A (Blind-Accessible) History of Blind Gaming

[@Fupicat]

I took part in a "no visuals" game jam a few years ago! I made a puzzle game about blindly defusing a bomb. You had a guy on the phone giving you instructions like "cut the longest wire" but all you could do is pass your finger over the wire to make a sound. So you had to figure out to cut the wire that made the longest sound. Most of the puzzles actually suck but I'm proud of that little experiment xd

[@jordy9606]

Im sure its awesome, good work dude! That sounds very creative and inventive

[@Fupicat]

@@jordy9606 Ayy thank you!

[@cd7677]

Touch based vr sounds like a crazy cool idea thi

[@jart1984]

@@cd7677 imagine haptic feedback vr gloves bro

[@stm7810]

I'm mostly blind so that sounds very fun!

[@osakablinladen]

lost and hound sounds like exactly the kinda game i was looking for for years, thank you hundreds of yandere sim bullying videos for bringing me here

[@kingfish4575]

Love the Osaka profile pic.

[@FiSH-iSH]

just hearing his description got me absolutely hyped to play it for myself, ive always wanted to train my hearing to be more reliable

[@kel9993]

azumanga daioh pfp slay!!!!

[@euclodies1719]

Sauce pfp?

[@watermoof4914]

@@euclodies1719 Azumanga Daioh 2002

[@literallywhy6162]

I grew up with a blind girl who was a couple years older than me. I went to her house every day after school, to play video games. (Sometimes when we were younger we played with stuffed animals and barbies too but as we got older it became only video games.) She had a very small amount of vision that lessened over time, but no matter what we always played Nintendo games in her room with her sitting a few inches from the TV. I don’t think it was ever really for her to see anything, it was to be closer to the speakers. We played a whole lot of Mario Kart 64 and she won a lot. There was a good amount of smash bros too, that she also won. Together we played through Luigi’s Mansion, that god awful impossible Tarzan N64 game, and several others. Can you guess which one of us always played the hard parts? It wasn’t me I’m so glad to have stumbled across this video! It’s a really cool one and something that sighted people probably don’t think about often if there aren’t any blind people in their lives-blind people play video games (and kick ass at them too)

[@tenhovergonha8739]

I'm happy that I read your comment.

[@bup7879]

This comment really strikes a chord with me. As a visually impaired person myself, I can relate so much to having to sit inches away from the tv in order to play. Hearing about someone else not only going through that, but managing to play well despite it really hits home and is inspiring to me. Hope she's doing well and keeps on gaming!

[@literallywhy6162]

@@bup7879 she’s doing pretty great! The last time I saw her was at her wedding last year. She’s also a paralympic athlete (goalball, it’s a really interesting sport)

[@anakinlowground5515]

This entire concept is bewildering to me... How would a blind person be able to navigate a game purely by using sound? I have always thought they need some kind of... physical interaction with the world around them in order to navigate, but I guess this is in the same vain as that blind kid who could ride a bike. It's absolutely fascinating.

[@valhatan3907]

@@anakinlowground5515 not using sound Only, the op clearly say the she still can see but with limited range of vision and need to sit few inches from the screen.

[@nicholaspeters9919]

The fact that the dog’s sprint meter is labeled “zoomies” makes Lost and Hound an instant win for me.

[@8888BALL]

Theres also a blind accessable game called The Vale and the main character in it is actually blind Also its not a horror game so thats a plus

[@PixelRockett]

It’s an rpg more like, combat based on sounds that gradually get harder the longer the game goes on. I personally haven’t played it, but I have watched someone else play it, and it seems like a lot of fun!

[@pacomatic9833]

Yeah; Sighted people get to see nothing whatsoever. So blind people are now on the same playing field

[@frokydafroakie]

@@PixelRockett you've *watched* a person play it?

[@PixelRockett]

@@frokydafroakie I watched/listened to RTGame play the game

[@AsterRiskk]

@@PixelRockett was just about to bring this up bc I saw rtgame's playthrough

[@ianforsure]

There is a game I found years ago that is a App Store blind friendly game called A Blind Legend that isn’t a horror game it’s actually a fantasy game where you play a a blind knight and can freely roam around a map using your daughters voice to guide you to the quest. You also fight using sound queues. It’s a extremely well done game to my knowledge

[@Rapidashisaunicorn]

I’ve played that too. Not the greatest game in the world by any means, but still fun. I’m surprised by how well the difficulty escalated too. I imagine some blind people probably don’t enjoy the sheer number of slurs directed at the player though (even if they are from the enemies)

[@penguin_king2759]

There is a similar game out there called The Vale. You take place as a blind princess fighting her way back home during a time of war.

[@kirtmanwaring3629]

First off, I'm a blind gamer and appreciate the effort you put into this. Tahat said, I can't help but feel a little jaded at the way you represent our reliance on text-based games, both in terms of not easily understanding wordplay and also options in the present day. MUDS remain incredibly popular in the blind community, braille displays allow us to read on-screen text and not just listen to it and, even without them, we're generally used to having our screen readers spell words letter by letter when it's apparent we're dealing with confusing syntax. Tea remover vs tee remover is a minor thing that would maybe take 2-5 seconds to figure out with spelling letter by letter, not hours lol.

[@PaperWill]

These are all very valid points. I've spoken about this a bit in other comments, but at some point I'll need to come back to this video and take another shot at it. I missed the MUDs, Last of Us 2's accessibility options, and the (apparently amazing) world of Amazon Echo gaming. The T Remover comment was actually from someone I spoke to on the blind gamer subreddit, so while I can't speak to if that particular example was a problem everyone faced, I do think early text to speech options would sometimes throw blind gamers a curveball they might not be able to recognize as important. The T Remover point was absolutely buried in the walls of text, so even for sighted players that could see something was odd about the spelling, it was easy to miss. Is there anything else you think deserves more attention whenever I do an updated version of this video?

