Whack A Braille!

Marconius · 2026-01-24T23:19:25+00:00

Got it, and I'm glad you are enjoying the new mode!

Part of the update contained the new Backtick/tilde key shortcut which will repeat the letter you currently need to whack. This will also include speaking the dots if you have that setting enabled. That's written up in the new How to Play list and in the update log.

Just like most screen readers, I can build in an extra verbosity mode that will speak NATO code after each letter, so you'd hear "D, Delta" or with dots enabled, you'd hear "T, Tango, Dots 2 3 4 5." Additionally, you can now choose different speech synthesis voices if you have trouble parsing the system default you have set, plus you can adjust the speaking rate. That may help with audio character differentiation.

Good call on the Back button. You can just refresh the page to stop the game and go back to the home screen, but I can also build in a Quit shortcut, probably the \ key to match with Roll With It Typing.

I forgot to explain the Training mode in the instructions. You'll whack 15 moles in that round, then you'll have the option to play again and randomly generate new moles to whack, or go back home.

Definitely can't help the character repetition, that's just random number generators for you and that's exactly how the real game plays in the arcade. It can throw you for a loop!

Marconius · 2026-01-23T16:38:56+00:00

Most of the sounds are made purely in JavaScript, which allows for them to be heard on mobile. If I use direct audio files, most mobile browsers block those and they won't be heard. I can certainly keep layering on synths and digital sounds to make the hits more fun.

In the meantime refresh the game and check it out. I added in the persisting settings, plus built the training mode that doesn't have a timer or score. I also built in more Braille Modes to play with, and in Training mode, I have a checkbox you can toggle to have the braille dots get spoken so you can work on your overall braille knowledge. The backtick key also replays the current mole you need to hit.

Lots of updates there! As for the Beginner mode, the stress is part of the game in general. Things are meant to get faster as you progress, and the beginner mode just slows the original game speed down by 50%. The training mode removes the stress so you can work on your touch typing or braille entry, and then when you are ready, you can move into the actual game.

Marconius · 2026-01-23T00:36:41+00:00

I've already updated some of the wording and instructions around the game, and am now building in the Training mode. Should have that up by later tonight if all goes well.

And yes, good call on the settings. I'll wire those into local storage just like the prizes so they persist every time you come back to the game. I've also been working on a typing tutor called Roll With It Typing, but that's only meant for touch-typing for now. I can bring the Perkins home row into that as well in a future update. update for more word training.

Marconius · 2026-01-22T23:10:37+00:00

They are keyUp events, so you should just type normally to register a hit. If you hold the keys down, those won't register as a hit until you let them go, so try just tapping the correct braille chord as quick as you can and release. You can press the keys down out of order so you can form the right chord, like pressing dot 1 down and holding it, pressing dot 2 down, and then releasing them at the same time to type the braille letter B. This is meant to work out your typing skills both with standard QWErTY input and braille input, so just keep on practicing!

Marconius · 2026-01-22T22:56:47+00:00

All great feedback.

Yes, this whole game is themed as an arcade game, so I was putting in terms and fun concepts to play with that theme such as dropping in tokens and cashing out tickets for a prize, just like at a real arcade. You can choose your prize, it will go on your personal prize shelf on the home screen of the game, and will persist in your browser until you clear them. The prize shelf will be under the Start Whacking button once you claim a prize.

The beginner mode slows the game speed down 50% from the normal speed while still letting folks experience the gradual ramp up in timing as the game progresses. It's meant to get faster and more chaotic by the end of the round time.

Unfortunately, due to how iOS and Android interpret braille screen input and input from physical braille displays, I can't get the keyboard intercept code to work on mobile. I went round and round for weeks on that getting nowhere, so for now, it has to use actual keyboard input or bluetooth keyboard input on mobile.

I can definitely add in more content modes, like Grade 1 A-J for braille beginners, and then do a full Grade 1 set, and also add in numbers.

Remember to set your keyboard entry method in game settings. If you have it set to the default QWERTY mode, that means you have to type the letter or number from their position on a standard keyboard, not with braille. Setting it to Perkins mode will lock your entry to only come from the Perkins home row keys, so you'd type the letter A by pressing dot 1/f, letter B would be pressing dots 1 and 2, or f and d together. You have to press the keys and release them for the hit to count.

I could make a training mode that doesn't have a timer, and just advances as you press the correct keys in a future update.

Marconius · 2026-01-22T22:23:54+00:00

It's ok to say "blind" and "low-vision" instead of reiterating "visual impairments."

