Post by John Ayliff in question about the windows version

Viewing post in question about the windows version

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.

jukesy19922 years ago

hmmm, this might take a little more coding, but would also, I think, fit the game's world very well without breaking immersion. Whilst you can go to the data tab which shows the amount of data you're collecting and the types of things you're exploring, I have seriously noticed something oddly missing: the teretories aren't being charted/logged for future generations to examine or even for the ship's crew to examine. There's no summary of your adventure for you to look at as you go! So...

what about an extra tab, log? It'd briefly summarise what happened saying "<planet name>: discovered <type of anomoly>, gaining <amount of data> <data type(s)>, and summarising any crew traits? If the log gets too big, there could be a clear button if anyone thinks it's getting too large. This might also help at the end of the game withthe table before someone clicks new game they could go to the log to see a brief summary of their journey. The only thing is, I don't know what the log could say when the ship returns to bass, unless it just says <ship name> returns to Kyron bass with <amount of data> data types and <amount of crew>.

The log tab could be put just before the settings tab.

The settings lets you modify what's included in the log, clear it outright, etc, or even disable it. The log tab could have a clear button (with confirmation) as to prevent accidental clearing. The log type could be set to story or gaming. The story type would just say that they're embarking without listing levels, but will list traits. The gaming or whatever the other type is called, could list everything including exp gained. A lot more work but would provide options for everyone. Here is what the story type could look like.

<ship.name>: travelling through the Chiron gate for the <number> time, embarking for <system> with <number.of.crew crew on board.>: <job.of.person1> <name.of.person1., <job.of.person2> <name.of.person2>, <job.of.person3> <ame.of.person3>. The other type would include level, but the story type wouldn't.

When an event happens,

<name.of.explored.location>: discovered a <type.of.thing>, <tpe.of.other.thing> if another event such as a ring. <crew.member> became <trait>, or maybe <crew.member> is <trait> which might work more universally as less wordy than crew.member> became injured. <data.type> + <number>.

I also have another suggestion, but again a little more lore writing so this may take even more work, so maybe not: for the data tab, inline links for each data type with a little description for each, perhaps, although yes it's fun to imagine, I am struggling to imagine some of these things. What is a dwarf star? Alternatively, this could be put into a glossery tab so that the data tab doesn't become all weird, as the data tab looks quite good at the moment, although lots of graphics which I thought were clickable for more info. So instead of saying the name, it's saying "graphic <type.of.thing> x2" rather than just <type.of.thing> x2 or times 2or whatever it's saying. I think it's saying x2 which is also understandable. Keep in mind I'm going off memory. If you wish, I could write down some ideas as I go through my next playthrough as to what an actual log might practically look like. Part of me wonders if it might be worth putting this as a separate topic so that the sighted community can weigh in as well and we can come up with a compromise for everyone.

View more in thread

itch.io

Viewing post in question about the windows version