Audyssey; Games Accessible to the Blind Issue 47: First quarter, 2006 Edited by Ron Schamerhorn Fun, Friendship, Knowledge, Charity +++ Welcome Welcome to the forty-seventh issue of Audyssey. This magazine is dedicated to the discussion of games which, through accident or design, are accessible to the blind either with or without sighted assistance. Audyssey is now gearing up to celebrate it's 10th year in publication! This issue is well packed with information and reviews for just about any taste in gaming. Some super news in the letters section both thoughtful and informative, news from many of the developers, and reviews of the latest releases/discoveries On the gaming fronts. Along with a pole we hope everyone will participate in details below! Note: This magazine uses plus-signs as navigation markers. Three plus-signs are placed above any articles or sections. Within these sections, two plus-signs denote the start of a new sub-section. Smaller divisions are marked by a single plus-sign. This allows people to use their search capabilities to go quickly to the next division they are interested in. For instance, the "Letters" section is preceded by three plus-signs. Each letter within it has two plus-signs before it. Answers to letters have a single plus-sign before them. +++ Contents: Welcome From The Editor Letters The Ultimate let-down A few puzzles Our upcoming pole News From Game Developers Game Announcements and Reviews Contacting Us Distribution Information and Submission Policies +++ From The Editor: Firstly let me say I'm sorry for the delay in the current issue of the Audyssey magazine. Presently Yahoo and my ISP don't seem to be working together all that well. Thusly I've resubscribed about once a week to the various Yahoo lists I'm a part of. Between that and of course other obligations in life it's been difficult to get everything together for this issue. I feel this again has become a nice mag for my #47! I really hope that people take part in the survey, as the talley will be completely based on what the readership thinks of various games. So send it along. There's a couple of neat ideas around for Audyssey's 10th anniversary! Possibly new directions or additions to what is already there. I hope you all enjoy it. +++ Letters Allow me to mention that the last few days have provided some intriguing posts to the discussion list. I'm not attempting to post all that has been said, rather selecting a few that raise a point or two worth pondering. There are a couple of topics which I'll mark in the usual manner of Audyssey with the 2 + signs. I hope the discussion of these points continue in the community. ++ Hi Chris (and everyone else), Maybe you missed my post about this year's GDC and the Game Accessibility project (look for "Get heard at the 2006 Game Developers Conference!"). In this post, I ask everyone to write down their experiences, ideas, thoughts, wishes so I can collect those and put it on the CD which will be handed out at the GDC, as well as be put on a page on the Game Accessibility project website. For you to get heard, there hasn't been a better time. Take that chance to communicate your ideas and thoughts on accessible gaming to the professional game industry. For more, please look at: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?id=527 Deadline is somewhere in the first week of March. ++ Hello, Speaking of ants and elephants, has anyone tried this. Instead of talking to game companies, try to talk to gaming magazines for the sighted. The fact of the matter is, these magazines are constantly in the bid for reviewing and interviewing games and games related news. What's more, they usually have a bonus CD come with each issue filled with old games from the past, and new demos of up and coming sighted games. Perhaps the Editor of Audissey or some other word smith with a CD of maybe the top five of accessible demos and games could write up a story, submit the story and CD and see if any of those magazines would bite, and print it and distribute some of the games and demos on their magazine Bonus CD. I know, that if I was a sighted gamer I would be at least curious in seeing what blind games are like. It would at the very least get some coverage. These game companies might ignore some email, but they read these magazines I would almost garantee it So the anser to that question, If you want to get the attention of an elaphant? Talk to the birds that land on the elephants back.lol It might be worth a try, if nothing else. I understand this is probably as likely as flying pigs to drop pots of gold on my front lawn, but a teacher once told me this little saying. If you ask, there is a chance they might say yes, if you don't ask, there is a 100% chance they will say no. Does this sound like a good idea, or has this been tried before? Well that is my two cents for the day. Thanks for reading, ++ 10 functional games. This came from another list I'm on but thought perhaps someone might enjoy the link. http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6464_7-6300449.html ++ I normally wouldn't post something like this here but this most interesting article caught my attention. This is worth reading and you can read the article at: http://www.afb.org/afbpress/pub.asp?DocID=aw070207 ++ Hi gang. OK, I've launched the new www.asmodean.net. While the whole site is not devoted to games there is a games section on it. In fact the games page is probably the biggest shtml file there. From the games section you can get to the Top Speed server page as well but that address has not changed either. For Top Speed the address is still http://topspeed.asmodean.net but I have re-written this page as well. If you are totally blind the next part of this email will not interest you much. I've used cascading style sheets and tried to give the site a nice contrasting color so if you do have vision or partial vision you should be able to read it with no problems. For the main background I use an antique white with dark blue lettering. The headers are maroon with a white background. The links are still regular blue on white but as you tab to them they will turn red. Hopefully the site will be cool to you all. ++ Here Here. And it's not just blind people interested in older style games. At Wal-Mart one can for $30 or so buy a little hand-held device which connects to the A/V of a receiver or your television and one can play the classic 80's arcade Pacman, MS Pacman, Space Invaders, etc. There are about 4 or 5 games in each cartrage and one can buy more for around $10 or $15. The unit runs off of 4 AA batteries. Not accessable to a totally blind person yet these are selling a lot. Who buys them? I bet you mainly people over 30 do but I have seen kids get them too. My daughter has learned to appreciate the things which were popular when I was a kid. Things from 80's music to 80's games are just a few of them. Do we have one of these devices? You bet we do. Much better for the kids I think than the violence-filled games out today. +++ The Ultimate Let-down By Michael Feir During this past quarter, I've gone through an all-consuming experience which has just ended in an utterly disappointing fashion. Nothing has ever so completely hooked me in as the prospect of having the decades old dream of playing a classic video game like Montezuma's Revenge be inches away only to have some circumstance push the release back yet again. I can fully understand what people awaiting the next Harry Potter book or Star Wars film must have felt like. That sense of something delicious being just barely beyond reach can be pretty overpowering. Other than that sense you get as a kid on Christmas Eve trying earnestly to go to sleep in the hope that Santa will then be able to deliver your presents, I can't think of anything that comes close. It certainly prevented me from focusing on any of my projects very much. Now, I know how it would feel like to all the Harry Potter fans if the final book was nearing completion and somebody killed or incapacitated J. K. Rouling so that she couldn't or wouldn't ever take up her pen to finish her masterpiece. God willing, Mrs. Rouling will be able to end the nail-biting suspense of her fans on a positive note and be rewarded for her long patient efforts. I'm not, incidentally, a Harry Potter fan. However, I can appreciate what she must have gone through to create such a compelling saga. However, as luck would have it, the one game which has consumed me so completely as Monty has is the one game I'll never get to play. To say that I'm angry and disappointed at this turn of events is beyond an understatement. James North has finally run completely out of patience with the blind community and has pulled the plug on all of the titles he's been working on. I won't even attempt to describe the absolute dismay and disappointment this is to me. As most of you know, I had a lot of personal reasons to be especially keen for Montezuma's Revenge to be released. To have a classic video game like that in a form I could play without sighted assistance has been a dream of mine since around age ten. If anybody had the skill to pull something like that off well, it's James North. He has consistently given us games which bring true arcade challenge to blind players. Pretty much all the way through this tortuous process, I've been able to sympathize with both sides of the story. On the one hand, people certainly had some legitimate reason for being annoyed with James. After so many instances of being told that the game was nearly out and then being let down, I can appreciate their frustration. I certainly experienced that quite keenly myself. I spent a good chunk of New Year's Eve keeping watch hoping to find that James would finally live up to a deadline he set himself. Through it all, what sustained me was my faith that James would eventually come through with a completed game as long as the community didn't give him too much crap. To my utter anguish and fury, that's precisely what the community has