Playing By Ear-from Game Developer Magazine

Annotated Bibliography
The idea behind "Playing By Ear" is to create a video game for blind people. One that can be played completely by listening for audio cues. The author details ideas such as creating halls that emit sound or 3-D audio that gives you a sense of where something is in space. There are certainly challenges to creating a game like this, but in the end some of the features can make game play accessible for non-sighted people and improve game play for those with sight.

My Thoughts
This is an interesting idea, but it makes me wonder what conditions the game could be played in. It would seem to lend itself to a mobile device like an MP3 player, but since you have to be able to hear nuances in sound you wouldn't want the noise of traffic or a train interrupting the game. I wonder if this might lower the age range of gamers. Young children could play the game without having to read. Also, I know that a large majority of legally blind people have some sight or light sensitivity, which is why you often see blind people wearing sunglasses, but not enough that they are able to make out anything with details. I wonder if you could add a more basic sight aspect to the game, something with large blocks of black or white or something like that that gives visual cues. This is also a large concern with website design. Designing for accessibility may soon become a law for large corporate websites.