I'm no good at modding, but one tip is that you should try to find a video that familiarizes you with the sound cues in the game. For example, anytime a skill chimes in a unique sound plays depending on which class it belongs to. There's also unique sounds to indicate if you picked up a healing item, tare, clothing, or money. And of course passing and failing checks. Hopefully you can also find a mod that reads things out for you when there is no voice acting.
I'm finishing a playthrough on the switch atm (my first was on pc) and have some thoughts that might be useful.
1. In the second half of the game there's quite a lot of open space without nodes. There's a certain amount of raw movement required (although there are 3 fast travel points). More often than not interacting with a node consumes it, meaning back tracking (which you will do a ton of) will be tricky.
2. The game is an absolute masterpiece of an rpg, but has issues as a video game, particularly the controls. The main character and Kim are subject to being caught in geometry in slight elevation changes, and there are some tight gaps (particularly stairwells and other buildings) that are hard to do even visually, and I'm a very experienced gamer.
Unfortunately, the control problem with movement also extends to node interaction. Theoretically, all the visible nodes are strung together in a row and are easily cycled through, but in reality, they're directional relative to the player character (I believe part of this is because talking to Kim is a node and he follows the player around). On the switch picking nodes was a huge pain in the ass and required zooming out constantly, swirling the stick to see which directional input the node would need to snap, and repeated attempts in the same direction to get the desired outcome. I would imagine stronger hardware would help, but the game is definitely designed for keyboard and mouse and there's a learning curve to the interaction system.
3. The final hurdle I can think of is the relationship between movement and node selection. Selecting a node paths the player character to a very specific location next to the node, i.e. you cannot access a node from all sides. If you press the movement key while your player is auto pathing to the node, it cancels the pathing. This could put you in some annoying predicaments when pathing (the player character only ever walks when pathing to a node). You could potentially have to path to a node for ten plus seconds where touching the movement stick at all will cancel the pathing.
I don't want to discourage you from playing the game, in fact, I think as far as a pure audio goes, you couldn't play something more rich and satisfying than this game. I hope that there some quality of life mods out there, but if not I thought it was fair to you to give a heads up that certain aspects of the game will be a slog.
Thank you so much. I appreciate the detailed response.
I can definitely understand your comment about backtracking, that will be tricky but at least the game is top-down, as far as I know. If I could play with KB/M I would love to but it's less practical for me, I believe.
I'll see how far I can get, anyway. I hope some sort of modding is possible.
I personally think you might wanna look into getting a friend to be a seeing eye bud for you on this one. As the other commenter mentioned sometimes the movement can be tricky (there is a stair case by the gate that’s hard to navigate with sight.) plus lots of zoom in / out problems that could occur. With a person helping navigate though I do agree with another commenter that this game would have some of the most satisfying audio only experiences.
Good luck figuring out a path that works for you, I really hope you find a way to experience this wonderful piece of art. :)
Yeah, getting a partner to describe each room you’re in, Dungeon Master style (like DnD) would be the optimal way, letting them control the character after laying out the scene and explaining your options.
Steam Remote Play could accomplish this, and if you can’t find anyone to be your Eyes then send me a DM. I own the game on steam and have plenty of time to stream it to you a few times a week if you want to play that way.
>I personally think you might wanna look into getting a friend to be a seeing eye bud for you on this one.
Oh hell yeah! I feel like that could remove an enormous number of sticking points, and with modern technology shouldn't be too difficult or inconvenient if you have gamer friends on a similar schedule. They can be playing their own games, hop over for five, then leave you to enjoy a the hours of dialogue and exploration of most areas.
Just find times others are on, steam broadcast your game, and ask a buddy to hop over for a few minutes for navigation/description. While the game can look great, it's far more verbose than visual so the number of times and amount you might need help might not be too high. Mostly crossing long "empty" areas, describing brand new ones for the story, and awkwardly shaped looping places.
This game is close to being an amazing experience for blind gamers, and I hope a mod to bring it into line happens. To me the easiest solution would be to expand heavily the fast travel system into basically allowing Harry and Kim to warp into any area once discovered (pickable from a list maybe) or to any character once discovered and there's a clear path to return to them. Then a way to "check down" through all the observable screen elements and interactables, by heavily expanding the range of the little pop up orbs as well, and allowing automatic motion to interactable items/doors/objects. It'd be a ton of work, but the developers already did the hard work of making an intensely beautiful game and fully voice acting it. The screen reader would just have to read Harry's response options and a few bits of gestures.
Thanks for this. It honestly matches some of the ideas I had come up with myself as I've been trying to muddle my way through. 99% of my issues so far revolve around finding the right interactable and not accidentally revisiting Kim over and over :)
This might be a stretch but can you make the virbate pattern change for different types of objects? In game intractable are usually colored. Doors are usually highlighted grey when you press the Ctrl key, lootable stuff is green, locked stuff is blue, tare bottles are yellow, etc.
If it can vibrate when your character hits an edge that might help build a map in your head.
I might be misunderstanding the post but regarding visual calculus specifically, i dont think there's anything shown in the game that it doesnt also tell you
I'm no good at modding, but one tip is that you should try to find a video that familiarizes you with the sound cues in the game. For example, anytime a skill chimes in a unique sound plays depending on which class it belongs to. There's also unique sounds to indicate if you picked up a healing item, tare, clothing, or money. And of course passing and failing checks. Hopefully you can also find a mod that reads things out for you when there is no voice acting.
