2013-03-25 11:37:09

Hi.

does anyone know what the state of play is with silversword at the moment? Phil a while ago indicated that access changes were still happening, but the writeup on applevis isn't encouraging. I've mailed the dev, both to appologize on the part of the accessible games community for the behaviour of certain individuals, and also to ask where the game is access wise, but if anyone has tried it and could let me know that would be great.

The writeup on the site looks amazing, so it would be fantastic if this one was! accessible, and as Kodp shows, there is no reason a really complex game can't be accessified.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2013-03-25 12:15:07

Hi Dark!
As i checked it a wchile ago, the game seems to be accessible in some parts. The most frustrating was moving around cause you can't see where you are going. I didn't completed a tutorial sadly.

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2013-03-25 12:55:55

Hi.
I have tried the game a while ago, but didn't found it playable at all, mainly because of navigation issues.

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
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2013-03-25 15:21:00

Fair enough, i will try it and see what I can do.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2013-03-26 01:37:20

I tried the game back when it had a lite version, it could be easily made accessible if the map had a text description to choose in the settings menu.. The developer had a bad time with one blind guy but we need to show him that implementing the accessibility will open a new genre of games for us on ios, even talking about windows we only have entombed.. I'm still a bit reluctant to pay 4 dollars to get a game that will never be accessible, however if the dev confirm that he is working to Improve accessibility ill instantly do it.. I've found the games twitter info which is @silverswordinfo I think. I think that the email is available only in the games menus. Hope someone can contact him and we end up getting this awesome single player playable for us!

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matrheine at gmail . com

2013-03-26 02:30:49

At the moment, developer is not answering on twitter, don't know if he's ignoring, probably.

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2013-03-26 03:18:59

update!
i've just found the e-mail address of the developer, it's:
[email protected]
i'm going to write an e-mail right now and recommend you that want to see the game accessible to write as well,
be careful with what you write, because the developer stopped implementing accessibility because of the pressure put on him.
let's hope!

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matrheine at gmail . com

2013-03-26 10:04:43

Hello folks,

Please refrain from spamming me with e-mails. I am really aware of your interest in this game, because I got tons of mails, tweets, trick and treats over the last 18 months. I can assure you that I read every tweet and every e-mail, but I will not respond to every channel.

I don't like it when people gather in the hope of achieving their goal. This might work in politics, but I am no politician. I react allergic to such forum calls like "write an email as well if you want to see the game accessible". I can assure you: this won't do any good at all.

Everything that I can do for Silversword becoming more accessible is already in the works.

Kind regards
Mario

Silversword Developer

2013-03-26 10:58:20

hello mario. ok, i'm really really sorry for my bad attitude then. usualy this approach of getting more people to contact developers work because
they start to see the interest in the accessibility and by seeing that there could be many more sales of the app they decide to implement it,
obviously you're already aware of the fact that we want so much the game to be accessible then, so i assure you i won't bother you again with e-mails
asking for it.

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2013-03-26 11:16:57

Thank you very much Matheus :-)

In fact, money doesn't play a role in this, because I develop this game in my spare time. Earning money is something I usually do at work, and my boss tells me how to be successful in that ;-) Silversword was made out of love, and not the need to earn money with it.
Of course it would be nice to get more sales, but if I would calculate the invested time against the total sales of the game, I had to stop immediately and declare bankruptcy ;-)

I have decided to give the accessibility some more love, because this is an interesting task, and I care for you. How far this goes, I cannot tell by now.
The most difficult task will be to give you enough information so that you can imagine where you are right now (view + map). But as I said - work in progress. Your input and ideas regarding possible means to enhance this are greatly welcome.
You might discuss this in this thread, and I will listen.

Kind regards
Mario

2013-03-26 12:03:32

I will please also ask people to refrain from spamming the developer with E-mails, tweats etc, since what is needed hear is intelligent discussion, not constant winjing.

Now that mario has posted to this forum thread, I will admit that I have suggested a few ideas concerning map access, use of coordinates, some minimal area descriptions etc, however this will not be an instant process, albeit that I do see it as possible, therefore people's patience is also appreciated.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2013-03-26 13:36:06

Do you have any ideas on how to make the map more accessible?

Right now it consists of a lot of tiny bitmaps that are put together.
Question is: how can this turned into something that will help you?

Kind regards
Mario

2013-03-26 14:09:26

Hi.

As I said in the previous mail, once all elements of the screen were labled,, what is needed is some way of getting the same information about where you are that does not require looking at the bitmaps, eg, a coordinates system, a short word about the current room etc. if the map is indeed made up of many bitmaps, probably one of the best ways to begin would be labeling them in text that vo could read with short location names as to where you were, sort of like the short room names in interactive fiction games, (obviously full descriptions would be impractical).

