1428: Shadows over Silesia

I haven't finished the game, but I've played a decent amount. I have some vision, but did turn on some of its accessibility features. I wouldn't say it's the best thing I've played as a mainstream gamer, but it is pretty decent. It tries really hard and has a ton of accessibility features for the totally blind if that's you. I'm not sure I'll go back to it, but I'm glad I supported the developer and I'm glad I gave it a try. I'd suggest if the subject matter interests you, give it a try. I've heard Shadows of the Crown is quite good and very accessible too. As Dusk falls is one I highly, highly recommend too. That one's more of a cinematic story, like watching a TV series. But it's audio described, has accessiblequicktime events - which can be paused - and choices. It's actually one of the most accessible mainstream games I've ever played.

I haven't played a mortal Kombat game in many years. I'm less into fighting games now that I don't have any gamer friends anymore. My daughter really enjoyed the Injustice games, but she's a bit too young for MK. I was thinking of giving MK One a try simply because of all the audio description put into it. I'm primarily a story-driven gamer. I know the MK series has gotten better at that over the years. If a game has no interesting tale to tell, I generally steer clear. At least these days.

There is clearly a market for accessible gaming, and certain genres lend themselves well to it. I never would have thought something like the Last of us could be made accessible, but thanks to Brandon COle - who sadly passed away, we know it is not only possible, but that it works. I love that we're seeing more games with accessibility built in. We don't need audio games made for the blind, we need games with accessibility. And all there has to be is a willingness to make it happen, and knowledgeabout how to do it. Brandon was a huge gaming accessibility advocate, and the gaming is worse off without him in it. We need more like him.

It's a sifi space themed kind of game, I'm honestly really looking forward to it and will be buying it on launch.

I'll check the accessibility just in case but i'd not be surprised at all if it's fully accesssible.

Audiogames are good, for what they are, but yeah, mainstream stuff will always beat them in my oppinion, there's a much bigger budget to work with and just more everything.

As for hearthstone, here's a link that might excite you: https://hearthstoneaccess.com/downloads.html

I used to love gaming when I could see, but other than the Last of Us Part 2, I've really struggled to get into anything.

I worry that the term accessible can mean many things. For example, if I can play a game by using my phone to OCR the screen, or reading a lengthy walkthrough telling me which buttons to press in which order, then some people seem fine with that, but I've no interest in that. I always thought of gaming as a way to relax and turn the brain off, not another complicated thing that needs to be learned.

I was also reading that things like God of War Ragnarok are mostly playable except for certain things, and I don't want to get so far into a game only to become unstuck.

I think it's hard to find good information about which games are really playable from start to finish without having to rely on sighted help or other systems not really designed with us in mind.

I can't even imagine how Diablo 4 or Mortal Kombat could be fun to play when blind. I'm tempted to try. I do have an old PS4, which itself isn't accessible at all. For some reason the screen reader never left the US. I'd also guess that playable demos may not include all accessibility options.

I'm really interested in the upcoming new Naughty Dog game although it would be hard to justify a ps5 just for that.

Hi,
Cool topic. I used to play Hearthstone loads, and yes, from the day the dev of the accessibility mod retired, a load of people took it over. The problem I now have with Hearthstone, is I stopped playing for like a year, and when I tried to start again a couple of months back, all the good cards had disappeared, and I basically had to start again, and I just didn't have the heart. I could have bought old cards with in-game gold, but just didn't feel like it. I've now gone back to Slay the Spire, yep it's a bit samey but at least the cards are all the same, and they don't keep changing. As for games only being what I call half accessible, I'd rather not have them at all, than this stupid half-way house. The thing that wound me up the most is a game called Temple of Hades on Steam which someone made an accessibility mod for. I was reading through the forum topic on audiogames.net, and the more I read about it, the more I wanted to buy it because it sounded awesome. But then somebody happened to mention that the menus weren't accessible, and the in-game stats weren't accessible, you had to OCR the screen. So the mod developer couldn't even be bothered to make the most important part of a game, namely menus and stats accessible. And they said on the forum that they weren't going to make the menus and stats info accessible because it would take hours. I'm assuming this developer was blind. If you can't even customise your character and choose various options easily or see your stats then what's the point? I don't care how good the game is, or how accessible the rest of it is, if I can't access the menus easily and seamlessly then I'm not interested. The mod developer's utter contempt for consistent accessibility in general completely turned me off getting the game and downloading their mod. If you can't even be bothered to make the menus and stats accessible, then don't do it at all! Don't give me something that's a bit rubbishy, especially when you do in fact have the knowledge to do a good job, you just can't be bothered to get the most fundamental aspects of a program down. But who knows, maybe someone did make the menus accessible in the end. I get not making tiny parts of a game accessible like certain puzzles and aspects which aren't part of the main story, but menus and stats are an essential part of a game. Like in Code 7 for example, you could skip a couple of things that weren't accessible, and continue with the story. Skipping those bits didn't impact gameplay. The Double Tap podcast actually did an episode on false claims made online that certain games were either playable or accessible to screen reader users, when actually they were only accessible or playable by low-vision players. If there's one thing that winds me up, it's when people publicly make false claims which result in others spending money on something they can't use adequately or at all. As for other games, I would love to play MK1 at some point. I've always wanted to play those fighting games. I used to play a lot of audiogames back in the day: Tarzan Junior, Superliam, XHour, Lords of the Galaxy, Galaxy Ranger, and I recently downloaded entombed and played it, since the online registration for licenses still works even after all this time! I played a lot of the GMA games stuff too, Tank Commander, Shades of Doom etc.. As for gaming on the iPhone, nothing will ever beat Papa Sangre and the Night Jar. I still miss those games even after so many years. I challenge people to better those or suggest good alternatives. I tried others like Feer and A Blind Legend but nothing comes close for me. I don't mind some tex-based games on the iPhone, but I don't know, gaming on the iPhone maybe just isn't for me. Oh yeah, I hate having to tilt my phone to do stuff too. That's why I hated those games like Blind Gladiator or whatever it was. Edit for mr grieves and anyone else interested, play station 5 has a built-in screen reader which lets you access the console's menu, and buy games from the store. I know this is accessible because I've seen my blind boyfriend using it, this isn't just hearsay. This screen reader is available wherever you buy your playstation, and not just in the US. My boyfriend lives in Norway.

