I am a part of a team that are currently working on a game inspired by a Norwegian "tv series".
And in the team there is also a blind person working on the story and that person contacted me today asking me this question:
I been thinking about the game and I know alot of other blind Brødrene Dal fans (the "tv series" the game is based on) and it is difficult for us playing these kind of games. Is there a way to make it so we could play it aswell?
I remember seeing a post about someone making a game where you only have to use one key.
So I was thinking when she asked me that, there just have to be somehow to make the game so blind people also can play it.
Do any of you have any ideas of how to make a game playable for blind people and still keep the point & click system for seeing people?
Thanks,
Peder Johnsen.
It's has to be an talkie, obviously, and maby you can play a sound when the cursor is over an hotspot/object/character. My mainly idea is to play with sounds, have sound effects when different things happens and so on. Maby it isn't to any help but it's the only thing I can think of.
To keep the point & click feeling, you can use the arrow keys. I think it's a bit hard to use the mouse, and if you remove the possibility to move the cursor free, I belive you lose the feeling.
Yeah, I'd add an optional voice-over for every room too, describing it as the player enters. Like the old text-adventures really.
Voice commands.
Voice telling to press this or this button to pick up that or that item. Ofcourse there is a short description of the room first. And to make things little more interesting, add some extra items.
Hi.
I was the creator of the one button game, Invincible Island.
Interesting idea. Here is what I would do.
1. There needs to be a game option to choose normal play or visually impaired play.
2. On entering a room give the player a full verbal description of everything there is to see. A brief description can be given on later visits to the same room but there needs to be a way to get the full description back, like pressing the 'Return' key. I would avoid using large scrolling rooms.
3. Use a left click for action and a right click for cycle cursor. The cursor would cycle between walk, look, use, talk and current held inventory item. This is the default setup anyway.
4. When the mouse is over a hotspot, object, exit, character etc. its name is spoken to the player.
5. To make these hotspots etc. easier to find they could be cycled through by pressing the spacebar. For example if you press space the mouse cursor would jump to the door and if you pressed it again it would jump to 'Dave the butcher'. Clicking the left button would carry out the desired action on this hotspot.
6. Tab could be used to open the inventory like it does in a lot of games. The right mouse button would cycle between look and use. The left button would select. The inventory would be scrolled through using the arrow keys with each name being spoken to the player. Tab closes the inventory window. The selected inventory will be the cursor and it will became the held inventory in the right click cycle.
7. I would recomend using a simpler conversation tree if you have visually impaired switched on. Instead of giving the player a set of questions or replies used forced conversation instead. ie. the player has no control of what is being said.
These are just a few ideas, There is a lot of room for improvement.
Good luck.
Andy Mason
I really like your idea macon, though I would probably decide to use keys instead of left and right mouse click. Otherwise I think alot of what you said is a really great idea!
Thanks, and to everyone else to and if anyone else have more ideas please let me know.
Thanks,
Peder Johnsen.
I meant, that microphone can be used, so these guys don't have to move mouse in random order to find a hotspot.
A graphical adventure for blind people is useless, because they won't see the graphics, so why bother go "graphic adventure". Go IF.
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/StoryHarp/
Check it out. Probably not the ultimate solution, but a step in the right direction.
EDTI - By "they won't see the graphics" I mean they won't be able to point - c'mon, you know how frustrating it is to try and move the mouse when you can't see where the cursor is, it must have happened to you at least once. ANd that plus no graphics equals a need to re-structure gameplay, because the gameplay of what we know as "graphical adventures" simply won't do. Therefore, a new ngameplay scheme is necessary. The IF scheme happens to fit.
BTW, there's a version of DOOM flying around. A DOOM for blind people. Wish I could find the link, it relied heavily on sounds and 3D sound effects.
Quote from: Rui "Trovatore" Pires on Sat 22/09/2007 00:32:15
BTW, there's a version of DOOM flying around. A DOOM for blind people. Wish I could find the link, it relied heavily on sounds and 3D sound effects.
Indeed, I've played it. Shades of Doom, or something like that. Pretty weird, but also cool.
As for point-and-click games for blind people, a cursor could be used with sound. Imagine as you move your cursor close to an object on-screen, a particular sound for that object would get louder and more focused.
