[games_access] Audio games

[Brian Schmidt]

Ø  there is still some debate on whether or not an audiogame by definition
can't *also* use any other supplemental stimuli to communicate as well.

Hello—I’m new to the list.

I found that last point by John to be quite interesting.  I just finished
developing what I consider to be an “audio game”, in that it uses sound as
its primary gameplay element.  However I did find that when considering
fully sighted players, some visual elements were very helpful (particularly
for some features where I added VoiceOver feedback for the visually impaired
player).  So in a strange way, adding visuals made the game more
“accessible” to the fully sighted player, whom I found to be less likely to
focus purely on the sound, even when I’d originally presented them with what
was essentially a blank screen originally.

 

Brian Schmidt

Founder, EarGames

Executive Director, GameSoundCon

Brian Schmidt Studios, LLC

 

 

From: games_access-bounces at igda.org [mailto:games_access-bounces at igda.org]
On Behalf Of John R. Porter
Sent: Monday, June 10, 2013 8:29 AM
To: IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List
Subject: Re: [games_access] Audio games

 

This seems to be mostly an issue of semantics.

In in the way that we typically use the phrase audiogame, it describes a
game whose progression-critical information is communicated through sound.
However, from what I've seen and heard from various users and developers,
there is still some debate on whether or not an audiogame by definition
can't *also* use any other supplemental stimuli to communicate as well.

Personally, when I'm explaining games that are accessible to those with
complete visual impairment, I tend to describe them as "games that can be
played with only audio," rather than "games that can't be played without
audio." Again, it's largely a semantic difference. While the latter might
technically be more accurate for a certain narrow, specialized definition of
audiogame, I think the former is a bit more inclusive of different
approaches to audio accessibility.

-John




-- -- -- -- --
John R. Porter III <http://www.jrp3.net/> 
www.jrp3.net
University of Washington,
Human Centered Design & Engineering

 

On Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 7:53 AM, Sandra Uhling <sandra_uhling at web.de> wrote:

Hello,
there is an article that says:

Sander Huiberts, the operator of the website audiogames.net, said:
"An audiogame is a game, that cannot be played without sound."

This is confusing. Did he really say this?
Imagine blind games do no longer know if they really can play an "audio
game".

Best regards,
Sandra

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