No longer solely the passion of freaks & geeks, roleplaying games (or RPGs) are enjoying a resurgence thanks to television shows such as Stranger Things. But how accessible are desktop games (like Dungeons & Dragons) or online roleplaying games to the blind & partially sighted community? Connect Radio’s Kris Wallace has been talking to author Oliver Kennett and RNIB’s Lisa Foulkes-Arnold about various RPGs to find out.

If you play RPGs or would like to join the conversation tweet us @RNIBRadio and if you are interested in joining, or starting, a roleplaying game there are some helpful links below.

https://formalgamer.com

https://www.dndbeyond.com

http://www.64ouncegames.com

https://www.natural20app.com

https://www.meetup.com/topics/dnd/?_cookie-check=S5YGlLdxTj7paIO4

www.oliverkennett.com

https://twitter.com/oliverkennett

Accessible Online Role Playing Games

Colossal Cave Adventure – first text based ‘interactive fiction’

    Single player

    Mid-1970s

Recently highlighted on Amazon Prime series Halt and Catch 

     Fire

Still available on http://www.amc.com/shows/halt-and-catch-fire/exclusives/colossal-cave-adventure

Multi-User Dungeons (MUD)

•    Natural progression for Dungeons and Dragons going online

•    First MUD in 1978.  Many have been running for decades

•    Multiplayer real-time virtual world, text-based combination of role-playing games, interactive fiction, and online chat

•    Most are Visual Impairment friendly

•    Screen reader friendly MUD clients – Mudlet, Mushclient

•    Also VIPMud, but this one isn’t free

A few good MUDs:

Discworld www.discworld.starturtle.net /

    Asks at beginning if you are using a screen reader

Materia Magica www.materiamagica.com

    Has a built in client, and asks about sight impaired

    mode right at the start

Aardwolf  www.aardwolf.com, built in client

    Advertises as VI friendly

Avalon  www.avalon-rpg.com

    Has a page with information for VI players:

www.valon-rpg.com/info/blind

Realm of Magic  https://realmofmagic.org

     Has a special login for screen readers

Games created specifically for vision impaired players:

Shades of Doom www.gmagames.com

An audio first person shooter which creates a virtual reality using sound as it's medium. It features multi-dimensional multi-layered sound

Entombed, www.blind-games.com/entombed.aspx

Written expressly for blind players, it is voice only. The keyboard is used to move around and do actions.

Other places to check:

www.whitestick.co.uk/ongames.html (screen reader friendly)

www.audiogames.net

    List of VI friendly games, but no descriptions

www.sonokids.org

    Audio based games for visually impaired kids

www.gmagames.com

    Creators of fully accessible games

Video Consoles

    Xbox- One has a built in magnifier and narrator

Phones / Tablets

    Applevis https://www.applevis.com/

        Reviews accessible apps, including games

A Blind Legend – action/adventure game which is sound only, using binaural 3D sound

        Apps for Apple, Android, and Windows

    King of Dragon Pass – interactive fiction

    Frotz    - interactive fiction   

    Chess-wise - chess

    Papa Sangre – role playing game

    Audio Game Hub – a set of audio based arcade games

Amazon Echo / Alexa

    Lots of interactive fiction

    Runescape – RPG re-written to be audio only