Feature request: Add accessibility for blind players.

[germanico5]

The game currently cannot be played by blind people. It would need compatibility with screen readers, whether system-based like TalkBack or directly implemented, allowing users to navigate menus, inspect the board, and play normally. The movement system, especially on the hexagonal board, might need adaptation for accessibility. I am willing to provide ideas and test everything necessary to help.

[Sesu8642]

Thanks for your suggestion! Certainly I would like the game to be more accessible.
The games uses LibGDX, which does not support screen readers as far as I can tell. Implementing support would be a major undertaking and beyond what I can do time and skill wise.
This is why I am going to close this issue. However, feel free to open an issue at LibGDX. I am open to re-evaluate when they implement support.

[Sesu8642]

I gave this another thought. While I don't see a way to have a screen reader access the user interface, what I can do is print text. If you started the game via a terminal, surely some program could read the text to you. I can also detect when the mouse is hovered over the user interface elements and print this information. Same goes for the map. So, in theory, you could "explore" the screen using the mouse. I think it might be rather frustrating to do that but let me know if this could be helpful.

[germanico5]

Hi, thanks for reconsidering!
I understand that accessibility for blind users isn’t simple, so I understood when you initially closed the topic. Using the terminal is certainly an option, though relying on the mouse might not be ideal, as blind people don’t typically use it.
I originally came for the Android version—I didn’t know there was a Windows one. That might give us more options to make it accessible. If you can implement keyboard compatibility, you could print text to the clipboard or, as you mentioned, to the terminal. There are also the Tolk and Universal Speech libraries, but I’m not sure if they would be compatible since I only know them to work with Python-based games. That said, I’m not a programmer, so feel free to look into it.
I’ll be very honest with you—if making this game accessible turns out to be unfeasible, that’s okay. I just hope you’ll consider accessibility from the start in any future projects, as it’s much easier to implement early on.
For testing, you can use the free NVDA screen reader. It’s one of the most widely used by blind people and offers the most flexibility for working with different programs.
Again, I really appreciate you giving this idea another chance. If there’s anything that can be done, I’ll do everything I can to help. I know some programmers who might be able to assist, so hopefully, you won’t be alone in this.
Thanks for everything, and have a great day!

[Sesu8642]

Thanks for your input! I understand that support for playing with only the keyboard is required for proper accessibility. This is closely related to controller support, which I have had in mind for a while too. #67 also goes in a similar direction.
Then, printing information about the currently "selected" user interface element or map tile could be enough to make the game playable.
I am going to re-open this issue but probably won't find the time to implement this very soon.

[germanico5]

No problem at all! I don’t mind waiting because accessibility is a time-consuming and demanding task. It doesn’t matter if it takes five years—what matters is that it eventually happens, or at the very least, that you keep it in mind for future projects. If you ever have any updates on this, I’ll be ready to test them.
Thanks again for your consideration!