2024-02-23 20:23:04 (edited by NONOCE 2024-04-25 16:10:56)

Here I'm sharing my early work for my accessibility modification for The Banner Saga.

Be aware that it is currently untested, very incomplete, buggy and unwieldy to use. It is intended only for people who wish to test it nonetheless.

Current known requirements :
- A 64 bit system
- Tested on Windows 10
- NVDA
- The Steam version of The Banner Saga 1
- A console gamepad or an emulated one

Installation : Uncompress the zip file at the root of the game folder (it should be named tbs in your Steam library) then let files be overwritten.

Usage:
Be sure to have your gamepad ready before launching the modification executable. (it might still work if you plug it later)
Launch the executable (banner saga script2.exe).
For now that executable need to be closed manually after you quit the game, there should be an autohotkey tray icon somewhere for this.

Controls:
To be explained, but basically the modification reuse the gamepad system of the game, so you control the game just the same. I added custom functions on the left and right triggers. The right trigger sends a debug list of the current bindings for the gamepad and the left one is more meant to tell the non selectable displayed informations, but it's not very much implemented for now.

My current goal:
My first goal for this project is to find an access to all the essential informations. Only after this I will take a greater care with the usability of the interface. That said, my efforts will go toward dropping the requirement for the gamepad right now.

What's more or less working for now:
- Standard menus
- Travel page menus
- In game dialogues
- Some very very basic functionalities in the combat mode


Latest file:
http://n0n0ce.free.fr/TBS_Access/tbs%20 … 200.04.zip


Older versions:
http://n0n0ce.free.fr/TBS_Access/tbs%20 … 200.03.zip
n0n0ce.free.fr/TBS_Access/tbs%20access%200.02.zip
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1B3a0kI … drive_link

2024-02-24 00:19:40

hello! is it possible use this version only the first part of the game, or i can use in  a second and third?

2024-02-24 01:09:06

so, i tried to test a game and when i started a game menu in my native language russian i see only strange simbols. i changed language english and menu started read corectly. maybe mod is not compatible with cirillic simbols? if its possible can you check it please. best regards!

2024-02-24 01:23:44

Well, here I can't runt the game and as far as I know few users are having issues running it on win 10 / 11. I am currently trying to solve this.

Twitter
Add me on Steam
Discord: lirintheblindguy
BattleTAG: Lirin#21759

2024-02-24 01:34:11

win 10, all is well. i started walkthrough in english and in this state its playable for me. i played earlier this game not many time using ocr and gamepad. and  in this state its very good. is it difficult add support other 2 parts of trilogy? i'd like to try complete all of them.

2024-02-24 01:37:26

Here's my error so maybe someone can help:
https://pastebin.com/rJ9xy5cZ

Twitter
Add me on Steam
Discord: lirintheblindguy
BattleTAG: Lirin#21759

2024-02-24 10:15:06

Running on Windows 10 here and the mod loaded first try.  However, a couple of observations, though I know it's very early in development still:
1. The mod seems to take a while to read when moving between options, at least initially.   This subsequently decreases but it's strange that it happens at all.
2. The options menu seemed to get a little confused as it started reading options like resume, load etc.
3.  How would I progress to be able to test?  Does anyone have an accessible walkthrough that I can use to at least know, for example, where to move characters to meet the requirements of the various tutorials?

Very much looking forward to seeing this develop further!

Regards,
Sightless Kombat.
***If you wish to refer to me in @replies, use Sightless***

2024-02-24 11:06:35 (edited by toto 2024-02-24 11:08:15)

hi
when i m run the banner scrift2 i got message
---------------------------
banner saga script2.exe
---------------------------
Could not close the previous instance of this script.  Keep waiting?
---------------------------
Yes   No   
---------------------------

2024-02-24 11:27:29 (edited by NONOCE 2024-02-24 11:29:15)

@igggggoreha
For now my mod should not works with the other sagas. It should not be complicated to do but I haven't searched for this yet. For the special characters I'm not sending them properly to NVDA, that's a known bug and one I'd like to deal with.

@Lirin
Does the game start normally without the modification installed ?

@Sightless Kombat
1.That looks like a performance problem. My mod shouldn't be too taxing but maybe that's something I will have to look for eventually.
2. Maybe this is tied to 1 ?
3. I can't help you there, beside continuing to work on my mod.. For the tutorial though, for both the characters you only need to move them all the way up.

@toto
Maybe kill the banner script2 program from the task manager, close the game and retry ?

