Brailling Games

I have been working with Nancy since 2010 on processing board games for the blind. These have mostly been for her own personal use with friends and family, but we have also done a few for other visually impaired friends of hers. I decided to share this experience because some games are better than others for people with disabilities.

When processing games there are 2 specific people that are needed.

           

 -The Brailler: This works best if this is a visually impaired person, because that also 

   allows the person to catch any mistakes. When we are processing games this 

   normally means that Nancy is the person that I am dictating the information to. 

   She first puts all text into a BrailleSense. Then she comes up with a system for 

   what brailled identification to put on each card based on the card text. This can 

   be anything from just the name or number of the card to basic stats depending 

   on the size of the card. From there she uses a braille typewriter to add the 

   braille to the card.

 -The Reader: This person is responsible for reading all game text to the Brailler. 

   This person also has to make sure that the right cards are handed to the 

   Brailler in the right orientation so that the braille can be added to them. Also                
   if braille stickers need to be made for items too thick or odd shaped to go 

   through the braille typewriter, this person also makes the stickers. There are 

   different braille labelers that can be used for this process and many of them 

   can be used by people with no braille experience because they have normal 

   letters/numbers on them.

Brailling a game does not only include brailling the game components, but also the game guide/directions/rules. Sometimes these can be found online and then read by a visually impaired person with something like JAWS Screen Reader. The problem is that pictures/diagrams can through off how screen readers can read this and moves things around. Graphs and charts also do not translate very easily. So, even if online versions are found a reader may be needed to help with the cleanup of these files.

Tips:

            -Braille labelers can also be used to label the outside box of games for easy      

              searching.

            -Reader may need something to drink depending on the length of the session and 

              the amout of text being covered.

            -Be ready for mistakes. They will happen, so you may have to come up with 

              inventive ways to fix them.

Negatives:

            -Games that are text heavy can take a long time to complete one game.

            -Artwork on cards may be damaged by the brailling process depending on            

             where they are brailled. Plastic card covers can help with this because you braille 

             the covers instead.

            -Cards can become hard to read for visually able players due to damage to text 

              from the brailling process.

Tools of the Trade:

 

4/30/21 Update: Due to the pandemic I have not been able to help my friend with games since it began. I will still be doing normal game reviews and talk about older games we had worked on that I still have not yet covered yet.