Name: Thomas Ward
Age: 28
1. What level of vision do you have from a rating of 1 to 5? 1 being no
vision at
all and 5 being 20/20 vision.
1
2. Do you enjoy playing accessible games?
Yes
3. If you answered yes to the last question, do you play accessible
games on a regular
basis?
If yes, please state approximately how often.
Yes, about an hour or two each day.
4. Have you ever played an accessible 3D First Person game?
If yes, please state witch.
Yes, Shades of Doom.
5. What do you think about the current accessible 3D first person games
out there?
Is there certain things you would like changed to improve their
accessibility?
I think that games such as Shades of Doom were very well done for what
the developer had to work with.
Please state the name of any games and the changes you would like to see.
I have no immediate complaints or suggestions.
6. Do you have surround sound speakers? If yes, please state whether
they are 4.1,
5.1 or higher.
Yes, I own a set of 5.1 surround sound speakers, and soundcard.
7. Do you prefer to be able to load a game up via the command line or
via menus?
Either one is ok with me.
8. Do you prefer messages in the game to be conveyed via speech or via
non-speech
sound?
Both are helpful. An example is in Shades of Doom. You will hear your
object locater. It is nice using the sound to find objects, doors, etc
but it is helpful to hit a key and find out what the object is you are
attempting to locate. Like control+o and hear door 5 feet.
Yet on the other hand sounds alone can mean allot if they are well done.
In Monty when you hear jangling of keys you know right off that is keys
off to the left, and no backup message is required, but might be helpful
for others.
9. Are you ok with having to learn the meanings of non-speech sounds or
do you just
want to get into a game straight away?
I have no problems learning sound effects. especially, if the game has a
sound description system like the GMA, Drakonis, and Alchemy games
have. You just arrow through the items and hear something like keys and
then the key sound is played. After that I am ready to play knowing the
majority of the effects first hand.
10. Do you prefer games wich have lots of background sounds or do you
find them distracting?
I like games with lots of background effects, but also can be
customisable somewhat. One thing I like about SOD is you can turn off
the background effects if desired,, but leave them on if desired.
11. What queues do you think should be included in a 3D first person
game to help
you navigate and to comprehend your surroundings? E.g. compass/sound of
footsteps
etc.
I suppose the effects used would be game specific, but if necessary
different step sound effects for water, snow, wood, grass, etc is
helpful if you are changing types of ground. If you are approaching a
river you might start with dirt, then go to squishy, and then to splash
foot steps.
One thing I like in GMA Tank Commander is the ability to do a complete
scan. It tells you everything around you like tank traps, enemy tanks,
woods, etc. That is helpful for getting a full view and idea of where
you are and what it looks like.
For example let's assume you are in a FPS game with monsters. Player
presses s key for scan and it starts doing things like a beep followed
by a message such as: beep, monster to your left 5 feet, beep, monster
to your left 9 feet, beep, monster ahead 3 feet, beep, monster behind 6
feet, beep, door, to your right 17 feet.
12. If you were designing a 3D first person game, how would you go about
designing
a 3D environment so that it was accessible to a blind person?
As a developer myself I would start by using Microsoft DirectX
DirectSound with 3D sound buffers for all effects.
Environmental items like rivers, streams, lakes, would have to be placed
in the 3D buffers so as to move with the players movement and change
indirection.
Other things like if a person was walking a cliff side you might hear
rocks crumbling off to the left if the cliff was left, and crumble on
the right if it was right.
I guess in short any effect that needs to be found would need to be a 3D
buffer, and positioned considering the player's direction facing,
direction of the item, and distance to item.
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