The Wolf among us - BLIND ACCESSIBILITY
Hello everyone,
As I am writing this post I am still experimenting / playing the wolf among us.
So, what to say firstly? Maybe i'll start from a point describing how I'm playing games being totally blind.
Not every type of game is playable for the blind naturally. The fact the games are using graphics is making these totally unplayable. There are games, where the audio is making great job giving a lot of informations to the player through sound only. I decided to try changing the gaming scene a bit and contact the developers of games, which in my opinion are the best examples how the game could be playable for us and how to do that easily.
The first fully game which appeared on steam is Skullgirls:
http://shoryuken.com/2014/01/31/mike-mike-z-zaimont-updates-skullgirls-encore-to-enhance-accessibility-for-blind-players/
It's a huge success actually like we never saw before. This example shows the possibilities and openings for the blind community around the world.
I tried many times contacting someone about their games and I was ignored totally. This is what I HATE mostly, as ignorance isn't a key to success or being positive for all kind of people on the planet.
There's one game which will be fully playable for us [PROBABLY] and I mean life is strange. The game is actually much more complex from telltale games and there are possibilities, creativity and support from the developers.
Now, let's hope telltale games are visiting the forums and are active and this one will be not ignored as most of the similar messages. A wolf among us is in my opinion, the best telltale game from the most I hear before. Don't know why their actual releases are so bad in terms of the audio. The wolf among us is perfectly done. High quality SFX and clear voice acting. In the games like tales from borderlands everything is sampled down to the point, where I can clearly hear noises like weak mp3 file.
So, I played the wolf among us a bit using my x360 controller and I was really surprised. The fact the game is a cinematic interactive movie mostly makes it really playable! Ofcourse, I hat problems with QTEs as I can't see a screen and what button I should perfect but... well... mashing buttons helps LOL Ofcourse it's not a solution, I died three times in the first fighting scene, yeah...
I am at the point where Big Bee and snow found the first body actually. It was not too hard but I moved my RS on the pad in all directions and mashed A button and it worked... somewhat.
So, interesting if the telltale games are listening or not and if their are opened for my suggestions i'll list below making the wolf among us fully PLAYABLE for us?
Note: I'm a sound designer so this is something I am working on everyday.
suggestions and solutions:
1. Clipboard help - The same thing was used in SKullgirls and it's really easy to do hack around to read every bit of text on the screen. Few lines in the code can change our world making us enabled on the gametext which includes menus, QTEs and other needed things like making choices. You can read more about this in the article I linked before
2. Decisions - Yeah, This game is absolutely fantastic because if You don't want giving any answers you can just don't say anything! sadly or not, for the blind it will not works as You can imagine, our screen readers needs to read everything from the screen. My solution is to add more time to the making decisions like +10 secs should be okay and We can decide what to say or not.
3. Audio cues - This is really needed and I believe not too problematic. As the player moves around the locations he can't hear the objects around so .. when I played a game I didn't know I can interact with something. I tried moving a bit somewhere and searching for something I can interact with.
The idea is to add a sound cues to the objects around. The game supports full stereo output and spacial audio and moving the cursor around can move these audio cues around You like, if you can hear a noise of lamp to the right you need move the cursor to the right and the sound will move from right to the center where You can interact with. I know you can move the cursor in all 4 directions, so if you will center the sound of the object but you need to move up or down a bit, the sound will be louder and louder giving the information you are closer to it. Hope It's clear explanation.
That's all! if we can have these things the wolf among us can be FULLY ACCESSIBLE FOR THE BLIND COMMUNITY!
Blind players exists and their wants to play games also. The telltale games are really perfect for making these playable, great sound design, fully voiceacted and the games are mostly like choose a decision.
Lastly, sorry for my english, I know it's not fantastic really. 
And lastly again... Thank you everyone for reading this long post, it's boring probably, right?
Take care,
Tom
Comments
I find this really interesting, and wish you luck!
Unfortunately the Telltale developers visit this forum incredibly rarely, only dropping in to make an occasional joke and practically never to respond to criticism or concerns, which I view as incredibly childish of them, but I digress:
It is probably a better bet for you to contact telltale games directly by emailing support@telltale.com; you can 100% expect a response this way, and while you might not get the answer you hope for, you will at least raise some awareness, which is a good thing!
Let me know what their response is, I'm curious!
I actually emailed Telltale games and interesting what i'll get back from.
I'm just trying and posting and I believe there are people who cares about me or other players with differend disabilities.
I'll email them too, to increase awareness
If you look at the "Contact Us" section of the Company page, they also have a Feedback email address. I imagine that would be the more beneficial address to send any game feedback to.
The extra time for the decisions seem like it could be a problem at times due to cinematics and other cases where time is purposely made shorter to increase urgency. I can't remember if it is the case in Wolf Among Us, but every Telltale game I've played lately allows the player to pause the game at times such as choices at least on PC. Could the choices be heard during that time period?
Edit: Edited for wrong choice of words.
He says he's totally blind so increased reading time is unlikely to help.
Wrong choice of words. I was mostly responding to this point.
Decisions - Yeah, This game is absolutely fantastic because if You don't want giving any answers you can just don't say anything! sadly or not, for the blind it will not works as You can imagine, our screen readers needs to read everything from the screen. My solution is to add more time to the making decisions like +10 secs should be okay and We can decide what to say or not.
In that case, would the pause button be a good substitution for the +10 secs?
Definitely! the pause can help I guess. Now I'm trying to reach the developers. Any help from You will be really, really appreciated if someone can do something to help! :-)
So, I tried contacting Telltale through email, steam, twitter and I posted here. It seems like their just ignoring me at all.
ANd this is what I hate definitely.
This is a great idea, TTG should imo take notice of this.