2024-02-24 11:34:09

and now i got this
---------------------------
banner saga script2.exe
---------------------------
Error:  Failed attempt to launch program or document:
Action: <C:\Windows\system32\win32\The Banner Saga.exe>
Params: <steam=true developer>

Specifically: The system cannot find the file specified.



    Line#
--->    057: Run,%A_WorkingDir%\win32\The Banner Saga.exe steam=true developer

The current thread will exit.
---------------------------
OK   
---------------------------

2024-02-24 12:20:13

@NONOCE
I solved it. For some reason Banner saga 1 and 2 can't recognise my dual sense controller and this is what happened to crash the game. When I am emulating the controller with DS4Windows it is working fine.

I have exactly the same issues with NVDA and a bit of lag when moving through options / menus.


Regarding the tutorials yeah, We need to wait until the combat will be more accessible but I am loving what I see now! Really great work!

@#10: It seems like the script cannot find the executable file of your banner saga. The exe file should be in 2in32 folder.

Twitter
Add me on Steam
Discord: lirintheblindguy
BattleTAG: Lirin#21759

2024-02-24 12:55:30

@Lirin
strange i m tri run banner saga from steam nothing happens but when i tried to run the first time opened and worked maybe one minute and closed

2024-02-24 13:24:36

@NONOCE
Regarding the wrong encoding problem with non-latin alphabets we have a similar problem with Diablo IV and its NVDA output. In russian and other non-latin languages it outputs broken unicode instead of a normal text. Something like "letter FFD0 letter FFBA letter FFA7" and so on.
If you share some technical details about your mod probably I can help you to fix this encoding problem straight inside the code.
Tell please what language do you use and if you can please share a code snippet which actually outputs some text to NVDA.
What method of output do you use? Is it NVDA Controller Client / Tolk / Universal Speech or some other aproach such as outputing via COM-objects or via UIA events.

In the situation with Diablo IV the problem was with mixed UTF-8 and UTF-16 encodings, so the game tried to send UTF-8 text but incorrectly converted to UTF-16 with strange padding with 0xFF and 0x00 bytes.

If you are not able to fix this problem inside your code I will try to fix it with an NVDA add-on as I did with Diablo IV.

2024-02-24 14:41:32

o ok work now

2024-02-24 15:23:35

@cyrmax_it Can you actually let me know what to do with Diablo IV? I have the same issue with Polish language. In Banner Saga it is happening too.

Twitter
Add me on Steam
Discord: lirintheblindguy
BattleTAG: Lirin#21759

2024-02-24 17:03:24 (edited by igggggoreha 2024-02-24 17:05:40)

15, try special addon for it in discord server about diablo
https://discord.gg/pUeF6yFx

there is in pinned messages.

you can enable this using combination
nvda shift alt D

2024-02-26 11:54:32

hi all
i recorded how the mod works for me. it's an amazing game I'm looking forward to playing further
thank you very much NONOCE
and one question could I support the project?
o and link
https://wetransfer.com/downloads/8eff18 … 451/57c8f2

2024-02-27 16:10:38

yes! its work well in current state. as for me i'd like to get access to all parts of saga. of course there are things which i am sure possible to improve, but i am very pleased this state of mod. thank you very much for your great work! and please, add support for other 2 games, of course if itwill not weist very much your time and forces. if i understand right, all games have same engine and need only edit file in a folder win32, but of course maybe i am not right. thank you again and best regards!

2024-02-27 21:56:01

Hi.
I can not download this mod, because after clicking on the link in the first post google drive says, that I can not download this file, because google drive gives me an error, that this file can not be accessed or somethink

2024-02-27 22:14:01

hi
i hope NONOCE won't get angry
i m upload
https://wetransfer.com/downloads/ca0dae … 530/7de5b1

2024-02-27 22:38:22

thanks toto, I just downloaded it right now.

2024-02-28 13:37:15

New version available:
http://n0n0ce.free.fr/TBS_Access/tbs%20 … 200.02.zip

Changes from the previous version:
- Specials characters should be sent correctly to NVDA now
- Cinematic subtitles are read, if the language is not set to English
- First dialogue sentence should not be skipped anymore
- Maybe some performance improvement ?

2024-02-28 13:49:54

@cyrmax_it
The encoding problem should be fixed now, but I couldn't verify it for any other languages than French.

@toto
I haven't set any sort of system for project support, but one day that could be something to think about !

@mojsior
There seem to be a problem with google drive, I will put new versions on my own web page.

2024-02-28 14:56:08

hi thanks good work i can’t wait when i can tri new version i m do this to day later i m working now thanks again

2024-02-28 16:43:12

@NONOCE
hello! russian simbols works correct! thank you very very much!