Moving the cursor "past" the object (ie.to the left or right of it's position on-screen) would cause the sound to move between each speaker/earphone, thus allowing the player to determine the object's position in relation to the sound. Clicking the object could then trigger an interaction or some such.
It would take a fairly complicated system to enable a game designed as such to function in a coherent fashion, of course.
I don't think Peder meant actually creating a graphic adventure for blind people, what he was asking how can you make a graphic adventure available to blind people as well as normal sighted people. This is why I suggested using a key to skip through the various hotspots to avoid the problems you mentioned.
Andy
Fish, that's allright if you only have an X axis, or a Y axis. But when you get them both together, a steady hand is needed - that and an unhealthy dose of patience. In which case the arrow keys would work...
...but we're, once again, thinking like people who can see. Point-n-click is to be intuitive - you see it, you click it. You remove the "see it" bit, you have to make a major workaround, therefore ruining the intuitive bit of it, therefore ruining the point-n-click part. Whether or not ruining point-n-click ruins the adventure game is debatable, and I for one don't think it does... but it's hardly the best tool.
Macon - if that's what he meant, then what I said in this post pretty much stands. Computer games are a visual medium - Shades of Doom (thanks, Fish!) and such are exceptions for a specific target-audience, and they are *very* specific, they have their own schemes, codes, whatever. Making a game work in both worlds is an insane amount of work - better to make it in one or the other.
Quote from: Rui "Trovatore" Pires on Sat 22/09/2007 00:59:49
Fish, that's allright if you only have an X axis, or a Y axis. But when you get them both together, a steady hand is needed - that and an unhealthy dose of patience. In which case the arrow keys would work...
Oh sure. You'd have to specifically tailor a game to accommodate such a system, working it in a way so as to avoid aural confusion and such. Simply applying it to a graphic adventure also meant to be played by sighted people would be a nightmare.
Indeed, I fail to see how such a game could be made to equally accommodate both sighted and sight-impaired players.
The beauty of Shades of Doom is that it's intended to be played by blind people and, designed as such, presents the sighted player with a blank screen. Sighted people can play it, of course, but their experience within the game is no different to that of sight-impaired players.
I understand this may be considered slightly offtopic, but what about a game created ground up to tailor to both. It wouldn't be point and click, but maybe being sightless could be a theme of the game, with some graphics, but nothing nessicary. I'm not going to think too hard about it yet, but it sounds like good idea to me. Something for everybody, right?
How about giving the main character one of those sticks so he could feel the ground ;)
Guys, I've got a great idea:
Text adventure!!!
When a player enters a room, he/she hears a voice narration, maybe some ambient sounds.
Then the person says in his/her microphone, what he/she wants to do!
Voice narration again.
How about that?
Quote from: Rui "Trovatore" Pires on Sat 22/09/2007 00:32:15
A graphical adventure for blind people is useless, because they won't see the graphics, so why bother go "graphic adventure". Go IF.
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/StoryHarp/
Check it out. Probably not the ultimate solution, but a step in the right direction.
Quote from: Lionmonkey on Sat 22/09/2007 11:08:02
Guys, I've got a great idea:
Text adventure!!!
When a player enters a room, he/she hears a voice narration, maybe some ambient sounds.
Then the person says in his/her microphone, what he/she wants to do!
Voice narration again.
How about that?
I did have the suspicion no one had paid the link the least attention. Now I know for sure. :P
Quote from: Rui "Trovatore" Pires on Sat 22/09/2007 11:33:10
Quote from: Rui "Trovatore" Pires on Sat 22/09/2007 00:32:15
A graphical adventure for blind people is useless, because they won't see the graphics, so why bother go "graphic adventure". Go IF.
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/StoryHarp/
Check it out. Probably not the ultimate solution, but a step in the right direction.
Quote from: Lionmonkey on Sat 22/09/2007 11:08:02
Guys, I've got a great idea:
Text adventure!!!
When a player enters a room, he/she hears a voice narration, maybe some ambient sounds.
Then the person says in his/her microphone, what he/she wants to do!
Voice narration again.
How about that?
I did have the suspicion no one had paid the link the least attention. Now I know for sure. :P
Oh, sorry for inventing the bicycle again.
