|
|
            
|
This page is devoted to games specifically designed for vision-impaired and blind players. All games from Spoonbill Software are absolutely free of charge. Great news! Spoonbill Software is voted Number 9 in the top 25 blind gamers sites! Click here to jump to the announcement. Important information about SAPI voices. Click here to read. Click here to view the BG LAP Top 20 scores. Click here for links to other sites offering freeware games for the blind. BG Uno has just been released (September 2007) Click here for a list of games in the Blind-gamers series. Click here for a list of Blind-gamers games under development. Click here for a list of clients' suggestions for future games. Writing games for vision-impaired and blind people is a new experience for me. Not being blind myself has proved quite a handicap in developing games which blind people find easy to play. Luckily, with the assistance of the Internet I have had the willing help of many blind people world-wide who have been only too pleased to test the software for me. I've been so pleased with the response to my first efforts in this specialized field of games authoring, that I want to write more games in the same vein. I've decided to call the series of games developed especially with the blind gamer in mind, the Blind gamers series, BG for short. All the games in the Blind gamers series are self-voicing, not requiring the use of your screen reader. They all use the Microsoft SAPI (Speech Applications Programming Interface) TTS (Text-To-Speech) engine for the speech component, and for the sound effects, they use Microsoft's DirectX. And best of all, they are all Freeware, with no nag screens, no adverts, no limitations of time or functionality. If you like Spoonbill Software's accessible games, don't forget to spread the word. You are welcome to pass copies to your friends, but I would prefer that instead, you refer them to my web site, and get them to personally request a copy of the game. The reason for this is that if I provide them with a copy of the game, I get to record their details and in this way I can directly inform them of any updates to the game they request, or of any new ones which are released in the future. If you send them a copy, and I don't have their details, I'll not be able to inform them of any updates. Happy gaming! Ian Humphreys Games in the Blind-gamers Series in chronological order of release BG Cribbage 1.1 (530 Kilobytes) BG Free Cell Solitaire 1.1 (670 Kilobytes) BG Klondike Solitaire 1.0 (655 Kilobytes) BG Scorpion Solitaire 1.0 (658 Kilobytes) BG Penguin Solitaire 1.0 (670 Kilobytes) BG Hearts 1.0 (670 Kilobytes) BG LAP (670 Kilobytes) BG 15 Puzzle (685 Kilobytes) BG Sudoku (650 Kilobytes) BG Boggle (1.7 Megabytes) BG Yahtzee (630 Kilobytes) BG Word Target (1.3 Megabytes) BG Uno (850 Kilobytes) There are currently no games under development. April 2008 Blind-gamers games already released are listed below. Requires SAPI Text-To-Speech and DirectX Released September 2007 BG Uno is an accessible version of the popular card game Uno. Uno has a special deck with four suits, Red, Blue, Green and Yellow. Each suit has 22 cards 0, 1 to 9 twice, 2 Reverses, 2 Skips and 2 Draw Twos. In addition there are 4 Wild cards and 4 Wild Draw 4 cards, making 108 cards in total. Once the pack has been shuffled, each player is dealt 7 cards with the remaining cards placed face down to form the Draw pile. The top card of the Draw pile is then turned over to begin a Discard pile. The first player has to match the top card of the Discard pile either by number, color or word. For example, if the top discard is a red 7, you must play a red card or any other color 7. Or you can play a Wild card. If you don't have anything that matches, you must draw a card from the top of the Draw pile. If you can play what is drawn, you may do so (or not) provided you play it before the next player begins his play. Play then passes to the next person. When you have one card left in your hand, you must say Uno (which is one in Spanish). Failure to do so results in your having to pick up two cards from the Draw pile when next it is your turn. Once a player has played his last card, that round is over. Points are scored, and the cards are then dealt for the next round. The game is over when one or more players have reached 500 or more. That's Uno in a nutshell. A maximize option magnifies the card images to full screen size for those with partial sight. Send your request for BG Uno 1.0 to Ian Humphreys, together with your full name and country of residence at: games@spoonbillsoftware.com.au For example: My name is Karen Black from Florida, USA, please send BG Uno 1.0. Please allow up to four days for delivery. BG Word Target 1.0 (1.3 Megabytes) Requires SAPI Text-To-Speech and DirectX Released April 2007 BG Word Target is a game of anagrams. A random 9-letter word is chosen and the letters scrambled and arranged in a 3 by 3 grid. The central letter is referred to as the target letter and must appear in every word you make. The object of the game is to make as many words of four letters or more from the nine letters of the puzzle. You must make at least