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Speaker 1: Here we go.

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Speaker 2: This is a racing game called for it's a motorsport.

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Speaker 2: Aside from the sound effects from the driving, you might

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Speaker 2: also notice those beaps. Brandon Cole is completely blind, and

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Speaker 2: this is how he plays the game.

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Speaker 1: Going to the last turn.

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Speaker 2: Decide that the beeps are on, and also the pitch

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Speaker 2: and the intensity gives an information on everything from where

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Speaker 2: he is on the track, whether or not he's too

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Speaker 2: close to the wall, to how sharp the next turn is.

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Speaker 1: I'm so glad I was able to do that turn.

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Speaker 1: That's actually a very difficult turn.

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Speaker 3: Oh that's why thirty year actually every count fifteen point

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Speaker 3: two six five seconds.

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Speaker 2: Brandon Cole passed away last year, but he wasn't just

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Speaker 2: a gamer. He was also a consultant on this game.

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Speaker 2: And this is him demonstrating the game on his YouTube channel.

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Speaker 1: But just rewind that rewinding. I want to show you this.

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Speaker 4: Rewind done.

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Speaker 3: I want to show you that because the blind drivings,

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Speaker 3: sounds play while you're rewinding.

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Speaker 2: If we're talking about racing games, there is a before

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Speaker 2: Fortsa and an after Fortza. Before this game came out,

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Speaker 2: it wasn't possible really for a blind person to play

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Speaker 2: racing games.

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Speaker 4: But now they can.

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Speaker 3: Hey, other blind person, I offer you control. I offer

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Speaker 3: you the opportunity to get into a vehicle of your choice,

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Speaker 3: pick the track of your choice, and once you're on

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Speaker 3: that track, the ability to drive it yourself, to take

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Speaker 3: those turns at high speeds yourself.

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Speaker 1: This is your road.

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Speaker 4: Now, Welcome to Forza.

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Speaker 2: Forts of the game was put out by Microsoft, but

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Speaker 2: the technology that made those blind accessibility features possible actually

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Speaker 2: came from a small research lab in New York led

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Speaker 2: by a professor named brad Ian Smith.

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Speaker 4: When we first.

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Speaker 2: Spoke, it was early mid twenty twenty, I think, and

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Speaker 2: you were telling me about this experimental thing that your

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Speaker 2: lab had come up with where blind people could play

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Speaker 2: a racing game, and you were very confident you were

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Speaker 2: going to get in the game. I don't know if

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Speaker 2: I was as confident.

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Speaker 5: Because it sounded great, but I maybe I was just

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Speaker 5: pessimistic about the good front. But yeah, but you know,

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Speaker 5: I mean I think it was more than like, Okay,

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Speaker 5: this sounds amazing, but the step is for a game

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Speaker 5: company needs to adopt this thing.

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Speaker 4: But it happened.

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Speaker 2: Brian is an assistant professor of computer science at Columbia

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Speaker 2: University and he's the head of a lab called Seal

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Speaker 2: that helped make the first blind accessible Triple A racing game.

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Speaker 6: What we're most known for is our work in assiste

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Speaker 6: of technology, in particular technology for people who are blind

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Speaker 6: or low vision.

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Speaker 2: Their work goes beyond Fortza, and it goes beyond video games.

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Speaker 6: Video games are but one example of a visual experience.

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Speaker 6: By figuring out how we can enable that fundamental ability

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Speaker 6: to perceive an image or a screen, we can actually

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Speaker 6: unlock not only access to video games, but all sorts

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Speaker 6: of visual experiences in daily life.

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Speaker 2: I'm afraid from Kaleidoscope and iHeart podcasts.

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Speaker 4: This is kill Switch. I'm Dexor Thomas.

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Speaker 1: I'm sall right, good guy.

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Speaker 2: How did you become interested in how blind people play

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Speaker 2: video games?

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Speaker 1: It all started with a YouTube video that I actually

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Speaker 1: encountered while I was a PhD student. It was a

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Speaker 1: video of a blind person by the name of Terry Garrett.

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Speaker 1: He was playing a game.

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Speaker 6: Called The Legend of Zelda Ocher Enough Time, which is

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Speaker 6: a classic Zelda adventure game that I remember playing as

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Speaker 6: a kid as well. Yeah, the interesting thing about Terry

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Speaker 6: Garrett was that he wasn't blind his entire life, like

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Speaker 6: he actually grew up as a little kid playing that

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Speaker 6: game and then later lost his vision, and as soon

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Speaker 6: as he lost his vision, he almost got shut out

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Speaker 6: of video games completely.

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Speaker 1: For years, the only things he could play was some

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Speaker 1: games that he could find online would were called audio games,

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Speaker 1: which were games specifically designed for people who are blind

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Speaker 1: that are audio only.

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Speaker 6: You know, in a lot of ways, they're very distilled

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Speaker 6: experiences compared to what sited players would be able to play.

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Speaker 1: So one day Terry decided to pick up Zelda again

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Speaker 1: and say, though, I want to play this game.