done. People have to get rid of this stupid "it's a business" mentality where they hold developers of accessible games as accountable as large companies. It's simply preposterous. There just isn't the economic base in the blind community to support such an enterprise. Kind and talented folks make accessible games out of a sense of compassion for people who are otherwise left out of a form of entertainment which has stimulated and enriched the sighted world for nearly three decades. Some do it with the clear intention to make at least some profit from their work. Others share their creations for free. Regardless, they all at least start out with an honest empathy and desire to provide us with new fun. People, that kindness and compassion which brings them to our cause frankly deserves a whole lot more leeway for mistakes than has been shown here. These people usually have to do something else to support themselves and likely their family. If that isn't the case, as in my unemployed circumstances, we still have the stresses, enjoyments, and other elements of the rest of our lives to contend with. As people on the Blindgamers list now know, James had a number of very difficult life issues. He is a somewhat private man and didn't want them publicly known about. Trying to defend and support him over the past year and a bit without revealing any of the details of precisely what was delaying him was no easy task. Now, somebody has gone and let quite a bit of that information out of the bag. James originally wanted to end things on a high note despite all of the crap life sent his way. He thought he was past caring about what the community thought of him. This quite understandable attitude lead him to make a number of bad choices which I did my best to warn him against. He was going to finish three final games for his loyal customers and then close down after doing what he said he would. All he required from us was some much-deserved encouragement and more importantly patience. Sadly, despite the best efforts of myself and many other supporters, the shrieks of spoiled brats who didn't get their game pronto won out. A relatively small number of very vocal people have wrecked things for the rest of us and essentially made their suspicions reality. James isn't leaving on a high note. He's been pushed just about as low as it's possible to go. He can't even leave with his private life kept private. I can only hope that people get enough of a sense of the torment James went through over the past six years to wake up and realize how petty their cries of "fowl" sound next to all that. Some people have remarked that it's better that James has decided to offer refunds and call it quits. In a sense, that might well be true. It may let the rest of the industry slowly build up trust assuming developers can avoid the pitfalls James has encountered. I certainly don't hold him completely blameless. After the first release date failed, I would simply have waited until the game was fully finished and actually available before announcing any more dates. That repeated experience of being let down, in my judgment, set him up for a lot of the doubts and worse undeserved accusations of wrong-doing he was then subjected to. It would have served him so much better if he had kept people informed of what aspects of the game he was working on and not given any specific timeframes. I tried to point this out to him many times. However, he had already been so jaded and beaten down by his detractors that he was essentially beyond caring enough to really accept even gentle constructive criticism from one of his most avid fans. It's not better at all that things ended this way. I doubt any developer is going to try offering pre-orders any time in the foreseeable future. The faith just isn't there. People will be able to point to this whole incident as an example of why one shouldn't trust people failing to mention that the only reason things came about like they have was their own collective uncaring inflexible impatience. This community has lost three fantastic games which would have been tremendous examples to new developers and heaping endless fun for us gamers. They have also lost a lot of the loyalty and empathy of game developers like me. I think this whole incident has made Ron's job as editor of Audyssey a whole lot harder in the future. Developers are going to read into this episode the wrong way and choose not to reveal information ahead of time so they won't get dragged through the mud for it later. Unfortunately, this will have the effect of causing less overall interest in accessible games. They take so long to produce that there has to be some information between games to keep people interested and aware that developments are occurring. Fortunately, I've seen enough excellence and enough appreciative people to prevent me from packing it in completely. I'm going to take some time to re-evaluate my own level of commitment to this community over the next while. As utterly disappointed as I am with James's ultimate decision to pull up stakes, I can't find it in my heart to blame him. There are doubtless more thoughtful and deserving disadvantaged communities he can turn his limited spare time and energy to. As this new year began, I felt that we had at last finally collectively begun to learn from our mistakes. However, I was proved wrong once again. Even after James released a playable demo of Monty, he was still subjected to the same idiocy. Short of actually producing the finished product, there wasn't anything else which could have been produced to prove that there actually was a nearly finished fantastic game on the way. Even that wasn't enough for people who felt they had been unfairly treated. The doubts, criminal accusations and complaints continued. They were the last straw for James. They were also the last straw for my ability to see both sides of this whole mess. I could still have some sympathy for people's impatience even after the manual was put out. However, once the demo was released, that should at least have stopped the accusations of lying and such that continued. I'm surprised James put as much effort into fixing the errors in the demo as he did rather than just charge ahead with the final product and call it a day once it was released. The evening after I learned the bad news, I contacted James. Other than having an interesting chat, I had three objectives. I had to know why, after all he went through and all I had gone through in support of him, that he had ultimately decided to prove his detractors right and not ultimately release even one game. I was certainly bitterly disappointed and frustrated with that decision. It's very hard not to feel angry faced with a final let-down after so many smaller ones before it. Basically, he wasn't getting a good enough return on the time and energy he was exerting in terms of both cash and more importantly the good will of the community. All they had to do was wait and he would have eventually come through. However, they couldn't even do that and so we've all lost big time. A relatively small number of bad apples have cost the blind gaming community the dedication of one of its most innovative and skilled developers. I of course asked him if there was any possible way he could at least finish Monty. He responded quite reasonably that each of his other projects had their deserving and devoted followers. My final objective was to make certain he knew that at least one of his eager fans could look beyond the thunderous disappointment and still cared about the man who let me down. I'm very thankful to him for releasing the demo and will treasure that always. At last, I was able to show my father a game just like the ones he used to help me have a sense of playing as a child. He was able to experience for himself how the sound enabled me to navigate the first temple. He could also share the excitement of knowing what a treat I was ultimately in for when the full game came out. It was a thrill beyond words to be able to do that. James has also inspired me to try to develop my own accessible game. This community owes him more of a debt of gratitude than is generally known. He did an awful lot to support both myself and the community I was trying to start up. I thanked him for all of this and made certain that he knows that he's still got a true friend in me. That's not always easy to do when you've just been put through such a rollercoaster ride ending in a fatal drop. I have no doubt that at least some of his other supporters have done the same. I don't pretend for a moment that it's reasonable to expect people in the community to go to that length although I wish it was. However, I sincerely hope that the idiots who have cost us so much good will with their insistence on getting a game out in timely fashion regardless of other considerations have finally learned something. James doesn't see a lot of hope for the kind of high-quality games he would have provided us with in the future. Given the amount of agony he's gone through, I can certainly see where his cynicism comes from. He's always tried to make good and been very poorly rewarded for his efforts. However, I don't completely agree with this outlook. We have a small group of game developers out there who are always improving on their work. There are also some developers whose efforts we have yet to experience. James's departure, particularly under these excruciating circumstances, does not signal the death of accessible gaming. It's a very brutal wake-up call that those of us into instant gratification and empowerment had better heed. Like it or not, we're a small market who is to some extent always going to be relying on the good will of talented people for our entertainment. Wining about not getting our fair money's worth just won't do us any ultimate good at all. I'm glad that on balance, developers try their best to honor commitments they make and treat their hobby like a business. However, we who benefit from