Audyssey; Computer Games Accessible to the Blind Issue 17: March/April, 1999 Edited by Michael Feir +++ Welcome Welcome to the seventeenth issue of Audyssey. This magazine is dedicated to the discussion of computer games which, through accident or design, are accessible to the blind. This issue has a whole bunch of reviews for those who play games with sighted companions thanks largely to James Peach. In the aftermath of Anchorhead, James Peach gives his response to the idea that a rating system be formed for games. For those who make a habit of ignoring the Contacting Us section, this one has some new information and a correction for those trying to contact Kelly Sapergia. Also, a new company has emerged with games for sale designed for the blind. Read all about I Can See Books in this issue. Please write articles and letters about games or game-related topics which interest you. They will likely interest me, and your fellow readers. They will also make my job as editor a lot more interesting and true to the meaning of the word. This magazine should and can be a highly interesting and qualitative look at accessible computer gaming. To insure that high quality is maintained, I'll need your written contributions. I'm not asking for money here, and won't accept any. This magazine is free in its electronic form, and will always remain so. PCS needs to charge a subscription cost to cover the disks and shipping costs that it incurs by making the magazine available on disk. I'm writing this magazine as much for my own interest as for everyone else's. Your articles, reviews, and letters, as well as any games you might care to send me, are what I'm after. Send any games, articles, letters, or reviews on a 3.5-inch disk in a self-addressed mailer so that I can return your disk or disks to you once I have copied their contents onto my hard drive. Please only send shareware or freeware games. It is illegal to send commercial games. By sending me games, you will do several things: first, and most obviously, you will earn my gratitude. You will also insure that the games you send me are made available to my readership as a whole. As a further incentive, I will fill any disks you send me with games from my collection. No disk will be returned empty. If you want specific games, or specific types of games, send a message in Ascii format along. *Never* *ever* send your original disks of *anything* to *anyone* through the mail. *Always* send *copies!* This principle may seem like it shouldn't even have to be stated, but when it comes to just about anything related to computers, there's always some poor soul who will act before applying common sense. Disks are *not* indestructible. Things *do* get lost or damaged in the mail, and disks are not immune to these misfortunes. If you have a particular game that you need help with, and you are sending your questions on a disk anyhow, include the game so that I can try and get past your difficulty. If you can, I recommend that you send e-mail. I have acquired a copy of the Uuencode software, and can send and/or receive files which are encoded via this means. I can receive attached files, but cannot currently send them. This way, no money will be wasted sending me a game I already have, and you'll get my reply more quickly. You are responsible for shipping costs. That means, either use a disk mailer which has your address on it, and is either free matter for the blind, or is properly stamped. I can and will gladly spare time to share games and my knowledge of them, but cannot currently spare money above what I spend hunting for new games. I encourage all my readers to give my magazine to whoever they think will appreciate it. Up-load it onto web pages and bulletin board systems. Copy it on disk for people, or print it out for sighted people who may find it of value. The larger our community gets, the more self- sustaining it will become. This magazine is published on a bi-monthly basis, each issue appearing no earlier than the twentieth of every other month. All submissions must be sent to me in standard Ascii format either on a 3.5-inch floppy disk, or via e-mail to my Compuserve address. I will give my home address and my Compuserve address at the end of the magazine. There are now several ways of obtaining Audyssey. To subscribe to the distribution list so that you receive all future issues, send a subscription request to J.J. Meddaugh. As he is running several lists, be sure to specifically ask to join the Audyssey list. His address has changed to: jj@bestmidi.com Travis Siegel has set up a list to facilitate discussions among readers between issues. To subscribe to this discussion list, send a message to listserv@softcon.com with "subscribe audyssey" in the body of the message. To post to the discussion list, send your messages to: audyssey@softcon.com You can find all issues of Audyssey on the Internet on Paul Henrichsen's web site at: www.thesocket.com/~henrich If you have web access, Audyssey now has an official web-page, maintained by Igor Gueths at: www.concentric.net/~igueths Besides having all issues of Audyssey available for down-load, six megabytes of storage space are available for popular games. If you have ftp access, all issues are also available at Travis Siegel's ftp site: ftp.softcon.com Look in the /magazines directory. For those of you who have trouble finding some of the software discussed in this magazine, or if you know someone who doesn't have access to the Internet, but would be interested in the magazine, this magazine is now available on disk. PCS has agreed to distribute Audyssey, as well as selected shareware or freeware software on disk for ten dollars US per year. To subscribe to Audyssey on disk, contact them at: Personal Computer Systems 551 Compton Ave. Perth Amboy N.J. 08861 Phone (732)-826-1917 E-mail: pvlasak@monmouth.com +++ Contents: Welcome Contents From The Editor Letters LEVEL9: An Interpreter for Level9 Games in Any Format The Latest Finds Free Game Winner News From PCS Welcome to I Can See Books: A New Player Arrives Game Reviews Setting the Standards Contacting Us +++ From The Editor: Things are starting to look up for the Audyssey community. This issue has benefited from a revival of communication between readers. The Audyssey discussion list has once again become much more active and lively. Help and discussion has been sought on a number of issues including programs for accessing multi-user dungeons and some heated debate on Anchorhead. After the last issue's somewhat botched publication, one of the first things that happened was that several of you were quick to point out my error regarding Jaws for Dos. It indeed has a command for removing it from memory. People also pointed out that it was excellent for most interactive fiction and for PCS's games. I have yet to hear from anyone using Jaws to play rogue-like games. I still stand by my statement that Jaws for Dos uses up far too much memory. On that, I have so far received no argument. While discussion is heating up, we still need more articles and reviews. Once again, I had to use almost all the materials sent to me to put this issue together. Sadly, Adam, The Immortal gamer will not make an appearance here. However, due to many requests to bring him back, I'll do my utmost to have an episode for this year's anniversary issue to be published in June. Although the official date would be July 15th, we seem to have fallen a month off of schedule. If any of you have ideas on how else to make the third anniversary issue of Audyssey special, i'd love to hear them. A lot of things are changing for me around here. I now have my own phone line, and can therefore offer you the ability to call me. you'll find it in the "Contacting Us" section. I will also soon be getting a new and very powerful computer. This will make Audyssey a lot easier to put together. I'll also be far better able to test potential games. You'll learn more about this new machine in the next issue after I've actually had a chance to use it. The search for a permanent job is still going on. I suspect it will go on for quite a while. A BA degree is quite a worth-while thing to attain in terms of personal growth. However, businesses don't seem to value a strong ability with the written word too highly. On the whole, I am still optimistic about my prospects. I can only hope that all of you are having more success at job-hunting. Fortunately, in all other respects, life is quite pleasant. I have excellent friends and a lot of fun. I also have plenty of time to help people. This is something I have always found quite rewarding. At Mr. Peach's request, I am changing the title of his department from commercial games to mainstream games. James pointed out that covering commercial games was too broad a mandate and ruled out shareware if interpreted literally. By "mainstream games", I am referring to those games designed for the general public. Only games for the PC fall within his responsibility. This still leaves far too many games for one person to investigate. if any of you out there want to join the Audyssey staff as a mainstream games expert, we could certainly use your help. You must be able to either see well enough to play these games, or have ready access to a sighted companion to play the games with you. For example, I play a lot of mainstream games such as Return to Krondor with my father and with Adam Taylor. Well, that about wraps it up for now. I hope all of you enjoy this issue, and look forward to hearing from you. Keep those letters, reviews, and articles coming. For you strategy buffs, look out for Birth of the Federation. It is due to be released on May 19th here in Toronto. It is reputed to be a Star Trek