Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind (Full Version)

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BlindGuyNW -> Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind (6/7/2020 10:21:24 PM)

Hi All,

I wanted to write, as I've decided to purchase Shadow Empire on the off-chance I might be able to enjoy it despite being totally blind. This is not my first 4X game, and the procedural and SF elements intrigue me a great deal. Nevertheless I'm sure I'm in for a fairly complicated experience.

My screen reader is able to read most in-game text fairly well, though on occasion fonts and such might need to be adjusted to OCR better. Where I anticipate running into some trouble is with the hex map. I've not had a lot of luck dealing with these in other games, but that's largely because I don't have a great way of exploring them. Nevertheless, I'mw illing to give this a try in hopes that I can find some mechanism to do so.

I'm starting this thread as a way to discuss the way I might be able to enjoy this game. I realize it's a daunting undertaking, but would appreciate it if we could keep the negativity to a minimum. I know I'm doing something foolhardy in purchasing the game sight-unseen, quite literally, but this has paid off before and I hope can do so again.

Thus far, I am able to complete planet generation but get a bit lost at the main game screen. I get the sense that the manual, and an ability to bookmark certain parts of the UI will be invaluable.

I'd appreciate any further thoughts as I explore this game. Any tips or advice would be very much appreciated.



Jdane -> RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind (6/7/2020 10:25:52 PM)

What are your options as to how to picture in your mind the hex map?

That would be a crucial point, since the positions of units and the types of terrain are mostly what determine your choices when deciding where to move your troops. And moving troops is a big part since Shadow Empire is, at its core, a wargame, or so I think.



eddieballgame -> RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind (6/7/2020 10:34:50 PM)

Let me say, I admire your willingness to try this.
For the time being, I have nothing to offer but encouragement per your challenging task ahead.
Maybe 'Vic' can chime in & hopefully others who have some ideas can, also.
I, too, will think on what appears to an improbable & most difficult undertaking.

My first thought is navigating the many 'tabs' & can they all be voice activated.



GodwinW -> RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind (6/7/2020 10:43:25 PM)

Hotkeys:

+ ( also mouse wheel) Zoom In
- (also mouse wheel) Zoom Out
I Inspect Mode
M Move Mode
G Group Move Mode
S Strategic Move Mode
A Ranged (Artillery) Attack Mode
R Road Construct Mode
T Traffic Signs Mode
Z Zone Border Mode
V Vidcom Screen
H History Screen
N Management Screen
F1 Prefs Tab
F2 Stats Tab
F3 OOB Tab
F4 Strategic Map Tab
F5 Stratagems Tab
F6 Decisions Tab
F7 Reports Tab
F8 Mini
C Construct Asset Order
1 Show/Hide Units
2 Show/Hide Labels
3 Show/Hide AP&Stack Penalties
4 Show/Hide Hex Grid
5 Show/Hide Regime Colouring
6 Show/Hide Operational Logistics
8 Previous Unit
9 Next Unit
0 Enter Guard Mode, Leave Guard Mode
L Show/Hide Current Logistical Network
P Show/Hide Preview Logistical Network
Q Clear all Guard Modes
Escape
Returns you to Map, or if already there closes any Top
Tab that is open or if no Tab open exits the current
Order Mode and puts you in Inspect Mode.

I hope this may help somewhat.

I wish you the best of luck with it! :)



DasTactic -> RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind (6/7/2020 10:48:54 PM)

Good luck. :) I can't begin to imagine how difficult it would be for you.

If you are trying to get a handle on the hexes, you can imagine them as pretty much a grid if that helps. The coordinates are in the lower right of the screen.



BlindGuyNW -> RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind (6/7/2020 10:58:11 PM)

THanks, all, for the ideas so far. :)

The problems at the moment mostly revolve around the need to use OCR to get output from the game. It doesn't do a good job of separating the UI, I guess that's on me to bookmark important parts of the screen or try to de-clutter them as much as I can.

At the moment I can give an opening speech but am then left looking at what seems to be a list of game characters, not a map per se. I feel like the UI is easier to grok if it's seen in its entirety, not piecemeal. This isn't a surprise to me.

One thing I had wondered about was logging information. Games like this often log information about almost everything happening in one form or another, and I wondered if I might be able to get anything useful out of viewing that.

