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[Aleric]

Hiya,
I'm somewhat of a newbie to DF, but felt I should post this as a toic of general interest--or at least limited interest.  I've a somewhat nove way of playing the game, in my opinion.  At least, I've certainly never heard of anybody doing something quite like this before.
Essentially, I play DF by proxy.  I need to do this for one main reason: I am blind.  I still use the computer, even play other roguelike and miscellanious games, but the fact that DF uses OpenGL makes current play by me alone impossible.  I can, however, listen to verbal reports from other people playing and make suggestions and the like.  
This is in some ways like being the puppeteer and pulling strings, or sitting in the passenger seat and giving careful directions to a driver.  (Not that I know what that's like, of course.)  It's a combination of profoundly frustrating, amazing, and sad when I can't find people who are as interested in this game as I am and won't let me play through them.  Ahh, wel.  I love the stories.
Anyhow, I just felt I should post this.  See what folks think, that kind of thing.  If anybody wants to reply, I'm quite open t it.
Thanks much,
Aleric.

[Misterstone]

Hey, that's really amazing.  I guess it shows that the Adam's brother's goal of making a game that generates dynamic stories on the fly is being realized- even without the benefit of seeing the gameplay graphics you can become engrossed in it.

I have always wondered if someone could create a roguelike game that would work well with adaptive technology so that a player who can't read a screen with his / her eyes can play it alone.  Do you play the other roguelikes with a friend / helper at the keyboard, or by yourself?

The last time I saw adaptive tech being used on a computer, it was a simple screen reader.  I can't imagine playing nethack and having to listen to a voice say "hash mark" "period" "period" "at sign" etc. etc. for each move.  Don't know what is available now... what do you use to play roguelikes?

Hmm... maybe someone could develop a program that runs on top of DF and sends all of the report messages and creates others to explain what the player is doing, to a realtime chat program or IRC client- then you could play with someone else who is online?

[Aleric]

Hiya,
To answer your question, yes, I do play Nethack, Adom, etc. myself.  The state of screen reader technology hasn't advanced all that much, but it's workable where it is.  I use Window-Eyes, from GW Micro--expensive beast, but it gets the job done.  I can review the screen character by character and slowly get a notion of what's going on.
A more interesting approach, though, is that of audio feedback.  There is a ame recently translated into English from the French, called SoundRTS.  Guess what that is?
If anybody's interested I can give the URL to you.  I figured that something like this might be possible with DF.
All the best, and do feel free to reply,
Aleric.

[Neopergoss]

I think it would be really cool if there were monitors that could somehow use Brail.  Like instead of shining light, it could push little pins up from the screen.  That was what I first imagined when you said you were playing DF blind.  I bet it would work well.

[Slartibartfast]

This is definitely an interesting and novel approach, and it also helps to demonstrate how DF does exactly what it is supposed to do, generate interesting stories.
Also, as a hobbyist (and therefore, lousy) game programmer it definitely gets me thinking, perhaps I'll program a game that "works" on sound alone, though I have to say that this is a difficult concept to even think about, being so used to seeing.

As for a verbal version of DF, I'd have to say that I just don't think it is possible from a programming point of view, as it would require some hellishly complex code to figure out what's going on and translate that to text in an human understandable form.

Finally, I wish you luck in finding people to help you play via proxy.

[Misterstone]

My idea was that a program (or perhaps a feature hard coded into DF) could generate messages based on what a player is doing (for instance, you place a workshop, it generates a "Craftsdwarf shop placed at coords x,y,z" message).  The this along with the normally generated reports could be sent through either a client or through something simple like IRC or an instant messenging program so that Aleric could read what is going on.  That way, he could participate in a game that someone online is playing... the game itself wouldn't have to have any multiplayer features, just send the messages to him.  Aleric could communicate with a proxy player through a voice chat program, the IRC or messenging client, etc.

Anyways, Aleric is no doubt the best judge of what would be useful...  Aleric, maybe you should put a suggestion on how to make it more accessible in the suggestions forum, if you have any ideas about this.

[Funkadelic Jive Turkey]

That's amazing, tragic, and sort of beautiful.

I think in a sense you might even get more from the game in this way too. -Not writing this to humor you but since the graphics of this game are underwhelming (though intuitive) past the information they are conveying, to be able to play entirely based on imagination rather than having to sever it from\conform it to the visual cues might be better. Although the dependence on a proxy is obviously inconvenient, if the quality of the proxy is good then I imagine it to be like a persistent ThreeToe choose-your-own-adventure.

[Aleric]

quote:Originally posted by Neopergoss:
<STRONG>I think it would be really cool if there were monitors that could somehow use Brail.  Like instead of shining light, it could push little pins up from the screen.  That was what I first imagined when you said you were playing DF blind.  I bet it would work well.</STRONG>

There are such devices.  They are horrendously expensive--the price is $4,000 and up, folks.  In any case they don't display any more than one line at a time.  Now, that's what I call impractical for DF or anything else, which is why I haven't ever owned one.
For the interested or curious, I urge you all to try downloading a copy of the beta of SoundRTS.  It certainly isn't DF, but it's the closest to it I have at the moment.  I think it has some valuable lessons to teach would-be game programmers.
In any case, I'm more than willing to answer questions, or othrwise contribute to the discussion here.  I'm looking forward to many interesting games.
All the best,
Aleric.
PS: SoundRTS is at: http://jlpo.free.fr/soundrts/
Have fun, and don't let the goblins get you.

[Slartibartfast]

quote:Originally posted by Aleric:
<STRONG>PS: SoundRTS is at: http://jlpo.free.fr/soundrts/
</STRONG>

I tried it, but for some reason the voice is choppy and full of echoes. Maybe due to my onboard sound card :S