Hi guys,
I'm the developer of Your Story, an interactive story app for iOS I just released to the app store today.
From the start I wanted to make this a great VoiceOver experience even though I've not had any experience with creating accessibility features before. It just seemed like a game that lends itself really well to blind gamers, so I tried to do as much testing and thoughtful design as possible to make sure it was a really fun experience for accessibility gamers.
It's sort of like a Choose Your Own Adventure for the 21st Century where I draw on my Robert Frost genes to put you in snowy woods looking for your best friend. The story is personalized to you and the choices you make matter as you try to figure out what's going on, and why you're there.
As you play through it, I'd love to hear feedback. I queried some VoiceOver programming gurus for best practices and the like, but if I can do anything to make the experience better I'd very much appreciate hearing from you all. And hey, if anyone likes it so much they want to take the time to submit it to AppleVis, I'd very much appreciate that.
You can download the game now from the App Store at https://itunes.apple.com/app/id999631144 and if you really get into it, feel free to read the 100 tweet prequel at @yourstorytheapp.
Hope you enjoy it!
Comments
Unable to purchase at the moment.
Hi, I would really love to get this game. But I'm unable to purchase it at the moment as I'm getting married very soon.
Quite the surprising story
Quite the surprising story line. I can't say anything about it at all, since that would spoil the surprise lol. Good game!
Intriguing, but a bit buggy
Thanks for making this game accessible from the start. So far it's quite intriguing, but I"ve encountered a slight bug and I'm not sure how to continue.
Spoilers Ahead:
I reached the waterfall, but can't seem to choose the option to go down to the lake. VO's magic tap reads the option as I expect, but double tapping doesn't seem to do anything.
If I may I feel like the magic tap as a solution is a bit unintuitive, to be honest. I'm so used to flicking through options that the extra few seconds delay I get with the magic tap is a bit disconcerting. Is there a UI reason why flicking isn't going to work in this instance?
I'm enjoying what I've seen so far. :) I just hope I'll be able to proceed soon.
@Sean -- have a great wedding
@Sean -- have a great wedding! Wish I could give you a promo code but I'm tapped out right now from harassing the press :(
@Ken -- Glad you enjoyed it! I suspect there's still a lot more for you to explore so I hope you keep poking around.
@Zack -- Glad you're having fun and sorry about that! I can't think of a good reason why any one scene would bug out since they should all be coded the same way but I will try to replicate it on my end. I added Magic Tap because it's listed as one of the best VoiceOver practices, but there should be another way for you to progress.
On the bottom right-hand corner of the screen there is a segmented control. You should be able to cycle through your options via that control, then when you have the correct one selected, clicking a label on the bottom left-hand corner will advance you to the selected scene.
If THAT doesn't work please definitely let me know as I consider that a game-breaking bug.
Appreciate all the feedback, folks!
Thanks
@Phalladar: The segmented control actually feels more intuitive to me, though I'm not sure why. I suspect this is a YMMV situation. For the record, I was able to use that method to bypass the point I was stuck.
Thanks again for such an interesting experience :)
Thanks for your wishes. It's
Thanks for your wishes. It's okay that you're unable to provide a code. I understand. Thanks a lot for the thought though. I will try my best to purchase it when this next month comes up. I did read the prequel and really enjoyed it.
I never experienced any magic
I never experienced any magic tap bugs. I think the only things I haven't seen would be when all stats are at ten, and when various stats are low. Love the commentary by the way. I've been playing for about three hours straight now, and I honestly find it quite unsettling, which is good. Can't wait to see the sequel.
I'm downloading this now
I had to type in "your Story Joshua" but I found this and have already purchased it. If it's even remotely similar to choiceofgames apps, I already know I'm going to love it. I'd like to say a special thank you to the developer for making a point of including accessibility. I'll be happy to give you feedback as soon as I've had a chance to play around with the app a little.
@Zack: Awesome. Glad to hear
@Zack: Awesome. Glad to hear the segmented control is working better for you. I should make a note to highlight that navigation option in the next release.
@Ken: I'm really thrilled you're enjoying it. After working with something for so long it's a constant fear no one is going to enjoy it as much as you enjoy writing it.
I might need to do a better job indicating this but if you click on the screen, it should raise the tab bar. On that bar, there's an option to change your stats once you've beaten the game. That'll let you see how each scene plays out with different stats.
@Missy: You actually just taught me how to find the app by searching, so thanks! Hopefully people like it enough to consider rating it and writing a review — apps on the App Store are sorted with those ratings in mind so with any luck, one day soon searching for "Your Story" will actually bring up the app.
When I was researching similar apps I came across the Choice Of series and I think they're probably the most similar ones on the app store, so I hope you like Your Story. Can't wait to hear your feedback.
Very keen
very excited to try this out, like other posters have written thank you very much for including accessibility. It makes an incredible difference!
In need of an App Directory entry
Would somebody who has downloaded and used this app please add it to our App Directory. Thanks!
A note on gameplay
Hey all,
So yesterday was a really great launch, considering I'm a new game developer, and I think a lot of it had to do with this forum, so thanks very much for checking it out and sharing it.
I got my first 3-star review yesterday so I wanted to make sure to be clear about one thing: this is a game that sort of punishes people who race through to the end and rewards those that really explore all the different choices. The reward isn't really tangible: it's information about what's going on.
You *can* sort of power through to the end in 20-30 minutes, but if you do that, you shouldn't be surprised if you don't *really* understand what's going on.
Some things you only learn if you actually fail skill checks — I wanted to make sure there wasn't incentive to just max out all your stats and find out everything — but there's some element of randomness to what you learn about Your Story. There's also a lot explained in 2 hours of developer's commentary (unlocked once you "beat the game") where I explain more about why certain things happen the way they do.
If you searched the App Store yesterday for Your Story it was ~100 down the list or so. Today it's more like ~40. Every review pushes it up the list a bit, so thanks very much to all who've taken a few moments to review it (and to those who haven't, I'd super appreciate you doing that!)
Have a great day everyone and thanks again.
We did it!
::party-hat-emoji::
When I posted this announcement, as some people here noted, Your Story was about the 100th app down in the list when searching the App Store for "Your Story." Yesterday it was the second, and today it's #1!
It's also reached the #15 Pay Once and Play game in Roleplaying, and hit #17 briefly yesterday in Roleplaying overall.
I've recognized some names from these forums in the app reviews and I appreciate them all. Thanks so much for all the great feedback I've been getting from the community. Would appreciate if one of you would take the time to submit the game to the App Directory per AppleVis request above.
I've already improved the VoiceOver functionality for the next update thanks to your feedback and can't wait to hear what you all think.
Cheers,
Josh
New Update to Your Story
Hi all,
Just wanted to let you know that as of today there's a new Your Story update available. This one should improve accessibility thanks to your suggestions. It also fixes a bug where VoiceOver users may not have seen their contacts included in the story. You should be able to fix that even if Your Story is in progress by double tapping near the middle of the story to raise the tab bar, clicking the "Settings" tab, then clicking the "Click here to give permission" button.
Thanks for helping spread the word about the app and I'm pumped people are having fun with it!
I found this game to be very interesting
<p>I wanted to take a second and thank the game dev for this one. I've had a lot of fun trying to play this, and it's been a curvy experience to say the least. *happy smile* This has much replayability, and I've been confused, glad, left wondering what the ..., all in all, this is an awesome game. Again, thanks.</p>
Great game
I love this game. Thanks for the accessibility. I hope there's a sequel as I want to play more.