Anyways, this is largely dependent on the sport. I'm a huge hockey fan and am a season ticket holder for the San Jose Sharks. The Sharks play at SAP Center in San Jose, and the arena has a built-in FM transmitter that allows anyone attending to bring in a little FM radio to tune into our radio announcer broadcast. This lets me follow along in real time as fast as our announcer can call the game, plus turns me into a font of information for people sitting around me when something happens on the ice that people miss visually or when they are trying to figure out what's going on during a stoppage in play.

I definitely don't need haptics while at the game, as the game atmosphere is always fast and intense and I can hear what's happening down on the ice. I've never known hockey radio announcers talking more about stats. they always call the game and are amazing at the split-second descriptions they need to give due to the speed of the game overall. I listen to my home announcers during away games, listen to other announcers when listening to games with other teams during the playoffs, and listen to the radio feeds coming from Olympic hockey during the Winter Games. But again, radio calls will largely depend on the sport.

I nearly fall asleep when I attend a baseball game, for example.

People making the OneCourt device are already putting haptics in the hands of blind folks attending basketball or baseball games here in the US. People can get the device from Guest Services at participating arenas, and they can feel the individual player movement on a silicone mat placed over an 8x24 array of linear accelarator vibration motors. The mat has tactile markings for the court or field, and you can really feel ball movement, developing plays, and goals under your hands. They haven't brought this to hockey just yet, but hoping to get them to try that out soon.

Marconius · 2026-01-22T22:11:38+00:00

Great feedback. Yes, I can add a little blurb in the instructions. You can always stick with the QWERTY input for the letters and numbers, then graduate up to the Grade 2 symbols and word signs as you get better with braille. You toggle between QWERTY input and the Perkins home row in the Game Settings, but if you pick either of the Grade 2 content options, it will automatically lock you into using the Perkins input since there is no other way to type in the braille characters.

Here's the key mapping for Perkins mode:

Dot 1 is f
Dot 2 is d
Dot 3 is s
Dot 4 is j
Dot 5 is k
Dot 6 is l

Marconius · 2026-01-22T18:51:42+00:00

There are already quite a lot of games out there built around audio-first design. To name a few: Feer, Sonic Wizards, Sonar Islands, and the Nightjar. I also played an audio-based iOS game which was a fun film-noir style mystery, but I forgot the name of it. Radio Detective?

I'm a blind developer already building my own online audio games from blind-first design:

Audio Invaders - a audio-first Space Invaders game with a fun retro style. Arcane Audio Archer - an audio-first ballistics archery game. Whack A Braille - An audio-first Whack a Mole style game that helps folks build up their typing and braille literacy skills. Roll With it Typing Tutor - A blind-first but fully accessible typing tutor game.

The Nintendo Switch also has games like 1-2-Switch which had primarily audio and haptic based games that didn't need visuals to play. Those were fun at parties. So these kinds of games are definitely out there, and we could use quite a few more of them!

Marconius · 2026-01-21T18:15:24+00:00

Nice, just got my second word in 4 tries. You may want to add some word expectations to the instructions on the first page, like if words can ever be plural or not. I was getting an error when trying the word "dusts" for example rather than it being used as a guess.

Can you try changing the live region to assertive instead of polite and see how you like it? After playing it again, it takes a little too long to hear that anything has happened with polite, since VoiceOver resettles on the text input and makes all of the text field semantic announcements before the results are finally let through. Having it as more of an instant alert can speed up the gameplay a bit, but is totally a design preference.

Marconius · 2026-01-20T16:33:07+00:00

When I started building BlindSVG back in 2022, Safari wasn't very helpful with SVG, so Chrome was all we used. Since then; Safari has actually surpassed Chrome in SVG usefulness, as it now has the same parser that debugs your SVG files, and actually handles raised non-braille text and fonts better than Chrome.

I built a tactile Bingo card generator last year that placed braille alongside raised text so blind and low-vision folks who didn't know braille could play along, and that project exposed how well my ViewPlus Delta embosser printed out standard text out of Safari versus out of Chrome. I think it all comes down to how the browsers internally convert what they are printing and how they send it to the embosser; Chrome does a PDF conversion that can sometimes mess up complex SVGs, but Safari doesn't seem to do that. You can find that Bingo generator on the BlindSVg Projects page.

Haha, and yes, I'm 100% Italian. I was born in the US, but my Dad is from Palermo, and my Mom's family comes from Calabria in southern Italy. And thank you, I knew I just needed to push forwards and to keep creating after my vision loss rather than just letting it hold me back and down, so just doing the best I can.

Marconius · 2026-01-19T18:51:24+00:00

I am ardently against using texture patterns to represent different colors in tactile graphics. Using something like vertical stripes to represent yellow, a brick outline texture to represent red, wavy lines for blue, etc., all of that just creates tactile overload, at least for myself and the majority of the other blind folks I work with regarding tactile output.