their efforts simply have to give them more of the benefit of the doubt when things go wrong or "real life" intervenes as it so clearly has in James's case. You'll doubtless notice that there's no Fearless Flin developer diary this time. I felt pretty bad about that for a while having a perhaps overdeveloped sense of responsibility to this community. I've made something like forty or fifty small changes to the design document, but certainly haven't accomplished anything noteworthy. Largely, that was due to being on the edge of obsession waiting for Monty to come out plus the holidays plus a bout of insomnia. Thanks to the demo James released, I've been freed from the paralysis of not knowing how the game would work. It might seem odd to people that having experienced the demo, I nevertheless find it at least a little easier to deal with not ever getting to play the full product. I find it somewhat counter-intuitive myself. I guess there's some truth to that saying about "better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all." Over the next while, I'll be more focused on efforts to change community dynamics and hopefully interest some newcomers to join up. We have to tip the scales more in the game developer's favor. I think we've all clearly seen how unrestrained consumerism can shoot us in the foot. At least, I sincerely hope we have. Against what is perhaps better judgment, I'll take it as fact that we've collectively learned the right lesson and are ready to bring in new blood. We need their fresh patience, thankfulness, input and new ideas. Perhaps, we can attract some new talent who will then find a more patient more positive audience for their efforts. At times like this, it's all too tempting to lash out or distance myself from such an active position in the accessible gaming community. Indeed, my first draft of this article could have peeled paint from walls. I was so crushed and justifiably furious that I wrote something which didn't even attempt to channel my feelings constructively. However, I refuse to let the death of one deeply held dream be an excuse to willfully destroy another. I'm working on my game as much for myself as for the community at large. I also have a vested interest in seeing the community improve and mature. Whether I ultimately succeed in making my own game or not, I want to be certain that I'll have more games to play during the rest of my life. I also want to have fellow people interested in sharing their thoughts with me. Games are so much more powerful, even single player ones, when there's a community to share one's experiences with. To that end, I'll continue my efforts to help this community grow and become stronger. Ron has a lot of plans for making this year, the tenth year for Audyssey Magazine, a special one. I'll do everything I can to see that come to pass. It'll take precedence over even game development. I've said my piece and let go of my monty mania as best I can. I still have a faint hope that somebody else will one day try to bring this classic game or an even better sidescroller to fruition. It won't be the same as what we could have had, but I can live with that. Until next time, happy reading. Michael Feir +++ A few puzzles 1. Grab a calculator. (you won't be able to do this one in your head) 2. Key in the first three digits of your phone number (not the area code) 3. Multiply by 80 4. Add 1 5. Multiply by 250 6. Add the last 4 digits of your phone number 7. Add the last 4 digits of your phone number again. 8. Subtract 250 9. Divide number by 2 Do you recognize the answer? ++ More puzzles Puzzles Galore 1. The Flight Around The World A group of aeroplanes is based on a small island. The tank of each plane holds just enough fuel to take it half-way around the world. Any desired amount of fuel may be transferred from the tank of one plane to the tank of another whilst the planes are in flight. The only source of fuel is on the island, and for the purposes of this problem it is assumed that there is no time lost in refuelling either in the air or on the ground. What is the smallest number of planes that will ensure the flight, non-stop, of one plane around the world on a great circle assuming that each of the planes has the same constant ground speed and rate of fuel consumption, and that all planes return safely to their island base? 2. Who Is The Engineer? Smith, Jones and Robinson are engineer, brakeman and fireman on a train but not necessarily in that order. Also riding the train are three passengers with the same three surnames, to be identified in the following premises with a "Mr." before their names. · Mr. Robinson lives in Los Angeles. · The brakeman lives in Omaha. · Mr. Jones long ago forgot all the algebra he ever learnt at High School. · The passenger with the same name as the brakeman lives in Chicago. · The brakeman and one of the passengers, a distinguished mathematical physicist, attend the same church. · Smith beat the fireman at billiards. ++ The Solutions The Solutions 1. The Flight Around The World Three aeroplanes are sufficient to ensure the flight of one of them around the world. There are many ways in which this may be done, but the following seems to be the most efficient. Planes A and B and C take off together. After going one-eighth of the way, C transfers ¼ tank to A and ¼ tank to B. This gives A and B full tanks and leaves C with a ¼ tank sufficient just to get back to base. Planes A and B continue a further one-eighth of the way when B transfers ¼ tank to A. B now has ½ tank left, sufficient just to get back to base. Plane A meanwhile, with a full tank continues until he runs out of fuel ¼ way from base (¾ way round the world). Here A is met by C which has been refuelled at base. C transfers ¼ tank to A and both planes head for home. A and C run out of fuel one-eighth way from base where they are met by refuelled plane B. B transfers ¼ tank to A and ¼ tank to C and the three planes then have just enough fuel to reach base with empty tanks. 2. Who Is The Engineer? · From 2 we see that Mr. Robinson lives in Los Angeles. · From 3 and 6 we can deduce that the distinguished mathematical physicist lives in Omaha. · From 4 we see that Mr. Jones cannot live in Omaha (6) or Los Angeles (2) so he must live in Chicago. · From 5 we now know that the brakeman's name is Jones. From Smith cannot be the fireman; he cannot be the brakeman (5) so he must be the engineer. +++ Our upcoming pole Recently the idea came up on the gamers list about having a pole regarding games. I felt that informing everyone via the mag would give us the most extensive range of opinions possible. Since the idea is recent, the idea of questions and catagories is pretty wide open at this time. I'm hoping to collect some ideas and with the aid of a few other people finalize a question form to be sent out in the next issue. To this point we have ideas such as. Taken from an email. *snip* Rules for voting: you can only vote once developers can vote, but can not vote for their own games. If you can, you should try not to pick games all from one developer, since there is also a best developer catagory listed here. Voting for games: They must be accesible, meaning that they were specificly made for the blind and visually impaired. you may vote on any accessible free or purchased game. In addition, you may vote for a demo, beta, or other format that was intended for consumers to sample in order to consider purchasing. The item to be picked must be owned by a viable company or developer still active in the community. The catagories are: Which is the best online game that blind people play? Note: if there is alot of these this could be spread out to the top three. Which is your preferred accessible developer / game company? Which accessible game has: The Best sound/ voice? The best control / controller support? The best replay value? The best features? example such as save option, multiplayer, scoreboards support chat functions etc. Which game genre do you prefer? examples rpg, puzzle, first person shooter, side scroller, arcade, table top games such as board, card, dominoes etc, simulation games such as driving, flight,, war games. Which accessible game would you choose to show to another person as an example of gaming in the blind community? finally, your top three picks for accessible games? Of course put your top pick as number one. All votes will go to my email address so as not to influence the vote, and will be tabulated and the results, after a decent amount of time will be listed In the mag. *end snip* So that's what we have up to this time. Send in thoughts on catagories, questions and most definitely your votes! Remember the final questions will be in the next issue! Let's see a whole lot of people respond to this one! Feel free to send your emails my way as well! The address can be found in the Contact Us section further in the mag. +++ News from Developers ++ News from Blind Adrenaline Booga booga! I am pleased to announce that Blind Adrenaline Simulations has gone live as of this evening. Blind Adrenaline will be the home of Rail Racer, a futuristic racing simulation for the visually impaired, as well as links to other game related content. Right now, you can download an audio demo of Rail Racer. There aren't many bells and whistles there yet, but you will get an idea of how the game play will be. Also, the site features some back story detailing the setting of the game. If you download the demo, please write me and tell me what you think about it, good or bad. At this stage, I can still incorporate your ideas into the game if they are good ones. The link for Blind Adrenaline is http://www.blindAdrenaline.com I look forward to hearing from you, Che Martin che@tridigitalbb.com Ok kids, those of you looking for a fresh game won't have to wait much longer. Rail Racer will be in beta stage hopefully in a few weeks, and I think folks will dig what they hear. This is a racing game set in a future when most of the Earth's inhabitants are blind, and