All I can say is, good luck finding the median.
I played with sight and without, and even like that, I wouldn't be able to find it myself.
A few examples:

• Final Fantasy 7 PS1 had arrows pointing to exits, while it made it easier to find, not seeing the area would make it daunting. Guess even sighted players needed help finding them. Finding my way with sounds is hard to imagine.

• Final Fantasy 9 PS1 had an auto-pilot for the airship, so even sighted players could automatically go places without navigating there themselves. So, why isn't that an okay option for a blind player?[/]

Games and player's skills are so varied, can there be a median?

In response to 2, which was submitted while I was writing 3, while i acknowledge that fast travel and auto navigation is a common theme in mainstream games, especially now, its the areas in  between that I'm concerned about. In regards to your example in final fantasy IX, you still have to work your way to the airship. If auto travel was actually a feature in stardew valley without having to resort to mods, I don't think that I would be so put off by it. At least I'd know I was getting into.

"As I see it, sighted players see an exit and push a direction control to guide their character towards it without much thought"

This is actually rarely the case, as there as usually obstacles in the way. Sometimes they can be navigated over or under, sometimes they have to be walked around. So sometimes it's more a sequence of what you described, but it's also more complex sometimes too.. for example  your destination is to the northeast, and there's an obstacle in front of you, that you can head northeast or northwest around. But you have to head northwest around the obstacle, as you can see ahead in the distance that if you head northeast around the obstacle it'll take you to a cliff face that you can't get past between you and the destination, whereas northwest the path curves back around and gradually uphill, taking you to the top of the cliff. This is why pathfinding has been such a big deal in accessible mainstream games with complex environments.

An interesting topic. Hm, didn't swamp or such have a cane system for pinging adjacent surfaces? Anyway, I've been noticing an undercurrent here that while games are accessible, there is a notable difference in the intended experience due to constraints in the accessibility interface. Although being able to scan for nearby items may not be as much of a cheat as people may think, since many games highlight interactable objects for sighted players as well. Its also the same for pathing to exits, as there can be a designated visual compass or objective marker pointing the way.

Other than the aforementioned Shadowline, where you can feel along walls or explore based on footsteps/sounds, its difficult to translate the sense of exploration and discovery one might find in free form environmental navigation. Its one of the reason's I'm fond of the concept of sonified depthmap navigation, the sound of screeching cats notwithstanding. It generates a passive topographical view of your environment you can use to navigate based on your own interpretation, as opposed to a designated waypoint or notification pointing it out.

Swamp and New Horizons use similar-ish navigation assists. The biggest differences I can think of is that, where Swamp has beacons, NH has autopilot that can orient you toward your selected destination, and where Swamp announces zones only when you enter/exit/press the "say zone" key, NH scans for zones ahead of you / immediately left or right of your line-of-'sight. These different approaches make sense in context, IMO, since Swamp is a zombie survival FPS, and New Horizons is a space trade/exploration game.
Swamp's accessibility tools feel very similar to real-life accessibility tools from the time it was made. The radar functions very similarly to a cane, zones work like the announcements from GPS devices like the Trecker Breeze (or asking Siri "Where am I?"), and the beacons... IDK, did any existing product other than metal detectors work like Swamp's beacons at the time?
Since a cane is useful in space only when landing on rough terrain (Odysseus), and you should be able to identify your destination literally millions of miles away, New Horizons using radar to scan for interactive objects, using long-range zone-finding and autopilot also makes since in context.
And VGStorm's wall detection makes some since for a top-down, exploration-heavy RPG, where you want to travel quickly, but aren't drowning in realtime challenges for which the wall sounds would become distracting (or get themselves overwhelmed).
Communicating as much information in audio as sighted players can get in a glance is more or less impossible, just because of how parallel vision is compared to how serial audio is. IRL, canes use sound, true, but they're primarily a haptic tool. And since we can't expect every blind gamer to have a Novint Falcon, Logitech Wingforce mouse, or ... comfort with cane-use, that doesn't translate so well into PC or mobile games. The amount of subtle information that one can train to pick up from natural audio is great (not Daredevil great, but great nonetheless), but the complexity of the physics involved and the small market of users who care mean that the tech to accurately simulate genuine virtual soundscapes is way, way behind the visual counterpart.
So we're kinda stuck with having to figure out which solution works best for the specific type of game, designing that around how well it melds with the rest of the game sounds, and, oh yes, throwing in tons of settings that users can change because a one-size-fits-all solution is proving elusive. (For an example of how complex the controls can get without being too overwhelming for players, take a look at Swamp's keyconfig.ini file. For the simpler versions, see Shadowrine and Manamon.)