[@danielhewing64]

Hello I’m fascinated by how you are able to understand this video while blind

[@kirtmanwaring3629]

@@PaperWill So sorry I missed this! Yes, the T/Tea remover thing would absolutely be an issue if you don't have a Braille display and unfortunately those of us who do are a privileged minority, especially worldwide. Braille displays are expensive, costing generally between one and three thousand dollars, so they're mostly bought by governments in wealthy countries. If you're lucky enough to be educated in a good school district or be part of the Vocational Rehabilitation system here in the states you have advantages most blind people never get. Muds were just my thing as a kid, I spent a lot of time being a Middle Earth wizard, Star wars Jedi etc but I had that when my friends had Halo and Starcraft. .. Audiogames exist of course and they're fun but not the same. Right now I'm playing a lot of Hearthstone Access which, to me, highlights the best and worst of accessible gaming. I get to play a mainstream game that's the kind I'd definitely be playing if I wasn't blind and I can really compete. It relies on an unofficial open-source mod because Blizard doesn't care so a volunteer dev has to repatch the thing every time the game gets updated. Also that's probably at the pinacle of accessibility right now. Other people play the Hades Accessibility Mod, Say/Slay the Spire, etc. Blind games made by blind gamers can be fun too but again the options are limited...Swamp, Survive the Wild, A Hero's Call etc. so we have a few options now but it should be so much better. Thanks again for your thoughtful reply.

[@jacobschweiger5897]

@@danielhewing64 by listening to it i'd assume...... why would being blind stop them from understanding the video? people listen to podcasts without visuals all the time

[@iammadeoutofstarstuff957]

Then how are you typing this?

[@PaperWill]

The Paper Bin (Addendum, Notes, Corrections, etc.) 1. In the months after releasing this video, I've found that there were several important blind-gaming technologies and games I missed. At some point I plan on remaking this video and will include those as well. As user @superfreq pointed out: "I do think you missed some significant portions of the story though, particularly the Windows market which is much more diverse and has it's own stories like "Audyssey Magazine", the first blind specific audio games for dos made by "Jim Kitchen", the emergence of more action based arcade style games in the early and mid 2000s, the "mouse revolution" of the early 2010s which coincided with more multiplayer games, the "BGT era of the mid 2010s including the further use of sudo 3D movement and sound as well as a push towards wider acceptance of mainstream games do to improvements in accessibility" And...superfreq is 100% correct. I should have given more time to this content, and I think the video is a lot worse without that information in it. I'm sorry for missing this content during my research. I plan on releasing an update to this video, a sort of half-remake, half-corrections project, sometime in the future. 2. The goal of this video was to be equally approachable to both bind and sighted audience members at all times. Honestly? I kinda failed in that goal. There are certain points that may be more appealing to sighted gamers, and that’s mostly due to my limitations as an editor. But I hope the video still remained generally blind-accessible and entertaining. 3. Kenji Eno is a fascinating figure, not only for his own innovative work, but because of his incredible eye for discovering talent. Many of the team members he handpicked for his games became legends in the gaming industry, such as Tetsuya Nomura (the director of multiple Final Fantasy games) and Fumito Ueda (the creator Ico and Shadow of the Colossus). Eno is often considered one of the most influential figures in Japanese gaming, but for some reason, is generally unknown to western audiences. 4. Some quality testing was provided by members of Reddit’s /r/blindgaming subreddit as well as others from Discord gaming channels. This video would have been incomplete without their input. 5. I actually couldn’t find a source on what specific game of Kenji Eno’s the students at the blind school were playing, only that it was one of his “recent” games. However, I’m pretty confident it was Enemy Zero. It was released several months prior to the community event (December 1996) and was easily the most “sound-driven” game of his career at the time. Second, his other major game (D) lacked sound-driven gameplay, and also incorporated a 2 hour realtime counter until a Game Over was triggered. 90s blind playstyles required too much trial and error to really lend itself to a 2 hour window like this....but if I’m wrong, sorry.

[@Wailingllama]

Not blind here, but I'm just getting into game design and this video was amazing! It really made me stop and think about how I'd been approaching some of my projects and also about the games I'd played recently, and these points are something I'll definitely keep in mind moving forward. I got some serious Mark Brown's Game Maker's Toolkit vibes from this.

[@superfreq7378]

From someone fully blind who's played audiogames for about 18 years, I don't feel like you failed at all. I really enjoyed the video, and the sound effects were great. I really didn't feel left out in any significant way what so ever, but maybe that's partly because I'm used to watching YOutube video's. I do think you missed some significant portions of the story though, particularly the Windows market which is much more diverse and has it's own stories like "Audyssey Magazine", the first blind specific audio games for dos made by "Jim Kitchen", the emergence of more action based arcade style games in the early and mid 2000s, the "mouse revolution" of the early 2010s which coincided with more multiplayer games, the "BGT era of the mid 2010s including the further use of sudo 3D movement and sound as well as a push towards wider acceptance of mainstream games do to improvements in accessibility", the influx of sighted outside developers in the late 2010s and onward and the launch of some of our most ambitious internal projects like Manamon, A Hero's Call, Crazy Party, at the same time as asset/code theft and questions of morality started to pull the English community apart. But it's a complicated web and you may simply have not had the best sources or the time to explore it fully. I'm very happy with what you did achieve regardless, and while I respect striving for better, I really do think you did well! And I learned more about the subject my self thanks to you.

[@PaperWill]

First, thanks for the reply. The sound effects were really the focus of my editing so I’d like to think you didn’t miss anything major. I’m a little ashamed I missed some of those audio games you mentioned. I suspect I’ll be remaking this video next year, and I’ll be sure to mention everything here. Thank you for the fix! Obviously, not every video I make will be as accessible as this one, but moving forward I’ve decided to start including more sound design so that anyone just listening can get 90% of the idea. If there’s anything you think I should do better on that front, let me know superfreq!