From what I can determine of the games over all mechanics, you move in steps, not complete analogue movements, rather like moving in chess, so it's really only necessary for a vi player to know A, what space on the map they are on, B, what directions it is possible to move in from that space, and C, if possible, have a vague idea of how this relates to the rest of the map, (hence the suggestion of coordinates).

if individual rooms could be identified, the game would be quite playable even without use of the full scale graphical map, indeed there are many text adventure games that come with no such graphical map overviews.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2013-03-26 14:25:23

Hi Mario!
Nice to see You here. As big fan of RPGs i remember when i tested Your game first time. I was able to read everything, from talk to buttons etc. Only problem i encountered was a map and where i am. This is where i was stucked at all, so don't know what about later, fights etc. As Dark mentioned, it's the best idea to give a short description to the player. Also, do a automatic VO reading after every click because right now it's not refreshing and you must touch the screen somewhere to refresh VO to read new things on it.
I hope it will grow to great fully accessible product fun for hours.
Actually, charging someone to do something is totally wrong, but for love, from gamers to gamers.

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2013-03-26 15:01:44

Hi Mario,
I am a game developer for the blind and have put a map function in my Windows game, Sarah.
What it does is describe the grid of the map starting with the top left and reading the cells like a book, left to right and top to bottom. When the function finds something new it describes it and when it finds the same thing it makes a sound effect, both using stereo to locate the word or sound in a left to right stereo field.
Several people have told me that while giving you an idea where rooms are located it is too much invormation when describing a large map.
I am working on reducing the feature to a ten by ten cell grid around you instead of the 300 to 500 cell grid of the entire map.
One game for the iPhone, Robo-E has a review function in which you move your finger around the screen and what object or feature is touched is described.
This way of reading a map is better as you can relate the position of your finger to how far things are away from you.
It describes the location of walls, empty cells, and your location along with objects such as balls and rings.

2013-03-27 11:03:08

Hi Mario.
Nice to see you here, and great to see that you catched this topic so quickly.
Now, I'm not sure about how your game works, because I don't know if I've missed any information while reading the screen with Voiceover on the iPhone.
The easiest for me when it comes to maps would be text descriptions of the actual room you're in like a text adventure or a mud. I don't need a layout of the whole map, but just some descriptions so I can tell if I've been there before. Direction descriptions which tells the name of the rooms in each direction or something simular would be enough for me.
Can you tell a bit more about the game and what features it have? I got stuck while trying to navigate on the map at the beginning of the game, so more information would be very much welcome.

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/sorenjensen1988
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2013-03-27 13:42:43

There are no distinct rooms.
Each map consists of single squares that you can enter, it is a tile-based layout. Similar to a chessboard.
In the upcoming version I will give you the following Voice-Over info on the navigation buttons within the view:

Move forward will contain the direction, and if the next square in front of you is blocked, passable and/or interactive.
If it is blocked, it will tell you if there is water, or a tree. If it is passable, it will inform you if you pass a door.

Turn left / right will inform you about the new direction that you will face after turning.

Kind regards
Mario

2013-03-27 18:52:08

hi mario! so i decided to purchase the game now to try to help with good suggestions, the method you described
would be perfect, by telling the user what's around him when putting  the finger in the different directions "turn left, right, move forward and
backward", so it's possible to implement? and how will the user know when there will be traps, stairs, etc? i haven't experienced the fights yet,
because i couldn't finish the tutorial, apparently i got to a castle by accident and they didn't allowed me to leave, saying that i needed permission.
the map will be a little harder to be made accessible or there's also a possibility? right now voiceover reads the name of a location, for example the
castle, and there's an unlabeled button.
thanks!

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email:
matrheine at gmail . com

2013-04-09 18:27:47

Hi everyone. If you haven't already, please update to the latest version of the game, besides this new expansion mario already worked on the voiceover
compatibility and technicaly we can play the game because voiceover reads most things, including what's in front of you, combat messages,
equipment, character stats, the storyline, etc.
the map isn't accessible, this wouldn't be a problem if the maps were smaller, what happens in the current situation is that i'm easily getting lost
and coming back to were i was before because there's no room descriptions, if it used a coordinates system it would be easier to find my way around I
think, not sure if it's easy to implement though. speaking of the crosshair, it saves some time being able to step left/right without having to turn
east and west, but although we can step in these directions we don't know if the passage is blocked or not, i don't know if you understand what i mean
, it only describes what's in front of you, do the sighted players see only what's in front of you or the surroundings as well?
if the buttons said for example: move forward: passable, step left: blocked - wall step right: passable move backward: blocked - wall
it would be faster to navigate instead of turning.
these are my suggestions, i managed to leave the castle and i'm lost in the road, i'm fighting random creatures, it's very fun!
one of them even joined my team..
thanks so much for everything mario!!

contact info
email:
matrheine at gmail . com

2013-04-10 08:41:04

Hi.
Oh, thanks for the information. I'll give it a try. It's really nice to see more VO support.

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/sorenjensen1988
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soerenjensen

2013-04-14 02:54:16

Hi All,
I am very happy to see this accessibility. It's a step in the right direction for certain, although I find navigating open spaces kind of frustrating with the limited info we have available at the moment. Nevertheless, this is great, and I hope to see more added soon. I've always wanted to play a game in this style.