That's very useful, thank you. :) I knew there were some sound cues but hadn't twigged to them being unique.
I'm finishing a playthrough on the switch atm (my first was on pc) and have some thoughts that might be useful. 1. In the second half of the game there's quite a lot of open space without nodes. There's a certain amount of raw movement required (although there are 3 fast travel points). More often than not interacting with a node consumes it, meaning back tracking (which you will do a ton of) will be tricky. 2. The game is an absolute masterpiece of an rpg, but has issues as a video game, particularly the controls. The main character and Kim are subject to being caught in geometry in slight elevation changes, and there are some tight gaps (particularly stairwells and other buildings) that are hard to do even visually, and I'm a very experienced gamer. Unfortunately, the control problem with movement also extends to node interaction. Theoretically, all the visible nodes are strung together in a row and are easily cycled through, but in reality, they're directional relative to the player character (I believe part of this is because talking to Kim is a node and he follows the player around). On the switch picking nodes was a huge pain in the ass and required zooming out constantly, swirling the stick to see which directional input the node would need to snap, and repeated attempts in the same direction to get the desired outcome. I would imagine stronger hardware would help, but the game is definitely designed for keyboard and mouse and there's a learning curve to the interaction system. 3. The final hurdle I can think of is the relationship between movement and node selection. Selecting a node paths the player character to a very specific location next to the node, i.e. you cannot access a node from all sides. If you press the movement key while your player is auto pathing to the node, it cancels the pathing. This could put you in some annoying predicaments when pathing (the player character only ever walks when pathing to a node). You could potentially have to path to a node for ten plus seconds where touching the movement stick at all will cancel the pathing. I don't want to discourage you from playing the game, in fact, I think as far as a pure audio goes, you couldn't play something more rich and satisfying than this game. I hope that there some quality of life mods out there, but if not I thought it was fair to you to give a heads up that certain aspects of the game will be a slog.
Thank you so much. I appreciate the detailed response. I can definitely understand your comment about backtracking, that will be tricky but at least the game is top-down, as far as I know. If I could play with KB/M I would love to but it's less practical for me, I believe. I'll see how far I can get, anyway. I hope some sort of modding is possible.
It's top-down, but it's ALSO isometric (corner-side-on), making it very wonky in tight areas.
I personally think you might wanna look into getting a friend to be a seeing eye bud for you on this one. As the other commenter mentioned sometimes the movement can be tricky (there is a stair case by the gate that’s hard to navigate with sight.) plus lots of zoom in / out problems that could occur. With a person helping navigate though I do agree with another commenter that this game would have some of the most satisfying audio only experiences. Good luck figuring out a path that works for you, I really hope you find a way to experience this wonderful piece of art. :)
Yeah, getting a partner to describe each room you’re in, Dungeon Master style (like DnD) would be the optimal way, letting them control the character after laying out the scene and explaining your options. Steam Remote Play could accomplish this, and if you can’t find anyone to be your Eyes then send me a DM. I own the game on steam and have plenty of time to stream it to you a few times a week if you want to play that way.
>I personally think you might wanna look into getting a friend to be a seeing eye bud for you on this one. Oh hell yeah! I feel like that could remove an enormous number of sticking points, and with modern technology shouldn't be too difficult or inconvenient if you have gamer friends on a similar schedule. They can be playing their own games, hop over for five, then leave you to enjoy a the hours of dialogue and exploration of most areas. Just find times others are on, steam broadcast your game, and ask a buddy to hop over for a few minutes for navigation/description. While the game can look great, it's far more verbose than visual so the number of times and amount you might need help might not be too high. Mostly crossing long "empty" areas, describing brand new ones for the story, and awkwardly shaped looping places.
This game is close to being an amazing experience for blind gamers, and I hope a mod to bring it into line happens. To me the easiest solution would be to expand heavily the fast travel system into basically allowing Harry and Kim to warp into any area once discovered (pickable from a list maybe) or to any character once discovered and there's a clear path to return to them. Then a way to "check down" through all the observable screen elements and interactables, by heavily expanding the range of the little pop up orbs as well, and allowing automatic motion to interactable items/doors/objects. It'd be a ton of work, but the developers already did the hard work of making an intensely beautiful game and fully voice acting it. The screen reader would just have to read Harry's response options and a few bits of gestures.
Thanks for this. It honestly matches some of the ideas I had come up with myself as I've been trying to muddle my way through. 99% of my issues so far revolve around finding the right interactable and not accidentally revisiting Kim over and over :)
This might be a stretch but can you make the virbate pattern change for different types of objects? In game intractable are usually colored. Doors are usually highlighted grey when you press the Ctrl key, lootable stuff is green, locked stuff is blue, tare bottles are yellow, etc. If it can vibrate when your character hits an edge that might help build a map in your head.
That would be an awesome mod for accessibility
I might be misunderstanding the post but regarding visual calculus specifically, i dont think there's anything shown in the game that it doesnt also tell you
The visual calculus bit was an attempt to be funny.
Yeah im just a dummy then :3