[@theothertonydutch]

@@superfreq7378 Your username is so dope

[@superfreq7378]

@@theothertonydutch thanks man!

[@DiamondFireX]

Wow we love small game shop owners!! More great intruiging stuff man

[@PaperWill]

Dude was so awesome.

[@Soroboruo]

12:30 okay I started crying because... not only do you get to thwart what might be a horror element otherwise, you are doing so in a way that's easy to think of as a 'protector'. By scaring threats off, your corgi is protecting the car crash victims and maybe other humans. That's such a subtle but significant shift from the helpless horror you mentioned prior.

[@umbram8073]

One notable game that I grew up on that you didn't mention was is a MUD(Multi-user dungeon- a text based precursor to what became MMOs) called Alter Aeon- It's a really fun fantasy game that is completely blind-accessible and is predominantly played by and designed by blind individuals. It's been in active and running since 1996 with tons of updates and is constantly being iterated upon (a december update video was recently released)- It's a lot of fun for those that enjoy multiplayer fantasy adventures!

[@solrazii4151]

I didn’t realize so many games that blind people could play are horror games, that’s devastating that they don’t have more beautiful and lighthearted games that takes advantage of sound that’s not in a fearful way. I sincerely do believe more games like Lost and Hound will be created and now that I’m invested, I’m looking forward to seeing how those games and a greater accessibility to video games come about. Thank you for another awesome video that brought to light a perspective I hadn’t considered before!

[@superfreq7378]

Actually we do have allot more games, it's just that at that time, on Iphone, that was the focus. And we do still get some of those from the outside, but it's getting better. Try looking through the database at "audiogames.net" and the games section on "applevis.com" for some examples, and look into games like The Vale Shadow of the Crown, Blind Drive, and Audio Wizards as examples of sighted developers making games that aren't horror based. We have tons of self made space shooters, side scrollers, and strategy games that have nothing to do with horror or blind characters in general, plus we can play more and more games that aren't made for blind people these days, such as "Sequence Storm", "Sound Strider", Slay the Spire, "Warsim Kingdom of Aslona", Injustice II, and Jackbox 7, among others.

[@solrazii4151]

@@superfreq7378That’s great to hear! Thank you for all the resources and examples, I look forward to checking them out!

[@PaperWill]

As others have pointed out, I definitely missed a few gems!

[@melodica_man0216]

I think a pretty good example of a light-hearted game would be rhythm heaven… sorta. you’d need to know how the controls (no matter how simple) work for each minigame, but unlike most rhythm games, it almost fully relies on sound cues (except for a couple minigames like Working Dough that mess with timing). I think a way it could be more blind-friendly would be if there was voice acting for the tutorials of each minigame (which given how the last game was made 7 years ago, would have to be done by fans

[@Radar_of_the_Stars]

I really want to see a big AAA blind accessible game, imagine a Square Enix action game based on Marvel's Daredevil or something

[@blisterfingers8169]

Problem being that portrayals of Daredevil often do that 'echo-location basically just gives him vision' thing.

[@treeboy7282]

@@blisterfingers8169 The last of us part two, a triple a game, is basically one of the most accessible games ever

[@anakinlowground5515]

@@treeboy7282 It's really unfortunate that game sucks.

[@jakebarry8456]

As much as this is a nice idea, it really just isn't that realistic. AAA games take a lot of resources to make, and making them accessible may turn a large part of their main demographic away. There just aren't enough disabled gamers to finance it.

[@treeboy7282]

@@jakebarry8456 but it literally has happened before. I don’t get how it would turn anyone away from the game, you don’t have to turn accessibility mode on. Everyone deserves to have access to everything

[@maevedoyle2634]

I'm visually impaired so I love hearing about accessibility in gaming, especially for people in my community. I'm also an avid gamer, so this video is even better

[@laylasadventures4829]

Hey, I’m blind myself. This was an awesome video and I love the representation. :)

[@WobblesandBean]

Question: How does a blind person have any concept of emojis?

[@laylasadventures4829]

@@WobblesandBean I was able to see for the majority of my life so I still have a tendency to use emojis like :) and my phone and computer will speak out emojis like 😊 as “smiling face with smiling eyes and rosy cheeks emoji”

[@alyssahopson5926]

@@WobblesandBean even if someone IS blind for their entire life (which many people who are blind, weren't), someone could still learn about emojis through it being used and being read from a text-to-speech program, or through someone explaining what they were. blind people have emotions and facial expressions as well, obviously, so they also have incentive to use them

[@lil-dexxy6475]

I have a really interesting question. Since your blind how did you find out about this video? I take it a friend showed you? I hope life is well for you

[@chrisakaschulbus4903]

It may sound mean, but does that mean you're not a viewer of this channel? I actually never thought about it, but the term "views" is kinda strange then. "hits" was once used for websites which makes more sense.

[@bonkmaykr]

At first I was confused why the audio mixing was a little off (lots of ambient noise when stock footage was shown), but then I realized those were audio cues for blind viewers to represent the onscreen footage. Very clever editing decision, I like that.

[@ego-lay_atman-bay]

This video really toutched me. I'm a legally blind person, and I love it when people make things accessible for blind people. I do have sight, I can see out of my left eye, but I stll don't have very good vision. I think I'm going to send this video to some of my blind friends.

[@Mezurashii5]

Awesome video. I love accessibility talk in videogames. I don't know anyone who's disabled, but getting tinnitus made me realise how frail my senses are and having wrist problems forced me to get familiar with all the troubles of one-handed gaming. I would hate to lose access to my main hobby after becoming disabled. It would be the time I'd need it the most.