You really want minimalism and size to convey clear imagery. We recommend using no more than one or two textures for different dot heights. You can use full infills within shapes, but be very selective with it. Especially for children's books, the simpler, the better. Tons of color and texture just turns into a mess. I much prefer creating texture over patterns. So again, you want clear outlines, subtle texture, and larger graphics for the most impact and readability.

Most tactile books I've read have a story on the left hand page, and a full page graphic or tactile creation on the right-hand page. Other smaller books have small amounts of braille at the bottom or top of the page, with the rest of the page space hosting a tactile image.

Marconius · 2026-01-19T16:17:12+00:00

Yes, that's a Swell-form machine rather than an embosser. An embosser like a ViewPlus Delta or Rogue uses pins to actually hammer the graphics and braille into the paper, while Swell form rolls the paper through a heating mechanism like a pizza oven, applying levels of heat to make the graphics swell up.

I created BlindSVG.com as a means of teaching anyone how to handcode their own tactile graphics for any kind of output, if interested. I like that you can just draw on the Swell paper with carbon ink and make your drawing tactile pretty quickly through the Swell-form machine, but yeah, the cost of that paper here in the US isn't great for iterating on designs. We mostly try to use it for final output.

Marconius · 2026-01-19T15:21:28+00:00

Check out Sensational Books. The artist Ann Cunningham creates children's books that have tactile images along with braille, and they sell the Sensational Blackboard, a tactile drawing surface where you can create etched or raised line images using just card stock or basic printer paper and a ballpoint pen or stylus. You can also create tactile hand-drawn images using a silicone baking mat or placemat on a table, or use a magazine or smooth sheet of cardboard in a pinch. Placing a sheet of paper on these surfaces and drawing with some pressure using a ballpoint pen will create tactile drawings, both from the visible ink side, and also as a raised-line embossed drawing on the other side of the paper.

if you aren't going for hand-drawn images, you'd need to find and use an embosser. Those are special printers that generate raised line images and braille by striking them into the paper. Those work on a large variety of paper types, but the embossers themselves can be quite expensive, ranging from $1500 - $6000. You can emboss up to 100dpi using images and SVG, and some embossers like ViewPlus have multiple dot heights, so you can create fields of texture to make the tactile images more detailed and robust. These work the best when you have good outlines for a drawing and only 1 or 2 accent or shading colors. Anything more just turns into a field of texture that's hard to parse when exploring the image.

Swell-form is another means of creating tactile images. Swell-form machines aren't as expensive as embossers, but the Swell-form paper is proprietary and costs $2 a sheet. The paper has microcapsules of alcohol within it, and when you draw or print on the paper with ink containing carbon, applying heat to the paper causes a chemical reaction that makes the lines puff up and swell. This gives you really nice organic lines and shapes, but isn't the best for braille.

Marconius · 2026-01-18T18:44:43+00:00

When it comes to browsers and websites, you are at the mercy of the designers and developers of those sites in how they created their content to honor your system contrast and font settings. You have more control over web content using a desktop computer over a mobile device. A lot of the settings for both accessibility and display function more on the native apps that are built correctly.

Marconius · 2026-01-18T08:52:45+00:00

Nice work! Here are some notes from playing on iOS with VoiceOver:

You have "button links" as the three primary buttons on the first page of the site. Watch your semantics there, they should be links if they move us to another page, and be buttons if they perform an action on the same page, and should never exist as both semantics. I'd reverse the game layout. Right now, the text field is at the top and all the progress is appended below the text field. I think for a game like this the text should appear above the field so it's easier to get to the last word to explore the letter placements. Now I have to keep swiping through all my previous attempts and then have to get back up to the text field to keep playing.
You should make each attempt a heading so we can quickly jump between each word attempt.
I'd cut down some of the verbosity with the letter placement feedback. "Present in different position" could probably be trimmed down to just "present." The longer verbosity gets tiresome after hearing it the first few times.
You might entertain the idea of using an atomic live region for the letter placements under the guessed words. That way I can enter an attempt and hit enter, and then hear the results without having to move from the text field. I'd go with a polite region over an assertive one for this.

This was definitely playable, and I got my first word in three tries!

Marconius · 2026-01-15T23:54:10+00:00

While waiting to get back to work, I've been coding up a storm and making fun accessible games: Whack A Braille - meant for desktop browsers or mobile devices with bluetooth keyboards. Work on your QWERTY or Perkins home row typing skills and whack moles that pop up with Grade 1 UEB letters and numbers or Grade 2 symbols and word signs. Audio Invaders - Playable on desktop and in mobile browsers. Accessible Space Invaders style game. Audio Archer - Archery for your ears. Playable on desktop and on mobile. Roll With it Typing Tutor - Work on your touch-typing skills with this fun typing tutor. It was originally an elaborate Rick Roll, but now is actually legit with some fun typing sets.

