Blind or Low Vision
Why is this blind person looking at me?
Being blind rarely means no vision at all. There are a whole range of vision impairments that can result in someone being legally blind. Vision loss can affect the range of someone’s vision (eg central or peripheral vision only) or the quality of someone’s vision (eg lack of detail, vision only with light and shadow, night blindness) You can make your room accessible to all these types of vision loss by making puzzles that either don’t rely on vision, or making puzzles that are large and clear to increase the chances that someone with some functional vision have the most chance of interacting with.
What’s the easiest and most impactful thing I can do to improve accessability?
Most vision impaired people are going to attend your room with a sighted friend. The very bare minimum you can do is make sure that your puzzles make sense if they are being described rather than looked at.
What else can I do and why?
While this is an acceptable minimum, it’s much more satisfying to be actively engaged in the room rather than needing to rely on other players.
A very cheap and easy way to be more inclusive to blind players is to provide Braille translations of any written texts, or tactile versions of puzzles.
You can find here an in-depth guide on making blind-friendly escape rooms here.
Rooms with Braille and tactile puzzles will be a big draw to Blind players, so it is well worth advertising your room in local blind Facebook groups if you do this.
Here’s a list of Australian companies that offer Braille services.
Can I do anything else to increase Blind and Vision impaired people independence?
Yes! Before you even start you can make sure your waiver is available for people to access on their own device, and ideally from home to ensure your players have time and aids to read and understand it themselves.
You can also allow your vision impaired players to bring their phones into your room to allow them to use any accessability apps to better interact with the room.
Is it possible to have too much light?
Yes! Too much light, especially florescent lights can be an issue for people with sensory sensitivities and strobe lights can be an issue for people who experience seizures.
It’s great when you can let the players control the level of light in the room, but generally a good balance is making sure that light is bright enough too see all the puzzles, without being overwhelming.
You can warn players on your website and not using strobing lights for those that are affected by them.
What about players that do have some usable vision?
Text & Symbols
Use high contrast/large text for written puzzles. If your room features handwritten letters, it’s helpful to have an easier to read printed version on the back. It’s a nice compromise and it’s something that videogames already do all the time.
For people who are colour blind it’s helpful to use contrasting colours as well as adding a secondary element like a shape, icon or pattern. For example in the board game Ticket To Ride the different colours are made more obvious by using different types of carriages. Chris Fairfield has an excellent guide that goes much deeper into colourblind friendly game design here.
Lighting
Does your room rely on low lighting? Can all players have a torch instead just having one that needs to be constantly passed around? Do you make sure that your torch batteries are always charged? Do you provide torches or is it a BYO option? And also: if you are using low lighting is it adding anything to the game or just frustrating for the players? Maybe your game would work better with brighter lighting. Remember that videogames do a great job of using lights to direct players attention to important areas – light is a tool that will help players play your game.
Good game design makes it obvious what’s in play and what’s set dressing. This helps players not waste time on things they don’t need to. This is another one that benefits everyone!
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