by David Redmond

Accessible gaming was for a long time a no-go area. It was just accepted that games couldn’t be accessible. That couldn’t be further from the case today though, and there are many games out there for all types of platforms.

Today let’s look at 5 accessible games for mobile that are well worth a download.

Dice World
Dice World is a collection of 6 dice games all in one app. You can play games of Arkle! pig, Yatzy, threes, 1,4,24, and Balut. If you don’t know how to play any of those games, you can use tutorials in the app which are universally accessible.

The game is very social, so while you can choose to play against AI characters if you wish, the beauty of Dice World is playing against others.

You could compete in one-on-one games, tournaments, climb the leaderboard, and use lots of other social features like in-game chat. It’s all beautifully accessible with VoiceOver too, with many well-designed custom VoiceOver interfaces and announcements for key events.

I admittedly haven’t played in a while, but I definitely remember linking up with other Camp Abilities campers on Dice World back in the day. It’s a brilliant little game and well worth a download.

Frequency Missing
Frequency Missing is a short game and is one you’ll only realistically play once, but it is a really solid experience that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Patricia has got a job at a new radio station but her friend and colleague Richard has gone missing. You can talk to characters by moving your finger around the screen and lifting it to activate. You play the game with headphones, using directional sounds to guide yourself.

The game has full voice acting and is really well-built. If you’re looking for a simple short story game, you won’t go wrong with Frequency Missing.

Audio Game Hub
I love the Audio Game Hub. It’s an app with a collection of games that are all played through audio.

The games are simple, but they are really fun. All games have brilliant voice acting and sound effects, and I personally found the navigation style quite manageable.

You’ve got a great variety of games, such as a story-based game where you disarm bombs, to a simple casino where you can play blackjack and slots. The app has multiplayer games as well if you’d like, so if you ever need to have a virtual samurai tournament with a CRW or friend you can do that.

The game was originally partly funded by Blind Foundation New Zealand, but they are no longer mentioned in the game, and it seems development on the project has mostly stopped.

Games can all be tried for free, but you do need to either purchase or subscribe to play without ads. This is frustrating, but I guess professional voice acting doesn’t come cheap.

It’s well worth having a look to see if there are games you’d like, as it really is a well-built app.

Pitch Black, A Dusk Light Story
Pitch Black is an audio story app that uses sound to guide you around its world. You can move around the world using a kind of on-screen joystick.

The sound design is really good, but I did find the joystick hard to manage. I recognize some voices from an old PC game called Park Boss, but I might be imagining that.

If you have experience using joystick-based games, then certainly give the app a go. The story sounds cool, and the sound design is certainly super impressive.

The game has no visuals so is the perfect game for those with low or no vision, just keep the navigation style in mind as it’s not exactly a typical navigation style for VoiceOver users.

Timecrest
Timecrest is and has for a long time been my favorite accessible iOS game. It’s a text-based interactive story game in which you play as a companion to Ash, who lives in a faraway world called Alincia. As the story starts, meteors are heading straight for Alincia, and you discover that you can manipulate time.

The game takes its accessibility to insane degrees that make it an honestly beautiful experience. It’s got an optional pronunciation mode, you can enable sounds to differentiate between VoiceOver reading dialog or descriptions, and the music can dynamically adapt to the position of the VoiceOver cursor. Every page has descriptive help, and that’s just scratching the surface.

It’s hard to put into words how accessible this game is for VoiceOver users, as they’ve honestly turned accessibility into an art. This game lets VoiceOver do stuff I didn’t even know it could do, it’s honestly like magic.

The story has ten novels worth of content at over 600,000 words. There’s so much to explore in Alincia, that even as a long-time player I still have places to explore and people to meet.

You can certainly spend money on the game, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to.

If you get any game on this list, seriously consider giving Timecrest a try. It’s beautifully written, has a great soundtrack, and is free.

Conclusion
It’s great to see games like this exist, but I do wish there were more. I love the ambition of games like Timecrest and the Audio Game Hub, as visually impaired people don’t deserve to be stuck to simple Siman games.

Definitely check out some of the games in this list and let us know what games you play by sending us a WhatsApp voice note to 086 199 0011. We might include some of your game suggestions in a future episode of Talking Technology.