turn-based strategy game. Advance reviews have been quite positive. Another game called Fable has also been recommended to me as worth investigating. Until next time, play on. +++ Letters: ++ From Maurice Press: Hi Michael. In the latest Audyssey, you asked for correspondence. Well, I really like Audyssey and so I have come out of the woodwork to air a few views. Firstly, a while ago I offered Audyssey to subscribers in braille free of charge. I have had only one request so far. Because of the nature of my business, I would be happy to provide Audyssey either on Audiotape or in Braille, particularly to people. I enjoy computer games. However, I am still very concerned at the amount of DOS games around. In this Windows age, I think it is important for people to use the latest programs and try to adapt them. A year ago, I was still using DOS 6.2 with Wordperfect. I do realise however, that using games written in windows progs can be quite daunting for Visually Impaired individuals particularly as there seems to be less and less text used. What I do like in a lot of the latest games is the sound. I have a Yamaha Gold soundcard on this Pentium 400 machine and the stereo effects are quite fantastic. My latest game is "Generations", the latest TNG game. It begins once loaded, with a short film sequencing events up to the time when you have to control events on the enterprise. Unfortunately, it is at this time that things become difficult because you have to guide people around. I am looking at a way of modifying this but will have to be a bit careful until I have copywright. Lastly, sorry to go on, can anyone answer 2 queries for me? 1. Are there any good websites with good games in windows with great sound effects? 2. I am a big fan of Terry Prachett and have read most of his books. Does anyone know whether there are any Discworld computer games yet? If anyone would like to contact me my Email address is: Mauricepress@enterprise.net Please keep publishing Audyssey. Maurice Press. + Well, Maurice, in answer to your second question, I am fairly confident that there is at least one Discworld game out there. I doubt it would be all that accessible however. The search is still going on for great-sounding accessible games in Windows. I suspect we'll have a long wait before any freeware or shareware accessible games are offered with very high quality sound besides action games. Silent Steel is so far the best commercial game. you Don't Know Jack is second in line. If you would stoop to playing a Dos- based game, Flash Traffic is also fully accessible. It has fantastic sound. On the subject of Dos versus Windows, I have no problem with people playing Dos games. Lets face it. there are more Dos games which are accessible than Windows. For the foreseeable future, this will doubtless continue to be the case. Even if there comes a time when more is available for Windows, I am not about to stop playing all these great games we've found and discussed in Audyssey over the past years. Take interactive fiction for example. Before graphics took off, interactive fiction was the best computer entertainment available. Are these games any less worthy of our attention just because video games have blasted them out of the main stream? Even if a whole crop of audio-based games should appear, I'll still pull out Zork or Jigsaw. The puzzles will still be as challenging, and the writing is still first-rate. By your logic, you should also be concerned that there are so many old books around. After all, there are a whole crop of modern writers out there. Dickens and Doyle are still just as vivid and powerful as ever. I'm not about to stop reading Sherlock Holmes just because I can watch mysteries on TV. Certainly I hope that more games are offered in Windows. Games make an excellent way of learning how to use one's access technology. Windows also offers some exciting possibilities for accessible games. I think we should be able to enjoy both kinds of games without being unduly concerned about it. I hope that as the demand grows for more Windows games, developers will come through with more offerings. Regarding Mr. Press's offer to distribute Audyssey in tape or Braille, I hope we can get more people interested in that. If anyone knows some one who can't obtain Audyssey on the Internet, or a place or agency which would be interested, please let Mr. Press know. I'm still trying to get the CNIB and other Canadian agencies and media interested in Audyssey, but have not had tremendous success. A few of you have been kind enough to pass out flyers about Audyssey at conventions. I hope you continue to do this, and that all of you spread word about audyssey to others. The more readers we get, the better. Part of the reason why Mr. Press got so little response to his offer was that everyone who got it was already able to obtain Audyssey. We need to get the message to people or places which could have it available for people. If there are places which frequently deal with blind people, they might want it for their clients to read while they are waiting. Before we move on, I'd like to thank Mr. Maurice for keeping his offer open. ++ From Igor Gueths: Hi Michael. Long time no see huh? I've been pretty busy with school and everything else, but I just wanted to bring up an interesting point. I was rather interested in the article you published about music for speech-friendly computer games. When I read the part about midi, I remembered that midi doesn't sound good on my sound card. It can sound good if a computer game uses direct-x, which is the multimedia system used in Windows 98. I have played a game that uses direct-x, and it sounds very good, especially the music. Well, one way to go is having Pcs make windows-based games that take advantage of Windows 98's multimedia capabilities. Another way is using a format called mpeg, which stands for motion picture experts group. The research for mpeg was originally started in Germany (I believe). As you can see, I know you would be asking the question: Why mpeg if it is all video? Well, mpeg also can store cd-quality audio. These files are called mp3 files, which is technically called mpeg audio layer 3. The real advantage to mp3 or mpeg is that it can deliver high-quality audio with about twice less memory. For example, a wav file that has a song recorded from a cd could take up anywhere from 20 to 60 mb or more of hard disk space. If it were encoded in mp3, it would only take up about 1 mb. Mpeg layer 4 is supposed to be released later this year. But anyway, if you wanted to put music in a game, use mp3. I have listened to these files, and they sound like a cd playing in the cdrom drive. You can find them on the internet if you search for mp3 streams. If you use ms-dos, go to webcrawler.com, and search for mp3 players. Go to the link that says "main" below the summaries link. If you used a lot of mp3s, a game could get quite large. But, if you used a combination of mp3's and wavs, you could probably make a pretty good game in terms of high-quality sound. All you need is something called a cd ripper, which you can find on www.mp3.com if you have web access. A cd ripper basically extracts the audio from an audio cd and encodes it into an mp3 file for you. Then, you could use a sound editing program to remove the words if you want. A program that I have found quite useful is called goldwave. The only drawback to its remove vocals effect is that it removes the stereo sound. The result is usually a song with a lot of echo. But, for somebody who wants to put music in their game, they should definitely look to mp3. The only thing is that you need a computer with a pentium processor to listen to the very high-quality mp3's. I heard from Jim Kitchen that mp3's sound ok on a 486, but they sound better on a pentium. Also, the pages.prodigy.net web page no longer exists. Instead, my url is www.concentric.net/~igueths. Please put this letter in the next issue of audyssey. + Having heard some MP3 files for myself, I can certainly agree with Igor about their quality. I would certainly welcome more Windows games which could take advantage of the multi-media capabilities. However, I think that such games will be quite rare for the immediate future. Neither PCS nor I Can See Books seems ready to take the plunge into producing Windows audio-based games. These companies are still smarter to stick with Dos-based games since the majority of their potential clients are using Dos-based systems or are more comfortable with Dos. The demand for Windows games is certainly increasing. However, it would still be very hard to turn a profit on a high quality Windows game made exclusively for the blind. If we are to see such games, I suspect that they will be accidentally accessible. This is certainly most likely according to a historical perspective. PCS has indicated that they are investigating the Windows environment, and may start producing Windows games by next year. This is by no means certain to occur however. ++ From Patrick R. Davis: Hi Mike, Sorry I took so long to get back to you. I have been having some computer trouble. Now, I have Windows98 and Windoweyes 3.0. If I had gotten this fixed earlier I would have helped you with number 16. I also just wanted to make sure that nobody thought now that I won a game I would just sit back without reviewing it for you. (grin) I am considering going into computer programming so I can make games of my own. I have just got a braille book on basic programming, so my materials are right under my fingers (pardon the pun). I thought of starting with basic programming then moving on too C++. I was wondering if you or any of your readers had any advice for me. There are some classes that I