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Speaker 6: And I'm going to do it no matter what. And

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Speaker 6: it took a whole bunch of trial and error. He'd

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Speaker 6: do a whole bunch of like hacks that he figured out. So,

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Speaker 6: for example, he would walk around a room and whack

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Speaker 6: the walls with his sword again and again and again

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Speaker 6: until he heard a different kind of clinking noise which

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Speaker 6: told him like, oh, that's the door instead of the

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Speaker 6: rest of the wall, and so that's how I might

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Speaker 6: get into this room.

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Speaker 1: There he'd memorize a whole bunch of details, and.

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Speaker 6: That really landed for me because like it showed me,

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Speaker 6: here's something that i'd take for granted. These video game experiences, right,

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Speaker 6: and there are a lot of people who go through

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Speaker 6: so much effort just to have some semblance of that experience.

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Speaker 1: Like I was you know, I was floored.

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Speaker 6: I was amazed, But at the same time I felt pain.

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Speaker 6: I felt like, wow, like this is not a good

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Speaker 6: state of affairs right now. We've got to do better

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Speaker 6: than this.

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Speaker 1: This isn't right.

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Speaker 6: And that motivated me as like, Okay, here's a place

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Speaker 6: where just rethinking.

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Speaker 1: How we're designing these games, these computer systems.

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Speaker 6: Really can really enable people to have new types of

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Speaker 6: meaningful experiences.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what, We've gotten to the point where

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Speaker 2: we've legitimately got cars that drive themselves. And when there's

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Speaker 2: a kid who wants to play a videome, or an

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Speaker 2: adult for that matter, who wants to play a video

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Speaker 2: game who can't see the screen, we sort of shrug

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Speaker 2: our shoulders, I think, collectively, and say, you're asking a

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Speaker 2: little bit too much, buddy.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.

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Speaker 2: And you said no, you said no, I don't think

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Speaker 2: you are that's right. There are more games out now

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Speaker 2: that have accessibility features for blind and low vision players, like,

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Speaker 2: for example, there's SPORTSA and there's also the last of

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Speaker 2: Us too, which we mentioned in the last episode. But

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Speaker 2: that's a handful of games out of well a lot

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Speaker 2: of video games, and it's probably not fair to compare

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Speaker 2: the big blockbuster games to the smaller independent games, but

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Speaker 2: they do have something in common. Most games, especially the

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Speaker 2: blockbuster ones, the Triple A games what we call them,

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Speaker 2: are a lot further behind than they could be in

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Speaker 2: terms of blind accessibility and accessibility in general.

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Speaker 6: Most mainstream games, the kinds of games you'd buy on

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Speaker 6: Steam or Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, are barely accessible to people

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Speaker 6: with disabilities. That includes people who are blind to low vision,

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Speaker 6: people who are deaf or hard of hearing, people with

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Speaker 6: motor impairments, people who have a hard time like mashing

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Speaker 6: buttons or pressing too many buttons too quickly.

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Speaker 1: In sequence, that's the current state of things.

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Speaker 2: Game companies are starting to take accessibility more seriously. Some

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Speaker 2: of this stuff seems kind of obvious, like the ability

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Speaker 2: to make text larger, or the ability to switch to

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Speaker 2: a color blind mode, or an option to read out

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Speaker 2: the text on the screen. But in order for a

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Speaker 2: blind or a low vision player to be able to

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Speaker 2: truly experience a video game, and anything close to the

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Speaker 2: way that say, I experience it, that game needs to

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Speaker 2: be built with that player's experience in mind from the start.

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Speaker 2: But unfortunately, the industry standard right now is to essentially

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Speaker 2: dumb down the game for that player.

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Speaker 6: Oftentimes, the basic approach to accessibility is just to make

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Speaker 6: the game a little bit easier that actually take away

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Speaker 6: agency and choice from the player. So, for example, they're

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Speaker 6: video games that have accessibility features that allow players to

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Speaker 6: skip different sections or find items faster, but they do

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Speaker 6: so in a way that almost plays the game for

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Speaker 6: the player, like, oh, you can't really see the path ahead,

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Speaker 6: you can't really see the image.

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Speaker 1: Well, we'll press this button and I'll just warp you there.

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Speaker 6: And that form of accessibility does not offer players the

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Speaker 6: same type of experience, and that's the more challenging type

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Speaker 6: of accessibility problem.

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Speaker 2: To solve this type of accessibility of making the game

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Speaker 2: easier to play and taking away some of the agency

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Speaker 2: of the player. You can even see that in the

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Speaker 2: Last of Us, and this is the game that's arguably

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Speaker 2: gotten the most positive attention for their accessibility features.

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Speaker 7: What The Last of Us does is you can hold

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Speaker 7: a button to automatically move your character to the next

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Speaker 7: waypoint to the next object of interest.

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Speaker 2: Vishnudnair is a research engineer and he was a PhD

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Speaker 2: student in Brian's lab, which started as just the two

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Speaker 2: of them working on video game accessibility technology.

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Speaker 7: A lot of the players that we talked to called

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Speaker 7: it the golden path. That's all it does. We refer

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Speaker 7: to it as guidance. These are guidance based systems and

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Speaker 7: that's all they do. It's like you're taking their hand

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Speaker 7: and dragging them wherever, and that's not great for independence.