Granted, I'm not currently having a lot of success right now, but I'm hopeful and optimistic.



Malevolence -> RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind (6/8/2020 12:16:54 AM)

As a first starting point, were you always totally blind or did you become totally blind after seeing for sometime?

Jdane's question is my first thought as well. The map is just a representation. A visual representation.

If you have no experience with visual maps, then a better option is to think how best to represent the same information in another format.

Just one example would be a text based gazetteer that includes distances and directions between locations.



BlindGuyNW -> RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind (6/8/2020 12:24:05 AM)

I was born at 25 weeks, so have always been totally blind. The representation is definitely going to be an issue, but related to the game's larger issues of output format and such, more than anything, I suspect.

Honestly, one idea which comes to mind is a way for me to move a hex-cursor around the map, independent of the mouse. If I have a way to move from hex to hex I can gradually build up a feeling of what's where. Some sort of gazetteer is also an idea, of course.

I'm not sure how big the maps are in general. Are we talking about hundreds of hexes on a side, depending on the planet terrain?



GodwinW -> RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind (6/8/2020 12:27:57 AM)

Maps exist in braille though. I think feeling a dotted line representing a river next to a cluster of more dots representing a city could give a blind person the same info as a drawn river and drawn city. But that's just me assuming.
Problem is that here I think it has to be all auditory. To convert a map, braille or no, into auditory queues efficiently seems challenging. I can imagine a system where you have a set of sounds and then just scan through the map left to right top to bottom, but... no idea how feasible that is. And moving the map a little you'll need to scan again etc.

Edit: posted before your answer was visible. There's a way select hexes which gives info on what's on that (in 4-5 different levels even (owner faction, military units present or not, any buildings (= assets), terrain, item info of the region)), but there's no way for moving it other than with a mouse I think.



eddieballgame -> RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind (6/8/2020 1:39:20 AM)

This is a long shot suggestion, but maybe some form of co-op multiplayer game via email.
Working together, you could give your partner your ideas on how you want to move your troops, where to build roads, etc.



BlindGuyNW -> RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind (6/8/2020 2:10:17 AM)

Of course I'm open to playing with other people but would prefer to try to enjoy the game on my own if at all possible.

I hope that I might get some help from the developer, if only because they're most familiar with the game's internals and we can talk about ways to make the game's information available in alternate presentations. I suspect it will be easier than one might expect. In the mean-time, I will read the manual and poke at the game screens I can access as much as I can.



Malevolence -> RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind (6/8/2020 2:24:48 AM)

I think your idea of moving the selected hex with keybinds is a really good idea. Given the changes on the screen by that (and reported by your reader), it might be a good first step. Not perfect, but a good place to start.



Twotribes -> RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind (6/8/2020 2:41:13 AM)

The largest map I have seen is 129 by like 43 or 47. Average size is around 100 and around 40. There are 3 smaller maps on small planetoids moons or such.



BlindGuyNW -> RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind (6/8/2020 2:42:27 AM)

Another thought…

A lot of games have a console mode of some kind for debugging purposes. I don't know if Shadow Empire does as well, but if so I could see myself gaining information on units/map locations/etc via text commands. It strikes me that a lot of the game is statistics and numbers already, it's not a game in which I need hand-eye coordination or in which a ton of information is presented in environmental ambiance, like Skyrim et al.



BlindGuyNW -> RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind (6/8/2020 8:59:21 PM)

Hey all,

Just as a quick update, I'm continuing to poke at this. I'm hoping I can get sighted help to get me oriented and maybe help me add a few bookmarks. I was surprised to discover that the game uses typical Windows controls for at least a couple things, namely changing my leader's name and title.

At the moment I'm trying to figure out how to dismiss all the first-turn stuff and get to the map view; the "esc," key doesn't seem to be working as I thought it would. Do you always see dialog from characters and such even while the main map is open?

Thanks for any help with this. I look forward to continuing to explore.



Soar_Slitherine -> RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind (6/8/2020 9:22:39 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: BlindGuyNW
At the moment I'm trying to figure out how to dismiss all the first-turn stuff and get to the map view; the "esc," key doesn't seem to be working as I thought it would. Do you always see dialog from characters and such even while the main map is open?