could take my junior or senior year that will teach me C++. If I didn't review Haze Maze, I would be taking advantage of this magazine. Anyway, this game has excellent stereo effects. I also liked the echoes in the walking sounds. It made the effect of the mazes more creepy. The wind chime isn't really needed to play the game but I leave it on for the effect. The terrain sounds are excellent, but I think the grass covered ground one could use a little mor work. I haven't even gotten through all the mazes, but so far, I think that mazes 4 and 7 are pretty challenging. Also, the game saves your position in a maze if you quit it. The menu will tell you which mazes are and aren't completed, and it will have a "last maze" option, which is the one that allows you to resume playing the maze that you were playing when you quit. I also like the doors on maze 3. Carl says that he might be using that in Dungeons and Dragons. My particular game came late, so I am still not very far on it. Even Allan Maynard "the maze hater" should give the demo a try. This demo, like all of PCS demos, is available at Paul Henrichson's web site. If I get any games, I will certainly write a review on them. Good luck to you on future issues of Audyssey. I want to thank you and Carl for the game. Patrick + You certainly earned that free game, Patrick. Outside the staff, your contribution to issue 14 was absolutely outstanding. Thanks also for your comments on the maze game. We'll have to get Mr. Maynard's reaction. I also wish you all the best in your efforts to learn how to program. We can always use more games, and these days, programming is an excellent career choice. I hope that many of our readers can offer you their wisdom. ++ From Edward Green: Hi Michael I've discovered a games website which I think may be of interest to several Audyssey readers, perhaps more specifically to those who live either in the U.K or in other cricket-playing countries. It is a site devoted to computer cricket games and simulations. It covers shareware, freeware and commercial games. Some of them are old dos games meaning they are almost bound to be accessible, and I know for a fact that at least one of the games for windows is. The focal point of the site is a game called International Test Cricket which costs #15 to register. I have played the shareware game with no problems. However, many of the programs are small and, if you're a cricket fan, I'd say it was worth the download time just to check them out. The website address is http://www.cricketgames.com Edward Green + Thanks for informing the Audyssey community about the availability of these games. I'm not a big sports fan myself, but a good number of our readership is. I hope at least some of these games are found to be accessible. If anyone finds one or more of these games to be to their liking, please send your reviews so others may know what is accessible and won't have to gamble. Ever since Field General emerged, there hasn't been anything for sports fans to talk about. perhaps this will stir them up. +++ LEVEL9: An Interpreter for Level9 Games in Any Format Program by Glen Summers Article by Justin Fegel I discovered this program several months ago while browsing the Interactive Fiction Archive. The program is called Level9 and, as you may have already guessed from the title of this article, this program will allow you to play games that were produced by the text adventure company Level9. If you've been playing text adventures for a number of years, you probably have some knowledge of Level9. This company has a prominent place in the history of interactive fiction. For those of you less familiar with the company, I will give you a brief overview. Level9, like most of the commercial text adventure companies, had its heyday during the 1980's. They were a UK based company and were the leading publisher of text adventures in England. In fact, they have been referred to as the British Infocom. Their games were so successful that Scapeghost, their last and least successful game, still sold about 15,000 copies. Some of their more well known game titles are Lords of Time, Snowball, Colossal Adventure, Worm in Paradise, and Lancelot. Overall, they produced 20 text adventures making them the second largest producer of text adventures next to Infocom. Their games featured a decent parser, a game dictionary that could contain 1,000 or more words, and it wasn't uncommon for a game to have an average of 200 or more locations, much larger than most Infocom games. Level9 officially closed its doors around 1991 for the same reason that most of the other text adventure developers went out of business. They could not compete with the growing demand for more graphical games. For more detailed information on Level9 and their games, you should download and read The Level9 Fact Sheet. You can find this fact sheet at ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if- archive/level9/info/Level9_Facts.txt. I will plan on reviewing a couple Level9 games in an upcoming issue. Level9 games were available for a wide variety of computers. According to the documentation for the Level9 Interpreter, the computers that games were available on were, Comodore 64s, BBCs, Ataris, Amigas, Spectrums, and IBM PCs. The Level9 interpreter is supposed to be able to play these games no matter what format they are in. Even though games were produced for different computer platforms, the Spectrum versions seem to be the only versions that are widely available on the Internet. I have been searching for PC versions of Level9 games for the last couple of months, but, I have had very little success. I did find a web site that had a small selection of Level9 games available for the PC, but, when I returned a couple days later the site was gone and I never found it again. Since Spectrum versions of Level9 games seem to be the most common format available today, the Level9 Interpreter is a very useful utility, especially for someone who is blind. Ordinarily, you would have to use a Spectrum emulator to play the games and emulators are not at all speech friendly. An emulator is a program that can run under Dos or Windows that simulates the operating system, sound, display, and keyboard layout of an older computer. People use them primarily to play games that aren't available in a format for the PC. But these emulators tend to be buggy, sometimes unstable, and don't work at all with screen readers. In fact, when you try and use an emulator on a system that has a screen reader installed, you lose speech entirely and you can't even use the screen reader's review functions. It should be noted that the Level9 Interpreter is not an emulator. It's just a run-time engine that can read the contents of a Level9 game file and execute it, like Frotz for Infocom games. For example: To start playing the spectrum version of Lords of Time you would type: level9 time.sna. The extension .sna tells the interpreter that the game is a spectrum snapshot. Once you have loaded a Level9 game with the interpreter, you play it just like any other text adventure. The Level9 Interpreter is available for both MSDos and Windows. If you use the MSDos version you will have to use your Dos screen readers review keys to read the output, as The program writes directly to the screen. How well the Windows version works with speech depends on your Windows screen reader. For example: If you use JFW, you can set the screen echo to all, and everything will be read automatically. Here are the files you need to download. You can find the MSDos version of the interpreter at ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/level9/interpreters/level9/l9dos.zip. The windows version is in the same directory, but the file is called l9win.zip. Next, you need some games to play! You should download ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/spectrum/level9.zip. This file contains spectrum versions of some of Level9's most popular games. If you have any questions feel free to drop me an e-mail. My e-mail address is in the Contacting Us section at the end of this issue. Have fun! +++ The Latest Finds: The past two months haven't turned up too many fully accessible games for blind people. Thanks to Brandan Williams, I have a copy of the eleventh release of the Inform port of Dungeon. I'll try and get that up on Mr. Henrichsen's site when I can. No news has come to either myself or either of my staff regarding the .z8 port being worked on. This .z8 port is supposed to be loaded with footnotes and other extras. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is definitely being offered as shareware. Justin Fegel's last-minute investigation on Audyssey's behalf was able to clarify that point at least. However, I had no time to investigate the sites he pointed to. The next issue will hopefully contain more details on where to obtain the game and what the cost is. Some of you may have noticed or obtained the early version of the Hitchhiker's Guide game which suddenly appeared and then vanished from the If-archive. As an owner of the Lost Treasures of Infocom collection, I had a copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide which had built-in hints. I hope that this later version will be released or available as shareware. Another arrival of interest has been a new version of Colossal Caves. This version is written in Tads, and is a five hundred and fifty-one point version. It also can simulate the classic three hundred and fifty point version. With excellent parsing abilities and a number of other enhancements, this game is superbly resurrected yet again. Due to its built-in hints and extensive instructions, I can highly recommend this game for beginners. It is available in the if-archive. Tsunami Media has now shown us two games which are accessible to the blind. Silent Steel is one of the very few fully accessible Windows games available. It is now also available in DVD format for those lucky enough to own such systems. I will soon be one of these individuals, and will report on how accessible the DVD version of it is. More recently, Mr. Maynard and I were able to try Flash Traffic. This game is a Dos-based game, and is played in a similar manner to Silent Steel. My father and I played it through over about a week, and found it quite interesting. Here is what Mr. Maynard has to say: Hi Gamers, If you have played Silent Steel--the interactive movie thriller, then you'll also love Flash Traffic. If you are not familiar with Silent Steel let me give you a short explanation. You are the captain of the U.S.S. Idaho, a modern-day submarine. The game is an actual movie and at different points the game pauses and you must make one of three choices. Depending on your decision the movie will go off in different directions. What's nice about these interactive movies, at least the ones by Tsunami Media, is that you use the up and down arrows to make your selection and each time you hit the up or down arrow you hear the captain's voice speaking that option. Flash Traffic works the same way, but in this game you are the head of the F.B.I. investigating what appears to be a plot to build and plant a nuclear bomb in Los Angelis (at least I think it is Los Angelis). The only difference between Flash Traffic and Silent Steel is that Flash Traffic is not a Windows95 game. According to the instructions it must be run in a DOS mode. It can't even run in a Windows95 DOS box or a Windows3.x DOS shell. The only way I've been able to get it to work properly is to select the shutdown option from the Start menu in Win95 then select "Restart the computer in MS-DOS mode". It doesn't seem to work when you hit the F-8 key on boot up then selecting menu number 6, command mode, from the ensuing menu. Using Vocal-eyes I was only able to get speech from the opening credits but nothing else. I needed sighted help to install the game. Once done, however, the game is a blast to play. Without speech it is a little hard to tell when the game asks you to insert the next cd but if you just hit your up or down arrow after waiting a few seconds and nothing happens then you are probably being asked to insert the next cd. Pop in the next one and hit enter twice and the adventure continues. It's important to read the readme.txt file because it tells you what each function key does. There are save and restore function keys, a replay last clip key, as well as a play movie key. With the save feature you are not allowed to save anywhere you want, you must wait until you come to a decision area and the game saves at that point. Now, without speech I haven't yet figured out if you can enter your own file name or if you can only use the game's default name. Since Flash Traffic came before Silent Steel I don't believe it will support the later sound cards, at least the ones which have no DOS drivers. If you'd like to order the game it can be ordered on- line at www.tsunamimedia.com. The form is a little difficult to figure out but it can be done. Or you can call Tsunami Media to order or get more information. Their number is: 209-683-8266. The game costs $40 and comes on 3 cd's. I've played it three times so far and I've died three times in three different ways. It's a hard way to learn. I opened a DOS box in Windows-95 and tried to run Flash Traffic. It worked just fine. Now I am using Windows-95 Version B and an AWE32 SoundBlaster sound card but I don't know if either of these facts made a difference. I guess if you buy the game the only thing you can do is try it in a Windows-95 DOS box. I just wanted all the readers to know that the documentation concerning Windows-95 looks to be a little outdated. Dope Wars (formerly Drug Wars) is a DOS, text-based game in which you must gain your wealth through selling drugs on the streets. Obstacles will be a constant problem, as you climb out of debt and into fortunes. To increase your chances of survival, you can buy weapons to defend your freedom, or life, and there are six neighbourhoods that you can hind in, as well as sell illegal narcotics in. This is a game that requires wit, nerve, skill, and luck, as you battle to victory in Dope Wars. WARNING: due to the nature of this program, it is a games strictly for adults, and not for children! Stone Keep This is a n RPG that will have you on edge, and screaming "Bring on the goblins!". You, as a boy, were spirited away by mysterious forces, and now ten years later, you have returned to your home, only to find it ravaged by evil and darkness. You, with nothing but nerve (and some clothes), will journey deeper and deeper into this evil and darkness, battling giant insects, goblins, skeletons, and much more. For what you might Ask? As if evil and darkness, hitting you where you live, wasn't enough of an incentive, you have to reclaim your immortal soul, free a great dragon from bondage, and much more; are you up to the challenge? Campaign for Windows Want to be in the middle of a Civil War kind of battle? Then look no further than WinCamp. Campaign of Windows, is a simple, turn- based strategy game, where you pit your army of horses, cannons, and men against theirs. With just a roll of the dice, you can move or attack your enemy units, and hear all the action. With full sound (sound card not PC speaker), this game should be entertaining to any blind/sighted team looking to take the day, with Campaign of Windows (also known as WinCamp). This game is freeware. Heroes of Might and Magic 3 The Heroes of Might and Magic (Heroes or HoMM) series, has been one of the greatest series of games ever produced, and is truly a testament to those who believe there is something beyond real-time. This third instalment will essentially be what Heroes 2 was to Heroes 1, improvement and expansion on the good, and destruction of the bad. With new maps, more units, characters, spells, artifacts and more, it is plain to see that no drastic change can be made on a game (Heroes 2) that's already a winning combination. SimCity 3000 Did you think that there was no life after SimCity 2000" That you couldn't make it any better or that it couldn't be done in your lifetime? Well, you're about to be startled. SimCity 3000 is here, and it looks like a very sweet game. After such a long wait (nearly five years!), Maxis has truly created the definitive city builder. This game is about as realistic as it gets, with the ability to build just about anything, build it pretty much where you want. You can gain a street census or poll on just about anything, can query schools, services, banks, and so on. For those on the sighted side of the game team, with the ability to zoom to ground level, you'll see your citizens commute, communicate and travel, on your streets and sidewalks, just like in a real city. With the sounds to bring the game to life, to the realism that will help to truly grow, and make you look like a planning pro, SimCity 3000 looks like it was worth the very long wait. +++ Free Game Winner This month's free game goes to Robin Mandell. Many thanks are owed to her for bringing news of I Can See Books to the Audyssey community. It has been a long time since a new source of games has been discovered. The folks at PCS have long hoped that more companies would enter the gaming market and generate more interest in computer entertainment. At long last, this has happened. Robin Mandell has contributed a number of reviews including one on Anchorhead. She has recently been accepted at Queen's university. Despite the often hectic pace of life on campus, I hope she finds the time to enjoy the odd game and tell us about them. Congratulations, Robin. +++ News From PCS In a recent conversation, PCS programmer Carl Micla gave me an update on future plans and sales trends. Apparently, the older PCS games are doing better than the more recent ones. Packman has done surprisingly poorly so far. So has the maze and card games. Due to the volume of requests I've gotten over the years about accessible card games I'm personally quite surprised at how poorly Ivan's card games are doing. I remind all of you that a demo is now available on the Internet, and hope you'll give it a try. Plans are also afoot to release a game about king Arthur fairly soon. You'll find out about the current two releases below thanks to Phill. Carl also explained that PCS was investigating the Windows environment. They have some interesting ideas about how to design games which may not even require a speech program. They'll speak by themselves. Other speculations concerned the use of MP3 files for better sound. As long as sales pick up, it looks like we'll be living in quite interesting times thanks to the innovations of PCS. Personal Computer Systems Presents star trek the battle begins. David Greenwood takes us from beneath the oceans in lone wolf, into the heavens with his new game star trek the battle begins. You command four Federation Star Fleet star ships. The frontiers were always a problem, but now three old nemesis joined forces. The Federation must take on the Tholians, Klingdons and Romulans; all the members of the evil alliance at once. You are the best the Federation has, and if it is going to survive, you will have to be the one to come through. Your star ships contain the latest technology the Federation has. The ships are equipped with the most powerful phasers, the latest photon torpedoes, and a secret super powerful tri-lithium matter anti-matter mine. The navigational and targeting