New Video Game lets Blind and Sighted Players Compete

A joint collaboration between MIT and Singaporean students brought about a brand new computer game designed to provide a fun experience and an even playing experience between people who are blind/low vision and those who are have full vision. (link)

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The game, called AudiOdyssey, simulates a deejay trying to build up a catchy tune and get people dancing. By swinging the remote-control device used by the Nintendo Wii, which senses motion, the player can set the rhythm and lay down one musical track after another, gradually building up a richer musical track.(check out the video)

Eitan Glinert, a graduate student in computer science at the Singapore-MIT Gambit Game Lab, says that the introduction of the Wii controller attracted many women and older players for the first time to the world of videogames. "Lots of people who had never played video games were now playing them all the time," he says. "I started to think, who's been left out? What groups are left behind even with all the new technology, these new systems?"

Then it hit him. "People with disabilities had been left behind. I began to speculate, how could you bring these people into the fold and have them be able to play these games?" He started by looking up everything that was available in terms of computer games for the visually impaired, and found there were already about 200 titles.

"I thought, oh well, it was a good idea. But then I noticed something: As a sighted player, I was unable to play any of these." The games had been so specifically adapted for sound and tactile play that they gave the visually impaired too much of an advantage, making it impractical for them to play with sighted friends. "There were games for sighted people, games for blind people, and never the twain shall meet," he says. "I thought, maybe I could build a game that could be played by both, equally well."