Welcome to another fantastic Tech Connect episode brought to you by the Vision Forward Association! Today, Cory will be showcasing a few examples of Blindfold Games, which are a series of free iPhone apps that can be used to literally gamify the practice of essential VoiceOver gestures.
Blindfold Games started over ten years ago when Marty Schultz set to building accessible games from scratch. These apps open up the world of casual games for the visually impaired because the controls for each game are accessible right from the very beginning rather than working backwards from a completed game in order to retroactively make it accessible.
Nowadays there are over eighty individual Blindfold Games on iPhone. For today, we will be focusing on three of Cory's favorite examples: Bowling, Blackjack and Home Run Derby!
0:00 Start
0:29 Introduction, History, Gamifying Practice, Using the App Launcher
4:25 Bowling Demonstration, Settings for individual games,
9:15 Background Settings for all games, Blackjack Demonstration
15:35 Installing a new game, setting it up, learning Home Run Derby!
20:27 Wrap-Up Review, General Thoughts, Contact Info, Live show and more!
If you have any additional questions about Blindfold Games, or other accessible iPhone games, please add those down in the comment section and we will endeavor to help!
Join us next time on Tech Connect, and be sure to leave your thoughts down in the comments below and ask plenty of questions!
Vision Forward's Tech Connect continues to bring you the information you need to make the most out of your devices. Our experts know there are many factors to consider, so if you have any follow up questions please post them in the comments and we will help you find the assistive tech that's best for you.
Join us, find the schedule by visiting out website:
https://vision-forward.org/techconnect
Contact Vision Forward Association:
Call us: (414-615-0103)
Email us: infocus@vision-forward.org
Visit us online: https://www.vision-forward.org
Online Store: https://www.vision-forward.org/store
Want more Tech Connect in your life? Try us Live! Be sure to join us for the upcoming YouTube Live! show on August 15th at 11am CST.
Looking for the full playlist?
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdZ61dAGaL_k3I-_LcTPozan9upCqY8Yc
Catch-up with our most recent episodes!
"Meta Glasses: Are They Beneficial?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQTIsLVCB8w
"What's the Wordle?" Smartphone and Laptop Accessible Word Puzzle!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgBiGy7QzZY&t=1s
"Glide from Glidance, with Amos Miller"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42KuD0uuZls
"RIM - Accessible Remote Training & Support"
https://www.youtube.com/live/mFIZwaIo0CE
#assistivetechnology #lowvision #OpticalCharacterRecognition #MagniLink #apple #technology #blindness #blindtech #lowvision #vision #blind #smartgadgets #smartwatch #assistivetechnology #windows #accessibility #tipsandtricks #blindtech #lowvision #iphone #ap
Blindfold Games started over ten years ago when Marty Schultz set to building accessible games from scratch. These apps open up the world of casual games for the visually impaired because the controls for each game are accessible right from the very beginning rather than working backwards from a completed game in order to retroactively make it accessible.
Nowadays there are over eighty individual Blindfold Games on iPhone. For today, we will be focusing on three of Cory's favorite examples: Bowling, Blackjack and Home Run Derby!
0:00 Start
0:29 Introduction, History, Gamifying Practice, Using the App Launcher
4:25 Bowling Demonstration, Settings for individual games,
9:15 Background Settings for all games, Blackjack Demonstration
15:35 Installing a new game, setting it up, learning Home Run Derby!
20:27 Wrap-Up Review, General Thoughts, Contact Info, Live show and more!
If you have any additional questions about Blindfold Games, or other accessible iPhone games, please add those down in the comment section and we will endeavor to help!
Join us next time on Tech Connect, and be sure to leave your thoughts down in the comments below and ask plenty of questions!
Vision Forward's Tech Connect continues to bring you the information you need to make the most out of your devices. Our experts know there are many factors to consider, so if you have any follow up questions please post them in the comments and we will help you find the assistive tech that's best for you.
Join us, find the schedule by visiting out website:
https://vision-forward.org/techconnect
Contact Vision Forward Association:
Call us: (414-615-0103)
Email us: infocus@vision-forward.org
Visit us online: https://www.vision-forward.org
Online Store: https://www.vision-forward.org/store
Want more Tech Connect in your life? Try us Live! Be sure to join us for the upcoming YouTube Live! show on August 15th at 11am CST.