I've been trying a hybrid VGStorm-style wall detection, limited vOICe-style sonifier, and Bokurano Daibouken-style object viewer and ledge detection. It ... isn't going so well as I'd hoped, but what ever does the first time?

@9
Your unlikely to find much available for it, since it hasn't been implemented in anything but prototypes. There is some mention with The vOICe for sonfied depthmaps, and I think a mobile version done with an Xbox Kinect, but the closest working game example is probably Audiocraft. Essentially, a depthmap is a greyscale image thats usually part of 3D rendering buffers, with close objects being white, and far objects fading to black. By filtering that through a sonifier like the vOICe, it can hopefully give an idea of the topography in front of a player to navigate by. My own particular implementation in Audiocraft also comes with a filter function, so as to isolate particular types of terrain or objects if so desired. So, theoretically, if your looking for people or treasure chests, you could go all Predator mode and filter out those particular objects as you sonify.

Hi !
This is the topic I've been waiting for so long, without daring to create it myself, considering the reactions I encountered when talking about TLOU.
You all make interesting points. The real chalenge is indeed to recreate an illusion of comple environments, in real time if possible, and without confusing the player. To me the point is to keep in mind that, eventhough some of us have difficulties with orientation, and picturing a three d environment, others would really love to make use of these particular skills if it participates in the game's immersion process.
Navigation assistaznce has never been my thing, atleast not on its own. For instance, TLOU's navigation totally ruyined the fun for me. Not only was I guided from point to point, as if I was in some kind of interactive movie rather than in a game, but most of all, navigatin was nearly impossible otherwise. I could of course deviate from the path, but with no audio beacons, no way at all to hear how the map was designed, it was simply fruistrating. So I stuck to the path, as I was told, and never had the feeling I was making choices, ctonrolling my character.
Of course, and you pointed that out very well, it leads us to the technical question: how else could we do, atleast in complex environments. Honnestly I don't know. Right now I'm simply worried about autonav becoming a standart, a norm, not because we didn't find any other options, but mostly because it is often described as an ideal accessibility feature, which I must disagree with.
The thing is, most of the other features described here work pretty well in an audiogame. The manamon navigation system works perfectly for an rpg with a 2d map, AHC has one of the best, if not perfect, navigation system in my opinion but again, it doesn't have to deal witrh heights, vertical cameras or even complex paths.
Stw manages to deal with such things, but only because the gameplayh itself is quite slow, meaning we have the time to move a virtual audio camera arround in order to explore the area and find out about potential dangers/points of interest.
Mistworld, on the other hand, proposes another type of gameplay, quite faster if not nervous, and a navigation/targetting system that, aztleast tfor me, is pretty well designed. It allows a real time group management, a quick and efficient map analysis. But it also allow us to observe something that, to me, is the major issue devs have to deal with. In mistworld, the navigation system is, as said, quite complete and precise. Technhically you can, in a few clicks and a few steps, have a fair idea of the map you're exploring. Still the big majority of players keep walking along the walls, bumping into them, and even then, getting lost in squares and mostly geometrically simple areas. Conclusion : finding the absolute best navigation system is worthless unless players start to actually use it at its full potential.

To conclude this probably to long post (my bad), I'd say that visually impaired players need to learn to trust true navigation again. Those who are affraid of exploring in real life (which is perfectly understandable)  could truely enjoy running arround in a game, like we use to do in the first audiogame generations. As for the technical part, I'd say the only way I see a suitable option is by merging most of the ideas we talked about toghether. From AHC or audioquake, there's probably the opening detection system to keep in mind. From many other games, the constant beacons for doors, stairs, items... From shadow line or shades of doom, a footstep based detection system could be a great addition. From mistworld, an elaborated targetting system. I'm not saying it would be easy to create or even to learn, but I'm pretty sure it would be worth trying.

All the best,
Simon

Yeah, honestly I'm fine with systems like in the last of us or God of war ragnarok, where they point you in the way to go  like it was demonstrated in post 1, I am the one who still have to direct the character towards the destination, and I am responsible if something of interest is nearby and decide to ignore nav assist for a bit. The more time I'm actually interacting with the game, the more immersive the experience. This is an example of auto travel that I would find acceptible:

In many games  traveling to a different map location is done via a menu  and once the location, bam, you're there, or you might get a travel animation while the game loads the area. Right now the best example of this that comes to mind is in the Libra of souls mode in soul calibur VI. You select your destination and confirm  then the caravan takes you there and it takes maybe 3 or 4 seconds at most, and at the very least, half a second, and you can be ambushed along the way, so you aren't just sitting idle waiting to finish traveling like I was doing with stardew. If you did have to wait for a character to finish traveling  I wouldn't mind so long as there was something else I could be doing, such as directing another unit's path like in soul calibur III chronicle of the sword rts campaign. At least then  I'm still actively engaging with the game.

