An article just went up on Eurogamer talking about the Periphery Synthetic game and the state of game accessibility for both blind gamers and blind developers. It features comments from many respected blind consultants and developers including @talon, @shaysters and yours truely. I think it's totally worth a read because it covers the topic from multiple angles very well eurogamer.net/periphery-synthe… #GameAccessibility #GameDev #IndieDev

Before I go to bed for the day I'm just gonna leave this here because I definitely didn't just spend an hour playing when I should probably be resting. Someone just made an accessibility mod for Balatro and now I understand why this game blew up. If you haven't heard of it, you're basically making the best poker hands possible with a standard card deck trying to reach increasingly higher score targets. For reaching them you get money which you can use in the shop to buy various upgrades and special cards that let you get even higher scores, which gives you more money... And that's how the game loop works. All this is accompanied by some very chill background music and satisfying sound effects. Another win for #GameAccessibility for sure. You can find the mod here forum.audiogames.net/topic/541…

A whole bunch of stuff happened in blind friendly gaming this month, including 2 new mobile roguelike card games, and a looooooot of updates. Plus, announcements of the upcoming Last of Us part II remaster and voting being opened for GAConf awards 2023. #GameAccessibility forum.audiogames.net/topic/502…

Re last boost which you can read by looking at the thread: I can basically echo all of what Talon said. Sure, part of it for me is probably because I spent a lot of my childhood crashing my way through tracks in games like NFS Porsche Unleashed and watching Top Gear and other car shows, but this game, even if you’re not into the genre, is another huge step forward. I think it says a lot that even though I found starting out to be pretty hard and I wouldn’t consider myself great at the game yet, I find I keep coming back for more. A lot of it, of course, is the accessibility. And of course there are things which could be improved like the onboarding experience or having access to more information like your speed or position during a race without having to pause the game but holy shit I can actually drive these cars and take turns like a sighted person and I love it! And that’s the other thing, the cars. There’s so many of them and having played the game you can really feel how they’re different - like sure, a classic muscle car might sound much more badass than something smaller with a 4-cillinder engine but good lord they steer so much worse. But, if you find a car you like but want to improve it you can start to tune it and this is also where the game gets really fun, because you get very detailed descriptions on what each part does and you can also have the upgrades done automatically if you don’t want to go through all of them. And these tunes can have a dramatic effect on how the car feels and sounds. And that nicely leads me to the other thing that keeps me playing, the sound design is just amazing. Hearing my engine get a more aggressive growl after upgrading the exhaust, combined with hearing the pops of backfire echoing off the tracks is something else. Also, the sense of speed you hear from the whistling of a turbo, the wine of an upgraded race transmission, the rumble of the tires and the whooshes of passing scenery, it is all just sooooo satisfying and not a feeling I got from any other audio racing game. It’s just this fact that I get to experience these feelings properly like anyone else playing this game, that’s the amazing part. What the accessibility team at Turn 10 did, with help of @superblindman’s consulting, it’s awesome. This year for #GameAccessibility has been absolutely huge and I love it!

Here are two videos about #GameAccessibility taken from GAConf US 2023 you might find interesting. First, a deep dive on how audio description for Mortal Kombat 1 was created, featuring @RossMinor youtu.be/tZ1H2RXuCCA?si=47mWAU…

Here’s some fun news from the unexpected #GameAccessibility story department: For those who don't know, there's a ton of very little and cheep handheld emulation consoles you can get from China, which run their own linux-based OS which is just a UI for a bunch of emulators. Well, someone got in touch with a developer of this software and apparently pretty soon if you want to make one of these speak the menus, it’ll soon be possible to load a version of this software that does. forum.audiogames.net/topic/497…

As if you didn’t have enough to get hyped for in #GameAccessibility this year, this teaser was just posted to the audiogames forum. If you recognize where the music comes from you’ll know why this will be a big deal. vocaroo.com/19oBGaTVgpiO

The April 2023 audiogames.net monthly digest is live, gathering all the news about games accessible to those with vision impairments. THis month is absolutely stacked, with @nightblade9’s audiogame jam, @superblindman’s surprise Forza announcement and more! forum.audiogames.net/topic/483… #GameAccessibility