But this made me think. What about dialogs? Ofcourse the dialog options will be red to the player, but hearing same stuff over and over again could get quite boring imho.
One solution may be that the dialog options are shortened sentences. Instead of full sentence player hears only something like: "Ask roger about that stuff", and when he chooses it, totally different full sentence is played, creating the point of surprise.
And I still don't think that cursor is the best idea, it would be something like pixel hunting and really messy. Better with tablet though...
So I think the game should be buttons only, since buttons are easier to find on keyboard... There could be set of buttons which represent certain actions and set of buttons which represent items in the room - suggestion numpad. And to add more items than 9, you qould make it like this: push an action button, then object button(s) (ie 12) and then hit enter.
I don't see the point of cursor because mostly the objects are seen anyway when person enters the room, so why search for it blindly? And some objects may still be hidden, so you have to do certain actions first to find them, like moving a curtain.
Or the main player character is blind in the game too? That would add a lot and tuirn things even more upside down XD
Anyway, this game sounds like lots of voice acting :D
Maybe a keywork-based conversation? Maybe the player could *say* the words. It would need voice-recognization software, but it would be interesting. You'd say,
"robbery"
and the game would then verbalise your question, or a question based upon the keyword or a ynonim (theft, etc).
This is meant to be a point and click grapichal game.
But there is many blind people that are fans of the "series" and that would like to play it.
I still like macons idea the best, radiowaves also got some good points though they are in the area of what macon said (I believe). (no the main characterS aint blind.)
But I see how this can be alot of EXTRA work to get it playable for blind people, thinking about the dialog specially. As it would have to be a completely different way of dialog for the blind and also the voice acting would be alot more work caused by that.
Though I will take the ideas into thinking and see if I can come up with a really good solution in the end.
Peder Johnsen.
I don't see why dialogues should be so much of a problem. Many games (Sam 'n Max, The Dig, etc) just have a word in the options instead of the whole of what the player would actually say. One word options can easily be said out loud, and perhaps their order can be consistent (Compliment, Sarcastic Comment, Question, Exit), so that after a while, the player just presses a number or something to say what is required, and only the additional options that would pop up would be said out loud.
Lots of people are mentioning voice recognition, and I'm not sure if the game is made in AGS, but I'd think it would be difficult to implement nonetheless.
I'm thinking of something among the lines of...
this (http://misendeavour.com/files/blind.rar)
though I may be wrong.
Upd: This is a demonstration of what i think could be done (and, more important, how) with all these games for sight-impaired.
There's a sample open-source game and a script module. Controls are: E, T, U, I for selecting cursor mode, Space for selecting hotspot, Enter to click.
Perhaps you should omit the word "graphical" from the title of this thread.
I think HE'S still wanting to figure out how adapt his graphical adventure for the blind. Everyone else is working around the graphical part. But "graphical" part of the challenge is still relevant since the OP still wants it. Hosnestly, without making the whole thing ground up voice activated, or using only a couple keystrokes for the included "only a couple options", I can't see how to just adapt your game. But, how expienced am I? ;)
[qoute]This is meant to be a point and click grapichal game.
But there is many blind people that are fans of the "series" and that would like to play it.[/quote]
If you've only got one leg, you can't compete in the olympic's marathon.
But you CAN compete in the paralympics.
With the above two sentences, I think I've summed up my point better than I have done before, and will leave it at that.
Has no-one thought of text-to-speech programs or other screen readers? All you need to do is to have all the text in the game accessible to these programs and add in some sort of markers about what is what for them, and leave those non-visual so they won't be in the way of the people who can see.
The mouse bit then... Pointing something towards a point on two axises shouldn't be that impossible. There's a thing called an eco-gun which relies on this. The closer you're aming to bullseye the higher and faster the beeping sound it makes is. The problem, though, is that not all blind people are ever taught to use a mouse, so said group would still have some difficulties.
One of your options for input would be a parser. Blind people can still type, remember. You wouldn't need voice recignition.
My mom works with blind people and I actually got an adventure game designed for just kids wich has either bad eyesight or are completely blind.
It's an old text based game which as Ishmael says can be read by screen-readers or can be read on one of these : http://www3.goteborg.se/ekonomi/arsbok03/pics/vohandikapp_1.jpg
I think one can use text-to-speech software with Inform interpreter. Look command would feel strange though.
