17/05/2018
Great news: Lords & Knights is featured in a story of the App Store Today Tab! 😎
If you have an iPhone or iPad, you can read the story here:
http://itunes.apple.com/story/id1373018075
Otherwise you can also directly get it here:
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GAME OF THE DAY: Lords & Knights
Complex games are a delight to dig up and explore, and the team at German developer Xyrality aims to bring that joy to everyone. The team’s strategy game, Lords & Knights, is a hugely popular game within the blind community, due to its robust accessibility features.
You’ll start out with a tiny village, with just very few wooden buildings and eager workers at your disposal. Using your brainpower, you will turn this tranquil spot into a flourishing empire that runs like clockwork - whether that’s by forming alliances, or conquering seemingly indestructible castles. Exhilarating, for sure — and it’s entirely accessible to players who are blind or have low vision.
"The way they play our game is simple and efficient. Where sighted players see a building list, the game reads aloud the name and function of the button. With another double tap, the list in question gets opened," explains Xyrality’s CEO Sven Ossenbrüggen.
A WELCOME VARIETY
The possibility to dive deep into such a rush MMO-like experience expands upon the genre variety that’s available and inclusive of players who are blind. "It is definitely something we are very proud of, and the effort was actually quite manageable for us," says Ossenbrüggen. "The think that it is important for more developers to be aware of the potential of making their games more accessible."
While Lords & Knights doesn’t shy away from offering lots of gameplay layers, its accessibility is largely a result of how the game was designed. Instead of relying on visual enhancements, a lot of the core gameplay is actually happening within the player’s mind.
"Lords & Knights is a very strategic game with a big focus on community and team play, where information, coordination and cleverness are much more important than graphics. It is kind of unique in the way it gives the power of decisions completely to the players," says Ossenbrüggen.
MORE MEANS MORE
With an extensive game like this one, you might expect accessible development to be difficult. But that wasn’t the case: "The only big challenge for us is to always be aware of the technical requirements of making the audio descriptions work when making smaller changes, or introducing new features."
One of these features will soon be available to all players: "Regions" divide the map into provinces the alliances will fight over. Conquering complete provinces will provide big bonuses — a game mechanic that will make the alliance-play aspect of Lords & Knights even more important and rewarding.
"And of course we will keep on introducing usability improvements; there is always something that can make life for all of our players a bit easier," says Ossenbrüggen.
