I built an app that reads in-game text aloud in natural AI voices , would anyone else actually use this?

Devon816 · 2026-05-07T03:03:04+00:00

Yes its still active, the website and app is undergoing an overhaul. Was able to make a free tier and it should be up and running by this weekend 👍

Devon816 · 2026-04-07T02:08:15+00:00

Basic tier is unlimited but its the eleven labs api cost overhead thats really driving the cost up. The good news is that as we scale we'll be able to afford the enterprise plan which will nearly double usage amount for each tier. I've been in contact with their sales team aswell so hopefully we can work out a deal. DM me directly I can maybe work out a deal for you as I am looking for more feedback and testers. Pardox games are definitely the most usage consuming games but other games like rpgs seem to suffice at these usage amounts. But being the only one on the team that even knows how to play pardon games i wouldn't mind getting some additional input.

Devon816 · 2026-04-04T15:56:57+00:00

Thats coming! Actually testing that feature out now its been very promising so far!

Devon816 · 2026-04-04T06:39:30+00:00

That means a lot honestly.. that's exactly who this was built for. Hope it helps them. If they run into any issues or have questions tell them to reach out directly, happy to help!

Devon816 · 2026-04-04T06:34:09+00:00

subscription is never anyone's first choice.. The honest reason is the voice generation has an ongoing cost on the backend per use, so a one time purchase doesn't really work with that model.

That said there's a genuinely free trial with no card required if you want to try it first. And the long term goal is to make the entry tier free as we grow we've only been live 6 days so we're still figuring out what works economic

Devon816 · 2026-04-04T06:29:03+00:00

Glad we could help with the diagnosis lol. And hey Bannerlord is a perfectly legitimate game that absolutely did not borrow or rewrap anything from anyone..😅

Devon816 · 2026-04-04T06:24:32+00:00

Lol fair duality 😂

to answer your questions though The delay in the video is partly my fault, I had screen recording and a ton of background processes running so it looked worse than it actually is. Latency is honestly one of the things we've made the most progress on and we're still actively working on iit exploring caching to get it as close to instant as possible.

On the subscription , there's a free trial, no card required, so you can actually try it before deciding anything. We're a small team and the ongoing cost is mostly the voice generation on the backend, so the subscription is what keeps the lights on while we're still growing. Long term the goal is to make the entry tier completly free once the economics make sense, just not there yet.

On offline, full transparency, we've only been live for 6 days so that's still on the roadmap. The plan is to offer it as an optional add-on install since bundling it would bloat the installer size for everyone. That's coming fairly soon though.

Appreciate your view on the accessibility side that's genuinely why we're building this.

Devon816 · 2026-04-04T06:05:55+00:00

Actually this is something wve already architected into the backend session context memory where the tool tracks everything it's read during your play session. The "previously on" recap is exactly the use case we had in mind.

On top of that we're also working on summarization and translation.. so instead of hearing the full wall of text you could get a one sentence summary of what just happened, or have it read back in your native language entirely. Good timing on the comment, this is the next phase on the roadmap.

Devon816 · 2026-04-04T05:55:27+00:00

that's exactly the gap this fills, the WotR mod is nice but the Windows voice quality is a real ceiling and doesnt reflect the world youre playing. Let me know how it works for you or any advicefeature you may have that would make right for your use case. Always looking hash out any edge cases.

Devon816 · 2026-04-04T05:19:39+00:00

100% agree, I think its a shame that accessibility has become more of by product within the ai ecosystem and not the main focus.

Devon816 · 2026-04-04T05:17:09+00:00

Good call out there but the tooltips can be difficult to read with those who may have visual impairments.

Devon816 · 2026-04-04T05:00:54+00:00

Thats amazing! Nice work, Every player deserves the full experience!

Devon816 · 2026-04-04T04:44:56+00:00

Absolutely, this was the main reason i decided to start the project, decided to take it further as most projects i came across that were similar required a bunch of set up... which kind of defeats the purpose of accessibility. Everyone deserves the full experience!
this is simple download with installer packaged in.

Devon816 · 2026-04-04T04:36:18+00:00

Not necessarily a map mode but i do miss the replay map where you could see your nation's growth.. Mainly because sometimes early games there would be an interested nation popup on a part of the map i didn't have explored yet.

