Hey bradley22! Thanks so much for the feedback. This was really only meant to be an introduction which is why the text variations are so limited. I apologize for the redundancies within it, but greatly appreciate you playing it.
As far as volume was concerned, I searched the internet high and low for how to give users a way to adjust the volume and couldn't find it to save my life LOL. The versions that are up now are pretty low, but if you need them lower than that, the raw audio files are available to adjust however is comfortable for you.
The backspace issue is one that I wanted to work out before I put this out there, but couldn't quite figure it out. What is happening is that as the text is loading, if you push in another key, then the game registered that key (also known as key buffering). So you have to hit enter (or backspace, depending on what you did) to clear that input out, and actually put in what you want. My inexperience with game dev (and C# specifically) is quite evident. :)
Thanks for the comment, and thanks again for playing.
Hi, I please already have a suggestion for an update. Can you pleeeeeease, add an option to make it so that text does not scroll, i.e it just displays it from the get go? I am a blind person, and having a screen reader say "you o pen y our e yes a nd" like it's some garbled mess, in a text-based game, is quite frankly extremely frustrating to say the least. Character creation was OK but I had to read the text after it finished. Please consider there might be a totally blind audience looking for text-based and accessible games, including an option that just shows text how it is, in it's raw form, is the best thing for those users. Also, yes, the music is loud, I could barely hear my screen reader. I'm going to experiment with the music volume levels myself in a sound editor for now. However please consider your blind users as well, anything too loud and you risk overpowering their screen readers. If you would like to try a screen reader yourself, please download NVDA from nv-access.org, it's a totally free screen reader for windows. I am watching this game with great interest though, and will see what I can do with it in the meantime. Thank you for making a text based rpg.
Hey @jukesy1992, thanks so very much for the feedback! Honestly, I didn't expect anyone to actually play this game at all, if I'm being quite frank. I mostly posted it to track my progress as a new developer, so I could see my journey from where I was on day one to where I (hopefully) will end up. But the fact that you played and were kind enough to provide genuine, honest feedback really made my day. Thank you.
I will admit; I am still new to this whole process, so accessibility for any kind of disability is something that is still very foreign to me, but something I very much want to be aware of and incorporate in all of my games. I don't ever want any one group to feel left out because of my ignorance, but it is because of feedback like this that I can not only fix the issues in my current games, but keep that in mind as I move forward in my journey. Please accept my apologies for not considering how you might be playing the game, and know that I will continue to be better as I grow. I knew the game was far from perfect out of the gate, but I never, ever want anyone to feel excluded while playing. That never is, or never will be, my intent while developing.
All that being said, I have updated the original game to have lower volume music, as I should have honestly done that in the first place. I have also created a second file to download that is labeled "blind accessible" which eliminates the text scrolling entirely and should make it easier on your screen reader, and effectively, easier on you.
Again, I hope you understand where my error comes from and will accept my apology, and I really hope that you enjoy playing now that the issue is resolved. Thank you so much for taking the time to educate me further.
I will try this new version, however last night I did actually complete the scrolling version fully. You know what? I really, really, really like this, and that's not even a joke. In the blind community we do not have that many text rpgs, so even a short little ditty is good fun, and I really hope to see more in the future. If there's a sequel I'd love more dungeons to explore. Endless mode perhaps wouldn't go ammiss. Or, imagine an arcade mode where you could equip modifiers or bet, say, defeat an enemy in a certain number of turns and you get more gold or rewarded with weapon or armour upgrade. Then, and I know this might be a pipe dream but for other projects, imagine a text-based civilisation type game but that would take a looot of doing probably, but in the blind community we've never had that, at least not one that lets you go from nothing all the way to the modern era and space. By the way, as soon as I'm done here, I'm creating a topic on the audiogames forum. If you join there, I will be able to unrestrict you as an admin and you'll be able to join in the discussion. I'll also ask if people would be willing to leave some comments and feedback on Itch.
Also, for your future games you could probably easily make it so you don't have to make two different versions, just include an option in the game to disable scrolling. This way, it's less work for you as you'll only then need to compile one version, but make it the first screen that pops up, are you using a screen reader, yes or no, or 1 or 2 or whatever sort of menu system you decide to use. Also, if you decide to branch out into games with actual movement, it's certainly possible to include stereo/binaural sound and audio cues for things such as doors, enemies, pickups, and combine that with screen reader support with libraries such as Tolk and you can set up stuff like coordinates, status screens that tell the player where things are, even keys that say a player's health and such directly for instance, key H to announce health whilst using arrows or wasd to move. I'd love an actual audio rogue like with no ascii and a way to explore a dungeon like that, it's annoying just hearing hash hash dot at at hash tilda tilda, why can't it say, east 2, wall, north 1, door, etc? Or door at 20, 25? A Dark Room added iOS accessibility, and that was amazing. "Outpost, two clicks north, one click east". I absolutely loved playing through that game a few years ago.
Oh man, you're right! The hashtags would definitely be annoying to hear, even though for those who can see, it simply makes organization of the information on the screen more readable. You've given me a lot to think about as far as structure of my game goes.
I have quite a few ideas for things I've been wanting to make since starting this process, but I love your ideas here, and think I will add it onto the list. For one, it would give me more practice to make another text-based game, but far more fleshed out than this little application is, and it would be very cool if I could take a mechanic (such as Civ) which seems built for having graphics and turn it into something more text based. I think it can be done, and I may just give it a shot.
We'll see where things go from here, but I assure you, I will not forget about this interaction, and will see what I can do with the limited time that I have. Thank you again.
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This is great! Love the Blind accessible mode but I'd also like there to be a mode for everyone that happens to be accessible! :)
There is one! Download the first file. :) That was the original design for the game.