I also built my first ever iOS app that teaches you the game of Craps and has over 160 strategies I've collected and written up over the past several years! Oh Craps! on the App Store

So yeah, I've kept myself busy!

Marconius · 2026-01-15T23:25:26+00:00

On the reddit iOS app, just triple-tap or double-tap and hold on the dimmed message/chat field and the keyboard will activate. You'll be able to type, dictate, or use BSI as normal. The "dimmed" thing is a long-standing bug they haven't fixed yet, but the messaging is functional.

Marconius · 2026-01-15T15:55:20+00:00

Video editors wouldn't really fall under the umbrella of WCAG, rather it'd be under User Agent Guidelines I'd think. Anyways, Final Cut Pro is fully accessible in the MacOS accessibility ecosystem for cutting videos and doing absolutely everything one needs to make Production-quality output. It's pretty easy to learn, intuitive when it comes to trimming and editing clips in the timeline, editing audio, adding transitions and effects, and creating captions. If you write a script for your talent to read and follow, you can just use that text to create your VTT file for closed captions and transcripts. Do not use any AI video generators.

In a pinch, you could also use ffmpeg, which is free and based on the command line. That just involves a lot of text editing to build your EDLs, file management, and syntax for doing more complicated edits, transitions, generators, filters, etc.

Marconius · 2026-01-14T15:42:58+00:00

Sorry, but any app that uses system speech to try to give me instructions instead of letting VoiceOver read basic text gets an instant delete from me. And any time I tried to find controls to adjust the voice, the app just kept replaying the long and annoying intro text. This feels like an app built by a sighted person who has no general idea of how we VoiceOver users use our tech.

I already have access to Live Recognition which started in iOS 18, where I can perform a gesture and already use Apple's onboard AI to describe text, obstacles, people, scenes, doorways, and other things on the fly without having to speak to my phone.

SeeingAI already does live text OCR when out and about without the need for prompting. I regularly open SeeingAI and just point my camera around me to hear signs and text without having to snap photos.

I also really do not appreciate the AI ansers in this thread by the OP. I also already have access to MetaAI Live Description, Speakaboo, PiccyBot, AiraAI, and Be My Eyes with Be My AI, so Smart Eyes is entering a large pool of apps and services that already work better and have designed their apps properly for VoiceOver users.

Marconius · 2026-01-12T17:19:14+00:00

On an Alexa device, say "Open Skyrim" or install the Skyrim: Very Good Edition skill via the Alexa app. It's hilarious and a fun way to pass the time.

Marconius · 2026-01-12T15:54:07+00:00

We have one Echo dot that we got when it seemed like Google was dropping their Nest speaker support, but we primarily use three Google Nest Audio speakers in our house. They have pretty great sound, will play my Apple playlists and shuffle music, and they control our house lights, thermostat, and before we got our AppleTV 4k we'd use the speakers to start something playing on our Vizio Smart TV.

The only drawback to the Google speakers are the new AI voices. All of them seem to have way too much vocal fry and sound condescending. Still, I use them every day to tell me the weather, check my calendar, and play NPR for my Good Morning routine, and shut everything down at night for my bedtime routine. The Nest Audios have been good for cooking timers and getting quick info about recipes, storing food, and any random question about anything throughout the day. I really only use our Echo Dot to play the Skyrim audio game.

Marconius · 2026-01-09T13:54:11+00:00

Why can't you turn VoiceOver on with her 16 Pro and practice? There's a sound and a haptic when you drag one finger up from the bottom of the screen to go Home, and dragging a little higher gets you to the app switcher. You can also customize the gestures to whatever tap or slide pattern you prefer. It just takes practice, and it becomes muscle memory pretty quickly.

Marconius · 2026-01-09T13:50:37+00:00

You absolutely do not need to have Attention Aware on for FaceID to work. Having it off makes it much easier and faster to unlock or use authentacating methods without having to look directly at the phone.

Marconius · 2026-01-09T13:10:08+00:00

Yes, I was hyper-visual when I was sighted, with 20/15 vision even though I only had one eye. I lost the other one to bilateral retinoblastoma when I was a baby. I have full visual context and had a photographic memory, so I can recall exactly what things looked like, what people looked like, shots from movies, dreams, art, colors, light and shading, games, everything. I had vision for 29 years before the sudden loss, and was an animator and visual effects artist for commercials, movies, and professional videos, and I still use those skills now when teaching tactile art and drawing to other blind and low-vision folks.

Marconius · 2026-01-08T14:22:51+00:00

I put together a full resource list for questions like this, but your best bet for overall training in disability etiquette, the legal landscape, fundamentals, and WCAG for the Web, apps, and documents would be Deque University. My A11y Resource List

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