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iOS Gaming: Have Blind Gamers Ever Had it so Good?

By David Goodwin👨‍🦯, 1 March, 2013

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

The number of iOS games which are playable by VoiceOver users seems to grow daily, with developers either releasing new titles that are accessible out of the box (such as The Inquisitor Audiogame Adventure and Clever Clues) or joining the VoiceOver party by making existing games accessible.

No matter what your gaming preferences are, there should be something to suit your tastes - whether you simply want to roll a dice, play card or word games against sighted friends, care for virtual pets, immerse yourself in roleplay, or go on a zombie killing rampage.

Quite simply, blind gamers have never had it so good! Or have they? It's certainly true that only a very small fraction of the games available from the App Store are actually playable by the blind, whilst the developers of many extremely high-profile and popular games show no interest in making them accessible. And no, we're not talking about highly visual games such as Angry Birds, which with the best will in the world are never going to be playable with VoiceOver. We're talking about classic games such as Monopoly, Scrabble and Uno, all of which have a form of gameplay that means they could be made accessible ... the only barrier seems to be no interest from developers in making it happen.

With such a small choice in a very large market, there is certainly a strong argument that blind gamers are being seriously short-changed.

So, whatever your views, we would love to hear what you think about gaming on the iOS platform. Has it opened up gaming to the blind? Has it turned you from a non-gamer into a casual gamer? Or an occasional gamer into a hard-core gamer? Or does the whole experience of gaming on iOS still leave you underwhelmed?

Let us know your thoughts on iOS gaming by posting a reply below, perhaps also letting us know more about your personal favorites.

As an added incentive, we have a few promo codes to give away. First up is Robo-E, a newly-released game that has the title character in charge of cleaning up the galaxy from toxic waste. The developer has already given away some promo codes to our community, but we also have some up for grabs and will be giving these away to people who take part in this discussion. We'll simply be picking names out of our virtual hat, so be sure to share your thoughts on the state of iOS gaming to make sure that your name goes into that hat!

Update: In addition to the promo codes for Robo-E, I'm really pleased to announce that we're now also able to give away a couple of promo codes for The Inquisitor Audiogame Adventure. As mentioned above, this is a new release on iOS which has already gained much praise from blind gamers.

With this game costing $13.99, you game lovers out there should definitely want to make sure that your names are in the hat when we choose the lucky winners! We'll be doing this tomorrow at 12 noon GMT, so don't hang around!

A big thank you to the developers of both games for their commitment to making accessible games and for letting us have these promo codes to share with our community.

Tags

iOS and iPadOS Apps
Gaming
Competitions

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Comments

it has been a excellent experience

By Isaac Hebert (not verified)

10 years 1 month ago

it has been a excellent experience

By Isaac Hebert (not verified)

10 years 1 month ago

In reply to it has been a excellent experience by Isaac Hebert (not verified)

Well, hard to tell...

By lirin

10 years 1 month ago

My thoughts

By Piotr Machacz

10 years 1 month ago

i love games

By Elena Brescacin

10 years 1 month ago

It' is a good thing, but...

By DPinWI

10 years 1 month ago

my thoughts

By matheus rheine

10 years 1 month ago

In reply to It' is a good thing, but... by DPinWI

another obstacle is the language

By Elena Brescacin

10 years 1 month ago

I was born totally blind, and

By Ken Downey

10 years 1 month ago

Gaming: A Whole New World for Me

By Jen

10 years 1 month ago

I'm into audio games

By Aaron Linson

10 years 1 month ago

My thoughts on IOS gaming

By jrjolley (not verified)

10 years 1 month ago

Lack of sports games

By computerguy1985

10 years 1 month ago

Promo codes for The Inquisitor now also up for grabs

By David Goodwin👨‍🦯

10 years 1 month ago

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

Gaming

By Jdawg167

10 years 1 month ago

My Experiences with Gaming on iOS

By Kelly Sapergia

10 years 1 month ago

iOS gaming

By Ryok

10 years 1 month ago

Gaming

By Karen

10 years 1 month ago

In reply to My Experiences with Gaming on iOS by Kelly Sapergia

There area few other things I

By Ken Downey

10 years 1 month ago

In reply to it has been a excellent experience by Isaac Hebert (not verified)