computers are loaded with the newest software. These last four star ships have the most powerful and stable dilithium matrix warp core drives around today. They can provide instant warp speed and protect the ship with a force shield unmatched by any of your enemies. You have the best tools, but will it be enough? This is the first P C S game with continuous background soundS! It also includes the sounds of weapons explosions and the female computer voice. STAR TREK cost $30.00 RED DRAGON KICK BOXING CHALLENGE Hay! You. Yes you! I am talking to you! I hear that you think your pretty tough! Well, do you think you can take me on? Well, I hear you talk the walk. but can you walk the talk? Lets see! Meat me at the RED DRAGON Kick Boxing Ring in five minutes and we will go a few rounds and see what you've got! Your hands are sweating as the trainer wraps them. You try to concentrate as the gloves go on, but the excitement of the event is beginning to mount. This is the day you have been training for the past year. All of the hard work is about to be put to the limit in the most physically and mentally draining test of your life. As you walk down the runway the cheers from the crowd makes your adrenaline run through your body like a train through a corn field. By the time you reach the ropes, you can feel yourself float out of your body and look down on your opponent. This is it. There is no turning back and you are up to the challenge. The moment of truth has finally come. The bell rings... Personal Computer Systems has produced a real time kick boxing game for you fast action lovers. The game uses the six pack key group, the arrow key group, and your stereo speakers to play the game. There are twelve ranked kick boxers for you to fight. You can even make the computer fight itself. Listen for your opponent to throw a punch to your head or body, or to kick out at you. The sound coming from your left, right, or centre STEREO SOUND will tell you which direction the attack is from. The type of yell he makes tells you what he is aiming for. You try to block his blow, by hitting the correct key. Attacking the opponent is easy by using the three top keys on the six pack group, INSERT, HOME, AND PAGE UP to throw a punch to the opponent's head. The three lower keys DEL, END, AND PAGE DOWN throws a blow to the body. You Kick using the left and right arrow keys. You move towards and back from your opponent by using the up and down arrow keys. That is all the keys you need, but it takes lots of practice to beat the champ! So, get those fingers limbered up, put in your mouth piece, and lets go a few rounds! RED DRAGON KICK BOXING CHALLENGE COST $30.00 Please add two dollars shipping per order. You can contact P C S in any format at PERSONAL Computer Systems 551 Compton Ave. Perth Amboy NJ. 08861 phone (732) 826-1917 E-mail pvlasak@monmouth.com +++ Welcome to I Can See Books: A New Player Arrives Thanks to the thoughtfulness of Robin Mandell, the Audyssey gaming community now has a second source for commercial games made specifically for the blind. I was about to head out for a social outing when Robin Called to tell me about I Can See Books. This company, she informed me, had some games and utilities for sale that Audyssey readers might be interested in. Primarily a transcription company, I can See Books translates print books into audio or Braille formats. They also offer a small but growing collection of Dos-based software for sale. I have included the assortment of games from their catalogue below for you to examine. If you want further information or a complete catalogue, they are quite happy to provide it electronically. I can also attest to their exemplary promptness. They were very quick to send the catalogue. I also found them eager to provide the additional information which I thought would interest you. Starting strictly as a transcription company in the early eighties, They have recently begun offering computer programs for sale. It seems that at least one member of the small and bustling home enterprise has a hobby of computer programming. Eventually, they decided to sell these programs in addition to the books. The latest addition to their collection of programs is a typing tutor designed with the needs of blind people in mind. I asked if they planned to expand their collection of games and programs. They are indeed planning to do this, and say that we can expect more educational games in particular from them in the future. This will be especially delightful and long overdue news for the educators and parents in our readership. for those of you after pure entertainment, I Can See Books has a few items of interest as well. They are quite open to suggestions and ideas, so if you want something that hasn't been done yet, you may want to see what they think. How this newcomer fares in marketing their games will be quite interesting to see over the months ahead. Like PCS, they are putting out these programs as an addition to their main business. Both businesses are home-based at present. Those who call PCS may hear the occasional meo of a cat. In contrast, those calling I Can See Books may hear all manner of bustle in the background. One disadvantage for Audyssey readers is that there are no demos to get off the Internet. You'll just have to take the gamble. To offset this, it is worth mentioning that I Can See Books sells their programs for a mere $8 Canadian versus PCS's usual fee of around $30 American. The exception to this is the typing tutor as you'll see below. From my perspective, I doubt that these two companies will actually compete directly with each other all that often. Monopoly is the only game which both companies have produced in common so far. If some one would provide us a comparison of the two Monopoly games, I would be very much obliged. This would shed light on any differences in technique and philosophy regarding accessability. Please also send reviews of their games so we can get to know this company better. Without further delay, here is their selection of games: I Can See Books 88 Captain Morgans Blvd. Nanaimo, B.C. V9R 6R1 Canada Phone: [250] 753-3096 Electronic mail address:: dr100@ncf.carleton.ca World Wide Web address: http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~dr100 SPEECH-FRIENDLY COMPUTER PROGRAMS The following is a list of DOS-based speech-friendly computer games and utilities which we have designed to work especially well with any speech synthesizer. These programs do not require any specialized, modern equipment to run satisfactorily. All programs cost $8, and are mailed on a 3.5 inch high density floppy disk, unless otherwise specified. We offer a discount to anyone purchasing many computer programs. For every four programs you purchase, you will receive an additional program of your choice free of charge. COMPUTER GAMES FOR ALL AGES The following is a list of the computer games we have to offer which can be enjoyed by children and adults alike. They are all speech-friendly, and the rules of each original game have been carefully retained in the electronic version of the program. Dominos. You can now play the famous game of dominos on the computer! If this game is popular, we plan to have our computer programmer write many domino games, each with different rules and objectives. Please note that this game allows only two players. Monopoly. The world-renowned game involving buying and selling properties, renting houses and hotels, paying income tax, and choosing chance and community chest cards is now incorporated into a speech-friendly computer game! Please note that this version of Monopoly allows only two players. FUN, EDUCATIONAL CHILDREN'S GAMES All of the computer games presented in this section are fun to play and extremely educational. Each game has a specific educational purpose which incorporates learning and fun into an amazing blend of hilarity and suspense that makes the child want to keep playing without his or her even realizing what valuable things he or she is learning. Games such as the Balloon Game teach keyboard and computer readiness skills. Such word games as The Phonix Game, Spell It and Learning the Alphabet help the child learn his or her alphabet in a fun and exciting fashion. Story Maker and Computer Quiz help to teach the child valuable skills and information concerning English and history. And, finally, such games as Battle Ship and Uno teach strategy and concentration while playing for a definite objective, to triumph over the computer and become the winner! Balloon Game. This is a wonderful game of chance. The goal is to blow up a huge balloon without popping it. Such common mishaps as having someone step on the balloon, week rubber and not enough money to buy the balloon are only a few of the problems the player must get around! Battle Ship. This strategy game takes a great deal of thought and concentration if the player is to win. Each player is presented with a grid with one-hundred squares, on which five boats are hidden. Your goal is to defeat the other player's fleet before he gets yours. You can even play against the computer, with 3 different skill levels! Computer Quiz. This educational game has quizzes on anything from the sinking of the Titanic to famous cities all over the world. Complete with numbered questions and letter-chosen answers, this game is a fun, educational program to enjoy! Count the Sounds. This terrific preschool game has thirty different sounds. It plays each sound a certain number of times, and then waits for the child to press the number of times the sound played. All sounds are chosen with care, and are guaranteed to catch the child's attention! Electronic Tunes. This fun program allows you to compose