Responsive Spatial Audio Cloud
HOW DO WE SUPPORT VIDEO GAMING FOR GAMERS WITHOUT SIGHT?
Mainstream video games are predominantly inaccessible to people with visual impairments. We present on-going research that aims to make such games go beyond accessibility, by making them engaging and enjoyable for players with vision impairments. We have built a new interaction toolkit called the Responsive Spatial Audio Cloud (ReSAC), developed around spatial audio technology, to enable game designers to build accessibility into existing and new games for visually impaired players.
These are interfaces for presenting relevant information from ReSAC depending on the game state These tools are shown and briefed on in the image below. We have created a plugin for Unity that enables game developers to build in accessibility into their games right from the beginning.
Download the Unity plugin here.
How does ReSac Work?
Information about the environment surrounding the gamer is represented in the form of a spatial audio cloud (SAC). Objects have metadata parameters, 3D spatial coordinates, a name, detailed description of the object, one or more audiocons/earcons, a visibility distance that triggers inclusion depending on the distance to the player and spatial extent of the entity.
An example of a game with the tools built-in is here. One has to play the game with a headphone since spatial audio requires stereo headphones to be worn to provide the right immersion in spatial sound.