Re: [Audyssey] You Don't Know Jack for iOS
It isn't that I demand accessibility for every app. I am more than familiar with the concept that some literally cannot be made to work. What strikes me as a problem is the fact that some apps, which are inaccessible, could be made accessible with just a little extra effort or knowledge. It isn't that I'm saying Gimmy more, more, more! I think, frankly, that the best way to handle accessibility would be a forward-looking approach. We could sit and complain, and I have done on a couple of occasions, about how an app doesn't present accessibility features, even though it could, or how a game doesn't present certain functions, added at little expense or effort, which would make it a perfectly playable mainstream game. Rather, I think the solution is to inform developers about other, better ways of making games accessible. The deaf community, united, brought us Closed Captioning, which gives a printed readout, on the screen, of any dialogue. That is widely made available now, because of gentle, long-term pressure. The deaf community, united once again, is now pushing for captioning of sounds as well as dialogue. This is because they have already established a bit of what they want and, rather than saying We're satisfied. We should not ask for more. They said We have something nice, and the mainstream population also benefit from it. Let's see if we can get an additional feature which would be brilliant. I suggest that the blind community, when it is united, doesn't know what it wants and certainly doesn't know how to ask for it. I respect the efforts of the people who have tried, and I know that what I'm saying may come out as offensive, but the plain fact is that developers who learn about audiogames would probably be highly turned off by the amount of beeps, blips, whistles, and clicks that they might have to incorporate. Smaller developers, again I mension Ernest Woo, want to squeeze every penny out of their apps, so they'll push for accessibility, if you sell it to them the right way. The right way, is according to myself, and as I said before, if I had any incling of how I ought to do it, I'd start an organization on that point. There's certainly a right and a wrong way, maybe several of each, but I'll put it this way. The Wii Sports game's menus are accessible, because they are simple. If you remember where things are, you will be in pretty good shape. Wii Fit's menus are not inaccessible, but they are less so, because they wrap around without making a sound to indicate it, so if ever you lose your place, you're up the creek without a paddle and have to get out of that menu and start over. A conscientious blind accessibility community organization would have applied to have beta testers, at least, of this widely sold, household name product. Having done so, we would provide simple feedback like, Your menu is hard to navigate, although pretty much everything else is at least basically useable, because there's no way of knowing when you wap the menu around. Nintendo might scoff at this, but I doubt it, as it would be a very, very simple change to implement. We wouldn't be asking for voiced audio of the exercise names, at least until we had established ourselves, under one flag, as a united concern. Consider all of this, and ask yourself, for example, how difficult it would have been to make the app accessible. Then consider that this app is the present. If the developer JellyVision Games, doesn't consider accessibility a priority, even in simple accessibility features, then more apps will come out that we will be hard pressed to use. Consider what would happen if one person asked them to change. Then think about what would happen if a hundred different people asked. THen think of what would happen if an organization, whose membership might range from only a few people, say about ten, to thousands of people asked for just a little bit more accessibility, here and there, made it standard practice, like closed captioning, and found a way to make it benefit sighted players, as well. It sounds like a far-fetched dream, but so did holding a single device with tens upon tens of readily playable games that you could take anywhere, only a few years ago. If I knew how, I would make that dream a reality. Maybe someone with more gumption than I, or with more experience, will take this idea and make it more than a dream. Maybe I will, someday, but the point is that being content with what we have is a great moral position, and I largely agree with it on a personal basis, but why should the blind community be content when we could easily, very easily, have more? Signed: Dakotah Rickard On 2/6/13, ryan chou ryan.chou1...@gmail.com wrote: elena,very well said, :D my opinion almost exactly, but my thoughts are also,if its not accessible at first site, get some sited help and see what can be done about it, don't just give up on the app On 2/6/13, Elena Brescacin talks...@gmail.com wrote: hi. it would be
Re: [Audyssey] You Don't Know Jack for iOS