Blind people can look just aswell. Just not with their eyes.
Quote from: Ishmael on Mon 24/09/2007 07:50:55
Blind people can look just aswell. Just not with their eyes.
Not really, but they can instruct the game character to look, unless (s)he's supposed to be blind as well.
All in all, I have to agree with those who say that this is all a bit pointless. It would probably be easier to simply develop a text adventure / IF game with the same story and basic puzzle structure as the graphical one on the side, and the result would surely be more enjoyable. Most of the proposed interfaces (based on echolocation or whatever) sound like they would make the game very hard to play, let alone enjoy. Not that they wouldn't be interesting as scientific experiments.
Also the descriptions would have to be keyed to blind people because, "Yous see a small white house in the middle of a field" ain't gonna help you if your blind. If the game was 3-d you could program in some system where you tap the ground and the computer figures out the reflections.
Quote from: lo_res_man on Mon 24/09/2007 16:28:57
Also the descriptions would have to be keyed to blind people because, "Yous see a small white house in the middle of a field" ain't gonna help you if your blind.
I don't understand this, am probably missing something. How is this information not helping a blind person?
Imagine that there's a constant tone. As you move the mouse around, the tone lowers and rises based on line-of-sight distance from objects based on the player's perspective. So you figure out there's an object in the room. You click where the tone is high, since that means there's a surface close to you. Now you're zoomed in and you can explore the object's geometry in a similar fashion. Now maybe you can tell that what you're looking at is a shelf?
Would such a tone at least partially compensate for the lack of a cane or the ability to lay hands upon the surroundings?
Now, I know that this would not be especially helpful for adapting existing games (or would it?), but it might be a way to implement entire games for the blind, maybe even challenge sighted players to use their ears as the primary sense.
QuoteAs you move the mouse around, the tone lowers and rises based on line-of-sight distance from objects based on the player's perspective.
Talking about line-of-sight is tricky - how do blind people understand line-of-sight? As far as they can easily sense, their world ends a few feet around them, in a circle created by their cane. Maybe line-of-hearing?
Bottom line remains the same - we're not blind, so we're trying to find solutions that are grounded firmly in what we think would help, but with all these little basic assumptions we don't really think about anymore.
You'd need an actual blind person to design this sort of game, or at least converse with one at length to understand how he senses the world. And even then there's a very big difference between blind-at-birth and blindness later on. The former has never seen. The latter has, and it's easier for us to communicate with.
Quote from: Neil Dnuma on Tue 25/09/2007 04:07:12
Quote from: lo_res_man on Mon 24/09/2007 16:28:57
Also the descriptions would have to be keyed to blind people because, "Yous see a small white house in the middle of a field" ain't gonna help you if your blind.
I don't understand this, am probably missing something. How is this information not helping a blind person?
Do they know what white is? Apart from that, though, all the other information seems available for a blind person.
EDIT -Candall, your example is interesting, but it makes "recognizing a shelf" a hard task. Imagine playing a whole game like that.
One very important thing - in computer games we (player, not the PC) only have two senses - we SEE and we HEAR. In real life, we have three others. Texture alone would help us recognize a shelf in real life - trying to reproduce it in a computer is impossible or too hard to be worth the effort.
EDIT2 - I hope I'm not coming across as the "doomsayer" of this idea. I just want to make perfectly clear that there are tons of problems with this idea, which keep being overlook by the simple fact that the suggestions are made by people who can actually see. But, if asked, I would have said the "Invincible Island Remake" game would have been a waste of time, the interface would have been too cumbersome, etc... but I ended up playing it to the end, loving it.
Being blind doesn't make you stupid. If you tell a blind person there's a house in the middle of a field they know what you mean. But if you want to have the game to be percievable to a blind person as a blind person in the game you'll need to have the descriptions in the format of "You feel a round, cold, smooth object" instead of "You see a metal ball". And this, in my opinion would be the correct way to go. You have eyelids, you can close them. You have a brain, you can exclude purely visual detail from the descriptions.
Quote from: Rui "Trovatore" Pires on Tue 25/09/2007 11:56:49Bottom line remains the same - we're not blind
I am bureaucrately 88% blind, mind you.
