hotkeys might help you in playing.

Greetings Moritz.

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2020-05-22 12:47:39

Well
This is what we needed
Guys, please hear me out.

You are blind. you can't see anything. you are disabled. How can you even type on the keyboard, How can you even  work with the computer, let alone play a game that's all about visuals? It's about competition, I don't think playing video games is ment for blind people?

That's what the  video gaming community thinks if they see you play a video game. You should not blame them. They don't know. They are not scientists, They are not university professors, They are not professional developers, They are gamers, from all ranges of profession, from a 16 year old kid to whatever.
The changes like this have to start it from somewhere, An accessible video game will not come out plummeting from the sky, People are gradually beginning to understand so does the developers, so does the publishers.
What we need to do is to go around and push the community managers and publishers to understand us better, tell them how to implement more features, show this to others, even though if it is not enough.

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2020-05-22 13:21:07

The flag for example, needs an audio sound to tell you where it is

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2020-05-22 14:51:25

Hey guys.

I happen to fall in the low vision camp. It's really a shame I cant play with my blind friends, but at least I can play multiplayer with other sighted players.

I'm happy about the tts support, but I'm not happy about having to use the mouse. That's sad.
I have a few questions though,

1. Is there a demo version?

2. I wanna click this up, what's the cost?

And lastly, am I crazy, or does this guy sound like a cross of Liam and Changeling MX?

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2020-05-23 00:28:22

I apologize for not realizing the flag issue. I watch the whole video but somehow I missed that part. Maybe he uploaded the change version of the video later that mentions it? I'm not sure. Either way, thank you for telling everyone SLJ.
The good news is that low vision people can still play it, and given that most of the work is done, and the release is still relatively new, We may be able to ask for the flag to be fixed.
I am not sure how much Microsoft actually has power over game publishers that use their store, but since Microsoft has been on an accessibility kick lately, that may be our route to success.

2020-05-23 00:50:21

@8 How would you go about this? Volume per distance? Current and object location? Will it interfere with regular play?
And, for other improvements, will it be for personal ease or universal accessibility?
Please, I hope anyone communicating accessibility issues is considerate and cordial.

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2020-05-23 03:12:47

I wonder if a mod to turn the map into a grid would help in turning the game fully accessible. I haven't played the game for 20 years, but I am pretty sure there were hot keys  to select the buildings to build, or when a building was selected to start training units. A coordinate based grid with some commands to quickly change the coordinates might work.

I have been thinking about this same thing for Roller Coaster Tycoon. I wonder if the developers of OpenRCT2 can implement something like this, as I am pretty sure the Roller Coaster Tycoon games already had a grid for building stuff. One problem there would be the third dimension, height, as there can be hills. Perhaps they could just create a plain map without any hills for  testing.

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2020-05-23 16:26:07

Hi.

Well I don't think that comunicating acccesibility related question is that difficult. i mean we have people like Ianhamilton and Lirin doing this and I have perfect trust in those two.

Greetings Moritz.

Hail the unholy church of Satan, go share it's greatness.