Touch Screens in the field of enabling disabled people are no new thing. Brilliant Computing, formed by Nick Pronger and Rod Boyes in 1986 were pioneers in this field. They published many games and activities, many aimed at some of the most severely disabled people in the UK, enabled using BBC Micro's with Microvitec touch screens and other alternative access methods. These days, with it possible to buy iPads and PCs with touch screens from standard computer shops, life is easier still.
Inclusive Technology stock one of the nicest PC touch screens I've seen in their One Touch package. They back this up with some lovely free on-line activities in Help Kidz Learn. Latest is the doodle with colour activity Hidden Grid.
This reminds me of Llamasoft's wonderful light-synthesisers of years gone by, Psychedelia and Colour Space. I used to set these up for people in a Sensory Room on big TV with a mirror box to boost the effect, controlled using switches or a big floppy joystick.
I'm rambling a bit here I realise. Whilst researching a bit more about pioneers of accessible gaming, I stumbled upon another really nice on-line touch-screen compatible activity page: Philip Whittaker's Moving Targets page. Another great tracking and cause and effect area.
The Music Gym have uploaded a guide on how to get Buzz controllers functioning on a PC using JoyToKey. These push buttons come as ridiculously cheap wired versions, or more expensive wireless versions. eBay's probably the cheapest place to find these.
They give some really good tips for mounting these controllers, and for being creative with them too. Love that they've including two of my favourite one-switch accessible activities, Tink and Ambio-mat. Excellent!
Added to the DIY section and discovered at the Accessible GameBase.
Very splendid to see the IGDA's GASIG (Game Accessibility Special Interest Group) get a new and active Forum. It's free to join and all are welcome no matter what your level of experience.
And to balance that, other game accessibility related forums do exist. Plus I always like to pop by RetroRemakes, which is a great place of support for indie developers.
Really great news popped up in my inbox yesterday regarding Hans Smith one-man charm offensive to make one of his favourite PS3 games more accessible.
I could rabbit on here, but I'll simply pop you onto the first source of the news, GayGamer.net's excellent article on Sony's MLB11: The Show, so you can read it as fresh as I did.
Link via Sheri Rubin (with thanks!)
Great to see local dance outfit "Dance 21" get three golds from the judges on national TV dance competition "Got To Dance" on their own merits. Essex is proud!
Update: Many thanks to Mary of Dance 21 for sending me the full clip from the show, now posted at the top. Still brilliant.
Excitim have released more superb looking switch accessible gadgets very recently. A very fine looking mini ghetto-blaster for those wanting a simple switch accessible music CD player.Very nice too, is their 10 mega-pixel Canon digital camera. They've found a really elegant solution for switch access via the USB socket. Would be great if Canon would keep this as a standard way of taking photos using a single click method.
Games programmer, John Adams, has recently released three on-line switch games, under the banner "One Switch Games" (nothing to do with OneSwitch.org.uk). They are...
Frosty the Snowman - Slow paced game, putting you as a snowman constantly walking from left to right, where you have to jump over sometimes unfairly placed objects.
Turtle Crossing - A 3D version of Nintendo's ancient Turtle Bridge game, but much easier. Keep an eye on the fish for an idea of when a turtle may dive.
Filberts Food Fenzy - A targeting game based on the even more ancient Gremlin/SEGA game Frogs.
You can comment on these games at the Unity forums, to give John advice, thoughts and encourgement.