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Speaker 7: And it's that independence and autonomy, that ability to make

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Speaker 7: decisions on what I want to do, Which do I

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Speaker 7: want to turn that corner and maybe find a treasure

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Speaker 7: chest or if I turn that corner, maybe I'll encounter

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Speaker 7: a very powerful enemy and die. You know, making those

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Speaker 7: decisions and facing those consequences is like the most important

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Speaker 7: part of having fun, and being guided doesn't allow you

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Speaker 7: to have those experiences.

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Speaker 2: This Golden Path will basically walk you from point to

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Speaker 2: point in the game, basically just getting into the next

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Speaker 2: spot to keep the story moving. It is well intentioned,

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Speaker 2: but it doesn't give blind players the same experience as

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Speaker 2: a sided player. This is gonna sound weird, but it

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Speaker 2: turns out that letting a blind player drive a race

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Speaker 2: car is relatively pretty easy. What's hard is letting that

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Speaker 2: blind player get out the race car and just walk around.

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Speaker 4: But Brian and Vishnu think they got to figure it out.

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Speaker 2: That's after the break. So let's go back to Terry Garrett.

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Speaker 2: That's the blind gamer who be Zelda sixty four. The

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Speaker 2: way he navigated the game was by going up to

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Speaker 2: a wall and hitting it with his sword, and based

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Speaker 2: on the sounds that he heard as he went down

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Speaker 2: the wall hitting it, he could tell if that was

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Speaker 2: just part of a normal wall, or maybe a door

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Speaker 2: or a secret passageway. This was a really clever workaround

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Speaker 2: for a game that was not meant to be blind accessible. Nowadays,

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Speaker 2: we have games that are developed with blind accessibility in mind.

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Speaker 2: They incorporate what Vishnu might call that golden path. So

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Speaker 2: what Terry was having to do was definitely tedious, and

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Speaker 2: a golden path approach is way more efficient. That sounds great,

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Speaker 2: but let's step back for a second. Does more efficiency

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Speaker 2: actually equal fun?

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Speaker 6: You can imagine a game like Zelda right where we

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Speaker 6: have the main character Link and around Link might be

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Speaker 6: a ladder to a second floor, and then a door

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Speaker 6: into another room, and then a treasure chest or some

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Speaker 6: bushes that you can cut for rupees the game's currency,

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Speaker 6: et cetera.

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Speaker 1: Objects around link at any given time, and.

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Speaker 6: As a cited person, we can just move the camera around,

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Speaker 6: look around, see what those things are, figure out which

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Speaker 6: way we want to go, what we want to do next.

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Speaker 1: But as a blind person, that experience is very different.

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Speaker 6: Even with some of the cutting edge accessibility features that

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Speaker 6: are out there in games right now, the way that

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Speaker 6: that experience would play out is the blind player might

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Speaker 6: like press a button to just open a menu that

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Speaker 6: reads out the objects around them, so it might say door, ladder,

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Speaker 6: treasure chest, bush, whatever, like that's it. It's just a

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Speaker 6: linear menu, and oftentimes that menu kind of waters down

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Speaker 6: the experience of looking around and exploring. So, for example,

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Speaker 6: if the whole point is to find like a small

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Speaker 6: key hidden somewhere in some nook or cranny that might

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Speaker 6: unlock a door on another side of the dungeon, if

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Speaker 6: you pulled up the menu and the menu just said

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Speaker 6: small key, it kind of spoil the.

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Speaker 2: Surprise, right, yeah, yeah, you not playing a game. It's

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Speaker 2: like you're on a guided tour.

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Speaker 6: Exactly exactly, and so that experience of like exploration and

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Speaker 6: discovery is missing from those current accessibility tools.

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Speaker 2: But how do you define that experience? So this is

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Speaker 2: gonna sound totally unhinged, but hear me out. There's this

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Speaker 2: YouTuber who has this series where he goes to what

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Speaker 2: he calls unremarkable and odd places in Zelda, like places

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Speaker 2: where you just go and there's a couple of rocks

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Speaker 2: near a river or something. Has nothing to do with

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Speaker 2: the progressing of the game. There's no mission critical item there.

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Speaker 2: It's just a river and some rocks. And one of

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Speaker 2: his videos has three hundred thousand views, and people in

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Speaker 2: the comments are saying, yeah, I remember that spot.

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Speaker 4: I love that spot. I like hanging out at that spot.

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Speaker 2: So how do we give blind people the closest thing

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Speaker 2: to getting a game and exploring, not accomplishing things, not

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Speaker 2: checking stuff off of a checklist, but playing the game

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Speaker 2: on your own terms. Brian in his last are taking

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Speaker 2: this question very seriously, and they published two papers on

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Speaker 2: applications that facilitate precisely this ability. One application is called

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Speaker 2: navstick and the other it's called Surveyor.

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Speaker 6: So both Navstick and Surveyor are about making three D

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Speaker 6: adventure games more meaningfully accessible to blind players. So what

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Speaker 6: vish news work was really about was what's important to

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Speaker 6: the experience of exploration and discovery? When cited people are

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Speaker 6: playing Zelda? What do they do at one moment in

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Speaker 6: time the next moment of time, How are they having fun?

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Speaker 6: What choices are they making at any moment in time,

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Speaker 6: and like, what information are they exploring to figure that out?

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Speaker 6: And now, how can we make that process of exploration

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Speaker 6: and discovery more meaningfully accessible?