[@PaperWill]

Yo fellow tinnitus buddy. I actually got one of those tinnitius white noise ear inserts for the days it's really bad, and I can't recommend them enough. It's nearly invisible and does an INCREDIBLE job covering the sound.

[@colourblindcrossstitch9415]

Mostly blind gamer person has thoughts! Talking about text adventures makes me think of the hours I killed in highschool playing text adventures with a screen reader in MS-DOS (I don't even know why it was still on the computers, honestly, as no one used it for anything else). So, thanks for that nostalgia. At about the same time, I had a friend who played the original Pokémon gameboy games entirely by sound. She knew the differnt pokémon by the sounds they made, and the different regions by the background music, if I remember correctly. I'm fortunate in that I have enough vision to see alot of games well enough to play them, though not always for long periods of time, as some graphics, lots or reading, or smaller HUD elemnts cause eye strain, and I have to stop if I don't want a massive headache. What I would love to see is more accessibility options in games for everyone, rather than games for the blind. I want to play the same games as my friends, not have a special category of games because we don't get to play the games everyone else plays. Options like enlarging text and HUD elements, a continuation of the trend of completely customisable colour blind modes, and an option for text/lore to be read aloud (voiceover work can be expensive, so while a human voice is always better, I'd be happy with a screen reader option, as long as I didn't have to do the reading by sight). These things would make almost all of the games that I can't currently play comfortably accessible to me, as it's always a bit of a bummer when I discover that I'm just not going to be able to play a game that looks really cool, or comes highly recommended. Plus, I bet there are plenty of sighted people who would find enhanced colour blind options, or larger text very nice to have as well.

[@qwertydavid8070]

I wonder what you think of the Last of Us: Part 2. People have their problems with the game story, it's an entire rabbit hole that's not really worth diving into right now lol. But the accessibility for that game is absolutely incredible, I've seen the videos that showcase the accessibility options, and it's unlike anything I've seen in modern gaming, specially from triple A studios. I really hope it becomes the new industry standard. The game is technically a horror game, but it's more like an action horror game rather than a really dark horror game. The worst you'd have to do is sneak around zombies, and you can always just go in guns blazin' if you'd prefer. But the gameplay is hella fun, if you have never heard about it, I'd recommend it.

[@colourblindcrossstitch9415]

@@qwertydavid8070 I've never played the Last of Us, because the genre doesn't really appeal. But I've heard good things about the accessibility. Recently, I was playing It Takes Two, and it has the option to for text-to-speech in the menus, which I've never seen before, but would love to see more of. It's so much better than squinting at things.

[@SoicAngellis]

That game store owner sounds AWESOME, and so does that passionate game dev who worked to TRY to make a blind accessible game

[@Ouidbunny_]

Thanks so much for this video. I’ve been having such a hard time finding blind accessible games for my boyfriend. He gets so upset and bored when I play video games. Before he went blind he played video games all the time. I tried to find games for him but had little to no success. He plays Pokémon go but in all honesty he still needs assistance with it. If anyone can recommend other blind accessible games that would be fantastic 💕

[@thegeckojo5803]

I've heard the Spiderman Remastered game is pretty good with the accessibility options. Not perfect, but good enough that Steve Saylor got a platinum trophy on it! Also, have you considered mods that make pre-existing games more accessible?

[@ameyuko327]

I'm so glad I stumbled upon this video! Roughly 3 weeks ago I had an idea to make a blind accessible game with no visuals and only sound, I wrote down a buch of ideas for it, but then I ran out and didn't know how to approach it further. I'm not really good at researching so I didn't know where to start, but thanks to you I now know there is a subreddit for blind gamers! And I'm gonna start my research there :) I like the idea of a game made only of sounds because I, as an autistic person, often get really overwhelmed by visuals which makes me unable to play most games especially those with large and confusing interfaces or with many things happening on screen at once.

[@cheeseeggofficial1191]

After watching this video I got lost and hound and played it blindfolded. These types of games NEED to become the norm. It’s an experience like no other.

[@theimaginatrix7625]

Hi! It's great to see a sighted person making videos like this! I think you left out a bunch of games, though. The audio gaming community is small, and some of the games are ... not great, but there are indy developers who have made audio-based games with what resources they had, and some of them are pretty good. Japanese developers like Galaxy Laboratory and Nyanchan have made AMAZING audiogames, and in my mind they're among the best in the genre. They're all on PC and in some cases you need an extra addon in your screen-reader to translate them, but they're still amazing! There are also, as another person mentioned, Muds (Multi-User Dungeons), such as Alter Aeon and Cosmic Rage, which not only have completely text-based input, but also have soundpacks so that some of the more annoying text output is replaced by sounds, and the area you're in has ambiance and music. They can be very immersive. Also, I feel kinda sad that this video, made in 2021, didn't mention The Last of Us Part 2, which had accessibility features for the blind and visually impaired, including audio cues for many things and a text-to-speech feature that read the many readable things in that game. Yes, it's horror, but it's also more mainstream, which meant, we hope, more sighted developers will pick up on this and start building accessibility features into their games in the future. Add to that the lovely modders who are making Minecraft and Stardew Valley, two very popular mainstream indy games, accessible, and the future looks pretty bright to me. I don't mind playing as sighted characters honestly. Blind-friendly games don't HAVE to be about blind people, any more than books we like have to be about blind people. We'd LIKE more blind rep, of course, but that's not essential to us enjoying a game. :)

[@Vaidiss]

As a gamer I always think about "what will this game be like if I was blind" and then think hard on that, I'm not blind but I'm definitely losing eyesight in my right eye due to chipping a peice out of it (it's a long story) so I like to think what games are like to a *blind* person or a *deaf* person

[@neverhave]

One of my absolute favorite games is Proteus, a walking simulator where you explore a procedurally generated island. It has simplistic graphics and it's the soundscape that captures the feeling of going on a hike in nature better than any other game I've ever played. You can passively walk around and enjoy it, but when you really pay attention to the sound, each part of the landscape has it's own particular musical element attached to it. Even the heat of the sun has it's own sound that ebbs and flows as you climb mountains and pass under cloud cover. I'm curious how the experience would be for a blind player! If the feedback would be too abstract to provide useful information, or if it'd be fun to play

[@matthewobryan2854]

your dedication to these subjects and the care you take in researching them is absolutely astounding. please keep making videos, i’m almost halfway through binging all of them and im absolutely floored by how low the view count on most of them is. you’re amazing and this is art!!