QuoteI am bureaucrately 88% blind, mind you.
That helps. But you still know what "white" is. You still have visual references.
It seems more and more obvious to me, the more I think about it, that we really do need to distinguish "blind at birth" and, well, not blind at birth. With people who did get some eyesight, there's a lot of things you can do - it's much easier because you can close your eyes and go, "ok, so this is how it feels, this is what it's like". Blind-at-birth, though, it's a whole new world.
Quote from: Rui "Trovatore" Pires on Tue 25/09/2007 12:12:03
QuoteI am bureaucrately 88% blind, mind you.
That helps. But you still know what "white" is. You still have visual references.
Blind at birth people are taught to ignore such detail, I suppose. No-one's ever snapped when being told what colour something is that I've seen or heard of.
Colour is an example.
Look, all our cues are visual cues. Shape. Colour. Distance (very important), and depth. Immediate recognization of objects.
People who don't have those cues still get all those things (except for colour, I suppose), but in a different way. And we're trying to reproduce these cues we know *nothing* about in a *visual* medium.
As I said, smooth, cold, round, heavy object instead of metal ball.
I give up. I'm talking about structure, about the foundations, and you keep talking about a description. Either I'm not getting my point across, or I just don't get yours. Either way, carry on, I won't bother y'all anymore. :P
Quote from: Ishmael on Tue 25/09/2007 12:09:07
Being blind doesn't make you stupid. If you tell a blind person there's a house in the middle of a field they know what you mean. Quote from: Rui "Trovatore" Pires on Tue 25/09/2007 11:56:49Bottom line remains the same - we're not blind
I am bureaucrately 88% blind, mind you.
I didn't say they were stupid. what I meant was someone who has been blind from birth would have trouble with a description from an old infocom IF. The example I used was close to (probably not exact) the opening description in Zork. probably should have looked up an exact quote. On the other hand a IF written by a blind person or with some serious research would be fascinating. and technically an IF would be the easiest adventure genre to adapt.
It's quite possible to understand things you can't experience. It's called an imagination. Most blind people know what "white" is. It's not like they live in an enclosed commune only for the blind. They certainly know that white is a blank, bright colour.
Also, many blind people aren't born blind. Many lose their sight through an accident or as they age. Most blind people aren't going to have any problem at all with "white house in field."
That said, shape and feel are probably better choices to appeal to blind people. You could be in a quiet field with tall grass brushing against your leg where you have heard there is an old house. The house could feel dry and worn up-close, with curled flakes of paint that are brittle to the touch and fall away into dust.
I can see a lot of value in making a blind version and a sighted version of a game, rather than adapting it for both on the fly.
QuoteThey certainly know that white is a blank, bright colour.
Give me a break. If they're blind from birth, they have no conception of colour, no matter how much imagination they have.
Yes they have, they have their own conception of colors. Something that may be totally different from ours. Actually every person has their own conception of colors and everything. How do you know that white is white? Maybe an alien says its totally something else and he sees the colors you can't even see, yet alone imagine.
We all live in our own fantasies that we call reality.
There have been studies in this field. I once saw a documentary about a genious who could do complicated calculations with big numbers and he didn't see the numbers as numbers, he saw them as feelings or something, different surfaces, objects, colors. Usually children have this sence of experiencing and feeling things, but once people get older...
Brain is so complicated you know. Who determines what we call senses?
A colour is a visual thing.
If they have a conception of colour, it's not what we call colour.
By the same logic, if you call that thing over there a dog, then I should be able to call it a chair.
Quote from: Rui "Trovatore" Pires on Tue 25/09/2007 19:53:13
A colour is a visual thing.
If they have a conception of colour, it's not what we call colour.
By the same logic, if you call that thing over there a dog, then I should be able to call it a chair.
Ahem, did you mean what you call color? Maybe my blue is your orange, we just call it with a same name.
Actually to this day scientists don't actually know what color is.
And remember, everything has no meaning beyond our mind, our brain determines how to see or hear things. There is no reality since things can only be observed by observer not by things themselves... You know, matter actually consists of nothingness...
I don't care if what you call blue is what we call orange. You're being purpusefully dense. Regardless of what the colour might be, colour is colour.