tunes on the computer. It works just like a piano or an organ, only it has more features, such as pitch set and length of notes. Guess the Sound. This program is great for kids as young as one and as old as nine. There are five different skill levels, determined by the age typed in at the beginning of the game. Children of all ages are sure to love this game! (Please note that an external sound card must be used with this program.) Learning the Alphabet. This program is great for kindergartners. It asks the child to press the letter of the alphabet that comes directly after the letter displayed. For example, the program asks, "What letter comes after A?" When the child types B, the computer plays a tune and moves on. Phonix Game. This is a great game for children starting school. The child can type in the beginning, middle or ending letter of the three-letter word presented. You can even change the data file containing the words the program presents and the number of words the child is asked during one session! Spell It. This game is excellent for children learning to spell. It has twenty-six common, easy-to-spell words, 1 for each letter of the alphabet. After the word has been spelled correctly, a different word of congratulations is offered and an ever-varying tune is played on the computer to encourage the child. Story Maker. This fun game is designed to allow the child to make up crazy and hilarious one-sentence stories. The child selects one of six different fraises from one of each of the five sentence parts. Then, the child can listen to the sentence he or she has picked out on the computer. The computer can even randomly pick a sentence for the child to listen to! This program is excellent in helping the child to understand the various parts of the sentence and how to make sentences with proper and regular nouns, verbs, subjects and predicates. Uno. This delightful card game is fun and easy to play for all ages. Your goal is to have played all of your cards before your opponent gets a chance to win. Draw two, wild and wild draw four cards make the game interesting and fun. And the computer knows all the rules! ATTENTION ALL TYPISTS! Are you a new computer user just learning how to type? Do you wish to dramatically increase your typing speed so that you can use a computer more efficiently? I CAN SEE BOOKS is proud to present "TALKING TYPING TEACHER", our newest and hottest computer program yet! Talking Typing Teacher, or TTT for short, has been designed especially to help teach you to type or increase your typing speed. The program guides you through every aspect of typing in such a straight-forward, exciting manner that you won't even realize how much your typing ability is improving. Since typing is so essential in our modern society, we felt that it was about time a program be written to teach you to type without typing boring drills over and over again. The main goal, kept in mind when TTT was written, was to change the method of learning to type from a boring, strenuous process to an exciting and rewarding activity. As its name implies, Talking Typing Teacher has built-in speech. By this we mean that you do not require speech output devices to use TTT. You are guided through the menus, prompted to type drills, asked questions and informed of everything else by Eager Eddie, our friendly, prerecorded man's voice. The built-in speech option allows you to run TTT on your computer, regardless of whether it has a speech synthesizer installed. In most cases, you don't even require a sound card to be installed on your computer, as TTT presents you with the option of playing its sound on the internal PC speaker--the speaker inside your computer on which all system beeps and whirs are heard. In fact, we originally designed TTT for blind and visually impaired users, but found that our sighted customers also enjoy having their computers talk to them while learning to type or increasing their typing speed. TTT consists of ten main menu items and twenty sub-menu options, which are arranged with the easiest first and the hardest last. Under each menu, you are presented with a series of choices designed to take the repetition out of typing and keep it interesting. Here are just a few of the highlights of TTT: y The LEARN THE KEYBOARD option--under the FIND KEYS menu--allows you to press any key or key combination on your keyboard and hear the name of that key spoken aloud. y Under the VERY BASIC DRILLS menu, you can practice typing the keys on the home row of the keyboard, or type amusing words, phrases and sentences, consisting entirely of words which can be typed on the home row. y Under the BASIC DRILLS menu, you are presented with a series of choices, allowing you to practice typing on specific areas of the keyboard. Rather than randomly selected letters, we have found words that are typed almost entirely on the area of the keyboard you wish practice with. y By the time you enter the HARDER DRILLS menu, you will have the opportunity to type interesting sentences. These sentences are not all about the benefits of typing and working hard; rather, every sentence will present you with an interesting fact, anecdote, saying or moral which you will find absolutely fascinating. y In both the VERY BASIC DRILLS and HARDER DRILLS menus, we have included special choices to allow you to practice typing numbers, since we have found that many people do not get enough practice typing numbers and end up developing hard-to-break, incorrect habits of reaching these keys. y The MATH and SPELLING menus allow you to practice typing numbers and letters as the answers to questions asked by your computer. y When you suspect that your typing speed is improving, you can always select the OPEN TYPING menu and have the computer tell you your current typing speed. y If it is ever possible to get tired of practicing typing with the numerous choices already described, you even have the option of playing memory games under the GAMES menu! Technical requirements: IBM-compatible computer, 386 or better, 2.5 megabytes of free hard disk space, MS-DOS 4.0 or higher, and a 16- bit sound card (optional). If you do not have a sound card installed in your computer and wish to know whether TTT's built-in speech will play adequately on your internal PC speaker, please call us and we will help you determine whether your PC speaker has the appropriate volume to support the program's built-in speech system. Your copy of Talking Typing Teacher will come with a comprehensive disk and print manual and your choice of either a Braille or audio/cassette version of the manual. Send your cheque or money order for $49 (Canadian funds), made payable to Danny Faris, President: I Can See Books. +++ Game Reviews: + Lords of the Realms II By: Sierra inc. Reviewed by James Peach Lords of the Realms II is a turn-based strategy game, set in medieval times. It is a scenario style game, in which you are 1 of 5 nobles vying for control over all the land, as well as the throne. Though it might seem accessible to the blind, it is a graphical strategy, so sighted assistance is required, and though much of the game is turn-based, the combat is real-time (unfortunately). Sierra took a really nice try at merging the sophistication of Civilization, with the combat style of Warcraft II, into Lords II (as it's commonly called) creating an intriguing strategic experience that holds the best of both worlds, and more. I enjoy engaging in the mind exercise of strategic movement and thought, involved in such games, so I can hardly disagree with considering Lords II to be a first rate strategy, I do have a few complaints about game play. I shall discuss the smiles and frowns of Lords of the Realms II. One of the best things I found when playing this game, was it's level of complexity, involving 2 strategies within 1 game. There is the strategy dealing with resource development, from which plots of land will be farms, what they will produce if they become farms, how much of the populace will farm and which will not, over to strategic location of buildings, to even the country's health and loyalty. There is also the strategy of war, from the buying of weapons, to training units, to organizing raids and sieges, to actually controlling units on the battlefield in real time, as they bring down enemy forces in the attempt to expand your borders. This shows that not only the size and strength of your army is important, but also, if you make incorrect judgements, whether in battle or in resource use, nasty, painful things can happen to you, like a riot could start, or you people could die of starvation or disease! Another thing I like about Lords II is that it's easy to use, with simple mouse use (for your sighted assistance anyway), and step-by- step audio assistance and advice. Also, whenever a building is double-clicked, or when an option, like say turning mining on or off, the audio in the game will tell where you are or what you've done. The audio output (which is not speech synthesis) doesn't only involve game selections and beginning assistance and advice (which will end after the beginning of a new game), but is also extended to unit selection, so that when a particular unit is selected, it has it's own unique sounds when it is chosen to do different things. Finally, I enjoyed the interactivity of the game, though limiting. What I mean by this is that you can act in a particular way, and possibly get a response, or not, which can be interesting in itself. For example: I wish to send an insult to a particularly annoying neighbour, and he might send a response saying that I'll rue the day when he gets to cut the tongue from my throat. Though there might be good argument to rush out