[@crys_cornflakez]

This really changed my viewpoint and how I’m going to engage with games in the future. Accessible games isn’t something I’ve ever given much thought to, which I understand is my privilege as a sighted person, yet now I think I’m just starting to understand the importance of accessibility to all players. Everyone deserves to enjoy some fun and silly video games and your video truly made me want to do research of my own into how we can all work together and allow the world to become more accessible

[@johnathanromero128]

Enjoyed the video. I love that your doing a video on disabled gamimg, I have cerebral palsy and just got into pc gaming so its a hard adjustment. But i’ve been gaming since i was a kid so i genrally just had to adapt. Would love to see you go more in-depth into disabled gaming content, especially since there’s a unique approach with controllers. Love the vids man keep it up!

[@PaperWill]

It’s funny you mention that! I’d love to do a video on disabled gaming, but I’d like to get my hand on some alternative controller tech, like Microsoft’s new Adaptive Controller. If my channel picks up, I’ll pick one up and start working on the script!

[@kioarthurdane]

As a former Games Store employee, I had a customer and his family show up and ask to try out several GameBoy Advance carts. The father explained this boy was blind, but that he was quite good at ones he had. His older, sighted brother nodding and saying that his sibling even had higher scores than he. He listened to his GameBoy, and pressed around at several titles, eventually settled on something that "sounded interesting" and checked out. I'm sorry that I forget what he chose, but was just fascinated by the experience of my naive understanding of this boy's normal existence. Sadly, he wasn't a regular, so I never found out how his enjoyment of that title persisted.

[@dubbsreality5109]

That was really cool that dude hooked you up with the game and console for free to make this video much respect to him and you

[@PrinceRinRin]

Dude, you are really making me want to play a no visual game now. But aside that, I discovered you on your yandere video and very much binged watch every video and I got to say. You are VERY VERY VERYY underrated, your content is better then some popular youtubers on the platform. I genuinely hope you will have 1M subscribers, its absolutely crazy to me that you are barely getting any views for some real high quality content. Keep on going because I swear, we gonna see you on trending one day.

[@PrinceRinRin]

@@PaperWill Yeah, as technology grows and more and more video games are popping up. I'm sure there will be one pretty soon and more non visual games too. Also I'm sure you will have 100k pretty soon or even more who knows, all power to ya. Keep it up!

[@farenvyld]

Great one, Will. The footage, research and editing is especially amazing in this one!

[@PaperWill]

Thanks a ton!

[@egalitarian2207]

I love that the Mr Fujida was so enthusiastic about your conquest!! That feels nice

[@yaoimandel1293]

Oh man Kenji Eno was an amazing human being we lost too soon, here's one of my favorite moments of his- "Eno believed D's violent cannibalistic themes would be deemed taboo or too horrifying by others and was worried the game would not be permitted for publishing. With this in mind, Eno kept many of the violent sequences a secret, including from other members of Warp. When the game was finished, he submitted a "clean" version (i.e. without the violent and disturbing story content) for approval. He deliberately submitted the master late, knowing that part of the penalty would require him to hand-deliver it to the manufacturers in the United States. While on the plane ride to the US, he switched the "clean" discs with the finalized discs including the horrific content, thus completely bypassing all censorship"

[@pacomatic9833]

Wow.

[@Forcoy]

This video has inspired me to add a blind accessibility mode to the game

[@darienb1127]

There's a game I learned about thanks to RTgame called "The Vale." It's an adventure game with no visuals where the combat is based around reacting to sound cues by pushing the stick in the direction of said sound cue. It's a really cool game and I hope more games like this get made!

[@coredari]

I actually love how much I’m learning from your content and how much of an impact it makes, so thanks

[@jambie]

Wow. Thank you for this video. As a sighted person, I've never taken a second to think about gaming accessibility to blind people. This excellently put together video really opened my eyes (ironic I know) to the experiences of blind people, not only in gaming, but in general.

[@MadDogVelare]

In August 21 a game got released called "The Vale". Sadly it had been released AFTER this video but its damn worth it to check it out. No matter if ones blind or not. This games audio is INSANE and you actually play as a Blind character without seeing anything. Your screen actually is just a colored background with some random dots. Its great putting your headphones on, get your controller, close your eyes and lean back an play it.

[@williama.7170]

I really appreciate how empathetic you are. It shows through how well you articulate your points, but it also shows in how you aren’t afraid to shy away from any topics. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone touch on topics like this so confidently. I love your work!

[@IraRobinson]

As a blind guy who also loves gaming, I have to thank you for this video. It's a great breakdown of the history, and some of the plights, we blind players have gone through. So, thank you very much for putting it out there. I hope things continue to improve for us. Most games these days do strive to be at least conscious of the need for accessibility, but very few are designed primarily for that purpose.

[@scezumin]

this is the most wholesome content i've seen in months

[@Blackcivicsi1]

Lost&hound huh? I'm going to try to find this game, it "sounds" amazing. Also, the first thing that really clicked as "wow thats amazing" was when you were talking about playing fetch and i thought of how great of a tool this game would be for kids learning to deal with blindness when they werent born that way. Adults too for that matter. Anyway, can't wait to play this. Hope i can find it

[@bornbybeans]

This channel is awesome. Topic selection, editing, and commentary are all on point, thank you for making great content!❤

[@PaperWill]

Glad you enjoy it!