Hey bradley22! Thanks so much for the feedback. This was really only meant to be an introduction which is why the text variations are so limited. I apologize for the redundancies within it, but greatly appreciate you playing it.
As far as volume was concerned, I searched the internet high and low for how to give users a way to adjust the volume and couldn't find it to save my life LOL. The versions that are up now are pretty low, but if you need them lower than that, the raw audio files are available to adjust however is comfortable for you.
The backspace issue is one that I wanted to work out before I put this out there, but couldn't quite figure it out. What is happening is that as the text is loading, if you push in another key, then the game registered that key (also known as key buffering). So you have to hit enter (or backspace, depending on what you did) to clear that input out, and actually put in what you want. My inexperience with game dev (and C# specifically) is quite evident. :)
Thanks for the comment, and thanks again for playing.
Hi, I please already have a suggestion for an update. Can you pleeeeeease, add an option to make it so that text does not scroll, i.e it just displays it from the get go? I am a blind person, and having a screen reader say "you o pen y our e yes a nd" like it's some garbled mess, in a text-based game, is quite frankly extremely frustrating to say the least. Character creation was OK but I had to read the text after it finished. Please consider there might be a totally blind audience looking for text-based and accessible games, including an option that just shows text how it is, in it's raw form, is the best thing for those users. Also, yes, the music is loud, I could barely hear my screen reader. I'm going to experiment with the music volume levels myself in a sound editor for now. However please consider your blind users as well, anything too loud and you risk overpowering their screen readers. If you would like to try a screen reader yourself, please download NVDA from nv-access.org, it's a totally free screen reader for windows. I am watching this game with great interest though, and will see what I can do with it in the meantime. Thank you for making a text based rpg.
Hey @jukesy1992, thanks so very much for the feedback! Honestly, I didn't expect anyone to actually play this game at all, if I'm being quite frank. I mostly posted it to track my progress as a new developer, so I could see my journey from where I was on day one to where I (hopefully) will end up. But the fact that you played and were kind enough to provide genuine, honest feedback really made my day. Thank you.
I will admit; I am still new to this whole process, so accessibility for any kind of disability is something that is still very foreign to me, but something I very much want to be aware of and incorporate in all of my games. I don't ever want any one group to feel left out because of my ignorance, but it is because of feedback like this that I can not only fix the issues in my current games, but keep that in mind as I move forward in my journey. Please accept my apologies for not considering how you might be playing the game, and know that I will continue to be better as I grow. I knew the game was far from perfect out of the gate, but I never, ever want anyone to feel excluded while playing. That never is, or never will be, my intent while developing.
All that being said, I have updated the original game to have lower volume music, as I should have honestly done that in the first place. I have also created a second file to download that is labeled "blind accessible" which eliminates the text scrolling entirely and should make it easier on your screen reader, and effectively, easier on you.
Again, I hope you understand where my error comes from and will accept my apology, and I really hope that you enjoy playing now that the issue is resolved. Thank you so much for taking the time to educate me further.
Best,
PT6
I will try this new version, however last night I did actually complete the scrolling version fully. You know what? I really, really, really like this, and that's not even a joke. In the blind community we do not have that many text rpgs, so even a short little ditty is good fun, and I really hope to see more in the future. If there's a sequel I'd love more dungeons to explore. Endless mode perhaps wouldn't go ammiss. Or, imagine an arcade mode where you could equip modifiers or bet, say, defeat an enemy in a certain number of turns and you get more gold or rewarded with weapon or armour upgrade. Then, and I know this might be a pipe dream but for other projects, imagine a text-based civilisation type game but that would take a looot of doing probably, but in the blind community we've never had that, at least not one that lets you go from nothing all the way to the modern era and space. By the way, as soon as I'm done here, I'm creating a topic on the audiogames forum. If you join there, I will be able to unrestrict you as an admin and you'll be able to join in the discussion. I'll also ask if people would be willing to leave some comments and feedback on Itch.
Also, for your future games you could probably easily make it so you don't have to make two different versions, just include an option in the game to disable scrolling. This way, it's less work for you as you'll only then need to compile one version, but make it the first screen that pops up, are you using a screen reader, yes or no, or 1 or 2 or whatever sort of menu system you decide to use. Also, if you decide to branch out into games with actual movement, it's certainly possible to include stereo/binaural sound and audio cues for things such as doors, enemies, pickups, and combine that with screen reader support with libraries such as Tolk and you can set up stuff like coordinates, status screens that tell the player where things are, even keys that say a player's health and such directly for instance, key H to announce health whilst using arrows or wasd to move. I'd love an actual audio rogue like with no ascii and a way to explore a dungeon like that, it's annoying just hearing hash hash dot at at hash tilda tilda, why can't it say, east 2, wall, north 1, door, etc? Or door at 20, 25? A Dark Room added iOS accessibility, and that was amazing. "Outpost, two clicks north, one click east". I absolutely loved playing through that game a few years ago.
Oh man, you're right! The hashtags would definitely be annoying to hear, even though for those who can see, it simply makes organization of the information on the screen more readable. You've given me a lot to think about as far as structure of my game goes.
I have quite a few ideas for things I've been wanting to make since starting this process, but I love your ideas here, and think I will add it onto the list. For one, it would give me more practice to make another text-based game, but far more fleshed out than this little application is, and it would be very cool if I could take a mechanic (such as Civ) which seems built for having graphics and turn it into something more text based. I think it can be done, and I may just give it a shot.
We'll see where things go from here, but I assure you, I will not forget about this interaction, and will see what I can do with the limited time that I have. Thank you again.