Rail Racing is the primary source of entertainment. Using your mouse to control your racer, you will compete on a variety of tracks, leaning into the curves, smoothly shifting gears and accelerating to produce the best lap times. Additionally, you will have to disengage your driving wheels and fire your jump jets to launch your racer over obstacles on the rail. If your jump timing is off you will lose precious seconds , or worse, damage your racer. You will have to monitor your vehicle systems, and pit for repairs and fuel as necessary. Your racer computer as well as your pit crew will keep you informed about the performance of all systems, as well as your pit stop needs. For instance, you might decide to forgo repairs and limp through the race if only a few laps remain to save the repair time in the pits. It is all up to you. These are the features that are locked down at this point, others, including force feedback steering wheel control and keyboard control will be integrated before full release. At this point, the game is in alpha stage, and I need three or four testers to see how the driving system works on various computer setups. The testers will require a mouse to drive. If you are interested in being a tester, email me and tell me why you would make a good team member of the Rail Racer crew. As well, if any developers out there have worked with beta testers in the past and have reccomendations for individuals, please let me know. I think you are really gonna dig this one. I have spent hours playing with the driving system, trying to get my lap times down, and I can tell you, it is quite challenging to get into a smooth driving rhythm. I will be setting up a new website for the game in the next week, and will update the list when it is ready for public consumption. At this point, I am wide open to suggestions for the game from the community, so if you have any ideas you might like to see incorporated, let us know here on the list. If the concept would add to the fun of the game, I will try my best to include it. I want this to be a game from one of us, for all of us. I look forward to hearing from you. Che Martin - Developer of Rail Racer ++ News from Draconis Entertainment Greetings gamers, We have several notes for you, but first the big announcement. Draconis Entertainment is proud to announce the release of our newest game: The Ultimate SounDoku! As the Sudoku craze sweeps across the world, young and old alike are discovering the addictive fun of this brain-busting puzzle game. Though it exists in many forms, the basic concept is always the same: fill in every square on the puzzle-grid without repeating any value in any row, column, or region. Draconis Entertainment brings this puzzle game to a rich audio platform, designed to encompass Sudoku in all it's many varied incarnations, while realistically emulating the pen-and-paper charm of the classic game. It's more than Sudoku...it's more than SounDoku...it's The Ultimate SounDoku! Choose to use letters, numbers, or sound effects in varied audio themes, just as printed Sudoku games use numbers, letters, or symbols. Can you beat the clock and solve the puzzle before time runs out? Or would you rather take your time and defeat the puzzle on your own schedule? The Ultimate SounDoku offers all this, and much more. Other features include: . Millions of automatically generated puzzles. . Both 9X9-grid and 16X16-grid puzzles. . Seven levels of difficulty. . Eight entirely different audio themes to use as "symbols" as you play! . Three modes of play: Puzzle, Clock, and Custom. . The ability to create and save custom puzzles, or copy puzzles from Sudoku puzzle books and newspapers for play with the Ultimate SounDoku. . Keyboard layouts for both desktop and laptop computers. . The ability to save a game in progress and resume it later. . Two methods of navigation and feedback: Basic and Advanced. . ...and much more! The Ultimate SounDoku can be downloaded from the Draconis Entertainment Download Center. The game will function in a demonstration mode for fifteen days, after which time you will need to register the game. Find out more, buy the game, or try out the demo at http://www.draconisentertainment.com Be sure to keep an eye on the Draconis Entertainment web site for the launch of the all new Draconis Score Servers which will be going back online very soon. The new score servers will not suffer from the extended periods of down time that the previous servers did, and will include some new features that were not available on the old ESP Score Servers. For those of you requesting replacement registration keys, we have been working on a solution for you that we hope to make public very soon. Keep an eye on the Draconis News from our web site to be aware of when this option is available to our customers. Lastly, we are continuing work on new titles. As is evident with the Ultimate SounDoku, we have found it preferable to save announcements of future titles until the title is ready or nearly so. Just remember, if you haven't heard news from us, that doesn't mean we're not working to provide you with new games. Watch for new games from Draconis Entertainment soon. Draconis Entertainment "Feel the power...wield the magic..." http://www.draconisEntertainment.com http://www.dracoent.com ++ News from Kitchens Inc. Hi, I have put a new version of my Football game up on my web site. File name winnfl3.exe File size 2.8m bytes In version 3 I fixed the volume of the one sound file, added a save game feature and you can now change the names of the players on your team. The file can be found on my free windows text to speech games page. Hope you like the new version BFN Jim + Several folks have come forward with differing versions of the monopoly board. Using various themes, and genresMost of which are easy enough to send via email. Some very good ones might I say. . It's a bummer you aren't able to change the Community Chest or Chance cards to fit in more with the type of game. Though I've had fun playing it. Guess I'm not all that good at Monopoly. ++ Lighttech Interactive News dear gamers, we're happy to announce Lighttech Interactive is now on the map of accessible gaming and software! Lighttech Interactive is commited to deliver high quality, entertaining accessible games! We at LighttechInteractive put all hard efforts and thought, needed to create the best, fully featured product we hope to bring severall happy years of entertainment with some great and accessible Interactive Games! some of our games are available for download, while other titles are still in development -- as well as implementing a fully featured Lighttech Interactive score server you can visit our website at: http://www.lighttechinteractive.com "light locator" is out now! in Light locator you play as detective henry johnson as he trys to save a whole city by deactivating the mega radioactive bomb a group of terrorists has planted in it's main sky scraper!. features include: totally self - voicing (no screen reader required) 3 skill levels to play on the ability to view your local top ten scores for the 3 difficulty levels authentic sound effects and more! list end you can download light locator by going to http://www.lighttechinteractive.com and going to the light games page it is only 3.5 mb in sys, and should not be a pain to download even with a dial-up conection the horse racing game pach we have released a new pach for the horse racing game, that fixes lots of bugs from the previous release current version is 1.3.2 download and enjoy! happy gaming! yakir arbib Lighttech Interactive http://www.lighttechinteractive.com ++ News from PCS Games Sarah and the Castle of Witchcraft and Wizardry, is still under development and a new public beta is very close to being released. Since the first beta release in late December, I have removed most of the synthesized voice of Sarah and have replaced them with a human voice. I have also fixed several bugs and added some features suggested by testers. In this game you can explore a fantasy castle inspired by JK Rowling. Castle of Witchcraft and Wizardry transports Sarah into a world of corridors and secret passageways. she travels through the castle searching for magical items, fighting creepy creatures knowing at any minute, disaster may strike. So, take a trip to the Castle of Witchcraft and Wizardry and pay a visit to the ghost's Deathday party in the dungeon, pop into the kitchen for a chat with the sometimes helpful Dobby; go out for a spot of spelunking in the chamber of secrets, gasp in awe at the speed of the golden snitch, pick up plenty of coins and spells, try to hide from the Goblin, but always remember - the malevolent Dementors may not be what they seem! You can find out what is in store at PCS Games by going to the PCS web site at: http://www.pcsgames.net E-mail Phil Vlasak, phil@pcsgames.net We make games that tickle your ears. ++ News from Spoonbill Hi, Ian Humphreys from Spoonbill Software here. This is to announce the release of Blind gamers LAP - BG LAP for short. BG LAP is the accessible version of the game of LAP. It is suitable for both blind and visually impaired players, and like all Spoonbill games in the Blind gamers series, it is self-voicing. BG LAP is played as follows. You are presented with a board of 64 tiles arranged in 8 rows of 8 tiles each. At the start of the game all the tiles are blank. But the computer has secretly colored each tile with one of four colors, red, yellow, green or blue. Your task is to determine what color has been assigned to each of the 64 tiles, accumulating as few penalty points as possible. To help you on your way, you know the following: 1. There are exactly 16 tiles of each of the four colors. 