I want to take a second and be fair to stardew valley, because it does have some of the things I wanted. For example, you can actually navigate a curser tile by tile and tell exactly what's there. This is in fact how you deal with crops and furniture placement. The only thing is that this takes time, and time is always moving forward, unless you install a time stop mod, which makes it too tempting to just slow or stop time and do everything and talk to everyone people wouldn't realistically have the time for. The access mod does have sounds for npcs and walls  to its credit, but they just aren't quite optimal yet last I checked, with them being off by default, the frequency kof playback not saving, and no way to differentiate north from south. Besides that, a lot of my time playing the game has just been sitting and waiting for my character to chase down an npc or exit, and thats just not as engaging to me as it would be if I was in control instead of some scripts. This is also context sensitive, if I enter coordinates to a ship and it takes me somewhere, then ok, cool, but my character in stardew isn't a ship.

Hi,
Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking forward to getting lost in a game. For me those are not the only two ways, being guided (even slightly), or getting lost. Between these options, there are plenty of navigation systems that might work.
To pick up your comparison @17, more than choçosing my global destination, I'd rather stop on my way, hearing people talking or even wanting to know what the landscape sounds like if I climb that hill even if it's not on the linear pathern the game's accessibility feature wants me to follow. Another example might be the aproach of a building. The nav assist (manual or auto activated) might guide me near the main entrance. But what if I want to check the back of the building, the windows, even if I end up opening the main door, just to have a more tactical approach, to see what might be waiting for me inside?
In the last of us, nothing prevents me from walking arround of course, except the fact that it won't be particularly useful since the game won't give me the info I'm looking for. I would more likely end up doing exactly what you all described in the previous posts as stumbling arround, spending much more time than necessary on a tiny part of the game.
I definitely get what a nav assist is made for, and if I don't enjoy that option as much as you do, I still think I'm getting the idea, especially in a game like the last of us which is afterall mostly story based. On the other hand the point I must respectfully disagree with is that it might be the only alternative against pure random walking and confusion. You are right in saying that, without any assist in a game that allready has no beacon or echoing footsteps , radar or anything, we would never find our way or very unlikely. But I can't be the only one wanting to explore, to get distracted by alternative ways, to follow npc's just to sazy what they're about. I've always been the kind of player wanting to discover secrets in games, to find out more about the lore, and still to enjoy the main storyline. As much as I get your appreciation of these options, I think all profiles of players deserve a chance to discover the full potential of a game.

That being said, I also know how hard it can be to develop such features, but I'm entirely convinced it worth the extra amound of work.

All the best,
Simon

Thank you all for the great conversation. Discussions like this are so important to make progress in accessibilty, and you just don't know who's reading this, it could be a potential game developer, be it a small indie dev or a representative of a triple A studio.
@Arkandias You should never be afraid to voice your point of view. No one has to agree with you but you still have the right to be heard. As it is you make some great points that are nicely balanced by @MusicFairy's views at the other end of the scale, and yet you both find common ground.
Everyone has provided so much information, it's an absolute goldmine for any developer looking to make an audiogame.

@Sightless, I completely agree with you. This strategy would only be relevant if your player character was designed to be blind.
While there's nothing wrong with this, we often play games to enable us through our avatar to do things we can't do in real life. If your player character can see, then that should be included into the design process. Which leads me to one thing that hasn't been mentioned so far yet I feel could be a good way to add to navigation - audible train of thought based on what the character is experiencing.
In the game Horizon Zero Dawn the player's character, Aloy, often voices her thoughts out loud. Sometimes this is just to add depth to the current scene, e.g. when travelling through a snow-covered mountainous terrain she'll occasionally say something like 'ugh snow chills - itches". Other times she says something more useful such as "I need to get to the top of that cliff, it's too steep to climb here, I wonder if there's another way up?". This tells the player the objective is at the top of the cliff but you can't climb it here and you need to look for another way.

I'm thinking navigation should take a multilayered approach taking aspects from many things previously mentioned.
Imagine a fantasy RPG. Your character enters a cave into a short tunnel which opens out into a large cavern. Your character says "hmm there's a light at the end of the tunnel, I'd better tread cautiously, I can hear something or someone ahead" You hear grunting sounds to accompany the dialogue. Your footsteps make sounds like treading on rock, maybe with a slight echo. Behind you you hear rocks falling and your character says "There's no going back now, I'd better press on". You reach the cavern, there's three trolls inside, you hear grunting, garbled speech and occasional heavy footsteps as they move about. You can hear a cooking fire crackling near the centre of the cavern. Your only exit is  an opening in the rock wall to the northeast, your character says "trolls! they're too strong for me, if I can just make a dash to that opening in the northeast wall before they spot me". You then have to try and move to the north east wall of the cavern. Bones crunching on the floor or water dripping from the roof can add flavour to the scene and indicate you're moving in the right or wrong direction. When you're near the northeast exit, autopathing takes over to guide you through the exit. You have to move yourself towards the general direction of the exit, but you won't stumble around trying to find it, especially if there's a time pressure to escape before being spotted by the trolls.