[@Rockabelle]

Audio-focused games. What a cool concept! I’m not someone who would normally be called a gamer, but I have played games from time to time and that sort of game sounds like something I’d actually be excited to try. It would be such a different experience for me to try to navigate by sound, as a sighted person, and I think there is potentially a big sighted customer base that would be interested in such a genre. Maybe that could help encourage companies to make more. And as you said, it’s a really cool thought that a game could get both sighted and blind players having a great time on an equal playing field. This is such great content! Thanks for making this video

[@FullMoonDeria]

I was really glad to have found this video. I'm a legally blind gamer and have been looking more into game accessibility from that perspective and how things that could make games for accessible for people in my visual range can also benefits non-blind gamers for various reasons. I'm glad that such discussions are a point of interest.

[@PitchBlackAudioGame]

Love that you've brought attention to this. To any audio game fans out there, Lost and Hound just launched! And a new one came out a couple weeks ago- Pitch Black: A Dusklight Story - Episode One.

[@TYPop5]

I am really loving these types of videos it’s the amount of growth you have recived on your KZbin channel is awesome 👏🏾

[@PaperWill]

It's pretty bonkers, right? Next video in a week!

[@SunRiseInTheFuture]

here to boost interaction for the algo, amazing video everyone should watch it! actually a fan too, you just deserve the growth

[@aurelia3907]

I love your videos so much, I love looking at channels who do videos with new information but it's usually all drama, with this channel its educational, empowering, funny and it always ends on a sweet note! please keep up the awesome work!

[@fruityfloss9437]

Damn Will! Your videos are so underrated! Can't wait to see your videos blow up!

[@PaperWill]

Holy crap! A comment on this video! Been literally like 7 months haha. Glad you liked it. This is the video I’m most proud of, while also being my least popular lol.

[@fruityfloss9437]

@@PaperWill Hey no worries! Mad respect to you dude, keep up the awesome work :)

[@alpeneinhorn]

Saved this video for last when binging your content. And honestly I don’t get why this one doesn’t have many views as of right now. I really enjoyed it and it made me (as a sighted person) think about blind accessibility a lot more in depth. Thank you!

[@furuyawn]

this is such a cool video omg!! i'm so glad i found your channel. :'D

[@rct3LP]

Really interesting video. I have several blind friends and am severely visually disabled myself so I have come in contact with a lot of games for the Blind Thank you very much for covering this topic which is almost never really talked about since a lot of people do not have an idea how it is to be blind or even ever had contact with blind people themselves

[@stm7810]

Thanks so much for talking about this, a genre that really should be more blind accessible, but strangely often isn't is rythm games, sure the notes come with the beat, but there's no connection between the notes and which button they are most of the time. Great point about how too many blind games make us feel helpless.

[@thecaucasianasian2171]

This is so well researched and edited, love it!

[@PaperWill]

Thanks!

[@Sonicstillpoint83]

Incredibly interesting video. I laughed, and I’m still smiling at the thought when this guy said that there were too many horror games. It took me an hour to make it to the gun store in Resident Evil two and that was an absolute blast. The modern trend of turning all horror games Into action games was in reality a transition of long period of time, but it means they are not even that many true horror games anymore. 1992 alone in the dark didn’t let you go machine gun everything to to death. Clocktower made you run away from scissor man. And no one initially realized that Resident Evil allowed you enough resources to kill everything if you planned, right. It’s really funny that he thinks visual descriptions, somehow lockout blind people, when some of the most avid readers ever known or blind, even majoring in literature and none of those specific people ever complained about anything like that. I know I’ve always just been grateful for more description rather than less. Surprised there was no mention of The Blind St. fighter tournament player or The Last Of Us two because even now the original game has been given the same accessibility treatment by Naughty Dog,. There’s even a video here on KZbin of a blind Twitch streamer playing it on the PS five through a capture card into a computer, which was set up to read the chat. There’s definitely a lot of interesting developments in the world of accessibility and gaming, but the driving force to excite developers will always be blind gamers figuring out ways to do things just like they did in that classroom 30 years ago.

[@anenglishmanplusamerican7107]

Thank you for creating this beautiful video; as a blind person, I truly appreciate it. Nowadays, there are many games that we can play, and I would highly recommend “1428: Shadows Over Silesia” for its fully accessible, story-driven, hack-and-slash gameplay, similar to “Kingdom Come: Deliverance” and other medieval story games, which I really love. “Forza Motorsport” is another game that is completely playable for the blind audience. Please do check it out too.

[@starlittardis2049]

Thanks for focusing on accessible gaming! I'm sighted but disabled in other ways, and honestly we're shut out of so much of culture and various communities because accessibility isn't considered. So many people assume we just can't do stuff, but a lot of the time that inability isn't so much to do with our disabilities themselves but to do with how most things are designed only with non-disabled people in mind and so are inaccessible to us. It's a flaw in the design of things and in our culture's priorities as much as (sometimes more than) in our bodies/minds. I especially love that you mentioned the importance of having accessible games that are actually fun and exciting. That's actually a good point about a lot of stuff made for disabled people - it exists off in this separate realm from "normal" culture and often feels quite...idk, sterile is the word coming to mind. Like it's been made by people who are out-of-touch with culture (both disabled culture and culture in general). Or it's just boring or infantilising or centred around teaching us skills. In this segregated realm a lot of us exist in, there's very little that is focused on just letting us have a good time like anyone else. If you want to look into accessible gaming more, either in your own time or for the channel, I recommend AbleGamers and Can I Play That?. I've also seen some stuff from Permastunned Gaming, but idk as much about them yet. And in general, there's a big disabled community on social media sites such as Twitter, so if you're interested in talking to some disabled gamers directly there are plenty of folks about who'd likely be happy to chat. There's even a #DisabledGamers hashtag. And honestly, it hurts that I feel the urge to say this 'cause it shouldn't be special, but...thanks for caring and for noticing us. It makes a difference.