2. The tiles of each color form a single contiguous area of tiles joined along their edges. You can get a hint of the colors assigned to any 2 by 2 square of tiles. A hint will cost you 1 penalty point. You can guess the color of a blank tile. A correct guess will reveal the color of the tile. An incorrect guess will cost you 5 penalty points. When the colors of all the blank tiles have been revealed, the game is over. You try to score as few penalty points as possible. Your lowest score is always remembered in the statistics. This is to announce the release of Blind gamers 15 Puzzle BG 15 Puzzle for short. BG 15 puzzle is the accessible version of the famous sliding block puzzle made popular by Sam Loyd, arguably America's greatest puzzlist. It is suitable for both blind and visually impaired players, and like all Spoonbill games in the Blind gamers series, it is self-voicing. BG 15 puzzle is played as follows. You have 15 blocks or tiles, each labelled with a number from 1 through 15, arranged in a 4 by 4 square. The sixteenth position is empty but can be used to slide an adjacent tile into. At the start of the game, the tiles are shuffled in random order and it is your job to rearrange them into ascending or from 1 to 15, finishing with the empty position in the bottom right hand corner. The less moves you take, the higher your score. Your high score is remembered and replaced should you get a higher score in subsequent games. Regards Ian Humphreys Spoonbill Software Albany, Western Australia. ++ USA Games News 2/28/2006 Alchemy Transfer Updates I am sending out this update to keep everyone abreast of the changes in the Alchemy transfer. As you all know Friday of last week James North had verbally agreed to turn over the source for the mouse demo, Raceway, and Montezuma's Revenge. Now, that the weekend is over James has been in contact with us, and has communicated how and when the transfers will take place. James has sent us legal documentation via email which signs all rights to the above mentioned titles over to USA Games. We have printed, read, and have signed the documents. Once it is mailed and received by James North he will sign it, and then send us the source code, sound effects, etc to the above titles. As you might guess this could take anywhere from a week to a couple of weeks to complete this deal. Final Conflict Updates for those of you waiting on the 1.0 beta we have discovered a couple of low-cost solutions to our security issues with .net and Final Conflict. This security measure is absolutely necessary, not only for Final Conflict, but for the safety and protection of all other future USA Games titles using the .net technologies. We feel assured that this security measure will aid in our desire to prevent piracy. We hope to have a release up on site soon, but as we can't give a specific day and hour we won't. Just know we are working on it as fast as possible, and none want to get this game done and ready to go more than I. Sincerely, Thomas Ward Developer for USA Games Entertainment http://www.usagames.us Yesterday I created a totally new trailor for Montezuma's Revenge featuring the new game, and what the USA Games version will be like. If you want to take a listen go to http://www.usagames.us and click the downloads link. From there it is in the audio trailors section. Let me know what Y'all think. ++ News from VIP games Zone Hi all! We will start our new multiplayer game testing this month. We need some volunteers for our testing team. If you want to take participation in our testing team, please visit our page http://vipgameszone.com Best wishes Vipgameszone +++ Game Announcements and Reviews: Above the full reviews which appear in this section, any new games which have not been fully reviewed yet will be announced in the hopes that readers and/or the Audyssey staff will try out and review these games for us. Reviews of games will not appear in any particular order. The only exception to this will be when we have more than one review for a game. In this case, reviews will be placed consecutively so that it is easier to compare them. As with Anchorhead a few issues back, I may wish to interject my own thoughts on a game should it provoke significant reaction or otherwise prove itself especially noteworthy. When I choose to do this, you'll find my remarks above the review or reviews for the game in question. Should a game have more than one review, two plus-signs will be placed above the first review and/or my remarks. This policy will hopefully encourage people to try both the latest as well as some older games which may have been overlooked. Just because something isn't hot off the presses doesn't mean that it is any less worthy of a gamer's attention. Also, remember that it doesn't matter if a game has been reviewed before. If you have a different take on the game than has already been published, send in your review and I'll consider it for publication. If a review fails to interest you, simply skip to the next plus-sign. It's that simple, folks. ++ Want to play chess against a computer online? This one is speech friendly, and it thinks ahead 2 moves for each side. You tab to, and activate, a link to the move you want to make, or, (I think?), you can enter your own move. The next move made by the computer will be shown. The URL is http://pine.cs.yale.edu/cgi-bin/chessplayer If you are interested in learning the game from the very beginning to the point at which you can win games by using the 4 principles of the game and some advanced strategies, check out the 2 correspondence courses from the Hadley school for the blind. In oredr to take the second, more advanced, course, you must first pass the first one. Lessons are available on audio cassettes or in braille. If you don't have a chess set that is adapted for the blind, or even if you already have one, one is provided for your use during the first course, "Chess for Beginners". After completing the course, you may keep the course equipment and material for your own use. The URL for the school is www.hadley-school.org and I think these 2 courses are very good training as well as providing a structured method of learning the game. There is a lot of insight as to how a Grandmaster of the game reasons out the best moves, which will provide you with a very good foundation on which you can build your chess skills, even if you currently know absolutely nothing about the game and want to learn it. ++ Sorry, I have not yet found a character generator that can easily be used accessibly. I did find an Npc generator you could download but that is not really the same I guess. It is online, and also downloadable. http://www.aarg.net/~minam/npc2.cgi For myself, I made lists of just the names of the feats and skills for easy picking. I also made a document with a racial breakdown listing only the relevant information. I did the same with character classes, weapons, armor, cleric domains, spell lists (dividing them by class into diffrent docs), and the bonus spell level chart for high attributtes. I suppose you could make a diffrent doc for basic info for the classes at first level, that is actually a good idea, I think I will try that.I am also considering seperating out every single monster and spell into it's own document, listing them in their prospective folders and making it easier to look forspecific things in a long document. It is easier to find fireball than all spells that start with F. I could never figure out how to use the Find option, lol In the end this doesn't prevent you from looking up the information, but what this will do is make looking for information that much easier. hope that helped you, PS: Here is a link for searchable SRD in HTML. This might help if you dont want to do all that work. http://www.andargor.com/ The below link is for the three point five manuals for download. I believe these might be easier to download as well. http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/srd35 ++ The Ultimate Soundoku Reviewer: Charles Rivard Available from: www.draconisentertainment.com This game is self voicing. Turn your screen reader off before starting the game. It is totally accessible to totally blind players. There haven't been very many puzzle oriented games for the blind, but now, Draconis Entertainment has come out with one that puts blind puzzlers on an even keel with sighted puzzlers. We can work Sudoku puzzles and discuss them with sighted puzzlers. What are they? Here's a brief history: Sudoku was originally drempt up by a man named Howard Garns, a retired architect and freelance puzzle constructor, and first published in 1979. Most likely, Sudoku was inspired by the Latin square, a mathematical invention of Leonhard Euler. Garns added a third dimension (the regional restriction) to the mathematical construct and (unlike Euler) presented the creation as a puzzle, providing a partially-completed grid and requiring the solver to fill in the rest. The puzzle was first published by Dell Magazines in the magazine "Dell Pencil Puzzles and Word Games", under the title "Number Place". The puzzle first surfaced in Japan in the paper "Monthly Nikolist", in April 1984. In that publication, it was entitled "Suuji wa dokushin ni kagiru", which translates to "the numbers must be single". Note that "single" in this case literally refers to the marrital status of the numbers. So be kind, and take your Sudoku puzzles out on a date every now and then. Later, the name was shortened to "Sudoku", which is a common practice in Japanese. In 1989, "DigitHunt" was released for the Commodore 64, which was the first computerized version of Sudoku. "Ka is a wheel", and now Dell Magazines also publishes two Sudoku magazines. Sudoku appears in countless puzzle books, newspapers, and other periodicals around the world. Sudoku's surging popularity in recent years can largely be attributed to the United Kingdom, where puzzles began appearing in a wide variety of newspapers and magazines in 2004. Sudoku has been accredited with the upswing in sales of these periodicals to such a degree that papers actually argue over who was the first to print the puzzles. From tabloids to the BBC's "Radio Times" publication, Sudoku has become an amense success in Brittain. In the summer of 2005, a television gameshow based on Sudoku