After the introduction, the game will go into the main map with the Decisions menu open. This can be dismissed with Esc. The game will then display a smaller message box in the top left corner with one of your leaders giving you some advice, there does not seem to be a hotkey that closes this one, you have to minimize it with the left-arrow button to its center-right or dismiss each remaining piece of advice individually with the "Del" or "Dismiss" buttons at the bottom left of the box. After that, everything on the screen is part of the main map UI.

Edited for clarity.



Jdane -> RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind (6/8/2020 9:27:57 PM)

Aren't there first several so called video messages? (The static screens telling you "The previous leader is dead." "You're in charge." "The times is a time of bureaucracy." you must click on to pass and can watch again when going into the VID tab.)

Since I've never tried, I don't know if there's a keyboard shortcut to pass them. Let me check real quick.
Edit: Space bar does the trick.

There's some text on those screens though, so I might have been missing the point entirely. If so, apologies.

It might indeed rather be the Advice stuff Soar_Slitherine is talking about.



BlindGuyNW -> RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind (6/8/2020 9:34:38 PM)

Thanks.

I've been able to get past the video messages, but seem to be having trouble with the advice. Am I imagining things or can I not click on any of the other map tabs or do much else until that's dismissed?



Jdane -> RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind (6/8/2020 9:37:28 PM)

I couldn't tell because the very first thing I do is dismiss them.
However you can deactivate Advice by unchecking SHOW ADVICE under PREFS > General from the top right tabs, but I'm not sure if you can do that without dismissing the advice.

Edit: I'll start a new game and check real quick.



Soar_Slitherine -> RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind (6/8/2020 9:37:31 PM)

Everything is still clickable while the advice box is open.



BlindGuyNW -> RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind (6/8/2020 9:42:32 PM)

Hmmm.

Interesting, so something else must be going on with my screen reader. I'll have a look around again. I was having no luck with any of the shortcut keys, either.



Jdane -> RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind (6/8/2020 9:45:48 PM)

Indeed.

Unfortunately, deactivating Advice in the Preferences doesn't seem to have an effect before the turn is done.

If that's tripping you up, there's a button to minimize Advice that you could have somebody bookmark for you.
I don't know your screen resolution and am not sure how the user interface scales up, so I'm hesitant to provide directions for you without knowing if what works for me could work for you.

Although the shortcuts are working fine even with the Advice pop up on screen.



BlindGuyNW -> RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind (6/8/2020 10:14:57 PM)

Edit: My screen resolution is 1920x1080. :)

Okay, I finally got something new. :)

It seems it was part of the decisions screen I was seeing, not the advice after all. I was inadvertently making a decision, or a couple, and unsure how to dismiss the "confirmation," screen which came up saying that my orders were being carried out. Escape and such didn't seem to do it. But I hit escape before making my first decision and behold, a map.

I was able to pick up what seemed to be hex coordinates at some place on screen but it was a little difficult to tell where. OCR does wonderfully horrible things to tables, and other data presented in columns, which is one wreason i hope eventually to be able to break my dependence on it with some help.

I was able to click seemingly at random in inspect mode,"and get repeatedly told that I was looking at unknown landscape, and no units were selected. The hex coordinates changed, however, which indicates that I was able to succesfully move my cursor around, though I had trouble finding out much for obvious reasons.

I was recently reminded of this add-on for my screen reader. I wonder if it might be able to help me with the map while I hope for some sort of alternative representation? I've discovered from playing with previous strategy games that a lot of things are represented by specific colors, and that those colors seem to remain fairly constant.

Just a few thoughts, as always. I hope to be able ot make more substantial progress soon.



Jdane -> RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind (6/8/2020 11:15:51 PM)

One issue you will face is that information is sometimes conveyed by tool tips which appear when you mouse over some part of the screen.

Such as the cost of movement for the different types of units (e.g. foot soldiers, wheeled vehicles, tracked vehicles) through this type of terrain.
You can only read it if you mouse over an image of the terrain type of the hex which is on the very right side, just above the bottom tabs display area. There's some text just left of the image that states the terrain type and the hex coordinate.
The thing is, a tool tip in this game does not appear very quickly, the mouse cursor has to stay put about half a second for it to pop up, so that if you move around too quickly you might miss it entirely.

(And another issue is that terrain data is conveyed as a table.)