I've been gaming since the days of the NES, The original Super Mario Brothers being my first. I do have some sight, so it's been easier for me than others, but I find as games get more elaborate, I'm finding I rely on more accessibility. I'll still play the latest games - Playing Final Fantasy XVI on my PC right now, and loving it. But I do use NVDA's screen recognition to read in-game documents in games, and any unvoiced dialogue. It's doable, and actually works very well depending on the game, but it's a work-around. It always requires several extra steps. I long for the days when something like that can be a seamless experience. I've heard Google gemini has now launched a live video streaming feature where you can ask it questions in real time. It seems to be in its infancy. For instance, I asked it to describe the surroundings in the field my character was walking, and it gave a very vivid description. But after the first description, it was done with me. SO it won't keep up a running commentary. It was great. But then I had it describe the cutscene I was just about to play. It told me characters were speaking on a smart phone with speech bubbles. Mind you, this is a medieval fantasy setting. SOooo this was my first AI hallucination. So it's not quite there just yet. But at least it's a start. If you can ever give it temporary control of your sceen and it can tell you what menu options are and where your pointer is, or where your cursor is, or even select things for you, it'll be a big step.

I tried god of war ragneroc and it was.... Doable. The menus don't read though and I didn't complete it.

I then tried mk1 and it worked, it wasn't really for me but it worked, and the voice has improved.

I'd already tried the last of us 2 on my cousins ps4 and it worked great!

I tried TLOU on my ps5 and it was amazing!

SO it's all up to you in the end, I only have tlou 2 on my ps5 at the moment and am completely fine with that.

I assume the new game will come out in a couple of years and by then ps5s should be cheeper, so should the last of us 1 and 2, and then 3 will come out. For me it's completely worth it but I do get quite a bit of disability money each month and understand that those in America, for example, don't get as much.

If you really want a ps5, you might be able to find a place where you can pay for it monthly. Oh a quick tip, I don't think the ps5 controler comes with a wire, for some reason, so you'll have to find one but that shouldn't be to hard, I believe it's a USB 3 whire but could be rong.

I just wish the ps5 updates would tell you what's new in each one, instead you just have to download them.

I'll give sony this, the screen reader is really good, not perfect, but I'd say it's about 95 percent there.

I would love to play the Final Fantasy stuff. It sounds so awesome from what I've read. Back in 2020, a new text-based game came out on Steam called Warsim: The Realm of Aslona, it was pretty awesome. I don't know what it's like nowadays, I imagine it's still being updated. I played it for hours, and I got so far, and the game started getting really sluggish, and it crashed a few times. But maybe it's much better now though. I'd recommend it to anybody into text-based stuff, fighting and gathering items etc.. Final Fantasy Record Keeper is playable on the iPhone with a lot of screen recognition, and turning VoiceOver on and off to get to stuff. Personally I wouldn't mess around with stuff like that because it's so fiddly with VoiceOver and would take away any enjoyment for me, but for those who really want to play it you could give it a try.

Unfortunately the JRPG genre is one which is very inaccessible. Which is actually not necessary because in many ways it is a very accessible genre to make. If Last of Us can do it, a JRPG absolutely could, depending on the type and scope. Currently the only mainstream JRPG which is remotely accessible that I know of is is 13 Sentinels, Aegis Rim. It still absolutely requires a good way to OCR the screen, such as NVDA's Recognize text. The game is 2D during its explorration and investigation sections. The whole game is voice acted, including all the clues and choices and characer's inner thoughts. Approaching a character or point of interest plays a sound too. The in-game database is not voiced, but that's where OCR comes in. These days it's probably on a WIKKI somewhere too. The battle system is 2D, left to right, top to bottom, and mostly menu based with a lot of audio queues,so again, pretty decent. Battle system is the weakest part of the gameplay, but if it's too hard, there are difficulty options. The story is where this game truly shines. So many amazing science fiction tropes which absolutely shouldn't work together, but totally do. Easily one of the greats with great writing and fantastic voice acting.

The PS5 controller does in fact have a USB3 to plug into the controller, but a Classic USB end to plug into anything else. I just bought one for the PC where I do most of my gaming because I liked the idea of haptic feedback and adaptive triggers. Mostly I got it for the USBC though because those USB Minis the Dualshock 4 had are the worst.

Yep, that's what I meant, it's great that you can play games wirelessly now but they don't have a charging dock built in yet so you need a wire to charge the controler.

Man that was a fun game, I don't think it had music but I enjoyed it.

Yes the ps5 sr is nice except on the web where as far as I know you have nothing? But yeah, better than nintendo as far as I know where we still don't have anything.

For the main question in the topic, I've playing SOS for an year and it's amazing, and I share 100% of the point of view of that user who said that gaming should be relaxing and fun rather than a parody of voiceover on mac but for in-game play instead :)