aired in the UK. Sudoku has been called "The Rubik's cube of the 21st century". As the Sudoku craze sweeps across the world, young and old alike are discovering the addictive fun of this brain-busting puzzle game. Though it exists in many forms, the basic concept is always the same: fill in every square on the puzzle-grid without repeating any value in any row, column, or region. Draconis Entertainment brings this puzzle game to a rich audio platform, designed to encompass Sudoku in all it's many varied incarnations. It's more than Sudoku...it's more than Soundoku...it's The Ultimate Soundoku! Choose to use letters, numbers, or sound effects in varied audio themes, just as printed Sudoku games use numbers, letters, or symbols. Can you beat the clock and solve the puzzle before time runs out? Or would you rather take your time and defeat the puzzle on your own schedule? The Ultimate Soundoku offers all this, and much more. Here are some of the game's features, along with my comments on them: . Millions of automatically generated puzzles. You won't get bored because you don't have any new puzzles to play, that's for sure! . Both 9X9-grid and, for more of a challenge, 16X16-grid puzzles. . Seven levels of difficulty (from beginner to expert. Don't let the designation of "beginner" fool you into thinking that it is easy, though! . Eight entirely different audio themes to use as "symbols" as you play! These add to the challenge and enhance the enjoyment by adding variation to the game. Sighted puzzlers use symbols or numbers, the blind can use numbers or sound patterns. . Three modes of play: Puzzle (in which you try to solve an automatically generated puzzle), Clock (in which you try to solve a puzzle before the clock time reaches 0), and Custom (in which you solve a puzzle that was created by a human, whether that human was yourself or another gamer. Share puzzles you create with others and solve those passed on to you by other gamers for great replay value). . The ability to create and save custom puzzles, or copy puzzles from Sudoku puzzle books and newspapers for play with the Ultimate Soundoku. You can use the feature to create a puzzle and simply fill in the squares with the numbers or symbols found in other puzzles, then try solving the created puzzle. . Keyboard layouts for both desktop and laptop computers so that you can play when traveling or at home. . The a bility to save a game in progress and resume it later. This comes in handy when using a laptop PC and you have to turn the machine off for some reason. . Two methods of navigation and feedback: Basic and Advanced. The advanced feedback gives you less information, but give it more quickly. This is good for after you have become familiar with the game, and also saves time when time is running out when trying to beat the clock. System requirements: The Ultimate Soundoku requires a Windows computer with Windows 98 or later and DirectX 8.X or later installed. The game may operate on older versions of Windows, but it is not recommended. Other requirements include: . Windows 98, ME, NT, 2000, or XP . Microsoft DirectX 8.X or later . 500MHZ or better processor . At least 32MB of RAM (64 or more is recommended) . 40MB or more of free hard disk space. . Windows and DirectX compatible sound card and, as with all of the games from Draconis Entertainment, a good sense of humor. If you want to try out the game before you buy, you may do so for fifteen days. Note that many features, such as saving a game in progress, etc, will not be available in demo mode. The game will automatically expire after fifteen days and you will need a registration key to unlock it. The demo can be downloaded and unlocked with the purchased key which unlocks it to become the full game from www.draconisentertainment.com The key is $19.95. A typical Sudoku puzzle is a nine-by-nine grid. Imagine a chess board with one extra row and column added to it, and you will have a good idea of what it looks like. This nine-by-nine grid is further divided into nine "regions". These regions are three-by-three mini-grids, consisting of nine squares of the entire puzzle. For example, the first region of a Sudoku puzzle is in the upper lefthand corner. It encompasses the first three positions of the top row of the puzzle, the first three positions of the second row of the puzzle, and the first three positions of the third row of the puzzle. The second region includes the next three positions on these same rows, and so forth. If this is difficult to imagine now, don't worry. It will become more clear as you play and practice solving Sudoku puzzles. At the outset, some of the positions in the puzzle are filled in with a number from one to nine. These are called the "givens", and may never be changed by you during the course of the game. Your job is to fill in the blank spaces with the numbers from one to nine, without creating duplicates on any row, any column, or within any region. Positions that start out empty at the start of the game can be changed as many times as you need to in order to complete the puzzle successfully. A successfully completed Sudoku puzzle will have all positions on the nine-by-nine grid filled in with a value from one to nine, with no repeated values in any column, any row, or within any of the three-by-three regions. Believe me, it's harder than it sounds! I've been searching for puzzle games to take up my spare time during evenings or rainy days, and this one is excellent! It's a real brain buster, even on the easy difficulty. Give it a try! + Again though this was an email it fits here it's an example of a solved puzzle Phil sent me a finished puzzle and asked that I send it to the list because he has been having sporadic problems sending and receiving to and from the list. Note that what he sent is a puzzle that has been completed. Each digit is a square. He has divided it into regions. Notice that the same number only appears once in each column, once in each row, and once in each 3 by 3 region. When you play a game, try to accomplish this. There is not only one solution. As long as you meet these 3 requirements, you will get credit for correctly solving the puzzle. Here is his puzzle: Hi Folks, Here is a finished Ultimate SounDoku Puzzle 413_627_895 627_895_134 589_341_726 ______________________ 372_156_489 954_782_361 168_934_572 ___________ 236_418_957 791_563_248 845_279_613 ++ Greetings everyone: Adrift is a text based adventure game run time environment. These are modelled after the original text based adventures that were written for computers back in the days before a graphical user interface. Since these usually involve solving the puzzle, I thought some on the list might be interested. i don't know how the software works with JAWS, but with Window-Eyes it is workable when using the WE mouse keys. I suspect the Jaws cursor will work in much the same fashion if it doesn't automatically read the text as it appears. It is possible to set up a Window in Window-Eyes to read the text as it changes automatically. Here is the URL along with the text from the about link. http://www.adrift.org.uk/cgi/new/adrift.cgi About Adrift: What is a Text Adventure? Text Adventures, also known as Interactive Fiction, are like stories where you control the main character. You are put in a situation, and you have to solve a number of tasks and puzzles before completing the game. Unlike many modern games, a lot of thought and imagination is required. How do you create one? Most Text Adventure creation programs require you to write a type of program. This makes it very difficult for beginners to get started, and even more experienced authors may not know how to use the full functionality of the language. This is where ADRIFT Generator comes in... About ADRIFT Generator ADRIFT Generator is a program written for Windows 95/98/NT/2K/ME/XP which allows you to create your own Text Adventures. Instead of having to learn a new adventure programming language, ADRIFT Generator takes all the difficulty away leaving you with a simple, yet powerful game designer. Adventures are built up by adding rooms, objects, tasks, events and characters. All you have to do is type in the descriptions, and select how everything interacts with each other from pull down menus and lists. About ADRIFT Runner ADRIFT Runner is the application which takes the adventure files created with ADRIFT Generator, and interprets them as an adventure. ADRIFT Runner attempts to recreate the traditional adventure environment as introduced to computers when adventures first came out, but it also improves on this by suppling extra functionality such as a real-time map, optional control panel (to use the mouse instead of keys), general point-n-click, colour customisation, automatic text completion, and a highscore table. + This generator is certainly new to me. Perhaps it will open the door to many more IF games. Adrift does work quite well with JFW. Though let's not forget Tads and Inform. As well as the developing TTS engine. ++ Blind Gamers Lap Freeware Available from http://www.omninet.net.au/%7Eirhumph/blindgamers.htm Reviewed by Ron Schamerhorn BG LAP is the accessible version of the game of LAP. It is suitable for both blind and visually impaired players, and like all Spoonbill games in the Blind gamers series, it is self-voicing. BG LAP is played as follows. You are presented with a board of 64 tiles arranged in 8 rows of 8 tiles each. At the start of the game all the tiles are blank. But the computer has secretly colored each tile with one of four colors, red, yellow, green or blue. Your task is to determine what color has been assigned to each of the 64 tiles, accumulating as few penalty points as possible. To help you on your way, you know the following: 1. There are exactly 16 tiles of each of the four colors. 