Looking for the full playlist?
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdZ61dAGaL_k3I-_LcTPozan9upCqY8Yc
Catch-up with our most recent episodes!
"Meta Glasses: Are They Beneficial?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQTIsLVCB8w
"What's the Wordle?" Smartphone and Laptop Accessible Word Puzzle!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgBiGy7QzZY&t=1s
"Glide from Glidance, with Amos Miller"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42KuD0uuZls
"RIM - Accessible Remote Training & Support"
https://www.youtube.com/live/mFIZwaIo0CE
#assistivetechnology #lowvision #OpticalCharacterRecognition #MagniLink #apple #technology #blindness #blindtech #lowvision #vision #blind #smartgadgets #smartwatch #assistivetechnology #windows #accessibility #tipsandtricks #blindtech #lowvision #iphone #ap
Category
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TechTranscript
00:00Luke's not joining us today he's actually in Guatemala he's been there
00:05all week and I know you're probably nervous because the last time he left
00:09and went camping it did not end well for him but don't worry his wife is with him
00:14but I figured if he's on vacation I'm gonna be on vacation so join us as we
00:19look at blindfold games hi all welcome back to another tech connect today we're
00:31looking at blindfold games now these I find these games to be quite fun I think
00:38they're simple to play a really good way to kill a little bit of time if you've
00:42got some spare time but the other thing I really like about it is they're really
00:47good at introducing voiceover gestures especially for those who are not
00:52comfortable with using a touchscreen Marty Schultz and the blindfold crew has
00:58been around I say the blindfold crew I really think it's mostly just him but
01:02they have been around for over 10 years making games specifically for the iPhone
01:07and iPad they've got probably over 25 or more games that you get to pick from
01:13everything from sports to card games and more so join us today we're gonna take a
01:18peek at a number of different options and see if we can figure out what's our
01:23favorite game as I mentioned blindfold games has tons and tons of different
01:29games and a quick little side note when they first started releasing a bunch of
01:34games you'd go to the App Store and try to find them all and as the library
01:38continued to grow it got more and more confusing so what they've done is create
01:43a launcher app if you would like to call it that just called blindfold games and
01:48that will allow you to basically browse through their entire catalog and then go
01:55right to the App Store to download that specific game so we are gonna go ahead
02:00I've already downloaded the launcher we're gonna go ahead and open it and we
02:06will take a peek at some of the different games and we'll see what one
02:10we want to play first so I'm just gonna use Siri open blindfold games
02:17I've got the main app open here I'm at the top of my list the first one
02:24we have here is tic-tac-toe now I'm not gonna swipe through all of these games
02:29because we'd be here all day but we'll just do a little bit of swiping and I'm
02:33actually gonna start with one of my favorite games and that's bowling so
02:37we'll just swipe through see what kind of what we hear some of the different
02:41games and we'll stop when we get to bowling
02:43air hockey, basketball, bingo, burnt songs, bobsled, pop gesture game, bowling
02:50we've swiped just doing our voiceover gesture got to bowling and what happens
02:55now is that if you double tap the game if you don't yet have the game installed
03:01on your device it'll actually take you directly to the App Store to the page
03:06for that specific game and you can go ahead and download that app if you do
03:12have it installed I've actually seen it do two different behaviors here
03:16sometimes I'll see where it goes directly into the game for me so for
03:22example bowling is probably gonna do that although now that I've said it it
03:26probably will prove me wrong but I've also seen where basketball and some
03:30other games even though they're already downloaded on my device they still go
03:35into the App Store so I've not gotten consistent behavior when swiping through
03:41and double tapping but either way you can still get to that game so when you
03:46find the game that you'd like to go ahead and play or download you're gonna
03:50go ahead and double tap now as I mentioned bowling is my favorite so when
03:55I double tap it's gonna go right on into bowling stick with us for the rest of
03:59this video though in our third game we're gonna show we're actually gonna
04:02show a game that I've never played which means I do have to go and actually
04:06download it so you'll see that process as well so let's go ahead and double
04:10tap on bowling. Blindfold bowling. Blindfold bowling main menu. And we are in our
04:17blindfold bowling I'm gonna go grab my shoes and we'll be right back all right
04:24I went and got my shoes sprayed them down good so hopefully my feet are safe
