Post by jukesy1992 in question about the windows version

Viewing post in question about the windows version

jukesy19922 years ago

Thank you. I noticed when it installed, it then autoran, so I spent some time in the how to play section. I'll get onto that in a bit, but I do have some questions first. Do you then just run the same exe again, or do you run it from the folder? Also, which exe, as I noticed an exe in the main route, and an exe in the app 1.0.1 folder as well. Also, getting back to the how to play section, the interface looks so promising, and I'll explain why in a second. But first, I'm so, so, so looking forward to this, I loved Seadship and the cyborg one, as you've seen from the comments on the cyborg arena that I posted. Although that reminds me I still need to comment on Seadship! I'll have to give it another play, it's been a while.

So, here's the thing. I'm a totally blind person, and can I just say, the how to play section impressed me so much, everything has a label, crew etc, and if that's an actual example of what the interface might render like in game, I can't wait, I'll probably start just after this post but I will have to go to bed soon, but I'll sink my teeth in proper tomorrow! If this is as promising as I hope it is, you can bet that a: the audiogames forum is going to find out about it from me, and b: there will probably even be a database entry! If I struggle with anything in the game from an accessibility/interface standpoint, I'll also let you know because this is looking really close to being accessible for blind people, possibly already though but I'm not too sure yet as I haven't started proper.

I do have one more suggestion. Can you please add a volume slider for the music, apart from the mute button, or, perhaps turn it down slightly? Because the main menu music swells at a certain point where I can't hear my screen reader, and if I mute it, I might lose hearing some other music, and I'm sure the blind community would really like to enjoy any soundscape this game has to offer. Thanks so much in advance.

John Ayliff2 years ago

Thank you so much for the comment! I did my best to make it accessible, and I tested it using a screen reader, but since I'm not used to using a screen reader it was hard for me to tell how well it worked. If you find any parts that aren't accessible, please do comment here or email me (bugs@johnayliff.com).

When you installed the game it should have made a start menu shortcut in a start menu folder called Beyond the Chiron Gate, so that's the best way to run the game. If you want to run the .exe file directly, you should run the one in the BeyondTheChironGate folder, not inside the app-1.0.1 folder.

I'll add a volume slider to my list of things to do for a future update.

jukesy19922 years ago

Hi, I'm wondering if there's a way to make the tool tips accessible. Hovering won't really be possible for a blind person. There are bits where it says graphic land and such, but I can't seem to do anything with the graphic. So, I don't know where the tool tips are located. Apart from that, I've completed a first run, I didn't reach the builders, but I'm absolutely loving this. Worth every penny spent, and I'll continue playing for sure. It's kind of hard to know what to explore at first, finding xenlog is fairly tricky.

John Ayliff2 years ago

Maybe I could add an "accessible tooltips" setting that changed the tooltips from using my custom code to using the HTML "title" attribute. Would that make them accessible to a screen reader?

Regarding the "land" graphic, it's not interactive in itself, but it goes with a link to an explorable trait and means that exploring that trait will cause the ship to land.

jukesy19922 years ago

Just so we're on the same page, could you give me an example of a tooltip? It might be accessible but I might not have known that I found one.

John Ayliff2 years ago

On this page, next to each post are "Vote up" and "Vote down" buttons. For me, they look like up and down arrows, but when I mouse over them there are tooltips saying "Vote up" and "Vote down".

jukesy19922 years ago

Aah. I don't even know that they're a tooltip, but they do say vote up and vote down when my screen reader reads them. Can you give an example of a tooltip experience in Beyond the Chiron Gate?

John Ayliff2 years ago

Sorry, I misunderstood your question, my bad.

Tooltip example in Beyond the Chiron Gate: Whenever a crew member's full name appears in the text, the name has a tooltip that displays their class, level, and any traits they have. An easy way to check this would be to start a new game and put a Pilot on your crew, then on the passage where you enter the Gate for the first time the pilot's name will appear saying they fire the manoeuvring thrusters.

jukesy19922 years ago

hm, I'm not entirely sure, although I think I can see that stuff in the crew section anyway. Is there a way to learn about the different traits? I managed to get a couple of characters to be inspired, and a couple to be depressed, if a character is depressed can that depression wear off?

John Ayliff2 years ago

In the crew section you should be able to see the skill modifier for each trait, e.g. Depressed -10%. That's all the information the interface gives, there's nothing else hidden in a tooltip. All negative traits (including Depressed) get removed one level at a time when an explorer is in the hospital. There are also events that can remove the Depressed trait, but there aren't any tooltips that tell you that, it's something you're meant to discover through play.

Tooltips never give you information you can't get somewhere else. When a crew member gets injured or acquires a new trait, there's a tooltip saying what trait that was, but you can always see which traits they all have in the crew section. When the ship gets damaged there's a tooltip telling you which system was damaged, but you can always see which systems are damaged in the ship section. When you gain data there's a tooltip telling you how much data you got, but you can always see how much data you have in the status bar. So it should be possible to play without tooltips, just less convenient.

Maybe I could add an option that makes tooltipped text into links you can select to make the tooltip appear, rather than relying on mouse-over. Do you think that would work? It would mean the passage text would always be full of inline links, though, which I guess might make for a less smooth listening experience.

On another note: I uploaded a new version yesterday that adds music volume controls.

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