2. The tiles of each color form a single contiguous area of tiles joined along their edges. You can get a hint of the colors assigned to any 2 by 2 square of tiles. A hint will cost you 1 penalty point. You can guess the color of a blank tile. A correct guess will reveal the color of the tile. An incorrect guess will cost you 5 penalty points. When the colors of all the blank tiles have been revealed, the game is over. You try to score as few penalty points as possible. Your lowest score is always remembered in the statistics. After playing this game a fair bit I've discovered that it is awfully addicting! I've enjoyed it thoroughly! One of the very nice things is that it uses the TTS speech and therefore relies on no particular screen reader program. TTS should also work regardless of what Windows OS you are running. The text to speech voices are easily downloadable, and there are many outside of the offerings of Microsoft which will work equally well with this program. To repeat I do have lots of fun with the game, and the nice part is that it requires only a few minutes per game session. I'm actually on the top 20 scores last I checked on Ian's site. It's a lot of fun. To get the game even though it's freeware it's suggested to visit his site and request a copy directly. He's done some fun games and has quite a number considering the length of time he's been working at developing them. There is a method of putting in your vote for what you think should become a project as well. 8/10 ++ Here is a Site I came across today. Some of the puzzles are accessible to screen reading software. http://www.puzzlersparadise.com/index.html ++ Montezumas Revenge By Alchemy Game Studios Demo currently not available Fully playable without sighted assistance Introductions Since it's early conception in the mid 1980's sighted people have been playing this classic arcade side scroller type game on Nintendo and other older systems of its kind The object in the version for the sighted is simple, get through the temple avoiding adversaries and collecting as many gems as possible. Eventually, you would reach the master temple where you collect as much treasure as possible and walk away victorious In Alchemy's version, you play the role of Arazona Smith. You will risk your hide trying to gather treasure during your explorations The temples are full of goolies and nasty adversaries. Such as huge spiders to overcome, snakes, the undead, rattling skulls etcetra. Also the dangers include acid pits, electricity, quicksand, streams, and the list goes on Sound and controls There has been a lot of discussion, sometimes a bit heated maybe, concerning the interface of this game Originally the layout was primarily for the numberpad set of keys, found on most desktops, like the one I am using to type this article on at present However many laptops do not contain number pads. It was suggested to people to get a USB numberpad, which I felt was unfair In the full version all the keys apparently will be configurable However, no release date for the full version has been given The demo contains a layout now for laptop. In the numberpad version, one uses 4 and six to go backwards and forwards, as sounds pan from left to right as you are walking sideways, hence a side scroller. The control key is used to run, shift plus the directional keys enable you to look left, and right Eight moves up ladders, 2 go down respectively, and the same for ropes. Sound The sound element of this game is stunning. Once the full version appears with music, that will be worth the wait. No music is in the demo at present. The gameplay once used to the controls is a cool concept Overall if you enjoy action adventure and are looking for something challenging, give Montezumas revenge a try. The trailer is also on the website I would rate this game seven out of ten. The reason being there will be no randomness in the full version, as in the classical incarnation However, once you've played it once, I doubt it will have much replay value as you will know where the snakes and other enemies are. For example, you know after going up that ladder avoid 2 snakes. It just seems to have no replay value, but not having seen the full version and the complexities I cant say. Happy exploring!! + I'd like to refer everyone to Michael Feir's article, and the USA Games update to see further info regarding Montezumas Revenge. This review was based on an earlier incarnation of the above title. ++ Hi folks. I just stumbled on this new text based rpg from Graham Nelson. I was hoping somebody would create something like this. Here's the link to follow. You can run the game with Winfrotztts. http://www.plover.net/~emily/ROTA/ ++ Rubik's Cube For the Blind Gizmodo (Weblog) Monday, February 20, 2006 Rubik's Cube For the Blind This is a new twist on an old game. Why make a new version of a game When few people can master the original anyway? Regardless, this cube features six different materials that all have a very unique texture: metal, wood, textile, stone, rubber and plastic. It can be done like a regular style rubik's cube or if you really have the cajones you can bust out the blindfold and really test your skills. There are six different basic materials involved. They are Metal, wood, textile, rubber, plastic and stone. Different materials give people different senses, which thus enabled the blind men to play. And here we present the very example of this inspiration - The new Rubik's Cube. (Description of Image, from the Yanko Design website) Image shows a Rubik's Cube, which is a 9 x 9 x 9 cubic rotating puzzle. The six surfaces of the cube are covered in different materials, and described as Wood - Warm Metal - Cold Rubber - Soft Plastic - Hard Stone - Tough Textile - W&S The caption above the cube reads "Touch and Play. Games for blind men With the aid of material". A Second image shows the puzzle in an unsolved state! being played by a Blindfolded man. (LWG) The product was released 17th February 2006. Product Link:- http://www.yankodesign.com/product_info.php?products_id=773 Design: University of Zhejiang http://us.gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/rubiks-cube-for-the-blind-155779.php ++ Pinball Extreme Commercially available from www.draconisentertainment.com Ok. I did a review of pinball extreme way back in December of 2005. Hear is a link to it. Unfortunately you can't download the mp3. blah! O well, Hopefully this won't be my last review. lol. the link is http://www.gcast.com/u/marrie/main Take care all. Sarah Alawami + I hope Sarah isn't upset by me doing this but I think at least letting folks know about the audio review is another great way to publicize various games. In such cases not only is there a description but also a person is able to listen to the game itself. ++ I have a version of the dice game skunk that you can play online with friends. I highly reccomend you use a voice chat program to talk with them as you play it. The game and instructions can be found at http://www.linksForBlinks.com The game is entirely free and requires no download. Have fun, Che ++ Topspeed 2 Created by Playing In The Dark Freely available at:www.playinginthedark.net Fully accessible without sighted assistance Review by Michael Feir The slump in accessible games has well and truly ended and it couldn't have ended in a more surprising way. Durring my time as editor of Audyssey, one of the most frequent things I'd be asked was: "When will somebody make a racing game for blind people?" We've certainly seen a number of racing games with various tracks and obstacles to avoid. The most widely enjoyed one of these would be Jim Kitchen's Mach1. I fully expected the next racing breakthrough to be a commercially produced game. However, I was proved wrong once again by this excellent free offering from Playing in the dark. They've given us something with both substance and its own style showing what dedication and passion for accessible games can do. While there are certainly areas where Topspeed2 can be improved upon, the quality delivered at no cost to the blind community is absolutely stunning. Before I set out to pick the game apart in all its aspects, I'll first take this opportunity to commend these good people for their tremendous gift to gamers. You've completely changed my outlook on racing games for the better. *The Interface: Topspeed2 cators to pretty much everyone in this area. The arrow keys are used to navigate menus. The enter key selects options. The escape key backs out of menus. The menus are all completely self-voicing and operate quite smoothly. People can also take advantage of joysticks, steering wheels, and even force feedback versions of these devices to race their cars with. There are menus which let you customise aspects of the interface such as changing the keys used for controlling the car or the buttons on a joystick. You can also adjust the ammount of automatic feedback given to you by the co-pilot. As far as interface and configurable options go, Topspeed2 gets full marks. *Sounds: Topspeed2 has the sound and feel of an arcade-style racing game rather than a gritty realistic one. The engine accelleration, breaking and crash sounds give one a sense of classic arcade racing games. In multi-player races, people can use their horns as a small way of interacting. While awaiting the start of a race, they can toot at each other. The sound positioning is excellent. I have a surround sound system and can hear where all the cars are as the race starts. It's neat hearing them pass from behind to in front of you or even better vise versa. You certainly get the sense of being in a high-speed race. One small problem I found was that when you switch to a different terrain type, there can be an instant's pause as the sound for the new terrain kicks in and the co-pilot announces the different terrain type. All the rest seems perfectly natural and well done in the sound department. *Game Play: The mechanics of Topspeed2 are quite well implemented. You get a good feel for how different cars handle and how terrain such as gravel or water effect your car's performance. The computer controlled opponents are quite good and you can adjust the overall game difficulty to