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Speaker 2: The first step was figuring out how a blind player

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Speaker 2: could explore their immediate surroundings so that they could understand

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Speaker 2: what choices they had without just doing something for them

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Speaker 2: or telling them where the thing that they were looking

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Speaker 2: for was.

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Speaker 7: We were like, okay, a person kind of rotates their

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Speaker 7: head all around them to look around themselves and get

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Speaker 7: a map of what's imediately around them. How do we

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Speaker 7: give that ability to someone with blindness? And so that

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Speaker 7: was where navstick came along, where it was really simple.

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Speaker 7: We just repurposed the right thumbstick on the standard game controller,

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Speaker 7: and all you have to do is just point the

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Speaker 7: right thumbstick in some direction and whatever lies in that direction.

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Speaker 7: The game's going to tell you that was it.

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Speaker 2: So I tried navstick and it's really intuitive. Basically, you

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Speaker 2: move your right thumbstick around and whatever you pointed at,

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Speaker 2: a voice plays and tells you.

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Speaker 4: What it is. Clean, Red Dirk Chocolate, Chocolate, Chippickies Better.

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Speaker 2: This is a clip of Vishnu demonstrating navstick in a

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Speaker 2: virtual grocery store setting. You can hear the sound of

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Speaker 2: the voice moving around depending on where the item is

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Speaker 2: in relationship to you.

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Speaker 7: Christians Coffee Grounds, Dirk Chuck. We actually created an entire

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Speaker 7: video game to test this, and everyone loved it. What

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Speaker 7: was amazing was that, you know, we had we put

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Speaker 7: in all these levels. All these levels had like different

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Speaker 7: trees and enemies that they had to shoot using a

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Speaker 7: laser gun. Every participant completed every level of that game,

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Speaker 7: no matter how complex it got. And what we found

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Speaker 7: was that everyone crapped at different strategies to get through

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Speaker 7: those levels. Maybe they went this way to the left

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Speaker 7: and defeated a few enemies to get to the finish line,

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Speaker 7: or maybe they just barrel straight through. They were able

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Speaker 7: to make those decisions and everyone said that, oh, this

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Speaker 7: is like just so much more fun than using like

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Speaker 7: a menu for instance, and just being told where to go,

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Speaker 7: I was able to like actually feel like I was

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Speaker 7: playing the game.

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Speaker 2: This is a pretty simple application, but it's very powerful.

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Speaker 2: So I've tried doing the thing where you close your

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Speaker 2: eyes and make a mental map of your surroundings and listen, man,

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Speaker 2: I suck at it. This is something that blind people

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Speaker 2: are usually very good at because because they have to be,

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Speaker 2: but it can even for them get kind of taxing.

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Speaker 2: Navstick means that you don't have to memorize a brand

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Speaker 2: new area when you first go to it. You can

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Speaker 2: check where you're at right then. But for a full

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Speaker 2: three D game, especially a big game, napstick is just

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Speaker 2: one part of that equation.

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Speaker 7: The question beyond navstick is how do we allow a

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Speaker 7: blind user to experience a larger area. You have this

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Speaker 7: entire dungeon that you have to explore. How do you

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Speaker 7: handle that? How do you break away from that guidance

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Speaker 7: paradigm where it's like you're leading a person by the

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Speaker 7: hand and leading them to the treasure chest. In game

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Speaker 7: design theory, discovery is one of the main elements of

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Speaker 7: video games that are important for a good experience, and

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Speaker 7: so how do we facilitate that, and so we create

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Speaker 7: this entire system Surveyor where they would use navstick, but

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Speaker 7: in addition to navstick, we help keep a law of

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Speaker 7: where they've been. Basically, if you were to take an

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Speaker 7: overhead view of a dungeon and you color in the

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Speaker 7: places where the person has been, the point is you

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Speaker 7: want to bring a user to the edge of the

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Speaker 7: area those borders between where they have explored and where

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Speaker 7: they haven't explored. That's what we did with Surveyor, where

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Speaker 7: effectively it would say, okay, about fifty feet away, there

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Speaker 7: is an unexplored area, and if you select this, you'll

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Speaker 7: be guided there. And once you reach that unknown the

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Speaker 7: guidance cuts off and you're left using knapstick to look

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Speaker 7: around that area.

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Speaker 2: Oh so, it's kind of like fast traveling a game. Exactly,

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Speaker 2: I've already explored this part. Don't make me run across

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Speaker 2: a field for twenty minutes. I've already been here, I've

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Speaker 2: completed this area of the game. Let me get back

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Speaker 2: to the town. Cool, and it takes you to the

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Speaker 2: edge of where you've been, drops you off there and says, okay, figure.

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Speaker 7: It out exactly exactly, and that's what promotes that sense

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Speaker 7: of autonomy. That's what promotes that sense of discovery. What

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Speaker 7: we're trying to do is, Okay, we don't need to

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Speaker 7: confine the player anymore, right if we can just open

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Speaker 7: it up, just take something like Tiers of the Kingdom

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Speaker 7: and put a player with surveyor in it. Can they

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Speaker 7: just explore that area, these cities, these little dungeons and

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Speaker 7: all that.

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Speaker 2: Zelda Breath of the Wild and its sequel, Tiers of

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Speaker 2: the Kingdom are two of the biggest open world games

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Speaker 2: that are out right now. They're really popular, and it's

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Speaker 2: not just because they're good, but because they're really approachable.

