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Accessibility features for blind gamers

Hi.

I'm a blind gamer who have given Minecraft Dungeon a try. I'm extremely excited for the improved narration in the game, which seems to read almost every text like menus, items you pick up, interactables, inventory, health when fighting, mission objectives etc. This is really well done. Thank you so much for improving the accessibility that much in the game.

 

1. Make a feature which turns the character in the direction of the mission objective, the objective marker. That could be done in the following way: When you press the down arrow to show the mini map, the character could be turned in the direction where the objective marker is pointing.

2. Make an item scanner like in The last of us part 2, which scans the area around you, beeps in the directions of the items, and let you press a button which turns the character towards the nearest item.

3. Make it possible to adjust the speed of the TTS.

 

I really hope you'll consider making suggestion 1 and 2, since it's impossible for blind gamers to follow the objective pointer. We only find objects by luck by stumbling over them, and the narration mentions "press cross to pick up." If we walk a few steps too far, then it can take a lot of time to find the spot where the item is lying on the ground.

 

I hope to receive some great comments on this, and that the developers of Minecraft Dungeon will be interested in making the game more accessible to blind gamers. Lets make Minecraft Dungeon accessible to everyone, together!

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• May 05, 2021 16:04
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  • May 06, 2021 06:10
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  Blind gamer here as well. Yep that'll be super cool. I've sent many suggestion to Dungeons devs on Twitter as well, and I'm really hoping they are eventually implemented. I think that's what's a little frustrating, that the game is almost accessible, but not quite. With sighted help, you can do anything in the game, but by yourself, you will unfortunately be lost. 
  
  Navigation, locating items, and inaccessible puzzles are the biggest issues, but there are also a few other bugs. There's lag when navigating around using narration, and narration tends to lose focus at times and read the wrong item descriptions. the order in which narration reads things could be improved as well. item description before button prompts will be a lot more useful, as we'll be able to skip to the next item as soon as we listen to the description, rather than waiting for the entire button prompt to play, before the relevant info is read out.
  
  There's also an issue with some screens, where narration can't be interrupted. Shop screens in particular can take a super long time to navigate, since you not only have initial lag, but you must also wait until the entire description of the highlighted item is read out, before tts reads the next one.

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  • May 06, 2021 06:12
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  Sorry about double post, I reached the character limit! haha. continued below.
  
  There's also a screen that shows possible mission drops, right before you begin a mission. These items do not read using tts when scrolling through them. There are sounds associated with every Mob drop, but it can be difficult to memorize audio cues for every single item in Dungeons, as there are hundreds of items.
  
  

  One more thing: it isn't currently possible to tell via speech how many enchantment slots an item contains, or which of the 3 slots you are on. that'd be awesome, as I sometimes find myself upgrading an item, only to trash it later after I discover it only contains two item slots.

  
  Hope this feedback helps make the game a little more accessible. thanks for reading!

   

   

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  • May 07, 2021 06:24
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  Hi killerbeast56

  Thanks a ton for your great feedback. This is very much appreciated.

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  • August 18, 2021 04:26
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  Very well said. I would also say having sound cues would help a ton