Pyvox 2: An Audio Game Accessible to Visually Impaired People Playable without Visual Nor Verbal Instructions

Abstract

In games, we can discern two approaches to learn how interactivity works: the instructions for use and the interactivity itself. The number of spoken languages is evaluated at more than six thousand eight hundred: for this reason, instructions for use can’t make games understandable for all potential users, which is especially true for audio games accessible to visually impaired players, since those games can not count on visual support and have small budgets. Such games don’t provide translation, perhaps because of a lack of cost effectiveness. So, if the purpose of a game is to learn in a friendly but challenging way how interactivity can become complex, why not start this process from the very beginning, without the need of textual instructions? Some musical toys have their sighted users accomplish very simple actions in a funny way, without the need of instructions for use. Moreover, video games show us that it is possible to separate the learning process of a complex task in small steps easy to master. We have made a game according to those principles and realized an experiment to test it. All the players managed to progress in the game but not all understood all the principles of the game. For this kind of game, we assume that players do not have to understand the game during the first contact but they have to be encouraged to continue interaction. At last, the increase of the difficulty level has to be very progressive.