to the stores, falling over each other and caning each other to death to get this game, there are a few things I disapprove of in Lords II. For starters, the choice in military units, if you know what you're doing, can be very limiting, though there are a number of different fighters to choose from, and I am not giving any tactical secrets away today. Another is the fact that if I want new lands to conquer, I have to go out and buy an expansion pack, and I can't just download fan-made scenarios, nor can I make any my own, since they don't include a map editor in Lords II. When I happen to want a quick way to save and exit my game of Lords II, I can't just use the Alt+F4 shortcut command, or else the game will shut down and I won't be able to save it. This is particularly annoying since I'm used to having the programs that I use ask me if I'm sure if I want to exit and if I want to save. Finally, on the flip side of my review, the combat play of the game, which can be the most challenging, is in real-time, and I'm sure anyone who's familiar with what that means knows that real- time and the blind in strategy games don't mix too well. Perhaps this will change in the future, we can only hope that such demanding game play will become available to the blind community. Based on my relatively intense review of Lords of the Realms II, created by Sierra, I give it a rating of about 7.5/10, based on the pros and cons of it all. If you choose to indulge in this game, I feel that you shouldn't be too disappointed with it and should have many hours of strategic fun; enjoy! + "THE ADVENTURER'S MUSEUM" Game by Lee Chapel Reviewed by Kelly Sapergia I first came across this game while browsing the Interactive Fiction archive. I hadn't seen any reviews of this game before, so I thought I'd download it and give it a try, and I'm glad I did. In this game, which is the first of three games in the "Legacy of the Necromancer" trilogy, you play the role of a visitor to the "Adventurer's Museum". When you enter the museum, you are told, by the museum's curator, that due to some remodelling, some protective spells had to be removed from various exhibits. Now, a local wizard's apprentice has summoned an imp, that has stolen all the treasures from a display case, and hid them all in a nearby cave. Your mission is to find all the treasures that the imp has taken, and put them back in the display case. Sounds simple, huh? Well, it isn't. As you go through the cave, you'll encounter a troll, a dragon, a witch, and other creatures. The imp will occasionally appear, and steal any treasures you have taken, but there is a way around this problem, and NO, I'm not going to tell you what it is. This game reminded me of the games by Infocom, because of it's look and feel. The text is well-written, and the game is very speech friendly. This game is intended for advanced game players. You may need the solution file for some of the puzzles, which can be found on ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/solutions/advmuseum.sol. (I think that's what the file name is.) This game is shareware, and is still being worked on. I found a web page where you can download the latest shareware version of this game, but at the moment I can't remember it. If anyone's interested, let me know on the Audyssey Discussion List, and I'll look for it. Parts 2 and 3 of "The Legacy of the Necromancer" trilogy are available to registered users only. This game is being rated 9 out of 10. One thing I would have liked to see are the commands "ask" and "talk" implemented, but other than that, the game is an excellent one to play. I recommend it for players aged 8 and up. If you'd like to download the version of this game mae in 1989, you can find it on the ftp.gmd.de/if-archive site, in the /games/pc directory. + Fantasy Empires Silicon Knights, Strategic Simulations Inc. and TSR Reviewed by: James Peach Strategic Simulations Inc. (SSI), for the most part, is the premier developer of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (AD&D) games for the home PC. Though their games are not the newest or the most spectacular today, many of them were at the time they were produced. For those of you who don't know what AD&D is, it was, and still is, a pencil and paper game, where you create a character and put it into a world created by a Dungeon Master (the game coordinator); this particular game has created a lot of suspicion, controversy and debate, among parents/guardians, and people with too much time on their hands. However, for those of you who do know what AD&D is, and may have even played some of SSI's PC adaptations, then you will be taking something with you into Fantasy Empires. Fantasy Empires is a turn-based strategy game, which must be played with sighted assistance It has a wide variety of options and character combinations. As you begin the game, the music begins to ply, and then you hear the Dungeon Master's (DM's) intro, telling you about your past victories and informing you about the challenge, and the world, that awaits you; Mistara. You will then come to a menu screen, which will give you option like load a game, and to start a campaign or scenario. If you do begin a campaign, you will then have to select the characters and non-player characters (NPC's) you wish to have involved in the campaign; if you'd like to create your own character, you can do so from here. It should be noted that if you do crate a character, it's statistics (strength, wisdom, constitution, etc), are all developed at random, and cannot go above 18 for any statistic. After all this, you will be transported to the world of Mistara, were you will be expected to make strategic decisions, like training troops, moving into neighbouring lands, recruiting a hero, cast spells, etcetera. The main objective in Fantasy Empires is to squash your enemy, but that need not be the only thing you wish to accomplish. Making alliances with other characters, accumulating the most gold, and taking control of the most territory may be secondary objectives you wish to accomplish. When you start, you are set in a random location and given a nation and a castle, complete with barracks (used to house and train troops), In order to conquer thine enemy, you will first have to develop an army, so that yo can commence taking control of your neighbour's lands. However, unless you will receive enough money, in the turn after which you moved, your army will all that's holding these lands, and they won't survive forever, so build a keep to secure your position. It might also be worth your while to recruit heroes, and then send them on quests to bring back weapons and artifacts, or to put them in your armies to give them a morale boost. After this, there's little more advice I could offer, except to thrive and survive. Now onto the ups and the downs of Fantasy Empires. Firstly, I like it's replay value, where you can be a multitude of character combinations, random map (only what's in it, not it's shape and location of territories), and just like in the AD&D of books and paper, the characters can advance in level through experience. I also liked the wide variety of game settings I could adjust, to have game play just the way you like it. Though the game is not especially complicated (for those of you who are wanting something about as complicated is the pencil and paper game, this is unfortunate), it makes up for this in addictiveness, making it good for anybody; I can remember playing Fantasy Empires nearly 12 hours straight (had to stop for food) one weekend. For those of you who are looking for combat, like only AD&D games can provide, can find it in here, only simpler; what I mean is that you can fight based on numbers and statistics, with one difference being that a weaker enemy unit won't opt to switch sides over being killed. Lastly, though it is mainly geared for mouse control, you can set keyboard controls in the settings screen, making the game a little easier to navigate. One thing I did find both good and bad was the DM advice during the game, were every now and then he'd give out a helpful suggestion, however, this gets very annoying as he will usually repeat the same advice over and over again; you can fortunately turn him off in settings if this occurs. As a casual AD&D player and observer, I did not like the limited number of character classes (compared to what you can have in the non-computer version, there isn't many). I also did not like that the map never changes, or that there aren't more maps; if there was an expansion pack for the game, that would make it even better. Also, I dislike the disadvantage turn- based strategy games in general create, where if you are playing with more than one player (oh, did I forget to mention that you can have up to four other human players playing with you?), they can see your stats, and because they may have control of movement, they could do this at anytime during your turn; more advice, have someone who isn't playing with anyone else to play with you and/or try to play with allies or someone you trust not to give away your secrets. Note: though turn-based gaming allows the blind player to think out his/her actions, the sighted player has control and instantaneous visual confirmation, you, the blind gamer, have neither in most cases, so unless your partner is your ally, he has the advantage. Even though this game is quite dated, compared to today's standards, it is still a game I'd recommend anyone buy today, and I give it a rating of 8/10, which I'd would consider a good rating, given what it's up against these day in the turn-based strategy category. For those of you who are wondering these days if all games run in Windows 95/98, well all SSI