Hi Dark, Yeah. The only problem we may have in terms of what needs to be done to make some of these retro remakes accessible is the audio environment totally needs to be redesigned for the blind gamer in mind. Here is an example of what I mean.
Back in November someone released a free remake of Venture. What the developer did is record all of the original sounds and music from the 1982 arcade game and used them in the remake. That's great if we want the classic arcade sounds etc, but for a totally blind player it doesn't work at all. What we have to do is get rid of the beeps, boops, and other arcade sounds and create a completely new audio atmosphere for the game. The Treasure must jingle and jangle. We need to hear the doors open/close. We need sounds for the little green monsters. We need some kind of sound to play when you get near an ammo pick up. Preferably a different one for the yello, blue, and green arrows. Some footstep sounds would be nice. Then, add SAPI support for the high score notifications, health meter, and things like that. When you get down to it that's quite a lot of work in upgrading it from a simple 2d side-scroller into an audio game. That's where the rubber meets the road. Some of these retro remakes like Venture and Mouse Trap are quite a lot like their Colleco and Atari counterparts including original sounds and music. In order to add accessibility the classic sounds and music needs to be replaced with a more detailed soundscape. I don't know how willing or unwilling the indi developers would be to remove some of the classic sounds and music with newer sounds for accessibility sake. On 1/29/12, dark <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Tom. > > That would be a good idea, particularly if perhaps either yourself or > someone else could create an audio remake of a classic game. Packman talks > would indeed be perfect, accept that retroremakes only allows free games. > > Most indi devs I've spoken to are very open about access, ---- eindeed even > now in the news Eamon deluxe is having a ful blind compatibility mode > created, with better menues, mmore explanations of text etc (we've sadly not > found a way around the dosbox problem yet unfortunately, but the developer > is stil doing a very good job), and also niels bauer is working on a > compatibility mode for Smugglers 5. > > Neither of these devs would be doing anything access wise if it weren't for > discussions. > > Most indi devs of actual graphical games I've spoken to, ---- while great as > regards low vision access (I've often got good things like menue > explanations or settings in a screen reader friendly conf file, or indeed in > one case an entire low vision setting), don't really know about audio games > very much, so don't really attempt anything with sound. > --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected]. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://mail.audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [email protected].