04:28and we're gonna start our game we're on our main menu here most of games
04:32actually pretty much all of the games do have a settings option where you can go
04:36in and change background music and speech characteristics how fast the game
04:42speaks I'm not gonna make any changes in bowling because it's set up the way I
04:47like it but stick around for the next game we'll talk a little bit of more
04:50about settings the other thing you're gonna notice when we go to play a lot of
04:55blindfold games I did mention they're free and that is true but most of them
05:00do require a coin to play you are given a specific number of coins each day to
05:07go ahead and play and then if you run out of coins you can upgrade or purchase
05:14more I know it's kind of a bummer but you know what all these games are free
05:18and the crews putting in a lot of work so I see that they you know need to need
05:23to bring in a little dollar so when we start our bowling game you will hear it
05:28talk about coin and that's what that is we're on our main screen here we're
05:33gonna swipe through and just take a peek at some of the options we have we do
05:39have a resume game if I was in the middle of the game had to quit for
05:43whatever reason I could resume my previous game now we're gonna come into
05:50a number of different types of games anything from number of pins to number
05:56of players how you throw the ball so this first one was ten pins single
06:02player and simple throw which really means you're not doing any aiming at all
06:07I particularly like the next option that we'll see in a moment but you can swipe
06:14through the screen here and kind of pick the game that you like to play the most
06:20so we'll do one more swipe over to my favorite still one player I'm not not
06:29ready to play against the computer just yet but I do like to do a little bit of
06:34aiming so that's the one we're gonna choose we're gonna go ahead and double
06:37tap jump into the game using one coin to play you have only three coins left to
06:44get more coins press buy or upgrade game to go back to the main menu swipe
06:50up with three fingers starting game ten pin one player one finger aim and throw
06:56it's player one's turn move your finger left and right to position yourself on
07:00the bowling alley then stop moving for a second and then aim your flick at the
07:04pins you want to hit all right so they do a very good job of introducing the
07:09game to you first we heard that it is a three finger flick up at any time to
07:15return back to the main menu and that's true for all of their games and then the
07:19way we're gonna aim is we're gonna touch our finger down at the bottom of the
07:22screen just move it to the left or right to aim pause for a minute and then flick
07:27up and we'll throw our ball all right we're in the center so we'll flick up
07:36oh that sounds good you knocked over six pins four pins standing one two four
07:43seven throw your second ball all right so we've got the one two four and seven
07:48pin left it would guess it would be helpful if I knew where those pins were
07:51but I think most of those are on the left-hand side if I remember correctly
07:54let's aim we're gonna start up in the center and then move over to the left
07:59and you're gonna hear it count up as I move farther to the left that just gives
08:04you an idea of how how far you're aiming in one direction or the other so
08:11that looks good we'll go to two and toss
08:16you made a spare hey not too shabby throw your first ball all right so now
08:22we'll do our second frame we'll start in the middle again and let's go here we go
08:31oh that didn't sound good oh one two three four five seven eight well I don't
08:40have to rub it in all right here we go probably just throw anywhere and we
08:43probably feel pretty good I'm gonna go over to the left just a little bit and
08:47toss you missed all the pins on this throw oh wow that was how do I go from a
08:55spare to a three not good you scored three points all right I'm gonna go ahead
09:01and do my three finger swipe up all right and we had I did our three finger
09:07swipe up and left the game and went back to our main menu I've returned back to
09:15the blindfold launcher so we can go back and maybe find another game to play but
09:20before I do that I just wanted to mention a little bit more about the
09:24settings I mentioned in the bowling area that there is each game has its own
09:30settings and each game will have kind of different settings be besides the sound
09:36how loud the background music is there'll be a number of settings
09:41specific to each game but in the launcher app there's also a settings
09:46option that you can set and a lot of that's gonna be more around the voice
09:50itself how fast the voice speaks what voice you choose and then there's an
09:56option to make that carry over to all of the other blindfold games so that's kind
10:01of nice in the fact that you don't have to then set that up specifically for
10:06each and every game you can make it default across all of the blindfold
