Games for the Blind

Many people these days play video games of some sort. Whether they play on a gaming console or a phone, millions of people around the world engage in playing video games every day. Not only do video games exist for sighted people, but also there are audio based games that are accessible to the blind and visually impaired.

These games use auditory backgrounds and sound effects to represent the environments, as well as text or audio descriptions of text with the game, that can be read by screen readers or heard through sappy speech. Menues are spoken and most of the time, arrow keys navigate these menues and the game will indicate when a highlighted option has been pressed. Sound effects also represent your character as well as other living beings. For example, different car engines might represent different racers in a racing game. You can find a variety of different audio games in different genres. The number of audio games is small in comparison to video games, but that number is growing every year.

The main hub for audio games that I have found is www.audiogames.net where you can find links to other audio game resources. The sight is fully accessible to screen reading software, and sighted people as well appreciate the web site's simple layout. I believe this is an incredible market for games, and I know sighted people would find this concept intriguing. I invite you to check out this future of gaming, and to appreciate the creativity that can be explored through a new form of entertainment. As always, let me know what you think and I look forward to your feedback.