I agree with Dakota. Do you guys know of any good trivia/word games that can be played with friends on the iphone or through facebook that are accessible? Amanda On 2/7/13, Dakotah Rickard dakotah.rick...@gmail.com wrote: It isn't that I demand accessibility for every app. I am more than familiar with the concept that some literally cannot be made to work. What strikes me as a problem is the fact that some apps, which are inaccessible, could be made accessible with just a little extra effort or knowledge. It isn't that I'm saying Gimmy more, more, more! I think, frankly, that the best way to handle accessibility would be a forward-looking approach. We could sit and complain, and I have done on a couple of occasions, about how an app doesn't present accessibility features, even though it could, or how a game doesn't present certain functions, added at little expense or effort, which would make it a perfectly playable mainstream game. Rather, I think the solution is to inform developers about other, better ways of making games accessible. The deaf community, united, brought us Closed Captioning, which gives a printed readout, on the screen, of any dialogue. That is widely made available now, because of gentle, long-term pressure. The deaf community, united once again, is now pushing for captioning of sounds as well as dialogue. This is because they have already established a bit of what they want and, rather than saying We're satisfied. We should not ask for more. They said We have something nice, and the mainstream population also benefit from it. Let's see if we can get an additional feature which would be brilliant. I suggest that the blind community, when it is united, doesn't know what it wants and certainly doesn't know how to ask for it. I respect the efforts of the people who have tried, and I know that what I'm saying may come out as offensive, but the plain fact is that developers who learn about audiogames would probably be highly turned off by the amount of beeps, blips, whistles, and clicks that they might have to incorporate. Smaller developers, again I mension Ernest Woo, want to squeeze every penny out of their apps, so they'll push for accessibility, if you sell it to them the right way. The right way, is according to myself, and as I said before, if I had any incling of how I ought to do it, I'd start an organization on that point. There's certainly a right and a wrong way, maybe several of each, but I'll put it this way. The Wii Sports game's menus are accessible, because they are simple. If you remember where things are, you will be in pretty good shape. Wii Fit's menus are not inaccessible, but they are less so, because they wrap around without making a sound to indicate it, so if ever you lose your place, you're up the creek without a paddle and have to get out of that menu and start over. A conscientious blind accessibility community organization would have applied to have beta testers, at least, of this widely sold, household name product. Having done so, we would provide simple feedback like, Your menu is hard to navigate, although pretty much everything else is at least basically useable, because there's no way of knowing when you wap the menu around. Nintendo might scoff at this, but I doubt it, as it would be a very, very simple change to implement. We wouldn't be asking for voiced audio of the exercise names, at least until we had established ourselves, under one flag, as a united concern. Consider all of this, and ask yourself, for example, how difficult it would have been to make the app accessible. Then consider that this app is the present. If the developer JellyVision Games, doesn't consider accessibility a priority, even in simple accessibility features, then more apps will come out that we will be hard pressed to use. Consider what would happen if one person asked them to change. Then think about what would happen if a hundred different people asked. THen think of what would happen if an organization, whose membership might range from only a few people, say about ten, to thousands of people asked for just a little bit more accessibility, here and there, made it standard practice, like closed captioning, and found a way to make it benefit sighted players, as well. It sounds like a far-fetched dream, but so did holding a single device with tens upon tens of readily playable games that you could take anywhere, only a few years ago. If I knew how, I would make that dream a reality. Maybe someone with more gumption than I, or with more experience, will take this idea and make it more than a dream. Maybe I will, someday, but the point is that being content with what we have is a great moral position, and I largely agree with it on a personal basis, but why should the blind community be content when we could easily, very easily, have more? Signed: Dakotah Rickard On 2/6/13, ryan chou
[Audyssey] erncon
Hey guys, the joystick for Erncon is in the bottom left, almost touching the corner. It's the size of a 50-cent piece, and since the audio is positioned it's relatively easy to hear when you've moved. Your ship doesn't turn like in other games, but simply follows where the stick points. Touch the lower left-hand corner, and your ship faces southwest for example, and begins to fly in that direction, slowing to a stop once you've let go of the stick. On the lower right is your firing button. Above that is a secondary firing button, and above that a third. To the left of those is the afterburner. All the menus are accessible, but it seems that the positional audio needs work, as the ships don't always change position when you turn. I highly recommend the fighter battle, as it'll earn you the most points. I also highly recommend the survival mode. My best score is 4 minutes 30 seconds, so let's see if any of you can beat me! --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] ErnCon
