Loud and clear: The VR game without visuals

While visual impairment is relatively common, most sighted people have no idea of what it is like to live without one of the most heavily utilised senses. We developed the game Loud and Clear in order to have them experience the difficulties of being visually impaired, as well as to put in evidence the abilities blind people have developed, which sighted people mostly lack. In this game without visuals, the player has to rely solely on audio to complete objectives within the game. The game consists of a number of puzzle rooms the player has to solve. These puzzles illustrate the challenges of being blind in a playful setting, and challenge the player to use different auditory skills that are key to achieving objectives without vision, such as sound localisation, sound recognition and spatial orientation. The game uses audio spatialisation techniques to give the player a realistic and immersive auditive experience. Preliminary tests of this game show that players acknowledge the initial high difficulty of ‘living’ as a blind person, to which eventually they were able to somehow adapt. In addition, players reported feeling both immersed and educated by the experience.