10:10games so again that's going to be in the main menu part of the launcher app tap
10:16settings and as you swipe through the settings screen you'll see an option
10:20then to set those default voice options all right we are gonna move on to our
10:25second game I wanted to do something maybe a little bit more card related and
10:31one of my favorite pastimes is I like to go and play blackjack I've got a friend
10:37we'll go to the casino every so often and sit down and play some blackjack so
10:42I know that the blindfold games does provide a blackjack option and actually
10:48theirs is called ears blackjack which if I'm not mistaken is also part of
10:56Marty Schultz it's his kid entertainment company that he has and so you'll find
11:02the bottom of the list of games all start with the word ears so they're very
11:08similar to the blindfold games they're just under the ears label instead so
11:13we're gonna go on down and swipe swipe up with three fingers through all the
11:18list of games we'll get down to the ear section here
11:22rose rose rose rose rose rose rose rose rose rose rose rose six years jeopardy
11:26match all right now we're looking for ears blackjack blackjack now they are
11:31alphabetical so I know that I got a swipe to my left because I passed the
11:35one I wanted here's dealer not here's crossword here's craps here's clues
11:41here's blackjack there it is you also heard in their ears feud family feud I
11:46heard in their ears I think it was no deal so that's probably deal or no deal
11:51the old Howie Mandel show so there is a lot of different games you can pick in
11:56here let's choose blackjack and we'll go in and see if we can play a couple quick
12:01hands so here's a good option a good example of it asking if I wanted to let
12:11the this app open the other app so basically the launcher app is saying
12:17hey is it okay if we open up the blackjack app and absolutely so we'll
12:21swipe all right so we have our blackjack game open but you know what it's been a
12:26while since I played it I don't recall all of these settings to it or not the
12:32settings but the gestures some of the games will repeat them and some will
12:37only repeat them the first time or play them the first time you go into the game
12:42so each of these games both the blindfold games and the ears games do
12:47have a help button right at the main menu here that's gonna allow us to bring
12:51up a user guide or user manual so we can kind of relearn how to play the game so
12:57alright so we know now how to play the game let's do our done button and let's
13:01get back to our main menu second done button to get out of help and we're
13:10back to our main menu and now let's do start game all right ten dollars so
13:21we're gonna do a low bet so I just tap the screen once now swipe up
13:31nine o'clock Queen of Hearts your total is 19 to hit tap with one finger to
13:38stand swipe down with one finger oh there you go it gave us it gave us a
13:45gave us directions right there which is great all right we have 19 they're
13:49showing a face card so that absolutely means we do not hit so we'll go ahead
13:54and swipe down dealer total is 14 dealer drew two of skates 16 dealer
14:06drew seven of Skate yay
14:14your current balance is $11 you can play again by swiping up with one finger to
14:21hear your chip balance and your cards at any time shake the phone to change
14:26settings swipe up with three fingers all right we'll swipe up and play one more
14:30place your bet then swipe up your current balance is $11 and we're gonna
14:37go let's try for let's do a two-finger tap we're gonna do well you know what
14:43let's do it again let's go ten whoo-hoo all right we're doing well if we're
14:48doing ten we got 11 we might as well go for all of it there we go all right that
14:53was a single tap let's swipe up dealer is showing three apart oh that's good
15:02ten apart there's a 20 tap with one finger to stand swipe down with one
15:09finger to split swipe down with two fingers I'm gonna go ahead and swipe
15:13down to stand 13 come on 17 they gotta stand yeah there you go all right we're
15:30gonna go ahead and swipe up with three fingers to go back to the main menu I
15:33won all right we've now played two games that I am familiar with but let's show
15:41what it's like to play a game that a you don't have installed on your device
15:47yet and be one you've never played before how easy our blindfold games
15:52we're gonna go and swipe and we're gonna find a home run derby it is Major League
15:57baseball season right now so we're gonna go and get a baseball game and see if
16:03how many home runs we can hit we're back in our main launcher app here and
16:09remember again they are alphabetical so we could just swipe until we get to the
16:13H's but I'm also just gonna swipe up with three fingers to scroll a little
16:17bit faster all right now I went a little too far but that's okay we'll swipe back
16:29there it is now we'll go ahead and double tap and that should take us to
16:33the App Store to download this game all right we are now in the App Store here