one nine letter word. Send your request for BG Word Target 1.0 to Ian Humphreys, together with your full name and country of residence at: For example: My name is Karen Black from Florida, USA, please send BG Word Target 1.0. Please allow up to four days for delivery. BG Yahtzee 1.0 (630 Kilobytes) Requires SAPI Text-To-Speech and DirectX Released January 2007 BG Yahtzee is an accessible version of Yahtzee, the popular dice game. The first release features only the original classic game for a single player. Future releases may allow play against other humans and even the computer. For those of you who have never played Yahtzee before, here is a brief description of the game: Yahtzee is a game of 13 rounds where the player rolls five dice and tries to score as many points as possible. Each round consists of as many as three dice rolls. During the first roll of each round you must roll all five dice. You then have two optional rolls in which you only need to roll some of the dice, the others remain fixed as previously rolled. When the five dice show a favorable combination or after the third roll of the round (whichever comes first), the player must score in one of thirteen scoring categories. Each scoring category can be scored against only once. It may happen that during a particular round, the final dice roll reveals a combination which scores no points in any of the available categories. In this case, the player must choose one of the available categories to score against, and score zero points for that round. At the end of thirteen rounds, the game is over and if you have managed to score more than the previous highest score, your new score will be remembered as the current highest score. Send your request for BG Yahtzee 1.0 to Ian Humphreys, together with your full name and country of residence at: For example: My name is Karen Black from Ontario, Canada, please send BG Yahtzee 1.0. Please allow up to four days for delivery. Requires SAPI Text-To-Speech and DirectX Released October 2006 BG Boggle is the accessible version of the popular word game Boggle. Boggle is played with 16 letter cubes arranged in a four by four grid. Each cube has 6 faces and each face of each cube contains a single letter of the alphabet. The exception to this is that a single face of one of the letter cubes contains a Q U combination. You cannot make words which contain a Q not followed by a U. At the start of the game, the letter cubes are shuffled at random and dropped into the cube tray. In the Blind gamers version of the game, you have to make as many words of three or more letters as you can, following the rules of Boggle, attempting to make all the possible words for that particular arrangement of the letter cubes. Each letter of the word must be connected to the next letter of the word either horizontally, vertically or diagonally in the grid. You cannot use a letter cube more than once in the same word. That is not to say you cannot make a word with two E's for example, but you can only do this if at least two letter cubes have an E on their top face. You try to score as high a percentage as possible. If you find all the words you score 100 percent. Each random game is guaranteed to contain at least ten words. Send your request for BG Boggle 1.0 to Ian Humphreys, together with your full name and country of residence, at: For example: My name is Karen Black from Ontario, Canada, please send BG Boggle 1.0. Please allow up to four days for delivery. Requires SAPI Text-To-Speech and DirectX Released April 2006 BG Sudoku is the accessible version of the logic puzzle which is sweeping the world with its popularity. A 9 by 9 grid of cells is further subdivided into nine 3 by 3 boxes. Some of the cells already contain a number. To solve the puzzle, you must fill in the remaining cells with the numbers from 1 to 9 so that there is not more than one of each number in every row, column and 3 by 3 box. Send your request for BG Sudoku 1.0 to Ian Humphreys, together with your full name and country of residence, at: For example: My name is Karen Black from Ontario, Canada, please send BG Sudoku 1.0. Please allow up to four days for delivery. BG 15 Puzzle 1.0 (685 Kilobytes) Requires SAPI Text-To-Speech and DirectX Released March 2006 This game is the second game in the Blind-gamers series which is not a card game. 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 by sliding, into ascending order 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. Send your request for BG 15 Puzzle 1.0 to Ian Humphreys, together with your full name and country of residence, at: For example: My name is Karen Black from Ontario, Canada, please send BG 15 Puzzle 1.0. Please allow up to four days for delivery. Requires SAPI Text-To-Speech and DirectX Released January 2006 This game is the first game in the Blind-gamers series which is not a card game. You are presented with an 8 by 8 array of tiles which are colored using a hidden color scheme. It is up to you to deduce the hidden color of each tile, accumulating as few penalty points as possible. Hints cost you 1 penalty point, whilst a bad guess costs you 5 penalty points. At the start, you know that there are