Blind Gamer's Introduction

[Alensin]

Hi All,

Just wanted to write and introduce myself. I'm a young tabletop gamer from the Northwestern US. I've never had much luck with maps of any sort, because I happen to be totally blind. Nevertheless, I have a strong interest in sandbox-style adventuring, particularly to try and recreate the feel of open-world video games, which are even less accessible to me than visual maps are.

I love most genres, though have a soft spot for sword and sorcery-style fantasy, and the lovely and strange world of Glorantha. I wish I could see the maps in the new Guide to Glorantha which just came out, I'm told they're excellent.

I'll probably be starting up a topic soon with some more specific questions. Looking forward to some insightful discussion here.

[wdmartin]

Welcome.

It would be an interesting project to try and make a tactile map of a fantasy world. You'd need a 3D printer, but it could certainly be done.

How's the accessibility of the Cartographers Guild forums? I've never tried them with a screen reader.

[Alensin]

Thanks for the welcome. The forum is quite accessible, though I've only looked around a little bit here and there.

As to your idea of a 3D-printed map, that's definitely interesting. I have no experience with such things, but I imagine a lot could be done. I have a 3D-printedBraille d20 sitting here next to me, and it's lovely.
The only maps I have real exposure to are Braille world atlas-style offerings, and the occasional diagram of, say, a university campus. Another notion to consider is touchscreen-based maps—Apple has done a lot to make their own offering in that area very accessible. But this is rapidly straying from a mere introduction. I definitely appreciate the welcome.

[Larb]

I once read on someone's blog somewhere about a physical "map" through a pitch black dungeon maze they had made. It was a piece of wood with notches in it the shape of which told you whether the next turn was left, right, or straight on, or whether a trap was ahead. I thought it was really interesting.

[Chick]

Have you noticed this - a 3D talking map: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...cienceDaily%29

[Alensin]

That's fascinating, actually, but also kind of impractical for people outside of big institutions, I'm afraid. I'd need to see a working model. It sounds promising and expensive in equal measure. Thanks for passing it on.

[slidedog]

Hadn't thought about this enough. I've been trying to develop something like that for the National Park Service, the real problem was their requirement that it last for years outdoors and not be prohibitively expensive, a very sticky problem. Maybe I can take all the R&D I've done for that and apply it to the gaming world. A very interesting idea that I need to explore. I'll let you know if any good ideas come from it.

[Jaxilon]

Welcome and now I can't stop thinking about how to make a map literally speak. I might have to come up with something.

[madcowchef]

Seems possible to use characters to make an image like an old ascii drawing, with a key for what each means. The ascii method would be most effective if the map maker knew something about which symbols where easier to make out from each other when presented in bulk like that. Blank spaces around numbers for the cities with the city details in the key next to the number. Would that work in conjunction with a braille printer?

[Alensin]

In theory, yeah. I play rogue like computer games, mostly using speech though. Braille anything is expensive, and Braille printers can easily cost hundreds if not thousands. I might be able to get one eventually, but not right now.

Something I think is worth investigating is the potential for touchscreens. I actually had some fun with this a while back—I am a fan of the SF game Traveller, and I got some help creating a touchscreen-based map for a few sectors of space. See here. The way this works is that I can use my iPad to view that page and move my finger around the hexes to get an idea for relative positioning.