I put a game pack for Pac

By Ken Downey

10 years 1 month ago

In reply to it has been a excellent experience by Isaac Hebert (not verified)

About four years ago, I made

By Ken Downey

10 years 1 month ago

In reply to it has been a excellent experience by Isaac Hebert (not verified)

Fantastic experiences with iOS games

By Bahzad

10 years 1 month ago

In reply to iOS gaming by Ryok

My gaming Experience

By Chelsea

10 years 1 month ago

In reply to iOS gaming by Ryok

IOS gaming

By Unix

10 years 1 month ago

Sports games

By lirin

10 years 1 month ago

I see nowadays there are many

By Alyabani94

10 years 1 month ago

Fighting games

By computerguy1985

10 years 1 month ago

Fighting games

By lirin

10 years 1 month ago

I have been an iOS user for

By Michael

10 years 1 month ago

I OS gameing?hell yeah!

By falcon wings

10 years 1 month ago

I like a wide variety of games

By Clare Page

10 years ago

Hi, Clare.

By Shersey

10 years ago

In reply to I like a wide variety of games by Clare Page

Don't know how to do links to apps, sorry!

By Clare Page

10 years ago

In reply to Hi, Clare. by Shersey

Another chance to grab a free download of Robo-E

By David Goodwin👨‍🦯

10 years ago

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

Code

By Ka Yat Li

10 years ago

In reply to Another chance to grab a free download of Robo-E by David Goodwin👨‍🦯

I've been going back and

By DPinWI

10 years ago

In reply to Another chance to grab a free download of Robo-E by David Goodwin👨‍🦯

Currently, I've been playing

By Tangela

10 years ago

In reply to I've been going back and by DPinWI

I like word games

By Esther

10 years ago

In reply to I've been going back and by DPinWI

New ish IOS user

By Beth Swain

10 years ago

interesting project

By Gustavo Ramirez

10 years ago

Code

By Janamari

10 years ago

Personally, I'm hoping for a

By Ken Downey

10 years ago

In reply to Code by Janamari

It's all about the Words

By Lisa Salinger

10 years ago

Have blind gamers ever had it so good?

By Gudrun Brunot

9 years 12 months ago

Does game type seem to be partially related to VO accessibility?

By Amy Harris

9 years 11 months ago

Games for blind IOs users - my ramblings

By Krister Ekstrom

9 years 10 months ago

Games

By Faerie

9 years 6 months ago

Have blind gamers ever had it so good?

By André Silva

8 years 7 months ago

Hi everyone,

I would like to make a comment on this post. I think that Stem Stumper is a very cool game for both blind gamers and sighted gamers. I'd like to thank Kwasi Mensah of Ananse Productions for developing such a brilliant game! His work with this game was simply fantastic! I hope that he continues to develop great new titles similar to Stem Stumper because I love to play it when I'm sitting down doing nothing for a long period of time. The concept behind this game is awesome! Great work!

sports games

By Bingo Little

8 years 7 months ago

Well folks much of this ground has been covered already so I'll keep it brief: the game I play the most as a casual gamer is Cribbage Pro. This is a game designed for everyone rather than specifically for blind people. A similar game is Chesswise, though I do find that with any form of computer chess you do need to play on a board alongside. This is what is fantastic about IOS, although it's also true to say that the games designed specifically for us are generally very good too. The big gap in the market is sports games as many people have said. I would love to spend the afternoon winning Wimbledon, becoming the PDC world darts Champion, getting the ashes back from Australia, going down the 18th green with the match all square and the Rider Cup at stake, or getting the ball back to Johny Wilkinson to allow him to drop for world cup glory. That would be superb and I would love that type of game more than any other. I realise these games present a particular challenge but someone much cleverer than me could surely think of a way round it. In any event I am surprised that some of the sports management games such as Championship Manager, or International cricket Captain, have not been made a bit more accessible.

Games accessibility

By Mustafa Gamal

8 years 7 months ago

Hello!
I think it is possible that more games become accessible. For example the popular game subway surfers can be accessible. It can be played by blind users using their headphones. Using zsounds it can alert you to incoming obstaculs and incoming coins. I hope I can play it one day.

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