always 16 tiles of each of four colors and that the tiles of each color form a contiguous area. When you have deduced the color of all 64 tiles, the game is over. The object is to accumulate as few penalty points as possible and beat your previous best. Send your request for BG LAP 1.0 to Ian Humphreys, together with your full name and country of residence, at: For example: My name is Karen Black from Ontario, Canada, please send BG LAP 1.0. Please allow up to four days for delivery. Requires SAPI Text-To-Speech and DirectX Released October 2005 This game is the accessible version of the game called Hearts which comes with your Windows operating system. You play against three computer players. You try not to win tricks containing hearts or the Queen of spades. You score one point for each heart won, and 13 points for winning the Queen of spades. The player with the lowest score when one player reaches 100, is the winner. A maximize option magnifies the card images to full screen size for those with partial sight. Send your request for BG Hearts 1.0 to Ian Humphreys, together with your full name and country of residence at: For example: My name is Karen Black from Ontario, Canada, please send BG Hearts 1.0. Please allow up to four days for delivery. BG Penguin Solitaire 1.0 (670 Kilobytes) Requires SAPI Text-To-Speech and DirectX Released September 2005 This game is an accessible version of Penguin Solitaire. Those of you who like Free Cell Solitaire, and who want a similar game with a little bit more of a challenge, will love Penguin Solitaire. As with Free Cell, all the cards are dealt face-up and so the only luck involved is in the random way the cards are distributed across the layout. A maximize option magnifies the card images to full screen size for those with partial sight. Send your request for BG Penguin Solitaire 1.0 to Ian Humphreys, together with your full name and country of residence at: For example: My name is Karen Black from Ontario, Canada, please send BG Penguin Solitaire 1.0. Please allow up to four days for delivery. BG Scorpion Solitaire 1.0 (658 Kilobytes) Requires SAPI Text-To-Speech and DirectX Released August 2005 This game is an accessible version of Scorpion Solitaire. In this game, you build sequences in suits from King down to Ace in the columns. The game is won when you have four columns of cards, one for each suit, arranged in descending order from King down to Ace. This game is designed for both blind players and partially sighted players. A maximize option magnifies the card images to full screen size for those with partial sight. Why not send for your free copy today? Send your request for BG Scorpion Solitaire 1.0 to Ian Humphreys, together with your full name and country of residence at: For example: My name is Karen Black from Ontario, Canada, please send BG Scorpion Solitaire 1.0. Please allow up to four days for delivery. BG Klondike Solitaire 1.0 (655 Kilobytes) Requires SAPI Text-To-Speech and DirectX Released July 2005 This game is an accessible version of Solitaire which comes with Windows. As with all the games in the Blind-gamers series, it is self-voicing. You don't need your screen reader in order to play. It has many built-in features aimed at a really efficient method of moving the cards around, and shortcuts to remove the tedium of transferring cards from column to column and to the Home Cells. This game is designed for both blind players and partially sighted players. A maximize option magnifies the card images to full screen size for those with partial sight. Why not send for your free copy today? Send your request for BG Klondike Solitaire 1.0 to Ian Humphreys, together with your full name and country of residence at: For example: My name is Karen Black from Ontario, Canada, please send BG Klondike Solitaire 1.0. Please allow up to four days for delivery. BG Free Cell Solitaire 1.1 (670 Kilobytes) Requires SAPI Text-To-Speech and DirectX Released June 2005 This game is an accessible version of the popular Free Cell Solitaire with many built-in features aimed at a really efficient method of moving the cards around, easy-to-use location of specific cards, and shortcuts to remove the tedium of transferring cards from column to column and to the Home Cells. This game is designed for both blind players and partially sighted players. A maximize option magnifies the card images to full screen size for those with partial sight. Are you ready for the challenge? Send your request for BG Free Cell Solitaire 1.1 to Ian Humphreys, together with your full name and country of residence at: For example: My name is Karen Black from Ontario, Canada, please send BG Free Cell Solitaire 1.1. Please allow up to four days for delivery. BG Cribbage 1.1 (530 Kilobytes) Requires SAPI Text-To-Speech and DirectX Released February 2005 This is the latest version of Spoonbill's Cribbage game for blind and vision impaired players. Send your request for BG Cribbage 1.1 to Ian Humphreys, together with your full name and country of residence at: games@spoonbillsoftware.com.au For example: My name is Karen Black from Ontario, Canada, please send BG Cribbage 1.1. Please allow up to four days for delivery.