Lets get out of the philosiphy as enjoyable as it is. This topic isn't about that if anyone wants to start a topic n the nature of reality go ahead, we have had weirder topics.I am not saying they can't maybe imagine colours, I have heard of blind from birth people doing drawings. But they where rather on the crude side. Wouldn't it be easier for a blind from birth person to have descriptions he can more fully enjoy. That are more immersive for his world view. Put it in terms he or she can understand for intutivly.
Oh, this is precious. You're the one who's went off-topically-"philosophical". I was considering practical questions.
How did I! get philosiphical? I am sorry I don't understand
Damn. Sorry. I didn't mean you, obviously. I'm just seeing red now, for other reasons. :P
oh oops, :-[ sorry I stole your offence from you cuz now I know you wern't giving it to ME :P
I take issue with people who say making games that can be enjoyed by all people including the blind, physically disabled or deaf is a waste of time. It's all relative to what you as the developer of the game enjoy doing. Game developers are entertainers and if a blind person can enjoy their games, that's awesome. If I design my game so they can enjoy it just as well as someone who is sighted, then that will be hugely satisfying and worthwhile.
I got the same kind of reaction when I did my closed captioning mod for Doom3 so that the hard of hearing could play the game. People would say, "Doom3 is all about sound, deaf people can't play! What a waste of time." Truly disgusting, arrogant and mis-informed comments. The mod has proven without a doubt that deaf people can and do enjoy Doom3.
As for an adventure game that can be played by the blind, a sight assisted mode where there is a screen scanner that automatically jumps from hotspot to hotspot, calling it out could be helpful. I enter a room and my current cursor is set to LOOK. The cursor jumps to a window automatically and I hear, "look at object, window", then after several seconds it jumps to a character named Jackie D. and I hear, "look at character, Jackie D."
-Reid
There's a tiny difference between putting subtitles on a game relying heavily on eye-candy and designing an point&click adventure for blind people.
I can't see any reasonable way to do the latter; IF is the only way IMO.
At the end it really comes down to removing everything graphical from the game, including pointing with a mouse. If I were blind I wouldn't want to constantly hear some sonar bleep, neither would I enjoy listening to another hotspot's name every few seconds.
One of the most important things of every game is the interface; it has to be intuitive, and it has to do what I want, when I want. When I encounter a game that won't let me skip dialogs or cutscenes, I uninstall it immediately.
If you want to create a game that can be enjoyed by both blind and seeing people, go for IF.
Quote from: Reid on Wed 26/09/2007 01:16:58
I take issue with people who say making games that can be enjoyed by all people including the blind, physically disabled or deaf is a waste of time.
I take issue with people who put it in cases of black or white and then extrapolate it into something to take issue of.
I say that writing a whole book in Braille or in Morse Code is a huge waste of time. But some people do it. Guess what, not everyone's the same. If people were to take offence at stuff like this, they wouldn't have the time to *do* anything else.
KhrisMUC, and some other guys - maybe I should take some lessons from you guys, a lot of what's being said I've tried to say over several posts and some aggrievances, and you put it much more concisely.
EDIT - And Reid, if you're talking about
QuoteBut, if asked, I would have said the "Invincible Island Remake" game would have been a waste of time,
which you must be, since it's the only mention of time, why not read the sentence through? The point I wanted to make is that,
Quotethe interface would have been too cumbersome, etc... but I ended up playing it to the end, loving it.
Should I take offence at you not reading things through, or missing the point? No, because that'd be silly. Which is my current point.
Quote from: KhrisMUC on Wed 26/09/2007 05:48:29
If I were blind I wouldn't want to constantly hear some sonar bleep
Oh, it would get highly annoying, I agree. I was trying to come up with some way of suggesting geometry using only the equipment that the general audience would be using (sans video), and I'm aware that it's far from an ideal means. I've been thinking about it, though... so far to no avail on that front.
Does anyone know of any easy to use IF making software?
This is arguably the best IF authoring language: http://www.inform-fiction.org/inform6.html
For an overview of the available authoring systems check this page: http://www.firthworks.com/roger/cloak/
Quote from: radiowaves on Tue 25/09/2007 19:58:12
Ahem, did you mean what you call color? Maybe my blue is your orange, we just call it with a same name.
Actually to this day scientists don't actually know what color is.