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Speaker 2: I have friends who don't play a whole lot of

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Speaker 2: video games, but you know, they'll turn on the switch,

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Speaker 2: They'll jump in Zelda, They'll go run around in a forest,

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Speaker 2: not even fighting enemies, just having fun. Zelda Tears of

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Speaker 2: the Kingdom. You think you could put this onto a

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Speaker 2: Zelda Breath of the Wild type game and people be

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Speaker 2: able to play it.

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Speaker 7: Perhaps, I mean, they are obviously going to be some

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Speaker 7: design decisions that to be made, But in my defense presentation,

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Speaker 7: I literally use Tears of the Kingdom as an example.

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Speaker 2: Again, blind people can play some video games now and

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Speaker 2: feel that sense of satisfaction of accomplishing a task, like

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Speaker 2: finally beating that last boss. But that's not all a

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Speaker 2: video game is. I mean the freedom to just run around, explore,

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Speaker 2: hang out, that isn't there for a blind player. But

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Speaker 2: now with these tools that Vishio and Brian have developed,

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Speaker 2: a blind players, say like Ross Minor from last episode,

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Speaker 2: could probably do precisely that, just go wander around without

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Speaker 2: assistance or special modifications. That potentially opens things up a lot.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, that opens a lot of social opportunities as well.

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Speaker 7: If we can open up the same experiences to blind

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Speaker 7: players as side of players have, then we can foster

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Speaker 7: better connections at the end of the day.

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Speaker 2: I mean that totally makes sense. I mean, you know,

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Speaker 2: if I found out somebody played Earthbound, we're immediately friends immediately,

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Speaker 2: you know what I mean.

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Speaker 4: Or same thing with really.

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Speaker 2: Anything, music, movies, books, whatever, You've experienced, the same thing,

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Speaker 2: you read, the same stuff, you listen to the same music.

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Speaker 2: Obviously video games figure into that pretty heavily too, right,

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Speaker 2: So you may think this all sounds really exciting, but

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Speaker 2: you're wondering when this stuff's gonna come out, or you

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Speaker 2: might think that this is an awful lot of effort,

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Speaker 2: and you're wondering why these brilliant researchers are wasting their

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Speaker 2: time on video games. Well, I got two answers for you.

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Speaker 2: That's after the break. The tools that Brian and Vishnu

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Speaker 2: were talking about are pretty incredible, but they're also really

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Speaker 2: intuitive and simple. It kind of makes you wonder why

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Speaker 2: stuff like this is so rare. Well, A big part

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Speaker 2: of the problem is that game companies are really siloed.

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Speaker 2: They don't talk to each other, and they definitely aren't

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Speaker 2: willing to share their secrets with each other. I've had

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Speaker 2: numerous people tell me who develop games, either at a

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Speaker 2: big company or even especially if they're an independent developer,

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Speaker 2: They'll say, look, I would love to make my game accessible.

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Speaker 2: It would take me six months. I'd have to stop

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Speaker 2: everything I'm doing and I'd have to figure it out somehow.

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Speaker 2: And realistically speaking, that six months and I actually can't

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Speaker 2: afford to do that.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, And I think that the reason behind that is,

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Speaker 6: like every studio has to build these things from scratch.

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Speaker 1: There aren't enough of.

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Speaker 6: These like accessibility widgets that are available like just kind

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Speaker 6: of as a package, ready to go that you can

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Speaker 6: plug in.

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Speaker 2: So that's exactly what Brian and Vishnu had been working

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Speaker 2: on within the lab.

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Speaker 6: We're actually creating a plug in for Unreal Engine to

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Speaker 6: make it easier for any game built on Unreal Engine

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Speaker 6: to adopt napstick, and then we'll later add survey or

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Speaker 6: functionality to that.

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Speaker 2: Reel is a game engine that a lot of Triple

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Speaker 2: A games, that's those big blockbuster games are built on.

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Speaker 4: So an engine is.

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Speaker 2: Kind of like the base program that a lot of

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Speaker 2: game developers build their game on top of. So, for example,

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Speaker 2: if you're making an adventure game where you walk around,

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Speaker 2: if you had to program in the concept of gravity

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Speaker 2: or the concept of a ground that you walk on,

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Speaker 2: you'd never get anything done. So you get an engine

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Speaker 2: like Unreal that has a lot of the basic stuff

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Speaker 2: built in, and if you need additional features, you get

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Speaker 2: a plug in. So there are plugins that'll help you

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Speaker 2: make realistic trees or anime an ocean or a river,

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Speaker 2: or make realistic sound effects. And what Brian is hoping

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Speaker 2: to do is to make a plug in that any

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Speaker 2: game developer who's using Unreal could just bring into their

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Speaker 2: engine and add the navstick or the surveyor features.

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Speaker 1: So we are going to put as a law. We're

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Speaker 1: going to publish it on Unreal Engine marketplace so.

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Speaker 6: That developers can see the possibilities and see exactly like

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Speaker 6: how to implement and incorporate these things into the game.

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Speaker 4: How much would this cost for a developer.

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Speaker 1: It would be minimal. I don't expect it to cost

440
00:24:05,480 --> 00:24:07,960
Speaker 1: more than say, like one hundred bucks or something like that.

