Terraformers
Award Winning 3D Game also playable by blind
The game is a visual / audio hybrid playable by both sighted and sight disabled / blind. The interface features below was awarded with the "Innovation In Audio Award" at the Independent Games Festival 2003. It was developed with partial financial support from the Swedish Handicap Institute.
Playable Demo / Spelbar demo
Upgrade / Uppgradera
Sound samples
Gamer feedback
I love the game and am looking forward to playing more. Thanks to you and the rest of your team for the work you are doing.
/Jim Dorman (April 2009)
Not only is the game audio and audio navigation some of the best I've seen in an accessible game, I particularly like the atmospheric descriptions, and the way multiple nav sounds are distinguishable, but it's also really nice for me to have a game which also allows me to use what vision I have together with the audio interface.
I cannot usually play 3d games sinse the spacial relations are far too visually complex for me to handle (even when the graphics of the game are visible to me). I've played several audio 3D First person games, and while I find myself quite able to navigate and enjoy the game with the audio provided, ---- I do miss the extra information, ---- not to mention atmosphere and environmental awareness which I would get visually.
It's really great to see this sort of fusion in a game like terraformers, sinse so many accessible games only use audio.
I'd love to see more games like this, --- and would be really interested to here of any future plans you have at pin interactive.
all the best, and looking forward to playing the rest of Terraformers
/Dark (April 2008)
- Terraformers is really great! A friend of mine told me about it that it is a "must play"
/Robin Kipp (May 2007)
Terraformers is a great game! It's truly the best game I've ever played!
/Jay Thompson (July 11, 2006) Terraformers is the best I've come across. I've played many accessible games, but they are just too simple for my liking. This is the first adventure game I've played where the sighted as well as the blind can play.
/Ryan Miller - I am one happy person that you are making this game. I have been waiting for something like this for so long. I want to integrate with my friends, not be segregated from them
/Gabriel Vega - Terraformers is great, it's truly wonderful! And God bless you in producing other games for sighted and unsighted people alike
/ Jay Thompson - I'm totally blind, and I am a science fiction fan. Terraformers is wonderful. I very much appreciate it, and I bought the game as fast as I could
/ Teresa Cochran - I've downloaded Terraformers, and I love it
/ Daniel Perry - just email to say what a brilliant game Terraformers is, I've been enjoying it very much
/Ari Damoulakis - I completed all missions of Terraformers. I took long time to finish and it is great game I think.
/ Katsutoshi Tsuji
Some media attention:
Swedish site Fragzone writes about Terraformers
"Swedish Pin Interactive has now gone as far as released a game that is playable by both sighted and blind, and also has a high contrast mode for gamers with low vision. Although the game graphics is not like Half-Life 2, it is still an interesting and promising initiative. "
(Translated from Swedish PC Gamer Magazine)
"Terraformers, by the Swedish team Pin Interactive, won the "Innovation in Audio" award at the Independent Games Festival for their adaptation of an auditory feedback system which allows a blind player to navigate through a 3D world. It was refreshing to see the award go to this type of application and was definitely well deserved"
Story
The game takes place in the future. Mankind has started colonisation of other planets and uses intelligent robots to create an atmosphere suitable to human life. But on the distant planet Tellus 2 something went wrong.
Some of the robots evolved and became too intelligent and revolted against their creators. The revolting robots imprisoned professor van Lange in his lab. The professor is the only one with enough knowledge to regain control over the revolting robots.
The robots also disassembled the main computer and scattered the parts in the area around the professor's lab. Your mission is to defeat the revolting robots, find the parts to the computer and free professor van Lange.
To solve the quest you will use fire arms, ammunition, secret keys, audio puzzles, communication devices and other things. In order to stop you, the robots have locked doors, hidden the computer parts and will attack you on sight. Your Powersuit use power to protect you from the planet's hostile environment and other physical injury, and you need to find Power-up stations on a regular basis.
Features
Powersuit: the powersuit contains all the necessary technology to protect the avatar from hostile attacks, In addition, it provides all of the accessability feautures described below. A built-in voiced PDA is responsible for miscellaneous feedback from these features Sound Compass: a 3D sound represents north, and a rough 8 direction spoken feedback is available by pressing a key on the numerical keyboard (north, northwest...). Sonar: a 3D sound gives the gamer a rough perception of the distance to objects in the direction the gamer is currently facing. By pressing a key the gamer can also check what type of object it is (door, wall, robot...). Enemies are automatically told by the PDA voice. - GPS: a global positioning system is used to get the exact positions of objectsin an area as well as the position of the avatar. A voiced menu system provides an overview of nearby objects.
- Direct orientation: using the numeric keyboard the gamer can orient the avatar directly in 8 directions (north, northeast...).
- Backpack: objects are accessed using a voiced menu system with hierarchies. Sound effects can also be attached to voices dynamically.
- Game objects: all game objects have voiced feedback and 3D sound icons (and 3D graphics!)
- Environments: 3D graphics, ambients sounds, footstep sounds on different ground materials and voiced descriptions of visual as well as other sensory input contribute to environmental feedback.
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Terraformers 
