Rule the Waves 2 and the BLind, or, How much can I do?

[caplin]

Hi there,

I'm writing with what is probably a weird question. I am a totally blind gamer who is a fan of history, though not very familiar with the time period covered by RTW2, at least not in terms of naval detail specifically.

I'm always on the lookout for games which appear to be potentially accessible for me to play, however. RTW 2 on the surface looks as if it uses a fair number of standard Windows controls, such as lists and radio buttons and such. I'm less certain about the map, but I'm also less certain how necessary it is to actually use it. 

I've grabbed the game demo but would appreciate some thoughts from any players with more experience. Is it possible to play the game mostly using the standard controls? I don't have the luxury  of looking at battle reports or videos to determine how the game works, mechanically.

Thanks much for any thoughts.     I'm very much looking forward to exploring this, if I can. 

[akosjaccik]

Hello and welcome!

You are right, the game appears to be utilizing mostly standard Windows-controls, but because I have no experience in approaching the game from this angle, I can't tell you much for certain. My guess would be that the two main bottleneck for Rule the Waves would be the maps: one strategic, and one battle-map. The strategic map, while it contains useful data mostly regarding ports and force distribution of the states, is probably such so you can do without it, mostly because you can issue movement orders from your standard "Ships in service" list. Not as comfortable as the map, but still doable. It's also possible to play on smaller, more manageable game sizes and with nations that don't need to utilize the map particularly much.

The big issue, as far as I can think of it, would be the battle map. There is, to my knowledge, no real workaround to this as while you do have an order of battle, which lists your ships and you can set your speed and course on a standard, windows-style control panel, the text reports don't deal with headings for example, and it's just probably a rather steep hill to command on the tactical map without visual feedback, if at all possible. Especially once you get aircraft. Auto-resolving your engagements is generally not possible as of now.

I'd still urge you to explore the demo version, and even if for example the battles themselves prove to be an issue. You can perhaps team up with another player and by sending them the save files at the end of each turn, you can esentially delegate your battles to someone who will then refer back to you about the results.

Once again however, despite my best intentions, I can't guarantee that I assessed the situation right, so hopefully we'll get more opinions as well.

[nimrod]

Caplin,

Welcome!

Please forgive the block of text, I'm not sure how to cut it down and I'm hopeful that you are using text to speech software.

The game is what I call an excel spreadsheet game. Mostly lists, buttons and other standard Windows controls. For those close to or totally blind, there is I think too many visually dependent control elements to make it worthwhile. I'm not sure on the current state of screen reading software or other technology for the totally blind computer users, but the lack of documented key-bindings would tell me it is a no-go. Using JAWS or other software, you might be able to make it work. But a lot will depend on your determination to do so. I would heavily recommend trying to navigate through the demo you downloaded and see how frustrating it is for you before trying to play through the demo. Japan is a bit easier than Great Britain due to the lower number of colonies in other sea zones. 

Getting to your other questions.

Right off the bat I'll address the tactical battle map, Tortuga came up with a battle simulator to get around the tactical battle map it can be located at: nws-online.proboards.com/thread/4284/testers-needed-tortugas-resolve-simulator. However, you have to exit the program run the simulator and then reload the save game - this is done every turn you are at war and it can get annoying to some players. However, for a dedicated player it can be worthwhile.

I've gone through a few wars without using the strategic map, as the movement and building functions are handled in other windows but game-play will be slower and more awkward. More than once I've had to google a location that I am thinking of acquiring at the end of a war, because I wasn't sure where it was and didn't want to get a territory in a new sea zone. Additionally frustrating is the lack of being able to asses enemy strengths in a sea zone. You can asses overall enemy strengths in the almanac, but not regional strengths. My screen resolution was such that the strategic map wouldn't show the force assessment button, but it didn't stop me from playing 30 years before I figured out I was missing a button.

You can have the computer piece together a ship design and then you tweak it as your abilities allow.

As noted: Tortuga came up with a battle simulator to get around the tactical battle map it can be located at: nws-online.proboards.com/thread/4284/testers-needed-tortugas-resolve-simulator.

Austria Hungry and Italy are pretty much limited to the Mediterranean sea, so they don't require moving ships out from the home area unless you want to do so or acquire colonies out side of the Mediterranean.

In short, I think the game could be played by some people in the legally blind area. As you are totally blind, than I'm not sure how your text to speech or other software will interact with the game and as such, a big issue would be the lack of documented key-bindings for game functions - their are precious few that I've seen documented. The maps shouldn't stop you.

I hope you are able to enjoy the game and expand your knowledge of history.