Sorry for the lengthy example but in summary you have audible train of thought, scene appropriate audio beacons, e.g. bones crunching, water dripping and autopathing. Autopathing could easily be an option to switch on or off. At any point while autopathing is in progress you should have the option to change your mind, e.g. you're near the exit when you suddenly remember you have the flaming broadsword of sunlight in your backpack and decide you'll engage the trolls in combat rather than run out of the cavern, you cancel autopathing just by pressing a movement direction.
The trolls had a treasure chest. An audio beacon such as coins clinking plays when you're fairly close, as you get closer the sound plays louder. Your character could say "there's a chest over by the west of the cavern, I wonder what they've been hoarding?". At this point you could have the option to autopath to the chest or just find it yourself. Upon collecting the contents, autopath to the exit since there's nothing else to discover. Autopathing would be controlled by the player pressing a button which would start your character moving to the nearest node be it the chest or exit. Which way you're moving could be qualified by your character saying "Lets see what's in here" or "Lets get out of here".
I feel something like this could give a lot of information allowing a method of finding your way around, allowing exploration and without breaking immersion. A system like this in a top down style game, like an action RPG such as the Diablo games, wouldn't be too hard to accomplish.

I agree, I think monologuing could become annoying, it would have to be used carefully and with an option to disable it at any point during the game, so you could enable it if you were struggling to find an objective but disable it otherwise. Another consideration is your overall game's file size. Too much dialogue would bloat your file. This is ok for a triple A studio with hundreds of people working on the game but for a single dev or a small team looking to distribute on somewhere like itch.io where there's a file size limit it could become a problem.

Fast travel is a nice mechanic and has two main uses. Firstly, to go back to Horizon Zero Dawn, the game world is huge and would take you possibly a couple of hours to travel on foot from one end to the other, faster if using a mount. Fast travel is enabled by discovering campfires where you can view the game map and move to another discovered campfire anywhere in the game world. Some games like Diablo have shrines or portals you can use to fast travel to other areas in the game cutting down on having to travel all the way back through areas you've previously cleared just to get back to town to unload loot and upgrade gear.
A second use is to make a game world appear much larger than it really is. Using an overworld map you fast travel between key locations, often with a short time lag to simulate travel time, during when you could be ambushed, as described by @KenshiraTheTrinity with the Soul Caliber IV example. I've seen this done with Fallout 2 as well as other games. You only need to create the key locations and then link them together in the overworld map to create the illusion of a vast continent. Random encounters would vary on numbers and type depending on where you were travelling from and to.

The fleshed out locations would feature audio beacons, autopathing to specific navigation nodes when in an appropriate range of the node, monologuing where required and if desired, compasses, cane sonar, audio tiles, environmental audio etc.

An overland map is very easy to create for an audiogame; it's essentially an audio camera system scanning a grid. You could limit the camera movement to only the areas discovered or known about. There's so much you can do with it.

@23 To give you a tactical view you'd need dialogue along the lines of "There's a chest to the west but my only way out is northeast. I can see water dripping to the north and a colony of bats roosting on the eastern wall".
Autopathing wouldn't kick in here, you've been told which ways to go depending on what you want to do, you know the trolls are around the cooking fire in the centre of the cavern, where you go is up to you. Autopathing if enabled would only start if you were close to either the chest or the exit. Autopathing is only to save you from hitting the wall and then having to walk along it until you find the way out or walking past the chest over and over.
If the trolls had a sensory range, you could try and follow the wall to your left, going west and sneak to the chest. You would very much have as much control as possible over your actions. Again, autopath would only kick in if enabled and only if you're close to the chest. The trolls would attack you if they spot or smell you, if you get too close to them. Bone crunching would help you determine if you were getting too close and they'd sound louder. Once you open the chest, the trolls will attack as they hear you looting it. You know you've got to go east from the chest and then north and northeast to the exit. Water dripping could act as a guide, it gets louder and more frequent as you get nearer, and you know you're near the north wall. Rock crumbling noises could indicate if you're near the wall. If you hear bats chirping you know you're near the eastern wall. You know which way to go towards the exit. Again, autopath would only kick in if you were reasonably close. I'd maybe limit monologuing to only triggering on entering the room to set the scene and provide tactical information and maybe when you're close to and facing towards either the chest or exit.