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Beta Testers Ploppy Pairs (Card matching game for kids with VoiceOver)

By michael.t, 20 June, 2022

Forum
iOS and iPadOS Gaming

Hello,

I am an iOS developer who creates small indie games in his freetime. I never worked with accessibility tools before and would like to improve on that. Therefore, as a first step, I would like to make one of my games playable with VoiceOver. During the WWDC last week, I visited Apple’s accessibility lab, where visually impaired Apple employees already gave me some feedback and tips which was super helpful and interesting for me. I additionally watched some more WWDC videos about accessibility, read through some tutorials and started to adapt my game to make it more accessible. This is the point where I would like to ask for your help - since I do not know anyone who is visually impaired, every kind of feedback from you would be super helpful and highly appreciated. I already tried to use the game with the screen curtain on, but that is still not the same since I already know how the game looks like. The game is basically a card matching game for kids - I don’t want to give you much more context about it for now, since the feedback would be most valuable as if you would just download the game via the App Store and try it for the first time.

So here is the Testflight/Beta build with the accessibility improvements:
https://testflight.apple.com/join/9bpTfsOR

And if you still want to have more context for the game, here is also the App Store link where the description describes the game more in detail:
https://itunes.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1597674393

I know that I still have some tasks open, like making all Ploppies visually distinguishable - and not only different by color, but during the implementation, I still came up with some more questions:
- Is a different contrast of different Ploppy parts enough for differentiation?
- Are different eyes/mouth for Ploppies enough differentiation?
- Should Levels have an accessibility label like “Level 1” or just “1”? Should I also add the theme? Like “Level 10 Winter Island”
- What should the accessibility label for the cards be like? Currently I am using Card 1, Card 2, Card 3 etc.
- Is a Google Translation better than no translation or should I rather stick to english then? I unfortunately did not find a way to force english as language for all elements yet

In theory it should work for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV - but try it for iPhone/iPad first please.
Thank you very much in advance for your help!

Best Regards,
Michael

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Comments

would like to test it

By ming

11 months 2 weeks ago

well, will give it a try.

Thank you @ming

By michael.t

11 months 2 weeks ago

Already looking forward on your feedback!

Will test it as well

By Igna Triay

11 months 2 weeks ago

I'll beta test it and send you my feedback.

Great work so far

By Igna Triay

11 months 2 weeks ago

I've sent some feedback already from my testing, but I just want to say it here,
Great job so far, keep it up, and thank you for reaching out and letting us help with beta testing this app.
I feel like card 1, card 2, etc is a good way to go as far as going because again, the user will have to remember which goes with which card. As far as levels, ,I'd say things like, level 1 would be better, and the tittle of the level is really optional in my opinion. As long as voiceover reads out the level you are in, I don't see anything bad with having or not having the title of the level. Also, I forgot to include this in my feedback, but there should be two toggles, one for sound and another for music, that or having a way to decreased the music volume and let the sound be louder or softer than the music depending on preference.

First impressions

By Daniel Angus MacDonald

11 months 2 weeks ago

First off, great you want to learn about accessibility! The sound and zoom tagals are reversed with VoiceOver. VoiceOver says, sound on when no sound is playing. There should be a description of a floppy before someone starts playing. I’ve sent you Feedback on TestFlight detailing other thing I think are worth changing

What would you prefer for getting Feedback?

By Daniel Angus MacDonald

11 months 2 weeks ago

Hello,

What would you prefer for getting Feedback, TestFlight, or AppleVis? I can do both, but just want to know so I’m not dooplicating feedback.

Feedback

By michael.t

11 months 2 weeks ago

First of all thank you very much for testing it and for the nice feedback, great to hear that you like it!

About the toggles: I actually thought VoiceOver should say what the button does and not the current state of the button - therefore, I had it exactly the other way around - but good to know! I already changed that and uploaded a new version.

@Igna about the additional sound control, I was already thinking about such controls, but the UI is already quite stuffed/limited. I have to think about how I could make it work - either I make some elements smaller to have more space for additional buttons or I make 3 States for the Button:
- Music on and Sound on
- Music off and Sound on
- Music off and Sound off

@Daniel I read it on both platforms anyway. In general, it would maybe make sense to post it here, so everyone sees it so there are less duplications and maybe even feedback gets discussed with each other, so we hear more opinions about the feedback. But if you prefer to keep it private, feel free to also just give me feedback via TestFlight!

Great!

By Daniel Angus MacDonald

11 months 2 weeks ago

I will post both here and TestFlight. I will download the new version now. Your revised toggle state sounds good from a VoiceOver perspective. I’ll test it to verify!

Update

By michael.t

11 months ago

Hello,

I just uploaded a new version with the following changes:

- Ploppies that were only different in color were adapted so they are also differentiable by their form/look
- Added localizations for VoiceOver
- Added an explicit sound toggle button - so now the background music and the sound effects can be toggled separately

I am still open for any kind of feedback - thank you!

Update released

By michael.t

10 months 1 week ago

Hello,

I just wanted to let you know, that yesterday I released the major accessibility update - so thank you everyone for your help! :)

Here is a video of the final result that shows the VoiceOver functionality:
https://twitter.com/ploppypop2/status/1553462091939561473?s=21&t=Tu7zSLUM-GemPn2Dg6CGaQ

Besides this forum here, are there any other platforms/communities where people could be interested about my accessibility update?

I just want to spread the word about it a bit - if you also maybe know someone who could be interested or if you would like to download it yourself, here is the download link:
https://itunes.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1597674393

Thank you everyone again and best regards
Michael

Just purchased this game

By Daniel Angus MacDonald

10 months 1 week ago

Hi Michael,

I just purchased this game, even though the beta will expire in 66 days. I wanted to support you, and the great work you did for the VoiceOver accessibility of this game. You took all feedback in the beta testing process, and implemented it. Great job!

Support

By michael.t

10 months 1 week ago

Thank you very much for your support - highly appreciated! Sure, the feedback was really valuable for me - the more people who can enjoy my game the better! :)

Oh and by the way, if it’s not too much to ask for, a rating of the game on the App Store would also be really helpful as it plays a big role for the search algorithm on the App Store - thanks!

Best Regards,
Michael

Okay how do I do that?

By Daniel Angus MacDonald

10 months 1 week ago

Hi Michael,

I’ll be happy to rate this game on the App Store. How do I do that?

Figured it out but ,,,

By Daniel Angus MacDonald

10 months 1 week ago

Hi Michael,

I figured how to rate this game, but I can’t. I’m beta testing iOS 16, and it says I can’t write reviews on a prerealice version of iOS, unfortunately.

Rating

By michael.t

10 months 1 week ago

Ah true you cannot rate the app once you downloaded the test version - but thanks for trying!

Shucks

By Daniel Angus MacDonald

10 months ago

Hi Michael,

Was hoping to write a five star review of this game on the App Store. Darn!

Feedback

By michael.t

10 months ago

No problem, that’s already a valuable feedback to hear, that you would give five stars, so I know it’s really playable/fun for visually impaired people! And as mentioned before, sharing it in the community is equally helpful! :)

Thanks

By Daniel Angus MacDonald

10 months ago

This game is very fun for the blind! At least for me! I love it, and will promote it where I can!
Glad to still help, even though I have the public App Store release,
Daniel

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