Awesome work on the game so far, thank you so much for incorproating all of these accessibility features! I'll probably be streaming this game with a friend later this week if internet decides to behave and nothing comes up.

For anyone on the fence because of Steam, I just wrote an up to date guide how to use it. I'd be interested to hear from people who have just started out with Steam if it gave you any trouble, when doing some research and testing for this guide I realised thigns got much more accessible since I signed up years ago.

Is trading games on steam possible?

I was thinking the same as well. I'd be interested if you did recordings.

I notice the power change sound with the music turned down. It sounds like a short motor sound on the right channel. The health sound I only hear occasionally though, if at all. I'm probably just not aware of it.

Yeah I agree. The concern I had with audio cues 2 is that in the tutorials, it gives you visual directions, to the point where if you had no clue how to play the game, you'd be completely lost. I'm kinda concerned that there will be more accessibility-related challenges on audio cues 2, so that's why I brought it up. As a concept, it's cool, if not brutally hard. And I haven't gotten very far in the missions with audio cues 2. But yeah you need insane reaction time on those.

After writing my last post I tried some missions on ultra. And, uh, wow. They terrify me but in a good way. I think you have to upgrade your rig to get past some of the missions on the harder difficulties too, which gives you more incentive to keep playing. And on audio cues 2`, forget it. Anything above the easiest setting and you might as well memorize the track because reaction time wont' get you through afaik. Also arcade mode on higher difficulties is fun (currently on medium but I'm guessing harder ones can be unlocked later).

@diego check post 102. I literarly wrote how to use steam with screen readers a few hours ago.

From what I understand, synchronized judgment means your timing is perfect, or at least very close. Great judgment is almost perfect. Good judgment is decent timing, and bad judgment is if you hit the wrong key. A miss is if you don't hit a key at all when you're supposed to. Synchronized notes make you speed up and power up faster, so accuracy counts when you need to win a race or beat a time limit.

Ah, so their is a level editor, yeah, I'd be down for checking that out.  Also @111 I really like that idea of being able to turn off the confirmation reverse beats.

Yeah I find the confirmation beats distracting, I think they should be a toggle. I have forgotten what note I was meant to press because I got distracted by the barrage of 10 or so confirmation sounds on a harder track. To clarify I'm referring to the sounds that play as the perfect timing to hit a note approaches, like the inverted sounds that sound similar to the note you are supposed to hit.

I have just uploaded version 1.1.5h

- Added chimes that sound to indicate when the track is about to turn, or when straight sections start.
- Added an option to use the clipboard for narration instead of SAPI.
- Added a sound effect to the damaging barriers found in some missions.
- Added an option to disable the reverse confirmation audio cues, in the audio cues menu.
- Increased the volume of the health and power indicators.

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I'll try to respond to some comments, I'm sorry if I miss anything.

You can replay the story dialog by pressing F5 or the X button.  That narration is still missing.  I am planning on reworking the mission screen narration a bit and then I will fix that.

Audio cues 2 is really just an experiment.  I don't have enough reaction time to play it well, but if I increase the delay between the cue and the button press, then it becomes too confusing.

The show ghosts option shows the positions of steam leaderboard entries, but leaderboards aren't supported in the audio modes (yet?)

There are still some balance issues where rival racers do better in the audio cues mode because there are fewer notes overall, and so fewer chances for them to miss notes.  Also, the hyper drift ability doesn't quite give you as much speed as it should in audio cues mode again because there are fewer notes to gain speed from.  However, it isn't a very big or insurmountable problem.

The game is not likely to come to platforms other than Steam on Windows.  There might be a chance of coming to another storefront, but there isn't much chance of coming to a platform other than Windows.  I don't have the resources to do that.

For 90% of the moving barriers, you can dodge them by hugging the wall, except for possibly one cheeky instance.  In "Mia Green Is Missing" hitting a barrier usually means failing unless you can immediately boost to catch up.

New Girl is where you need to more smartly use boost and hyper.  Boost during straights and hyper through turns.  Hopefully the chimes added in the last update will help to hear when you should use each ability.  Memorizing the layout of the track is a huge benefit, even for sighted players.  This aspect of the game aims to exercise the same kind of muscle memory that you get from normal racing games.

@special magic games I'm sure I'm not just speaking for myself here, but I really love what you're doing for the accessibility of the game. The fact that these things are basically being added like days apart makes it even more impressive. Your work is greatly appreciated.
@pitermach, I'm just wondering if you'd happen to know why -no-dwrite is still not working? I've checked my icon several times, it's exactly as written. But I still can't actually read anything using NVDA, for whatever reason. Not that OCR isn't available, so it's really just a minor inconvenience. But if you know of a fix, I'd greatly appreciate the help.

Hello all,
So I'm having a slight problem with this game and I was wondering if anyone might have any suggestions.
I'm running a windows seven computer with this game.
the game loads fine, plays fine.
However, whenever I need to try the level again, and or move on to the next level the game crashes for no reason.
I then have to alt f4, close the program entirely and relaunch it before playing it once more.
Keep in mind, I am using the demo version currently.
Please let me know if you have any suggestions.
Thanks!!!

Can you please send your log files to [email protected]?  The logs folder will open if you press F1 at the title screen.

Responding to a few people here.
@Stewie
I don't know how much louder the sounds were made, but it's not a large amount. I can hear them though with the music at a decent volume, where as before it was a struggle. I'm not sure if I'm just more aware of them or if they were in fact made louder. The boost power noise is a short car motor sound in the right channel that increases in pitch when you complete patterns. The health bar is a subtle ping in the left channel. You only hear it if you miss notes. To hear these sounds more clearly, turn the music down and try the new order track (it's the slowest and on beginner difficulty the patterns start off as child's play so you can hear what's going on if you hit and miss notes). And make sure you set the mode of the game to speed. If you use score, you won't hear health or powerup sounds, as the goal in score mode is to simply get the best note accuracy you can.
@BlindNinja I couldn't agree more with your complements. Great job, Special Magic Games!
@slj, yes you can adjust the game to account for the responsiveness of your sound card. On my default sound card, I have it set to -125, but on another sound card I tried so I could easily show the game to a friend on Team Talk, I had to set it to +50 before I could get similar performance, even though both soundcards have a similar response during normal computer use. I don't know what's going on but the setting is there. I haven't tried with a vm, though. Since those have a lot of inherent lag in the sound, you might have a harder time just because of that.
@Sightless Kombat, I don't have those issues with hyperdrift yet, but I'll check out the posibility of having separate keys since I wouldn't mind that either. The hyperdrift seems to take about a second to start up, during which time I don't think you can hit notes though they'll still show up on the track. After that second is up, you can hit notes again. Each note hit during the hyperdrift will extend it slightly. So what I normally do is, when I want to use a hyperdrift, I do it as the game is giving me a new pattern. This way I don't miss notes, and can use the notes I was just given to boost my hyperdrift. The hyperdrift can't be infinite though... it still fizzes out after a short time, but I can confirm that collecting notes does hold it longer. You can hear where the hyperdrift is at by a robotic motor sound in the right channel. The lower it is, the more depleted the hyperdrift is, and the faster it declines. When you collect notes, you'll hear that decline temporarily lessen for a fraction of a second.
HTH