441
00:24:08,400 --> 00:24:08,680
Speaker 4: Okay.

442
00:24:09,040 --> 00:24:12,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the ability to throw that in and potentially

443
00:24:12,880 --> 00:24:15,479
Speaker 2: have some more people by your game who would never

444
00:24:15,560 --> 00:24:17,160
Speaker 2: have picked it up is kind of cool.

445
00:24:17,440 --> 00:24:20,600
Speaker 6: Absolutely, Yeah. And I would love to, you know, for like,

446
00:24:20,680 --> 00:24:23,840
Speaker 6: especially like independent developers and things like that. You know,

447
00:24:23,960 --> 00:24:27,439
Speaker 6: I'd love to have a program where they can they

448
00:24:27,520 --> 00:24:30,159
Speaker 6: get incorporated into their game without having to pay. This

449
00:24:30,320 --> 00:24:32,879
Speaker 6: is something I'm still working with the university on.

450
00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:36,720
Speaker 2: The hope is that these plugins make it so obviously

451
00:24:36,840 --> 00:24:40,200
Speaker 2: easy to add in accessibility features that developers see it

452
00:24:40,320 --> 00:24:42,280
Speaker 2: and they say, you know what, let me just download

453
00:24:42,320 --> 00:24:44,280
Speaker 2: this plug in and just do it, and they'll be

454
00:24:44,280 --> 00:24:45,560
Speaker 2: able to get started pretty soon.

455
00:24:46,000 --> 00:24:48,480
Speaker 6: We're actually hoping to launch that by the end of

456
00:24:48,560 --> 00:24:50,560
Speaker 6: this calendar year twenty twenty five.

457
00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:51,240
Speaker 4: Wow.

458
00:24:52,040 --> 00:24:54,400
Speaker 2: I really do hope that game developers check this out

459
00:24:54,440 --> 00:24:56,520
Speaker 2: because I'd love to see what kind of games come

460
00:24:56,560 --> 00:24:58,639
Speaker 2: out in the next few years that use this technology,

461
00:24:59,160 --> 00:25:02,480
Speaker 2: because this isn't just a niche feature. It really can't

462
00:25:02,520 --> 00:25:04,960
Speaker 2: open up games for an entire community of people who've

463
00:25:04,960 --> 00:25:07,880
Speaker 2: been shut out of video games, and that can open

464
00:25:08,000 --> 00:25:13,000
Speaker 2: up new ways for everyone to connect. I remember early Quarantine,

465
00:25:13,640 --> 00:25:17,840
Speaker 2: my niece was in a different state, and when we

466
00:25:17,920 --> 00:25:20,879
Speaker 2: wanted to communicate, she didn't call me. She said, Yo,

467
00:25:21,000 --> 00:25:24,600
Speaker 2: let's get on Fortnite, and that's how we talked. We

468
00:25:24,720 --> 00:25:29,000
Speaker 2: got in Fortnite and we ran around and build stuff,

469
00:25:29,160 --> 00:25:31,880
Speaker 2: and you know, she showed me some weird little structure

470
00:25:31,920 --> 00:25:33,960
Speaker 2: that she'd built and her friends are running around in there,

471
00:25:34,280 --> 00:25:37,600
Speaker 2: and like, that's how we talked. And so video games

472
00:25:37,680 --> 00:25:42,640
Speaker 2: now are, for better or worse, where people spend time

473
00:25:42,720 --> 00:25:43,280
Speaker 2: with each other.

474
00:25:44,000 --> 00:25:46,920
Speaker 1: If they're immersive, right, it's a form of immersion.

475
00:25:47,359 --> 00:25:49,920
Speaker 6: And so I think that, like you know, any tool

476
00:25:50,040 --> 00:25:53,359
Speaker 6: that can can enable access to video games could also

477
00:25:53,520 --> 00:25:56,920
Speaker 6: enable access to a whole host of immersive experiences as well,

478
00:25:57,359 --> 00:26:00,840
Speaker 6: like being able to like tour apartments, for example, without

479
00:26:00,960 --> 00:26:04,040
Speaker 6: having to visit that apartment or two or a different city.

480
00:26:04,560 --> 00:26:08,280
Speaker 7: There's potential to bring nastick something like nastick into the

481
00:26:08,359 --> 00:26:12,840
Speaker 7: real world as well. Really yeah, navigation through the real

482
00:26:12,960 --> 00:26:16,719
Speaker 7: world using you know, you have a blind person outside

483
00:26:16,920 --> 00:26:20,000
Speaker 7: or in a building, you know, pointing in some direction,

484
00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:23,080
Speaker 7: maybe with your camera or something else, and having it

485
00:26:23,200 --> 00:26:24,879
Speaker 7: say what what's around you.

486
00:26:26,280 --> 00:26:28,879
Speaker 2: This is a pretty interesting idea because it could be

487
00:26:28,920 --> 00:26:31,639
Speaker 2: an augmented version of what blind and low vision users

488
00:26:31,680 --> 00:26:34,359
Speaker 2: have found in the meta smart glasses. If you haven't

489
00:26:34,359 --> 00:26:36,240
Speaker 2: seen our episode on that, you can check that out.