[caplin]

Hey,

I appreciate the insights from both of you. :-) As it happens, my work is in accessibility testing, and so I am very familiar with screen reading programs and how to use them. I have experimented briefly, and I am currently fairly optimistic. My main questions are about the opening screens.

I am able to see some elements with OCR, but I’m a little unclear as to what is supposed to be going on. I at one point managed to select Japan by clicking seemingly at random. I assume that in this case I am selecting the country from the map, or some such thing. any info on what exactly is happening here at the UI level would be appreciated.

Once I got into the game, the actual turn display was very straightforward. The biggest issue is a lack of what we call labels in the accessibility field, that is, it was hard to tell which areas of interest I was adjusting the intelligence priorities for. I assume they correspond to regions of the world, but that was not made explicit.

I am fairly hopeful that things will be smoother sailing once I understand a bit more of what is going on. I would just appreciate a little bit of guidance on the initial stages, particularly in selecting a nation and so forth. I am aware that the demo is limited to two, but I’m having trouble figuring out how to reliably select one or the other.
Thank you very much for any clarifications and further advice.

[nimrod]

Hi Caplin,

I don't have the game in front of me - am away from my home at the moment. So I am going from memory, in the event that I am wrong I trust somebody will correct me.

In the demo, you have on startup the option of choosing Great Britain or Japan. Both countries I believe are buttons a little above the bottom of the screen. I believe Great Britain is on the left and Japan is more towards the center but still a little on the left side of the screen. The full version I believe displays a map of Europe with the playable countries buttons on the map and Japan and the United States are buttons below the map.

Intelligence will be directed to specific countries. Playing as Japan I believe it is going from left to right: Germany, Great Britain, France, Russia, United States of America and then Italy. Playing as Great Britain I believe it is Germany, France, Russia, United States of America, Japan and then Italy. The order might be different in the demo. Intelligence will provide details on their ships and aircraft, what your officers think might be in a battle and provides an opportunity to steal their technology.

The buttons for Resign, Save, End Turn are in that order on the right about one eighth to one sixth of the way up the screen.

[caplin]

Hey,

I'm starting to grasp the basics of the UI, even if I think that a lot of information is displayed either iconically or perhaps using a font that my screen reader cannot detect. It's a little hard to tell which.

I feel like a lot of the data I need is here, particularly in the many lists and tables. The challenge is figuring out what I ought to be doing with it, which is probably a common concern. The design screen is very confusing without reasonable accessibility labels, because i have little enough idea what the various boxes, radio buttons, and so forth are manipulating. I suspect this is something I Can learn with practice, but it's also something which is relatively easy to fix, development-wise.

A lot of the issue I run into is that elements like tension, for instance, are not displayed in a form my screen reader can understand. I'm sure they're stored numerically, but it isn't being read. So it's hard to know what choice to make in events because I can't tell much about the current world situation.

I went ahead and purchased the game in hopes of supporting a developer of indie titles, and I still hope I can make something of this. It's just going to take a concerted effort on my part and will be a little confusing.

One thing which is worth a try for people interested is trying to navigate the game screens using tab and shift tab. So far most elements outside the opening screens appear to be reachable, which is a good beginning. I'm playing the game using the NVDA screen reader, which is freely available and works fairly well most of the time.

[caplin]

I’d love to engage more directly with the development team about ways to make the experience of this game a little more pleasant for me. If anybody is interested in such a thing, please reach out, I’m more than happy to talk and offer what input I can. It would be in the first game of its kind to be accessible, and I hope that something can be done to make it so.

[Adseria]

If I could make a suggestion regarding difficulties with playing battles, when you get that far, tortugapower was working on an autoresolve mod for RTW1, which would at least circumvent the need to fight battles manually. As far as I know, he hasn't updated it for RTW2 yet, which is why I've linked him in this post.

[caplin]

HEy,

I did briefly mess around with the fleet exercise option and can definitely see why it's a little difficult to work with. I have no obvious way to know where land is, which makes setting courses difficult. I ran into similar problems with the Harpoon series of modern naval simulations, which I've tried due to a soft spot for the works of Tom Clancy.

I wonder if it is possible to update that auto resolve mod for RTW 2 ? I wonder what the "Allow AI to control your entire force," or similarly-worded option in preferences does.

Sadly I'm away from my gaming setup for the next few days, but I'll be happy to answer questions or discuss options in the meantime.

[caplin]

I'm looking forward to diving into this now that I'm back to my setup. I believe that with the exception of battles I can probably do most of what I'll need to with some patience.

Is there a better way to engage with the developer about accessibility specifics? I can probably walk them through a lot of what would be needful for a smoother experience, and I believe the work required would be fairly small, mostly ensuring that controls are labeled and that information is not conveyed by graphics or other unreadable symbols.