I’m a gamer at heart, and enjoy a good game. I’d love to dive into video games however I haven’t been able to afford it. I grew up playing these games like browser-based games, muds and D&D. There are accessible video games either out of the box or with third party mods, if you can get them to work. Here are a couple different games I play and enjoy.
muds
A mud is a text-based game, they’re old school and are still fairly popular within the blind community and super nerds. Instead of graphics it’s all text, you type commands to move, fight, craft and chat. You use a mud client to connect to the server, my favorite is MushClient which is free.
The below muds are ones I play often. I’ve created individual pages for them with resources, tips and tricks and a list of my characters on each one. If you decide to start playing hit me up in game and I’ll help get you started.
Discworld Mud: Based off of the Discworld books by Terry Pratchett.
EmpireMud: Build an empire, craft your own gear and more.
ROTJ Mud: A Star Wars based mud.
Browser-based Games
A browser-based game is easy to play and just requires an internet connection. You go to the game’s website and start playing. Some can be quite accessible with a screen reader and are pretty fun.
Kingdom Of Loathing: A comical game full of pop culture references. Pick from 6 different classes and battle your way to victory. Spend your time crafting items, cooking up tasty meals, or mixing up alcoholic drinks. Sell your creations to other players.
Sryth: A fun fantasy game with strong world building, unique skills and spells.
Audio Games
Audio games are primarily built by blind people for accessible game play. While some have graphics everything inside the game is audio.
This is a fantastic game which has graphics so you can play with both blind and sighted players. It’s a first-person shooter where you take out zombies across multiple maps. Headphones are required as the game heavily relies on the stereo field to hear zombies and target them.
You can play offline or connect to the server to play with the swamp community. The game is free to play offline however you’ll need to pay a yearly fee to connect to the Swamp server. Currently as I create this page, the yearly subscription costs $24 or $2 a month.
Since 2009, RS Games has developed online board, card, and dice games that are accessible to the blind and visually impaired. Over 20 games are currently available including Monopoly, Uno, Blackjack, Yahtzee, Farkle, and Scrabble.
Dungeons and Dragons
While I haven’t played D&D in quite some time, I love TTRPGs, and would love to dive back into playing D&D, Shadowrun and Pathfinder.
For D&D, finding accessible material has been quite a challenge until recently. For my blind readers you can download the Player’s handbook 5th edition on BookShare.org.