[@bup7879]

Im very glad I stumbled across this video. As a visually impaired person myself, I'm always on the look out for games that accommodate for people like us out there. Even so much as a text display option can do wonders and really shows a developer cares. I may not be entirely blind but accessibility is still a key factor that goes into choosing games to play. I'm happy there are people like you out there who are not only willing to analyze how games have accomodated, but present in an equally accomdating way. Keep up the great work!

[@briananderson1739]

This is an awesome video! I wish it had as many views as your newer ones - but hopefully newcomers will find this one too! It's great for the general public to think about how all types of people interact with the world, and I can see this video being really helpful in spreading awareness and foster inclusion of blind gamers!

[@zoobie002]

This was a really interesting video. I had no idea games like this existed. I hope to see more soon.

[@dalenlewin]

If you have 20 bucks, try the vale on PC and modern consoles. It is a completely blind accessible, though disappointingly linear, but still fun, action RPG.

[@zoobie002]

@@dalenlewin Awesome, thanks for the suggestion. It’ll be a Christmas treat :)

[@inky1voryy]

amazing, i love this video so much! love the editing and your voice overs :))

[@micahvisser3772]

I was going to say that it was sad that you didn't talk about "The Vale" until I realized how recently that game came out, I hope you talk about it at some point, that game was amazing. My disability limits my dexterity, so I don't have the experience of a blind person, but it was incredible going through an adventure that showed care for those in the disabled community.

[@FIRING_BLIND]

As a visually impaired gamer....this video was surprisingly emotional for me, and I am touched that you would show such an interest in the gaming experience of blind ppl. I am sighted, but my vision is very poor. If you ever want to make a follow up video to this, I would highly reccommend a video on the advancements in accessibility for partially sighted gamers. Good examples of this are God of War Ragnarok and The Last of Us Part II-the latter of which is probably the most accessible game I've ever personally ever played. The high contrast mode was truly a game changer for me, and I wish all the shooters I play had this mode. I would be happy to talk to you about my experience as a visually impaired gamer, if you're ever interested. I'm definitely going to download Lost in Hound. I can't remember what I was playing the other day, but I commented on something to my gf about a sound cue in the game. She said she hadn't even noticed that that thing had a distinct sound cue. So few people realize how much partially sighted ppl still have to rely on sound and touch to get by. For instance, I clean almost entirely by touch. I rely on sounds and vibration cues in gaming. I compensate for my vision through my play style. It's sad, but so few people think about disabled individuals, really ever. My last job's proprietary software wasn't even compatible with Windows Magnifier. Which tells you exactly how much their software developers think or care about disabled ppl in the workplace. I'm very lucky. My friends are not only supportive, but actively consider what I can and can't see when they interact with me. And it's sad that that's such an exceptional thing to me. Thank you Will, for being one of the people who cares about people like me.

[@thelastchannelonyoutube]

This is actually a very underrated video, I don’t say that lightly. This brought so much to my attention that I’ve literally never seen anyone else talk about.

[@8saiharamasukoi]

i really like your videos. they are thoughtful, intelligent, informative, and heart-warming. i'm extremely excited to seeing more of your videos in the future. 頑張れ！

[@PaperWill]

ありがとう！

[@Epinardscaramel]

15:30 Decades ago I saw an ad in theatres using that premise: It was a scene in the Paris metro where all the signs had been removed by vandals. People are lost, confused, and scared, until they hear the cane of a blind person finding their way inside the tunnels, and follow them outside.

[@CrayCrayslab]

This video was awesome, I never even thought about how a blind person would game. Thank you for educating me :)

[@MeghanGuastella]

Never considered this, thanks for giving me something new to think about :) very interesting video and great channel. Found it today and watched all the videos

[@AUnicorn666]

i really appreciate this video! it deserves the million views your videos have been getting that are more recent!

[@seandawson5899]

You literally just mentioned this on your stream so I came to watch and I agree this is the video of the most value you've made.

[@4DD3R]

This morning my TV started talking to me. No idea how it happened, but me or a family member must’ve turned it on by accident. Scared me shitless. After I realized it thought I was visually impaired and was trying to help me I felt a bit less scared. I always wondered how some of that stuff worked though.

[@flaburgastedbunny]

I have to say I found your channel through the power of KZbin recommendations on your breakdown of media created by cults and I really want to emphasize that your content is truly special. One of my best friends has recently over the last several months has slowly lost her ability to see due to a blood clot. Helping her adapt has been especially important to me through the pandemic, and one of the most difficult things about her loss of sight is the inability for her to play videogames. Dark souls was always her favorite and I have been heavily discouraged by the lack of accessible gaming for the visually impaired. This video was beautiful, insightful, well researched and edited, and has opened my eyes to a truly special experience in lost and hound. I will be downloading it shortly and have her experience it soon and I really want you to know that I appreciate your approach to several subjects. Your content is fantastic and you deserve to be recognized for it. Keep up the fantastic work gonna be signing up for that Patreon soon as well. Can't wait to binge the rest of your content. THANKS Paper Will keep up the fantastic work.

[@PaperWill]

Thanks very much. That’s awful about your friend. One thing that I missed in this video is that apparently the Last of Us 2 is 100% blind accessible and **very** well done, so if she’s looking for something to try, I’d recommend that. Something I believe is going to make a breakthrough pretty soon is VR blind gaming. Devices like the Quest 2 let you interact with environments with full 6 degrees of motion, haptic controllers, full inside-out room tracking, supports 360 degree sound design, and warns you when you get too close to objects or walls. It’s the perfect foundation for an entirely sound-based action or fantasy game. Maybe some skilled indie designer will get on that at some point. I appreciate the patreon support! We already hit my main goal of covering video costs, so no pressure to donate or anything, but it’s nice to be able to afford some better equipment to make things.