Lol, I just sent a nearly identical message to this one. - Original Message - From: Dakotah Rickard dakotah.rick...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2013 12:59 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] ErnCon Right. The controls are actually pretty simple, but you do need to fly with voiceover off. I hope you chose to start with a fighter, as a mech is a little more difficult to fly. Here is every control, as well as I can remember, having not played for about a month and a half. Starting from the bottom of your screen: on the bottom left, in what is about a half inch wide and half inch tall circle, is your flight stick. You can hear enemies firing, so you will know when you are moving. You don't move at all unless you are touching the stick, which is the blinking cursor mensioned in the tutorial. When you touch the stick, your fighter faces the direction indicated, so for example, if you're touching the bottom left of the circle, you face southwest, top left, northwest, etc. When you remove your finger, you come to a stop over time, depending on what ship you have, and when you replace your finger, you accellerate at a given rate, depending, again, on your ship. Experiment with this one, preferably with a little bit of sighted monitoring, as it's a little tricky to get the hang of, but once you've got it, you've got it. The bottom right of the screen is your firing button on a fighter, firing stick on a mech. If I remember, the stick on the right is a little bigger than the one on the left, but you'll have to experient, or maybe I'll dust off the game myself, to find out. It's in the bottom right corner, however, basically making that part of the screen symmetrical. Fighters shoot straight out in front, off into the distance. You aim by aiming your ship. Mechs fire a little differently. You can move your ship normally, but depending on what part of the firing stick circle you press, your gun will fire in that direction. You can't hit yourself, though, so don't worry. just be aware that you can't simply touch and hear firing and definitely be firing where you're going, as with a fighter. I've successfully flown a mech before, and it can really work to your advantage, once you get familiar with the game. The only other controls to worry about are on the right side of the screen, either flush with the edge or a little in. The first control to get the hang of is your secondary weapons and tirtiary weapons. These are rectangles, about an inch high, and maybe an inch and a half or two inches wide, above the firing controls and above one another. I suggest that, while you're getting the hang of it, you go into the store and equip weapons which sound different from each other, say homing missiles and mines, once you have some mines. The other control is the booster, which has no limit on the amount which it is used and gives you a temporary boost in movement speed. This control seems to be sort of hanging off the bottom left corner of your secondary weapons rectangle, above and to the left of your primary firing control. It makes a definite sound, and you need to be touching your flight stick to make the booster really do anything, but you can usually hear the sound pan in the direction away from which you are traveling, so if you're heading west, it'll pan right, or east. Other than that, if you stray too high on the right, you'll hit the Quit Mission button. Somewhere in the vicinity of your flight stick is the No button, or you can turn on Voiceover, mid-mission, and press the button. The yes button, coincidentally, si near your firing control, so be careful. I'm not going to bother with giving the layout for the non-mission screen, thoguh I will often use it without Voiceover, simply because you can easily discover that for yourself. Best of luck, and don't get too frustrated. Also, be sure you're playing the game with headphones, at least until you get a feel for your ship, because the stereo helps. Signed: Dakotah Rickard On 2/6/13, Kelly Sapergia ksaper...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, After reading about the ErnCon multiplayer arcade shooter game on this list, I downloaded it onto my iPod Touch. Quite honestly, I'm finding this game to be more of a frustration than anything. I know there were some messages on this list that basically said this game was playable with Voiceover. That may be true, but I quickly got frustrated with the tutorial, as I couldn't get past the screen where it says to touch the blinking cursor (or whatever it is) to move the ship. I double-tapped the button a few times, but nothing happened. Turning VO off didn't help as I couldn't tell where the thing was on the screen. Finally, I got so frustrated that I quit the tutorial, and was prompted to go on a mission. I found out how to fire, but other than that I really don't know what I'm doing. Does anyone have any suggestions? I'll say one thing about this
Re: [Audyssey] You Don't Know Jack for iOS
I only have one question about that. Again, the blind community is a small one... and we wouldn't put a dent in their sales by not buying a game because of inaccessibility. I agree with you on principle, but the fact is, do you know exactly how easy it would be to implement any of the changes you're mentioning? Developers who work with their own ui's have no interest whatsoever in working with the native api which includes support for voiceover just because a small handful of people, no matter how united, sees it as useful. And small changes can be expensive. I found out recently that just to update a mainstream console game with some minor fixes costs them quite a sum. Just uploading the patch costs them $4. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.