I'm not sure I understood how the add-on you linked about is operating, but it might help you get a feel to where stuff is on the screen since it seems to help you figuring boundaries, and there's a lot of data in boxes - such as the terrain picture box and the terrain type and hex coordinates box.
However terrain color varies with the planet type. On a Siwa class, plains and forest are in green hues, but on a Medusa in blue hues. On other planets it would be yellow, or tan. It might be more useful for you if it could give you a way to hear what the texture is in a hex - e.g. a plain is mostly flat and featureless, forest are a bunch of dots more or less sparse, dunes are ripples, mountains a bunch of ^s.
But the color of the user interface is always the same, so at least you'd be able to tell if a report is obstructing the map.



Soar_Slitherine -> RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind (6/8/2020 11:43:57 PM)

That add-on seems like it might be worth trying. On the main map, there's clear color differences between at least areas beyond the top or bottom edges of the map (grey), unexplored hexes (black), explored hexes in the fog of war (like the normal terrain but with lower brightness), different climate zones (lush green, arid tan, snow white, et cetera, more exotic ones for different planet types), to some extent different terrain types within a climate zone, and unit counters and cities controlled by different regimes (militia and regulars also seem to use slightly different shades of their regime's color). Following roads might be possible at least depending on terrain, dirt roads have a high contrast against, for example, lush green terrain, though low contrast against arid.



Soar_Slitherine -> RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind (6/9/2020 12:00:42 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: BlindGuyNW

It seems it was part of the decisions screen I was seeing, not the advice after all. I was inadvertently making a decision, or a couple, and unsure how to dismiss the "confirmation," screen which came up saying that my orders were being carried out. Escape and such didn't seem to do it.

This one does not seem to be dismissable with a key. It's a large pop-up box that you have to dismiss by pressing a very wide "OK" button at the bottom of the popup, slightly above were you switch between tabs for the bottom panel.



BlindGuyNW -> RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind (6/9/2020 12:20:47 AM)

Tgat explains a lot. :)

I'll have to continue to explore. As always with a lot of these games I wish I had a way to play without either using OCR or depending on someone else to read the game screen for me. I suspect that weirdness related to the way the screen reader scans/mangles things is going to be about 90% of my problems in itself.

Is there any more official way to get in touch with the developers, or is the forum pretty much it? I'd love to talk shop a bit at least about maybe adding a few more keyboard commands, but I realize this is still early days.



Dehimos -> RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind (6/9/2020 1:44:50 PM)

As far as I know, there is only one developer, "Vic". I can not post links, but on the website, "VR Designs", in the "About Us" section you have an email. You can also send him a private message through this forum, he is a moderator with the same name "Vic".

I guess he has a lot of work, but I've always seen him answer all messages. Maybe you could email him or put a message in the "Suggestions and Feedback" sub-forum.

Sorry I can't help you anymore, it's very interesting to know how you can play with accessibility tools.



Jdane -> RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind (6/9/2020 3:03:32 PM)

In case you hadn't found the address or sent a private message to Vic, it is vic@vrdesigns.net



BlindGuyNW -> RE: Enjoying Shadow Empire While Totally Blind (9/26/2020 3:54:22 PM)

Hi All,

Long time no see. I was reminded of this game again and decided to give it another try, I had previously become slightly frustrated but also distracted by other games.

I'm trying to take things one at a time. I've just emailed Vic last night, and asked for any advice he might have to offer, and have begun trying to figure out how the UI operates.

I've noticed an entry near the bottom of the game screen which often says something like "Name of my Regime, (8, 20). I presume this is a hex coordinate but am having trouble getting it to change as I move the mouse around, is it possible it only does so on click or otherwise? I did notice an "Auto mouseover," preference, but wasn't sure of its default setting.

I briefly got access to what seemed to be more detailed info about a hex, including data about roads and such, but was unsure how. The UI still seems rather opaque, but I'd appreciate any insight. I presume I'll want to explore most of the game in inspect mode, while I get familiar.

I've also noticed strange groupings of numbers and letters such as "A 99," repeated several times. I presume these are unit designations of some sort, but it's a little hard to understand what's being conveyed.

I feel like I can access all the information I'll need, I just need to get used to how it's conveyed and be rather systematic about the UI exploration.

I'd appreciate any advice



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