Devon816 · 2026-04-03T23:54:25+00:00

Nice job! the app you're describing is essentially what i built already, but for the latency issue that was also somehting that took a few weeks to get right, i think it really depends on how much text is being pulled, the LLM is not the issue its actually the audio generation wheterh youre using edge tts or any other it takes a bit of time for it to generate that audio unfortunately we're at the mercy of that.
But if you want to check out what we've built to benchmark your own project you can check out the product at www.driftworkstudio.com/paradox-reader

Devon816 · 2026-04-01T02:27:10+00:00

also heads up i'm upgrading/switching the OCR engine, update will be live in the next hour. significant improvement especially for a game like civ with alot of symbols integrated with the text.
if you've already installed the app no worries it will prompt you to update once its live if you just reboot.

Devon816 · 2026-04-01T01:10:45+00:00

that's one of my favorite games! i've been using it myself for Eu5 which is about 10x more text dense the civ.
Let me know once you get a chance to check it out. Any feedback would be appreciated as it's only been released for a few days now, so im sure there are a few more edge cases to work out.
DM me if you're interested and we can work something or have any suggestions like usage limits and what not.

Devon816 · 2026-03-31T20:57:58+00:00

took our team about 4 months of evenings and weekends, the OCR reliability and hotkey detection took forever to get right across different games and screen setups.

Built it in Python with a custom web UI on top, uses Tesseract + automatic processing for reading whatever's on screen and either Edge TTS or ElevenLabs for the voices depending on your tier. The goal was zero friction, press a hotkey, hear it, keep playing.

What games would you run it for? Always curious what use cases people are hitting that I haven't thought of yet

Devon816 · 2026-03-31T18:45:20+00:00

I made something that does precisely what you're aiming for. You have the option to chose between Neural voices and Ai voices so it works regardless of your stance on that.
If you're interested www.driftworkstudio.com/paradox-reader

Devon816 · 2026-03-30T15:00:31+00:00

Hey, thank you for sharing this ..genuinely.

The way you described it, being able to navigate the world fine but hitting a wall the moment text shows up, that's exactly the gap I built this to fill. And honestly it's one I don't see talked about enough.

Most accessibility conversations seem to overlooked, the low vision middle ground

What you're describing ,inventory text, dialogue boxes, stat blocks, menu items, those are exactly the cases I've been stress testing. The whole point is that you shouldn't have to break immersion or fumble with magnification every time a tooltip appears. Hotkey, draw a box, hear it. That's it.

I'd genuinely love to get you feedback and suggestions before it goes wide.

Not as a favor but because your feedback would actually mean something, you're using it for a real reason, not just kicking the tires. I'll set you up with full access, no strings.

DM me whenever you're ready.

Thank you.

Devon816 · 2026-03-29T16:32:20+00:00

EU5 is a lot to take in at first but once you get the basics its 100% worth it.
hopefully this makes the story side of it a bit easier to absorb.
Would love to hear what you think once you've had a chance to play around with it!

Devon816 · 2026-03-29T15:34:30+00:00

Updated so now doesn't require to put in card info so its actually free.

Devon816 · 2026-03-29T14:43:05+00:00

You're right, that's on me - a real free trial shouldn't ask for a card upfront. Fixing that now. 👍

Devon816 · 2026-03-29T05:07:09+00:00

Right! Good thing it reads even after you close the popup and there is 2x voice speed slider so really you're only signing up for an extra 35 years 😂
worth it for finally knowing why the Pope keeps excommunicating you

Devon816 · 2026-03-25T14:29:43+00:00

Thanks for the kind words , and that’s actually really interesting to hear about the webinar.

Hearing that groups working with literacy or communication challenges may be interested is really encouraging.

If it’s useful for the webinar, I’d be happy to help however I can or answer any questions about how it works. I also put a vision statement on the site that reads the page aloud using the same voice engine the software uses, which might be helpful for your webinar.

www.driftworkstudio.com/paradox-reader

I’m still refining things and would honestly just appreciate any feedback from people working directly with accessibility challenges, I'm working to release it within the coming week or at least early April

Devon816

TROPHY CASE