16:43we're gonna find our download or get button mine says read download I'll be
16:51honest I don't ever remember playing this game but I guess it's proven me
16:56wrong right here I must have played this years ago but you got to trust me I do
17:01not remember how to play so we'll go ahead and tap read download yours might
17:05say get if you've never downloaded it before
17:124% we'll let it go ahead and do its download and then that get button will
17:19switch to an open button and we can just go ahead and tap on open and go right to
17:25our game 28% I will now stare at the camera uncomfortably until we get to a
17:34hundred percent 40% oh there we go we switch to an open button we'll go ahead
17:43and tap go double tap go right on it
17:50like before we get this little our other games so we're gonna swipe to skip
17:54skip button blank fold home run derby menu so we've got the game open we're
18:01about to play it but you know it obviously said I had played it in the
18:06past but I sure don't remember I could start a game and hope that maybe it'll
18:11go through a tutorial but I'm a little nervous since I maybe ran the game in
18:15years ago and it won't play it so we should do the right thing and we should
18:19go read the help user guide first just so we know how to play the game there we
18:27go let's see what we have in our main menu here okay I would like to practice
18:33hitting that's make sense let's go ahead and see if we can practice hitting all
18:37right let's go ahead and tap the screen and we'll get a pitch oops I didn't mean
18:45to do that I accidentally tapped it a second time and I swung so let's try
18:48again
19:00what how's that a no I hit it on the second click let's try again here we go
19:07oh it's again let's try again we'll do the third click this time tap one two
19:28three triple yay tap the screen all right one more hit here we go one two
19:47three go no I did it in too much between three and four that time and I got
19:57ourselves a foul all right so I was practicing hitting but this game does
20:06offer more than just hitting there's fielding now this game has tons of other
20:11features besides just hitting so I'm gonna let you dive into the game deeper
20:16so that you can learn all of the different options put it down in the
20:21comments what's your favorite part of the game and what is the highest number
20:25of home runs you've hit all right so you've got to watch me play three
20:32different games today we did a little bowling we played a little blackjack and
20:37we did some home run derby and I think it's a good example of some of the games
20:42that blindfold offers as I mentioned at the top they are free they do have that
20:47coin piece so there are gonna be times where you might want to pay for more
20:51coins but the cool thing is that you do get to dive in and try all of those
20:56different games to find the one that you enjoy the most besides just being free
21:02games and kind of a good time killer and accessible games for you to play as I
21:08said at the beginning too I really like that all of the games are really
21:13teaching individuals gestures and how to work with a touchscreen device so if you
21:19are a trainer or a teacher think about how the blindfold games can help you
21:25with your students and clients in a really fun and easy way to teach them
21:30some of the different gestures that they will need especially if they're a
21:34voiceover user so many of those flick left and right and up and down gestures
21:41or the multi finger gestures can be a little bit difficult to learn and if you
21:45can do it in a fun and entertaining way by playing games it can be a really cool
21:51way to get those concepts across so I say why not get it it's free there's
21:57absolute benefit to it please if you enjoy videos about assistive technology
22:04especially for people who are blind or visually impaired subscribe to our
22:07channel it makes a big difference we really do appreciate it also like the
22:12video that also can make a big difference for the algorithm throw it
22:16down in the comments how long have you been playing blindfold games for and
22:20what's your favorite blindfold game let everybody know because there's so many
22:24share your favorites so people know what they should jump into first we do videos
22:31every other Thursday and we also do a live session on the opposite Thursday
22:37it's called tech connect live every other Thursday 11 a.m. Central our next
22:42one will be on August 15th 2024 we don't yet have a topic throw it down in the
22:48comments if you've got a good topic for us but we always have a good time in
22:52that live show so come join us live or you can watch an archived version here
22:57on the channel we also have a podcast and audio only version of those tech
23:03connect live sessions you can open up your podcast app of choice do a search
23:08for a vision forward tech connect and you'll find those episodes and you can
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23:37content we have and take advantage of those free credits thanks stay tuned