490
00:26:36,600 --> 00:26:39,520
Speaker 2: But instead of AI as most people think of it,

491
00:26:39,880 --> 00:26:42,639
Speaker 2: this would be layering a video game kind of on

492
00:26:42,800 --> 00:26:43,600
Speaker 2: top of reality.

493
00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:49,960
Speaker 1: An example that I like to give is New York's

494
00:26:50,040 --> 00:26:50,560
Speaker 1: Pen Station.

495
00:26:51,160 --> 00:26:54,400
Speaker 6: It's the busiest train station in the world, and it's

496
00:26:55,359 --> 00:26:58,480
Speaker 6: massively complex to someone who's never been there before, with

497
00:26:58,640 --> 00:27:01,720
Speaker 6: multiple railroads and subway lines and you know, et cetera.

498
00:27:01,800 --> 00:27:02,280
Speaker 1: It's huge.

499
00:27:03,040 --> 00:27:07,399
Speaker 6: And imagine being able to like swipe by like tapping

500
00:27:07,480 --> 00:27:11,359
Speaker 6: the side of an earbut and exploring kind of circularly

501
00:27:12,000 --> 00:27:14,520
Speaker 6: and being able to hear spatial audio of like what's

502
00:27:14,600 --> 00:27:15,760
Speaker 6: around you at Penn Station.

503
00:27:16,240 --> 00:27:19,040
Speaker 1: Oh, the ticket office is here, that's track twelve, that's

504
00:27:19,119 --> 00:27:20,320
Speaker 1: track thirteen.

505
00:27:20,160 --> 00:27:23,560
Speaker 6: Here's the McDonald's, or here's the shake shack, right we

506
00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:26,800
Speaker 6: have this physical world, we just have to create a

507
00:27:26,920 --> 00:27:28,639
Speaker 6: virtual representation of it first.

508
00:27:28,920 --> 00:27:31,760
Speaker 1: Let's say like a video game version, a digital version.

509
00:27:31,800 --> 00:27:35,000
Speaker 6: Oh so that like now, when we're in the physical world,

510
00:27:35,119 --> 00:27:37,760
Speaker 6: if the system knows where you are, it's the same

511
00:27:37,840 --> 00:27:41,040
Speaker 6: as napstick. You're exploring that environment, but you just happen

512
00:27:41,080 --> 00:27:42,760
Speaker 6: to be physically inside the place as well.

513
00:27:43,280 --> 00:27:46,040
Speaker 2: The video game stuff that I'm messing with and that

514
00:27:46,359 --> 00:27:49,480
Speaker 2: in the future gamers will be able to use ends

515
00:27:49,560 --> 00:27:51,960
Speaker 2: up kind of being like a trial run for using

516
00:27:52,040 --> 00:27:55,040
Speaker 2: this in real life at a train station or a

517
00:27:55,119 --> 00:27:55,879
Speaker 2: grocery store.

518
00:27:56,480 --> 00:27:59,480
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's a great way of thinking about it. Oftentimes

519
00:27:59,560 --> 00:28:03,560
Speaker 6: we think of the games that we prototype as being

520
00:28:04,680 --> 00:28:08,639
Speaker 6: almost like testing grounds, Right, that's our little our peatrie

521
00:28:08,720 --> 00:28:12,639
Speaker 6: dish really to test our systems. But it's just a

522
00:28:12,720 --> 00:28:16,320
Speaker 6: fake version of what might be a real world environment

523
00:28:16,400 --> 00:28:16,760
Speaker 6: as well.

524
00:28:18,280 --> 00:28:20,720
Speaker 2: If you told someone in twenty fifteen that they wouldn't

525
00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:23,080
Speaker 2: be able to walk to their mailbox without being recorded,

526
00:28:23,800 --> 00:28:26,520
Speaker 2: they would think that you were describing as science fiction dystopia.

527
00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:29,720
Speaker 2: If you say that now in twenty twenty five, they'd say, well, yeah,

528
00:28:29,840 --> 00:28:32,520
Speaker 2: you're just describing the basic function of my neighbor's ring

529
00:28:32,640 --> 00:28:37,480
Speaker 2: camera we now expect technology to keep expanding, so what

530
00:28:37,600 --> 00:28:41,719
Speaker 2: if we started expecting accessibility to advance also. I mean

531
00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:45,000
Speaker 2: five years ago, I thought Brian was nuts for thinking

532
00:28:45,040 --> 00:28:47,240
Speaker 2: that Ross Minor would be able to play a racing game.

533
00:28:47,440 --> 00:28:48,200
Speaker 4: And then this year I.

534
00:28:48,240 --> 00:28:50,400
Speaker 2: Walk into Ross's apartment and He's got a driving wheel

535
00:28:50,400 --> 00:28:51,120
Speaker 2: on his desk.

536
00:28:51,120 --> 00:28:51,840
Speaker 4: To play Fortza.

537
00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:56,120
Speaker 2: But this stuff doesn't just happen. It's the industry, it's

538
00:28:56,200 --> 00:28:59,600
Speaker 2: the universities, and it's the gamers. I'm not saying you

539
00:28:59,680 --> 00:29:02,720
Speaker 2: need to write a strongly worded email to Nintendo, but

540
00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:06,840
Speaker 2: you do have influence over things, and they do affect everyone.