And remember, everything has no meaning beyond our mind, our brain determines how to see or hear things. There is no reality since things can only be observed by observer not by things themselves...
We actually do know what the colour is. Objective definition of colour would be simply a wavelength of a particular photon. In that sence one could speak of gamma and ultraviolet "colours". That definition is not subjective, as one could measure wavelengths. Therefore one may say that the napkin is red because it reflects mostly red photons.
Subjective perception of colour could be flawed though. It would happen because you can't determine exact wavelength of light, unlike hearing, when you do percept fourier images of sounds, but in your eyes you only have three kinds of receptors (red, green and blue). Not only won't they tell a difference between red and orange (except they have different chances to be percepted), they also have different "weights" for your brain. As you may know, red light with the same intensity as the blue one would seem brighter to you.
What does that mean? Blind person can't be a painter, but could be an optic scientist.
p.s. My major is physics, if you can't tell :P
Rui, a blind person still wouldn't take offense of it in any way if you told them there is a white house in the field, even if they wouldn't know what white is. You're clinging to insignificant detail here, as the main point is "by what method" and not "in what form", as far as I understood.
And I still say text output for a screen reader. And as for navigating, for example the page up and page down keys browsing through hotspots (no arrow keys here, as they're used to navigate within the text) and maybe enter or space opening a menu for the possible actions, etc. Have the whole thing toggleable in the options, and maybe wipe off all other graphics than text when it's on so seeing people can't cheat with it :P
QuoteRui, a blind person still wouldn't take offense of it in any way if you told them there is a white house in the field, even if they wouldn't know what white is. You're clinging to insignificant detail here, as the main point is "by what method" and not "in what form", as far as I understood.
I never talked about offence, or if I did I never meant it, and my quoting of that example was just point out to whoever had asked that there only "unhelpful" thing in that desciprtion was the word "white". I was talking about concepts which we take for granted and would probably not work, or not satisfactorily, for someone who was born with a certain deficiency. My main point has always been, and still is, "reproducing, in a visual experience, something for people who can't see is very tricky because:". I most certainly never intended to deal with people denying the concept of "colour" just because. :P
..and I've tried to tell you they interpret the part of whatever's offered to them they can. The rest they ignore, and the best way to convey things so it's most interpreable to them is to deliver the information based on non-visual detail; yet visual detail doesn't hurt. Imagine it as reading a book. The blind people I know read somewhat a lot, and they don't have books written for them specifically.
And about writing a book in Braille... Braille is not a language, it's a typeface. You could write a book in braille, and for a person trained in writing it'd be about as fast as with a normal typewriter. Just a hell of a lot noisier, if writing on paper. :P
Quote..and I've tried to tell you they interpret the part of whatever's offered to them they can. The rest they ignore, and the best way to convey things so it's most interpreable to them is to deliver the information based on non-visual detail; yet visual detail doesn't hurt.
Indeed. But this thread was started with the idea of making adventure games available to blind people, and a lot of what was said showed that people were trying to make slight modifications to a visual genre in order to make it available to blind people. In other words, it's like just making the regular alphabet stick out in relief - which must not have worked, because then there was Braille. There was the necessity of making something based on the same principles (book, sheets, read left-to-right) but with re-vamped "interface" (a different alphabet more suitable for tact than vision).
QuoteAnd about writing a book in Braille... ETC
Whoops, sorry then, my bad for not knowing what I was talking about. :) Though I didn't mistake it for a language at all (nor do I think morse code is a language), I didn't think it would be such an easy process.
A braille letter is simply a blank six (as on a die), and raised spots of that six then make a letter. For example, "A" is only the upper left dot raised. A braille typewriter therefore has only seven keys (six for the dot positions, one for space). It's quite easy to use; I was able to type letters after a mere week without checking my translation sheet too often.
"Braille Lines" are used frequently at the playce I work. It's a small device that can be plugged into a computer and then creates the braille signs. There's some plugin software that can transform most word processor documents. And this software also still supports the zMachine format which is used by todays WinFrotz, an interpreter that can run virtually any IF written.
To me, that's the ideal way to make blind people play adventure games. It totally lacks the graphics, of course, but I've seen it in action. It's almost intimidating.
Actually, a braille typewriter has seven keys... You forgot the line break :=