Use sound to build games for the visually impaired

Main programmer Koko in the work Courtesy of Photo/Interviewee As the theme of games becomes more and more diverse, games with similar realistic themes have also begun to emerge in the game market in recent years. A game set similar to the ancient Monopoly, players can engage in the real work of "moving bricks and washing cars" in the game, so that realistic games are connected with serious social issues, breaking the same game mechanism of "fighting monsters and upgrading" in the past, attracting the participation of many young groups. In addition, in addition to the game theme, there are also production groups to change the form of the game, such as a blind tactical game, through the special development of sound effects, so that the visually impaired group can also easily experience the "eat chicken" battlefield.

When it comes to tactical competitive games, many young people are not strangers, there are many games such as "Peace Elite" and "PUBG" on the market, and everyone likes to call them "eating chicken". And how can visually impaired young people participate in the game world so that they can feel the joy of such games? In 2021, the game "Glory Battlefield" launched by Mind Interactive filled the gap in genre games, in order to increase the social attributes of visually impaired young people, this game also openly organized e-sports competitions, which were sought after by the visually impaired young people.

New experience for the game

Put on your headphones "Eat Chicken Tonight"

"Battlefield of Glory" was developed by the post-90s blind game master Koko and team partners for a year. Entering the game, the sound of war around the ear is immediately immersed in the tense atmosphere, sliding the screen to move in different directions; in the room, the footsteps are crisp, when passing the water, there will be a treadmilling sound, and the frequency of footsteps is slightly clumsy. When turning left or right, there are faster footsteps that indicate direction. When approaching their companions, their heavy gasps can be heard. Didi's continuous alarm sound reminds the player that the enemy has entered the field of vision, the voice will announce its health status, slide the right screen to select the weapon, and you can attack it.

"When encountering walls, equipment, or new spaces, the system also uses voice prompts to help players find out the direction of the map in the dark. As the game progresses, more urgent alarms sound overhead from time to time, prompting that a tsunami is coming and all players need to immediately return to the 'abandoned lab' to escape. Koko said that relying on sound I built a "chicken-eating" battlefield for the visually impaired.

The development of blind games, according to the words of Tang Monk, the CEO of Mental Interaction, is "to pass the level and cut the end, and there are still chasers behind it." Before the development of the mental interaction team, there was almost no game on the market that specifically served the visually impaired, and it was advanced to the "Glory Battlefield" of pure audio real-time combat, and it was even more like crossing the river by feeling the stones.

Previously, the company's team also developed another martial arts game called "Listening to the Rivers and Lakes". Tang Monk said: "Compared with "Listening to the Rivers and Lakes", the development of "Glory Battlefield" is 'much more advanced', "Listening to the River and Lake" is a 'downward compatible' game that mainly promotes the plot, the battle has voice command, everyone can play, but "Glory Battlefield" is an e-sports product, technical and practical to keep up, fighting, shooting are all operated by the players themselves, in addition to no screen, 'there is no difference from the tactical competitive games we play', visually impaired youth can also eat chicken tonight! ”

"Empathy" with players

Construct a world that the visually impaired can understand

When he was a young boy, Koko had already been exposed to some blind games through the computer, and the games at that time were particularly simple, "the audio was only a racing car, it was still advanced, and the others were single-player mini-games, playing with themselves, and the games they played when they could see were completely different."

Koko pointed out that making games to adapt to the visually impaired community relies on "empathy", although visually impaired players have different feelings about space, "but we will have a common point, try to get as close to this point as possible, that is, the scene we have constructed."

Koko talked about the development of gunshots, "Everyone's understanding of guns may be different, but we will feel the sound of gunshots." Sniper rifles and assault guns are not the same, the recoil is relatively strong guns, the sound will make a dull, heavy effect, the recoil is relatively light fast gun, the sound should be crisp, the strength is relatively thin. "After we have an understanding of the sound of the gun, we will have a general construction in our minds about the gun, although we don't know what it looks like, but we know that it must be very heavy, it will be more pressing, and what kind of strength is needed when shooting."

In a world of visual failure, keen hearing allows Koko to receive more information than ordinary people, and can empathize with the world heard by the visually impaired group, Koko said, "For example, I can hear the sound of monsters moving in the field is not smooth, and should not jump from left to right at once; for example, if I hear some strange people walking and walking suddenly disappear, I will bring it up to see if it can be optimized."

These all require developers to have a very strong spatial imagination, although the game world is hidden, Koko will also imagine the layout of each piece of land in the map, the orientation of the room, the slope of the hillside, the strange position, and gradually build through the code, "Because I am completely blind, I will feel that the map is black and white at the beginning, there is nothing, and when a map is done, you will see that the map has been colored." This is also how Koko reimagined color after he became blind.

Ensure game quality

The system needs to be debugged every week

To guarantee the gaming experience, Koko needs to debug the system almost every week. In the office building in Beijing's Daxing District, wearing square-rimmed glasses, he sat on the workstation, tapping the computer keyboard at a high speed, the speed at which he wrote code did not lag behind other programmers, after writing a line of code, the screen reading software would read the code to him at a speed of 700 words per minute, and the speed that ordinary people could accept was generally 200-300 words per minute.

The hardest part of developing Battlefield of Glory is to make the sound realistic to "build the scene", 10 live players in the same battlefield, shooting and walking, A to the left, B to the right, these sounds to make every player feel, to give a comprehensive feeling.

A large number of sound construction needs to be repeated trial and error, writing a battlefield code takes about 3 months, but also in the follow-up according to player feedback continuous modification, Koko introduced, the human ear has a spatial structure, what is heard is three-dimensional, "If everyone takes the speaker to play the game, but in the game we generally wear headphones, the ear loses the feeling of 3D, we need to use various ways to present, restore the right effect, or strengthen some sound." ”

Koko mentioned that the number of people in a game game was also finalized in repeated trials, "At the beginning, for fun, we thought about whether we could play with 30 people, and then found that 30 people had too many voices, too much information, and could not handle it", and finally set the game scale of 10 people per game. From development to launch, the game has been debugged and maintained every week.

In the future, Koko hopes to make audio into higher sound quality, and also make more efforts in program stability.

Text/Reporter Wang Lei Intern Li Tong

Co-ordinator/Liu Jianghua