Suggestions from clients for future Blind-gamers games Click here to jump directly to the wish list This is a list of suggestions I have received from various people. The figures in parentheses are the number of people who have requested each game. If you would like to add your vote for a game already on the list, or suggest a possible new game, feel free to email Ian Humphreys at games@spoonbillsoftware.com.au. This is just a wish list, and whether or not a game on the list will be written in the future depends on several factors, such as how complex the game is, how popular the game might be, and whether or not I feel able to develop such a game with the expertise and the programming tools I have at my disposal. So don't hold your breath. But if I don't know of a potential demand for a game, then it will definitely never be written. All my accessible games run on a single computer. I do not have the expertise to develop networked games, or games which can be played over the Internet. My apologies to those who want a game they can play with their Internet buddies. Ian Humphreys
This is a list of games requested by blind and visually impaired clients. They are arranged in order of popularity. Last updated April 2008. Note that this list contains suggestions for future games in the Blind Gamers series. They are not yet available from this site. Please also note that the most requested games are not necessarily the games which will get developed next. It not only depends on the popularity of a game, but on several other factors including how complicated the game is to write, and whether or not there is already a freeware accessible version available from another site. Check my links page for accessible Yahtzee, Monopoly, Battleships and Simon Says which are already available from Jim Kitchen's web site.
Spades (26) Microsoft SAPI Text To Speech Voices 14th
April, 2006 - It's taken quite a while, but I've finally realized that there
could be lots of people out there who are playing Spoonbill Software's Blind
gamers games and making do with the default SAPI voice, which appears to be
Microsoft Sam. There
are 3 voices which come with Microsoft SAPI Text-To-Speech, Microsoft Sam,
Microsoft Mike and Microsoft Mary. Sam is the least distinct voice of the three,
followed by Mike. Mary is the clearest voice, and the one that I use when
testing my programs. That's why it's taken me a while and many enquiries from
various users, to realize that in a lot of cases, Sam is either the only voice
they have installed on their computer, or the one that is currently selected. My
programs use whatever SAPI voice you have selected as your default. If it's Sam,
then you probably think my games aren't that good and it might have put you off
playing them. Here's what to do to select an alternate, clearer voice. Go
into the Windows Control Panel and double-click on the Speech icon. This will
bring up the Speech Properties dialog. Click on the Text to Speech tab and on
this tab there is a drop down list of available voices. If Sam is the only one
you have, you'll need to reinstall SAPI . If
you already have the three voices installed, just drop down the list and select
Mike or Mary as your default voice. As I mentioned before, I find that Mary is
the clearest of the three. Once selected as the default, whenever you run a
Blind gamers game, it will use this default voice. If you only have the one voice on your machine and you are running Windows 98, Windows ME or Windows 2000, you need to download the Windows Installer setup file for SAPI TTS by clicking on the following link: Mike and Mary voices for Windows 98, ME and 2000. Once
you have downloaded it, run it to install SAPI Text To Speech with the 3 voices.
You should then be able to follow the steps described previously to select Mary
as your default voice. Windows XP users can obtain the additional Mike and Mary voices by downloading and running http://www.kitchensinc.griffithsgoodies.com/ttsgames/SpeechXP.exe You will then have a choice of Sam, Mike and Mary, with Mike being clearer than Sam and Mary being the clearest of all. She is the one I use. Spoonbill Software is voted Number 9 of the TOP 25 WEB SITES FOR GAMERS WHO ARE BLIND. October 2007 Here is the text of the email from 7-128 Software who conducted the survey. To Ian Humphreys, Spoonbill Software Mr. Humphreys, congratulations! 7-128 Software is pleased to inform you that your site has been selected as one of our list of the TOP 25 WEB SITES FOR GAMERS WHO ARE BLIND. Consistent with our mission to make computer games accessible to all casual game enthusiasts, our Marketing department has done an extensive search of sites containing information relevant to the blind gaming community. Your site is number 9 on our list. We toured well over 100 sites, and have created our list based on quality of games or information offered, longevity and reach of the site, and accessibility. We think your games are of great value to the blind gaming community. We are offering the list to a number of organizations and institutions serving the blind community. The list is detailed on our Web site at: www.7128.com. Sincerely, Cynthia Geller, VP Sales and Marketing, LLC, www.7128.com
|
|
Send mail to webmaster@spoonbillsoftware.com.au with
questions or comments about this web site.
|