games I've seen run in DOS, though you'll need a CD ROM drive to install it, unless you can order a disk copy of this and other games from them. Conquer the world and have a nice day. + "BOP IT!" Game by Jim Kitchen Reviewed by Kelly Sapergia Once again, Jim Kitchen has made a game accessible to the visually impaired, but this time it's based on the game "Bop It!" First, you're probably asking the question I asked myself when I first heard of this game: "What is Bop It?" Well, Bop It is a handheld electronic game that tests your reflexes. It features sound effects and voices to tell you to "Bop It!", "Twist It!" and "Pull It!" You have to press the right button for the required action, otherwise you lose! (Note- I've never seen the handheld version of this game, but I found a description on the Internet.) Even if you've never played the handheld version of this game, you'll be spending hours trying to beat the high score. Jim's version is speech friendly, and uses multimedia sounds that, I'm guessing, were taken from the handheld game. There are different ways to play this game with the keyboard: you can use either the shift, control, or alt keys, or the left, down, and right arrow buttons to perform the required actions. I prefer using the arrow keys. When the computer tells you to "Twist It!" you press the right arrow key, for "Pull It!" you use the left arrow key, and "Bop It!" can be accomplished by pressing the down arrow key. That's how you play the game, but what happens when you start it? Well, after the opening theme music you'll be asked if you want instructions. Read them at least once! When you're finished reading them, answer yes the question "Are you ready to play?". You'll then be asked for a difficulty factor (1 is hardest, 9 is easiest!) I'm not sure why there's a difficulty factor in this game, but if it has something to do with the rising tone after you're told to perform a required action, then it can get difficult, but more on that later. After you pick your difficulty level, you'll be asked if you want voices or tones. For first time and beginning players, go for voices! The tones section is geared for more experienced players, but you'll have to figure out what each tone means. After the computer tells you do something like "Bop It" for example, you'll hear a rising tone. You must press the key for the required action before the tone stops. If you wait too long, the game is over for that turn. Calculating your score is easy. After the game is over, you'll hear some sounds to indicate what your score is. For instance, if you hear one sound count to three, and another sound count to eight, you have a score of 38. If it's high enough, you'll be asked to enter your name and it will be saved to your score file. The sounds in this game are totally cool! As I said at the beginning of this review, Jim has taken sounds from the handheld game and incorporated them into this speech friendly version. My favourite sound is the sound when you press the wrong key, or if you wait too long. I've rated this game 10 out of 10! It's great to see a handheld game being made especially for blind people who use computers. I hope Jim will continue to make PC versions of these handheld games! If you like games that challenge your reflexes, then you're in for a treat!! This game is recommended for kids aged 8 and up. I know I had a lot of fun playing this game. KEEP IT UP, JIM! This game can be found on Jim's site at: www.now-online.com/jkitchen. The file to download is DOSBOP3.ZIP. +++ Setting the Standards; The Issue of Rating Games Included in Audyssey Article by: James Peach Through the grapevine, I have been recently informed that it would be nice, to have game found in Audyssey rated, so that such games as Anchorhead can be directed towards it's intended audience. Rating could be something as simple as a word or code, like "A" for Adult or the word "adult", or it could be more complicated, like the movie rating system. I personally have mixed feelings about rating these game, of which I will explain further, later. I do of course feel that there should be something done to set a guideline, so that games are received by their intended audience, but I think it's a lot more complicated than that. To begin with, for commercial games, there are ratings on the boxes, complements of the ESRB, however, as I've purchased software over time, I notice that such rating is worthless. Not only do most people not really look at the rating, including the cashier, but really only those who can afford the expensive games, are the same people of whom the games are mostly targeted at. So far, the only way we've informed people of the appropriateness of a game we review, is really only through a few mentions within the review. Though this should be fine enough, however, if someone is just skimming the article or review, they may pass the warnings (or encouragements) by, making the warning useless. If a word, phrase or whatever was placed at the top of the article, it would be very hard to miss through skimming, and thus be a more effective method. In our magazine in particular, Anchorhead has been the only game with which there has been a real controversy. Most of the games we've covered are pretty clean, in that there is little profanity, and aside from some of the commercial games I may cover, there is little audible display of violence if any at all. I guess what I'm getting at is, if there is to be a rating system, there should be guidelines to determine what qualifies as for adults, children, et cetera. If you, the Audyssey community, could either post your criteria on the discussion list, or send I to either Mike or myself, that would help to create a system that most people will agree on. If would be simple enough to devise a system that would easily inform the Audyssey reader of the age group a game covers, but I would only support it if the community supports it. If you think it is worth doing, than input is required, so that way this system can be as fair as possible. Obviously some of you feel that this would be a good move for Audyssey, but it won't happen if the lot of you don't. Though not necessarily related to a rating of games in Audyssey, I think that a game that is not intended for children, should somehow have an explanation, explaining why the game is inappropriate and not the it just is. If there is not an understanding of what is appropriate and what is not, in children (and possibly adults too), then they will be less tempted to try games such as Anchorhead. Though I may be stepping over the moral line here, however, I feel that this can be another part of the rating process; yes, no, maybe? I know from observation and experience, that ratings and warnings on game boxes, mean very little, since I have seen youths (including my younger brother) playing games that were meant for older teens and/or adults. I must make this very clear, we will NOT be a closed-door censor board, trying to protect blind youths from bad games, but if you at least like some soft of warning/rating system in place, then we can arrange that, if you, the community, really wants it. If you would like to contribute, please send questions, comments, and suggestions to use, by whatever means you wish. +++ Contacting Us I can be reached in three ways. The easiest is through Compuserve. My e-mail address is as follows: 72712.3103@compuserve.com You can also call me via telephone. I have voicemail, so you can leave a message if you fail to catch me at home and off-line. I'll do my best to return calls, but won't accept collect calls. My number is as follows: (905)-814-0608 Alternatively, you may correspond with me on 3.5-inch disks, provided you be sure to send them in returnable disk-mailers. I don't have the money to pay for postage. My mailing address is: 5787 Montevideo Road Mississauga, Ontario, Canada Postal code: L5N 2L5 I have acquired a copy of UUencode and UUdecode for dos, so you may send files to me via this means. Also, thanks to a reader named Frank Haslam, I have acquired a copy of something called Netsend. this is a program written and encoded so that it can be sent as a standard e-mail, but once it is cut from the rest of the message text, it can be run as an executable file. You will then have all you need to send and receive files over E-mail. this should go a long way to making sharing of files easier. thanks a bunch, Frank. Adam Taylor, star of Adam, The Immortal Gamer, and our resident ADOM guru, can be reached three ways. You can send him e-mail at: blade@ican.net Or, you can check out his homepage on the web: Blade's Armory http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Arcade/9111 His page is dedicated to providing help, cheats and solutions to many games. Send him a request, and he'll do his best to find what you need. He also has sections on ADOM and Nethack available. And, you can download the magazine from his page. Finally, if you wish to contact him at home, his address is: 3082 Bartholomew Crescent Mississauga, Ontario Canada L5N 3L1 Justin Fegel is one of our two interactive fiction staff members. He will be happy to advise and guide players through the many interactive fiction games out there. He can be contacted at: zardak@dmv.com James Peach, our commercial games expert, will do his best to advise those seeking commercial entertainment which is accessible to blind players with or without sighted assistance. He can be contacted at: jamespeach@hotmail.com Kelly Sapurgia is another expert in interactive fiction. He is a well-established reviewer of games for Audyssey, and has an interest in developing interactive fiction as well as playing it. He can be contacted at: k.sapergia@dlcwest.com