Audio Review Section and Game Accessibility website!
We have added a new section to the website called Audio Reviews. This section provides a list of links to external audio game audio reviews and podcasts. You can find the link in the main menu or here:
http://www.audiogames.net/page/audioreviews
AudioGames.net is currently participating in a project called the Game Accessibility-project. In this government-funded project a Resource & Community website on the subject of game accessibility is being build.
As you may know, the field of game accessibility reaches further than just blind-accessible games. There's a whole field of one-switch games out there, games that can be played with one key only and therefore very accessible for gamers with limited physical abilities. One-switch games are often quite simple to understand and therefore very suitable for gamers with learning disabilities as well. More recently, the field of mobile gaming discovered the strength of these games and are exploring the possibilities to implement such games on mobile phones. There's also game accessibility for gamers with hearing disabilities, focusing on closed captioning and sign language in games, visual audio radars and more. And what about games for people with multiple disabilities, such as deaf-blind gamers or visually-physically disabled gamers?
Unfortunately, there are too little resources for the professional game industry and too little games for (potential) gamers. That's the reason why the Game Accessibility project was started.
Go to the Game Accessibility website.
The aims of the Game Accessibility project are:
- to inform gamers with disabilities about the availability of accessible games
- to provide resources for developers, publishers and researchers
- to raise awareness of game accessibility
- to gain more knowledge on accessible game design
The main activities within the Game Accessibility project are:
- to develop a website that includes:
- information about accessible games for the gamers with a disability
- research materials and other resources about game accessibility for students, developers and publishers
- a community space for gamers, developers and researchers
- to give lectures and tutorials
- to participate in student seminars/projects
Participants in this project are the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), people from the industry like Microsoft Games, LucasArts, people who research games and teach game design to future game designers at universities, disabled gamers of all sorts, universities and more.
The website is still under development and many things will be added for the next year or so. However, parts of it are already active. The forum is now active and part of the "gaming with a visual disability"-section is also done. As you can see, this is still very basic information.
One thing you can help us with is this:
For this project, we are setting up a "Top 10 List of Blind-Accessible Games For Newbies" - this is basically a list of 10 game titles recommended by you, the community, for new gamers to start playing blind-accessible games. Which ten titles do you recommend for new gamers? We have setup threads in the Game Accessibility forum as well as in the AudioGames.net Forum where you can post your list:
http://www.accessibility.nl/games/forum/viewtopic.php?id=27 (Game Accessibility forum)
http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?id=643 (AudioGames.net forum)
Thank you for participating!