[@flaburgastedbunny]

@@PaperWill that's awesome to here about the last of us 2 and I agree with the sentiment that vr is going to be the direction in which accessibility will be fully realized. I actually just donated about an hour ago and want to support your future endeavours. I've been binging your stuff even though I have work in a few hours. You got a knack for journalism and it's a breath of fresh air. Not to be too overzealous, but it's channels like yours that remind me why KZbin is really special

[@mecko21]

I never even thought about this perspective in gaming. This is wild and amazing and you did a great job! After watching the Yandere sim video and checking out your other videos this one seemed so interesting I had to check it out. Gonna have to check out all your videos now. ❤️

[@Roseus1215]

I just wanted to let you know that I recently found your channel through the yansim video and that I'm having a great time going through every other video of yours, both because of the idea and execution of the topics. Keep up the great work! :D

[@hemangchauhan2864]

Damn beautiful work! Thanks for highlighting Eno-san. People should know more about him. That Saturn story is heart warming. And your research is brilliant. Esp the text adventure bit. Please do cover accessibility options like in the recent Sony published games.

[@PaperWill]

I agree, Eno's a gem. This project originated from me doing a biography of him, only to find there were other videos already doing a much better job of that than I could ever do haha.

[@KomradZX1989]

WILL!!!!! Your videos are so EXTREMELY WELL MADE and your voice and narration are just an absolute delight to listen to. Your quality is top notch and the longer you make you videos the more I enjoy them. Keep up your amazing work Will!!! You’re gonna be big someday. I just know it! 🥰

[@PaperWill]

Thanks Derek! I get about 50/50 comments on my voice being nice or being awful haha. Someone described it as an old man's voice in a young dude's body.

[@freddywondercat1362]

This video inspires me to want to make a blind-accessible game. Thank you for the time you took to make it!

[@carolynh6852]

I met a lot of blind gamers from a MUD I briefly got into. It made rethink both how I interacted as a team doing quests together and about game design in general. I'm excited to try Lost and Hound now. And as a benefit, Lost and Hound is a nice game for people, like myself, who can't be around light during migraines. Someone's listening to yet another podcast while I'm trapped in a dark bedroom and avoiding screens and light gets really boring.

[@SandeepPatel-kp8ox]

all i want is mouseover narrator working in games

[@fanter0x]

I particularly remember one game i played years ago on my phone. It was about a samurai on his quest for revenge, but the point was that he was blind. Every cue from the sound of a sword swing to where an oponent was stepping was done so incredibly well that i was completely immersed in the experience.

[@ronaldiplodicus]

People with good eyesight, lets take a moment to appreciate how lucky we are to have access to such a wide variety of content. I don't normally think about that but I really wish that there was more out there for blind people.

[@cos5193]

Thanks for making this video Will, the blind community needs more representation!

[@PaperWill]

I agree!

[@kylejohnson423]

Amazon echo a while back had "Skyrim very special edition" which is blind accessible.

[@Youguyfhdudhr]

I can’t wait for them to make a vr, no visual game

[@MaG1cPr1NgL3S]

Bro you made me cry a little by the end. Great video.

[@Eyevou]

I really loved the way you walked through all the stuff and explained the concepts! Amazing watch!

[@joshadamson6874]

This video was the one that got me to subscribe, good work. Shout out to Mr Fujita

[@TheDarkRenegade491]

As a blind person, I really appreciate you making this video. It was really informative and well-made, and I actually learned quite a bit from it

[@redwolf6213]

This video makes me think that there is really an untapped market for blind games. Not only for the blind but for everyone. It's a cool experience regardless if your blind or not.

[@skyepilot4074]

I've been binging your videos today. You do so much great research on this. I love your videos!

[@fariesz6786]

i have a social worker i see twice a week (i have a couple health issues) and she is blind. i als love her, she's maybe the best social worker i ever had. literally the only thing that frustrates me is when she comes with me to appointments and the doctor or whoever i'm going to unable to cope with the fact that a blind person is helping a sighted person (which honestly makes me feel embarassed by proxy)

[@ckmoran43]

Awesome video!! Keep up the great content will!

[@PaperWill]

Appreciate it Moran!

[@L1f35aGl17ch]

From one Will to another this deserves so many more views. Just randomly found this channel today and this video is so wholesome. Also enjoyed your cult media video.

[@CuteCuteJames]

I'm passionate about accessibility and game design, so thank you for making this. If there's more accessibility in game design stuff that's out there, I'd love to watch another video on it!

[@ZX3000GT1]

It's an informative video (that I just discovered, 1 year after this was made). Now, I'm not a blind person, but I'm always interested in hearing how games tried to tackle the accessibility problems. Right now I have an idea in my head about a blind friendly racing game - this idea stems from the fact that current cars have things like parking sensors. This hypothetical racing game is basically identical to your standard racing games, but with 2 things added : 1. Audio cues to let players know upcoming turns. This has been there for years in racing games, especially in rally games where audio cues like this are the core of rally racing in general, so this one isn't new. 2. Audio cues to let players know the track edges and apexes. This is where the car parking sensor inspiration comes in. Whenever the car is nearing the edge of the track, beeps will be emitted. The closer you are, more rapid the beeps would be. I hope someone more knowledgeable than me can read this and try to do it. Would be cool to see.

[@eleanornorfolk8959]

I'm a blind gamer and videos like this are amazing for raising awareness and pushing the gaming industry to make more and better accessible games. Thank you ♥️🎮♥️

[@ivansotelo4622]

Imagine we get a daredevil game that curiously enough, has an accesible mode. I would love to put a blindfold and play that shit!