Playing DW2 as a totally blind/visually impaired player

[oasis1701]

Hi there

I'm completely blind and I use screen reading software to work with my computer.
Me and my friend have recently begun playing this game; I'm posting here to suggest some changes to the developers if possible that would make the game much easier for us to play alongside of our sighted friends.
The second reason that i'm posting here is to ask help from the community to describe some of the screens for us if possible.
The first suggestion that I have at the moment is adding an option so that the game pauses whenever an adviser suggestion appears.
We use optical character recognition functions to read the game screens and most of the times the adviser suggestion fades away before we could finish reading what it is about. I've been pausing the game manually every time I hear a notification sound, however it is not always an adviser suggestion so this could help us play the game with more speed.
The second issue that i do not have a solution for is the color coded ship bays, while i can read the bay texts that say that they are empty, i can't figure out which bay is meant for which component

I will make a video showing me how I play the game without being able to see the screen; the automation features the game has let's us enjoy the game so we could design ships, making research decisions while the game does the micromanagement.
Thanks!

[Erik Rutins]

Hi oasis1701,

I'm completely blind and I use screen reading software to work with my computer.
Me and my friend have recently begun playing this game; I'm posting here to suggest some changes to the developers if possible that would make the game much easier for us to play alongside of our sighted friends.
The second reason that i'm posting here is to ask help from the community to describe some of the screens for us if possible.

Thanks for taking the time to post here and share your suggestions.

The first suggestion that I have at the moment is adding an option so that the game pauses whenever an adviser suggestion appears.
We use optical character recognition functions to read the game screens and most of the times the adviser suggestion fades away before we could finish reading what it is about. I've been pausing the game manually every time I hear a notification sound, however it is not always an adviser suggestion so this could help us play the game with more speed.

Is that something you only want for advisor message or all messages as well?

I should note that when a message appears, if you hover the mouse over it, the timer on it will stop so that it doesn't fade away. I'm not sure if that would help or how that would interact with the OCR functions, but that's one way to keep the message from fading away now.

The second issue that i do not have a solution for is the color coded ship bays, while i can read the bay texts that say that they are empty, i can't figure out which bay is meant for which component

If we added a filter to the top of the Design Bays section that allowed you to only show Bays that match a certain type (to go along with then only showing components of that same type in the list above) would that work? Alternately, if we changed the current text which says (Empty) to instead say something like (Empty - Defense) would that work?

I will make a video showing me how I play the game without being able to see the screen; the automation features the game has let's us enjoy the game so we could design ships, making research decisions while the game does the micromanagement.

I'd be interested to see that. I'm glad that some of the functions and features of DW2 make it more playable for you.

Regards,

- Erik

[oasis1701]

Hi oasis1701,

Thanks for taking the time to post here and share your suggestions.

Is that something you only want for advisor message or all messages as well?

I should note that when a message appears, if you hover the mouse over it, the timer on it will stop so that it doesn't fade away. I'm not sure if that would help or how that would interact with the OCR functions, but that's one way to keep the message from fading away now.

If we added a filter to the top of the Design Bays section that allowed you to only show Bays that match a certain type (to go along with then only showing components of that same type in the list above) would that work? Alternately, if we changed the current text which says (Empty) to instead say something like (Empty - Defense) would that work?

I'd be interested to see that. I'm glad that some of the functions and features of DW2 make it more playable for you.

Regards,

- Erik

Hi Erik
Thanks for your reply!
regarding advisor messages, I believe at the moment pause on advisor messages would be great and if there are messages that require a user input but i think those already make the game pause, like story events or when you have to choose to investigate something or leave it be.

regarding ship design bays: I think your filter idea is a very great one, the less text appears on the screen, the more control we have over it, so if the list and bays gets shorter by a filter, then that would be very great!. IT would be nice if the filter button icon had a text over it so we could see it.

This takes me to my third issue, which is less critical issue than the ones above but would make it easier for our community to play DW, would it be possible for you guys or modders to replace some icons with text?
With our screen reader software, we can't see icons at all. the ones that don't move and have a set position, (like the buttons to the bottom left side when ships and fleets are selected), we can save the screen resolution position for them so we can go to them when we want. the ones that scroll however like the buttons next to new mining locations, or the buttons that increase or decrease funding levels, is a bit hard to get to. I can demonstrate this problem when i record my video.

once again thanks for your reply and we're excited to see you guys respond to my post!

[BlindGuyNW]

Hi there,

I've also been playing DW2 with OCR for the past while. I tend to agree that the ship design screen could use a little help. In general, anything that is identified by color alone is a little hard for us to deal with.
In the longer term, one of the areas I wonder about is a way to get a sense for the larger universe. That is, I can use the overview window to see what’s in the current system, but figuring out what's nearby, how far things are from one another, and so on is a bit harder. A sighted user can look at the map and see that kind of thing easily, but I'm not sure what might help us get a similar appreciation.

Over all, I'm very happy with the game thus far. Thanks for all the work on it; we have very little to compare.

[Gilmer]

Welcome to the forums! I am surprised someone who is totally blind/legally blind can play games that seem so visual to me. I am glad you can get enjoyment out of it.

[devoncop]

Wow Oasis1701.

I am in awe of your ability to play this game whilst blind. Amazing stuff.

Those of us with regular sight and who have a whinge about the UI not being sufficiently clear should maybe walk a mile in your shoes.

Hope you continue to enjoy this great game

Ian

[Scott2933]

Hello Oasis1701,

You just let us know which screen you want us to describe and I will be happy to try and do just that.

Not sure if you've seen my guide or not but if there is something I could do there to help you out as well I'd be more than happy to do so.

Just let me know.

Kind regards,

Scott2933

[oasis1701]

@Gilmer @devoncop @Scott2933
thanks for your kind words. currently i'm about to record a video showing me how i play the game, it could help the community to see how it's done and show the developers how to help us a bit!
Cheers

[rxnnxs]

After reading it yesterday, I thought about an april joke, because, I thought later, when you take away the graphics, there is not much left.

But here are my two cents:
After showing how you play, and I am also very interested in how that works, you could:
- show the developers what software you use and how it works.
Later it could be optimized for this software so that it can extract all the necessary data in the easiest and comfortablest way for you.

- if the developers would take away all the graphics, because they are not needed for you, what would be left?
How big could then, so to say in text adventure mode, the game look like?
Could we also play a text variant of the game? Only text, no graphics - the (processor and) gpu load would go down extreme and the universe on the other hand could be created in that case even bigger.

- The scale must somehow be written in the view field to know at what scale the view is right now.
Then there would be a textlist what objects are in that view.

It wouild be very interesting and mindblowing even for me, because that would be the step into the extreme other direction, even more than dwarf fortress or some other ascii games.
The damage points und such must be written close above or below a dot that presents the objects (ships, bases, etc.)

The game would only show in text what is really needed. Best in a table chart way.

MAybe this can come some day to life.
And for sure the crashes would not happen (or maybe still?) Time to find out!