skyp -k.c.kitty Begin forwarded message: From: "Rita Kersh" <[email protected]> Date: April 11, 2012 2:01:41 PM CDT To: "acb-l" <[email protected]> Subject: [acb-l] UCSC Grad Creates Rock Band-Like Video Game for the Blind Reply-To: Rita Kersh <[email protected]> UCSC Grad Creates Rock Band-Like Video Game for the Blind January
26, 2012
By Scott Rappaport
Designed to be accessible to people with severe visual impairments, it
replaces all necessary visual cues with auditory and tactile cues. Instead of
using a screen to deliver information, it uses vibrations.
“Games for the blind right now are largely audio games, and they tend to
get boring really quickly,” Dhillon notes. “They also have very little appeal to
sighted people.” The idea for the game was hatched at UC Santa Cruz in 2008.
Dhillon was taking a technology class in UCSC’s innovative Digital Arts
and New Media graduate program (DANM) and working with fellow students Molly
Landeau and Troy Allman. “We were discussing my thesis--a sound environment project accessible to
deaf people through vibrations,” Dhillon recalls. “ We were talking about it,
and Rock Band was in the room…one thing led to another, and we created Rock
Vibe.” “I do all the design. I do all the programming. It’s just me working on
it now.” says Dhillon. She has nothing but praise for the DANM program at UCSC, observing that
one of its greatest strengths is that it gives students the freedom to take a
wide variety of different courses. “I like building things,” says Dhillon. “But if I hadn’t taken that Human
Interaction course, I never would have come up with the idea for Rock Vibe.”
She added that professors in the program are very supportive of her
creative ideas. “After I left UCSC, I got my first contract job because of DANM,” she
says. “A man contacted the university looking for a programmer and they
recommended me. So I landed my first programming job which was really fun to
work on.” Dhillon is currently raising money to refine Rock Vibe on Kickstarter—the
popular online grassroots funding platform for creative projects.
She also recently contacted the California School For the Blind about her
project, and they have invited her to attend the school’s annual gaming
tournament in the spring. For Dhillon, the best part of developing Rock Vibe is that it allows her
to combine her passions. “I love being able to work with video games and electronics. I also love
education and teaching kids about technology,” she
adds. But it also gives her a chance to introduce a revolutionary change in the
way people play games. “It shows gaming companies--and the people who create games--that you can
really develop a game for both blind and sighted people to share,” says
Dhillon. “Rock Vibe works with touch and sound. This is a new mode of game
playing—no one has an advantage.” “It’s more inclusive and shines a light on the possibility that they can
help bring the blind and sighted together with games,” she adds. _______________________________________________ acb-l mailing list [email protected] http://www.acb.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-l |
_______________________________________________ ATI (Adaptive Technology Inc.) A special interest affiliate of the Missouri Council of the Blind http://moblind.org/membership/affiliates/adaptive_technology
