Interesting audio navigation experience for the blind; or, wow a video game!

[E.J. Zufelt]

Good morning all,

Ask a blind computer nerd what they miss most about being able to see, and almost certainly somewhere on that list is going to be video games.  I just stumbled upon a game that was "designed for the blind".  This always sends shivers up my spine, things shouldn't be designed for the blind, they should be inclusively designed... but I digress.

I downloaded and installed Entombed, an RPG with four direction map navigation.  To my surprise not only is the audio production quality of this game good, but so is their design for an audio navigation system.

I would say that the navigational system is very much like the iPhone with VoiceOver.  There are different sounds to indicate different landmarks (stepping on a artifact versus stepping on a corpse), there are stereo wind sounds to identify open passages, and a sort of crunch sound to identify boundaries (dungeon walls). As a matter of fact Entombed's navigation is slightly more complex than the iPhone's, as it allows users to move in two dimensions (North/South and West/East) whereas the iPhone only provides for linear navigation.

Anyone involved in the audio navigation design and development for Kiosk, or anyone looking for an interesting (if not particularly entertaining) experience, should give the demo of this game a try.

Name: Entombed
Web: http://blind-games.com/
Instructions: http://wiki.blind-games.com/wiki/doku.php?id=entombed-main
Twitter: @DriftwoodAG

Looking forward to discussing this in the context of Kiosk design,
Everett Zufelt
http://zufelt.ca

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