541
00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:10,080
Speaker 2: I mean, look, I personally do not need Knavstick and

542
00:29:10,160 --> 00:29:12,600
Speaker 2: I don't need Survey Air, but I am more likely

543
00:29:12,680 --> 00:29:14,280
Speaker 2: to buy a game if I know that it means

544
00:29:14,320 --> 00:29:16,560
Speaker 2: that I might get to play co op with Ross.

545
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:19,440
Speaker 2: The stuff that people like Brian and Vishnu and Ross

546
00:29:19,600 --> 00:29:22,960
Speaker 2: build is gonna make games more interesting for everyone. I mean,

547
00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:26,160
Speaker 2: who knows, Maybe someone listening to this right now, maybe

548
00:29:26,240 --> 00:29:34,000
Speaker 2: you could end up contributing something to that process. And

549
00:29:34,280 --> 00:29:36,440
Speaker 2: thank you for listening to kill Switch. This was a

550
00:29:36,480 --> 00:29:38,280
Speaker 2: fun one to do, and hey, if you got any

551
00:29:38,320 --> 00:29:40,120
Speaker 2: ideas for the next one, you can hit us on

552
00:29:40,200 --> 00:29:44,360
Speaker 2: email at kill Switch at Kaleidoscope dot NYC, or we're

553
00:29:44,400 --> 00:29:47,960
Speaker 2: on Instagram at kill Switch Pod. And if you listen

554
00:29:48,040 --> 00:29:50,800
Speaker 2: all the way through our first double episode, hopefully that

555
00:29:50,960 --> 00:29:53,200
Speaker 2: means you liked it. So you know, get that phone

556
00:29:53,240 --> 00:29:56,640
Speaker 2: out and please leave us a review. I know people

557
00:29:56,680 --> 00:29:58,320
Speaker 2: say it all the time, but it really helps other

558
00:29:58,360 --> 00:30:01,520
Speaker 2: people find the show, which he'll us keep doing our thing.

559
00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:05,239
Speaker 2: Killswitch is hosted by Me Dexter Thomas. It's produced by

560
00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:09,320
Speaker 2: Sena Ozaki, Darluck Potts, and Julia Nutter. A theme song

561
00:30:09,480 --> 00:30:12,240
Speaker 2: is by me and Kyle Murdoch and Kyle also mixed

562
00:30:12,280 --> 00:30:16,120
Speaker 2: the show from Kaleidoscope. Our executive producers are Ozma Lashin,

563
00:30:16,320 --> 00:30:20,920
Speaker 2: Mangesh Hatigador, and Kate Osmore from iHeart Our executive producers

564
00:30:21,000 --> 00:30:24,440
Speaker 2: are Katrina Norvil and Nikki Etour. Oh one more thing.

565
00:30:24,480 --> 00:30:26,240
Speaker 2: Oh this is for all my game developers out there

566
00:30:26,240 --> 00:30:28,760
Speaker 2: who are listening to this. You might have been a

567
00:30:28,840 --> 00:30:31,640
Speaker 2: little disappointed to hear that they're making these plugins for

568
00:30:31,760 --> 00:30:34,160
Speaker 2: Unreal Engine, because look, Unreal is great. A lot of

569
00:30:34,280 --> 00:30:36,360
Speaker 2: blockbuster games are built on it, but it's just that

570
00:30:36,440 --> 00:30:37,960
Speaker 2: it's kind of for the big time games. You know,

571
00:30:38,040 --> 00:30:40,280
Speaker 2: why would you leave the independent game developers out, the

572
00:30:40,360 --> 00:30:43,760
Speaker 2: ones who you know, use different software, cheaper development software

573
00:30:43,880 --> 00:30:46,560
Speaker 2: like say Unity. Well, I asked Brian about that.

574
00:30:47,360 --> 00:30:50,240
Speaker 6: I wanted to follow the model that happened with Fortsa,

575
00:30:50,880 --> 00:30:55,320
Speaker 6: where like a major developer had this feature incorporated into

576
00:30:55,360 --> 00:30:59,560
Speaker 6: their game that got noticed by the whole industry. That's

577
00:30:59,560 --> 00:31:02,720
Speaker 6: an important and first domino to fall. And so we

578
00:31:02,960 --> 00:31:05,160
Speaker 6: do want to make a Unity equivalent of the plug

579
00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:08,520
Speaker 6: in as well. But we chose Unreal first for that reason,

580
00:31:08,880 --> 00:31:12,360
Speaker 6: so that we could work more closely with some of

581
00:31:12,400 --> 00:31:15,440
Speaker 6: the bigger developers, work through all the kinks with their

582
00:31:15,520 --> 00:31:19,520
Speaker 6: larger teams they would have more resources, and then figure

583
00:31:19,560 --> 00:31:22,120
Speaker 6: out how to tailor both that Unreal Engine plug in

584
00:31:22,560 --> 00:31:25,160
Speaker 6: and how to do things right on Unity for the

585
00:31:25,240 --> 00:31:27,440
Speaker 6: smaller indie developers the first time.

586
00:31:28,120 --> 00:31:30,080
Speaker 2: So there's your answer, and you know I get the

587
00:31:30,160 --> 00:31:35,160
Speaker 2: approach anyway, Catch on the next one, good guy,