determine how many cars there are to race against as well as how well they drive. One area of the game I haven't tried too much of yet is with the extra cars and tracks which users are already starting to make for the game. For the purposes of this review, I downloaded and installed a few to see how easy that was. It's as easy as extracting the files into the appropriate "tracks" or "vehicles" folder. Making tracks and vehicles is something I'll leave to the more pioneering people out there to take a crack at. Playing through a single race is an excellent way to spend a few spare minutes and you certainly have a nice sense of acomplishment when you actually win one. However, that's nothing compared to the thrill of a multi-player race. There are a few areas here where improvements would certainly be welcome. One irritant is the need to go to a separate tool and input the ip address of a server you want to connect to. I envy sighted gamers whose games usually have the capacity to search the Internet for servers to play on. Alternatively, they'll have a central server where people can join and play together. I hope that the people at Playing in the dark are able to make some changes there. Once you've gotten the IP of a server, you then have no way of knowing whether a race is already underway. You can join, pick your car, and then just sit there until the end of the race whereupon you have to pick your car again to join the next race. Besides these two complaints, I've had a tremendously positive experience racing online against other blind drivers. At long last, I've experienced the thrill of playing an action-based game against other human oponents. I very much look forward to more such races and to whatever other titles Playing in the dark eventually releases. Their initial offering is absolutely fantastic. I give it an eight out of ten. Michael Feir Creator and former Editor of Audyssey Magazine 1996-2004 E-mail: mfeir@cogeco.ca + Though this isn't exactly a comment on the review, I feel it's a proper place to put the info for obtaining extra cars and tracks for the above mentioned game. I thank DJC for providing the space to download these. It seems to be an ever growing list, in fact I'd like to do one if I could find the proper sound recordings. Here it is server: djc.my-net-space.net username: PlayingInTheDark Password: racing Port 21 No Passive Mode That should do it. Currently 41 cars and 37 tracks available on the ftp. Hello everyone. I just read DJC's excellent message regarding the custom tracks and cars ftp site he is hosting. With his permission I have posted the ftp information on my Top Speed web page located at http://topspeed.asmodean.net so if you lose the email then you will have the information there. I realize I am encouraging laziness but hey, let's face it. I'm lazy too. I'd rather have information freely available on a web page so I don't have to bother with saving a message . In any case that is the latest update to the site http://topspeed.asmodean.net. Best regards all. Just when you thought you were winning the rat race, along comes a faster rat!! Raul A. Gallegos + I'll also point back to Raul's site for server info, and if others are that interested I wouldn't object to including a list of hosts that one could connect to. I know on the list recently there have been many. I would have joined more but I am not an Andreti by any means. ++++ Contacting Us All material to be included in future issues of Audyssey should be sent to me at the following addresses: Ron Schamerhorn 1180 Dorval Dr. #303 Oakville On L6M 3G1 [905]-842-1933 blindwonder@cogeco.ca rschamerhorn@hotmail.com for MSN no email. Thomas Ward is a list moderator and new at the position. He's only had the job a little while but is doing a fine job! His contact info is sales@usagames.us Raul Gallegos is the other new co moderator. His willingness to take the post on behalf of the Audyssey community are very much appreciated. He can be contacted at: raul@asmodean.net +++ Distribution Information and Submission Policies This magazine is published on a quarterly basis, each issue appearing no earlier than the fifteenth of the publication month for its quarter. All submissions to be published in an issue must be in my possession a minimum of two days before the issue is published. I use MS-Word to produce Audyssey, and can therefore accept submissions in pretty much any format. They may be sent either on a 3.5-inch floppy disk, or via e-mail to: blindwonder@cogeco.ca Please write articles and letters about games or game-related topics which interest you. They will likely interest me, and your fellow readers. This magazine should and can be a highly interesting and qualitative look at accessible gaming. To insure that high quality is maintained, I'll need your written contributions. I reserve the right to unilaterally make changes to submissions if I deem it necessary to improve them grammatically or enhance their understand ability. I will never make changes which will alter the spirit of a submission. All submissions must be in English. However, people need not be great writers to have their work appear in Audyssey. Many of our community come from different countries. Others are quite young. Where possible, I try to preserve their different styles of expression. The richness that this adds to the Audyssey experience far outweighs any benefits gained from having everything in prose so perfect as to be devoid of life. Audyssey is a community and magazine built on the need for blind people to have fun. There are no formal structural requirements for submissions. Within reason, they may be as long as necessary. Game reviews should all clearly state who created the game being examined, where it can be obtained, whether it can be played without sighted assistance, and any system requirements or other critical information. Although profanity is by no means banned, it should not be used gratuitously. Submissions not published in a current issue will be reserved for possible use in future issues if appropriate. * Those who are on the Audyssey discussion list should be aware that I often put materials from the list in the "Letters" section if I feel that they warrant it. Anything posted to this discussion list that in some way stands out from the common and often lively ongoing discourse will be considered fair game for publishing unless it contains the author's wish that it not be published. From now on, it is now officially a policy of the Audyssey community. This magazine is free in its electronic form, and will always remain so. 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 via E-mail, or on a cd or 3.5-inch disk in a self- addressed mailer if you want your media returned to you. Please only send shareware or freeware games. It is illegal to send commercial games unless you are their creator or have obtained permission to do so. 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. If you can, I recommend that you send e-mail. I can send and receive attachments with ease. 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. Those who want to receive issues of Audyssey as they are published should send a blank E-mail to: Audysub-subscribe@yahoogroups.com The Audyssey discussion list facilitates discussion about games accessible to the blind between the publication of issues of Audyssey. All are welcome as long as they respect their fellow community members and keep in mind that the topic of the list is supposed to be games. Other topics are allowed within reason as long as they don't begin to monopolize the list traffic for too long. Newcomers should be advised that traffic is frequently fairly heavy. Anyone participating in the discussion list will have issues of Audyssey automatically sent to them via E-mail. Representatives from all major developers of games for the blind are actively participating on the list. There are two moderators keeping things civil and orderly. Be certain to read the Audyssey Community Charter as all list members are expected to follow its rules. If you want an active role in shaping the future of accessible games, this is where you can dive right in. To subscribe to this discussion list, send a blank message to: blindgamers-subscribe@yahoogroups.com Stan Bobbitt has made Audyssey Magazine available in HTML format for easy on-line browsing. To take advantage of this, you are invited to visit our home-page. People can easily and quickly navigate through the various articles and reviews, and directly download or visit the sites of the games that interest them. This will be of especial benefit for sighted people who wish to make use of Audyssey and/or join the growing community surrounding it. The Audyssey community thanks Mr. Bobbitt for his continued efforts on its behalf in this matter. Darren Duff also provides a home for Audyssey. http://www.angelfire.com/music4/duffstuff/audyssey.html Where the issues can be read, downloaded individually or one zip file of all the issues. Thanks Darren! Another site has recently added Audyssey issues to its resources. We welcome: Note the dash in the below address. http://www.blind-help.com to the Audyssey community and hope that visitors to this site find our resource to be of value to them. Also another place to find both the issues of the magazine and the links to the games is http://www.audiogames.net/page.php?pagefile=audyssey Again our thanks. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] to leave send a blank Email to: BlindGamers-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com You can contact the list owners/moderators by Emailing blindgamers-owner@yahoogroups.com to go nomail send a blank message to: blindgamers-nomail@yahoogroups.com change "nomail" to "normal" to resume messages. Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/blindgamers/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: blindgamers-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! 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