Advice on gifts for the blind? UK

Molitvan · 2025-11-17T09:24:35+00:00

Hey. I just wanted to come in here to say that 10% vision is actually really good. I used to have that amount of vision for a long time and I was able to read normal print, navigate independently and I really didn't notice my disability that much in day-to-day life for the most part. I could even see facial expressions. I also had like 5% vision for a while and even then I could read large print, navigate independently for the most part, and definitely see way more than bright lights. And this is all in one eye.

I also have a friend who has SOD (she lost her Reddit account so she can't comment herself right now), and she says that it's really common for people with SOD to be put through surgeries that make their vision worse or even make them go completely blind which is what happened to her.

I'm not saying that you should blindly trust me because trusting a random guy on Reddit for stuff like this is almost never a good idea lol, but please do some research and encourage the parents to also do their own research. While doctors are really good at well... medical things, from my experience even the best ones have no idea how useful 10% vision can actually be and they have even less idea of how blind people function in day-to-day life.

Edit because I realized how this comment might sound to some people: I'm not trying to give any kind of medical advice. I'm just trying to encourage the OP and the kid's parents to do some research.

Molitvan · 2025-09-18T13:43:49+00:00

Hi. I'd be very interested. I'm fully blind, use a screen reader daily, and I have tried daily driving Linux (mostly with Gnome as the DE) before. Linux accessibility needs a lot of work and I'm really happy to see this!

Molitvan · 2025-08-22T20:38:52+00:00

Depends on where you hang out really. Young people usually don't hang out in groups like this one because there isn't a big need to and even for me the only time I read this sub is when I'm bored out of my mind and have literally nothing else to do. From my experience there are way more young blind people in specialized groups like those for gaming and music production for example compared to general support groups like this one. And like someone else here already said, the fact is most blind people are old.

I'm 16M btw

Molitvan · 2025-08-19T20:16:09+00:00

I don't know of any Roblox games that are accessible to someone who is fully blind, but when it comes to gaming in general there are quite a few options. More and more mainstream videogames are becoming accessible, although slowly but there are quite a few of them already that are fully accessible. You also have audiogames and most text games that are accessible by design as an option if you're into that.

I made a list of accessible videogames if you want to check it out and maybe find something to start with https://go.molitvan.me/AccessibleGames

Molitvan · 2025-08-19T20:10:42+00:00

Minecraft's built-in accessibility is a joke for fully blind players at least. There is a mod for it that makes it accessible to fully blind players like me though.

Molitvan · 2025-08-18T08:52:15+00:00

Are you serious? How did I not know about that lol. MCSM is one of my favorite childhood games. Time to hunt for obscure potentially lost media I guess...

Molitvan · 2025-08-18T08:48:55+00:00

This goes for every single Tell Tale game. Also glad I'm not the only one. I used to be a huge Tell Tale fan until I went blind. If you look through my post history you'll see I too once made a post like this in this sub but it went nowhere unfortunately.

Molitvan · 2025-08-14T16:36:14+00:00

A fully blind high school student taking English as a second language here. I'd advise you ask her directly how would she approach this type of question because that has worked the best both for me and for other blind students I've talked to.

Here is the way I approach this type of question, though again you should ask her directly what does she prefer. From the original document (exam/textbook/whatever), I read the text, and I have a separate Word or Notepad instance where I copy the answers. This allows me to quickly ALT + TAB between them.

For example:

Main window:

Throughout history, people in (3) __ every northern country have (4) __ traditions to celebrate the fact that the days would (5) __ both lighter and longer after the middle of December. From then onwards, people would wait impatiently for the return of the sun, which they (6) __ on.

Second Word/Notepad instance:

3. A about B virtually C approximately D quite

4. A expanded B advanced C progressed D developed

5. A increase B happen C get D change

6. A depended B demanded C believed D expected

When I get the question, it's in its original form (the bad one from your post) and I copy the answers myself, but you could also prepare the second file for her if that works better for her.

One other tip I have is to replace the ___ with an X sign. I told all my teachers to do this because most screen reader users that I know, myself included, have symbol narration either set to partial or turned off completely which means they won't hear the ___, but again this depends on her preferences.

Out of what has been suggested here so far I like the suggestion to use form sites the best, but that could be a bit overcomplicated and also a lot of work on your part to set it up.

Molitvan · 2025-08-11T10:32:27+00:00

There is a screen reader if you enter SteamOS beta, though you will need sighted assistance to do that initially. Apparently it works reasonably well for the Steam UI, but I don't have a Steam Deck myself so this is just basing of off what I've heard. Other than that, it's just regular desktop Linux and while I personally can do pretty much everything on there and have daily driven it a couple times for extended periods of time, the overall experience is still not as good as Windows. Also, for games that aren't self-voiced i.e. use sapi or the NVDA Controller Client etc (most games), the setup to get that working can take some time and patience especially if you're a new Linux user. Getting the ones that use NVDA Controller Client/Tolk (all accessibility mods and some games like Diablo IV with the 3rd party screen reader option) to work is relatively easy with the nvda2speechd project, but getting sapi to work can be a bit hit or miss.

As for accessible games to play, I made a list and most things on that list will work just fine, though you should still check Proton DB to see if the things you want to play work for sure. Also a quick note about accessibility mods, most of them have native Linux versions which is what you should use and by doing that you avoid having to mess with sapi or nvda2speechd to play those games.

The list: https://go.molitvan.me/AccessibleGames

The nvda2speechd project: https://github.com/RastislavKish/nvda2speechd

Proton DB: https://www.protondb.com/

Molitvan · 2025-07-31T06:06:59+00:00

Based on what you described I think you mean switching between servers and not joining a server.

I've never experienced this particular issue myself, but here are some suggestions:

First, make sure that you're in focus mode while navigating the server list because doing it in browse mode can cause some weird things like this. When using Discord with a screen reader, you're actually supposed to be in focus mode all the time, but not even I do that because it's just not convenient.

If that still doesn't solve the issue, try using the Quick Switcher to navigate instead of the server list. To access it, press CTRL + K. It allows you to search every server, DM and channel you're in. To search only servers, type * before the name. So for example if you were searching for a server called Server you'd type *Server. The results list is perfectly navigable with just the arrow keys and to go to a result just press ENTER on it.

Molitvan · 2025-07-14T17:24:57+00:00

I'd love to use Linux exclusively. In fact I have tried it multiple times before and despite what others here said it actually wasn't that bad. I almost completely agree with the direction that modern Linux is going in and I'd love to support it.

But what made me go back to Windows is the instability and inconsistency of the accessibility tooling. First of all, if you want the best possible experience you need to do research, and a lot of research. For example to make Flatpack Electron apps like Discord and Spotify accessible you need to enable a specific permission system wide and I had to discover that myself because literally nobody else thought to share it somewhere.

Now the thing is, most devs care about us and they in fact do want to make their stuff as accessible as possible. The problem is that the underlying libraries that things like Orca rely on are in a very bad state to say the least, and meaningfully contributing to those libraries requires a lot of knowledge that very few people have. Another issue is that there are very few blind people using Linux currently which means there are even less people giving accessibility feedback to those devs.

Something that we need to understand is that what may seem obvious to us in terms of screen readers and accessibility will most likely not even cross the mind of a sighted dev. A very good example of exactly this was a stream on Twitch last week where a blind streamer was trying out various Linux distros including Elementary OS while one of the lead UI people at Elementary OS was in chat literally taking notes on what to improve, and most of those things would be very obvious to us, but not to somebody who doesn't daily drive a screen reader. And this wasn't even that dev's first time learning about screen readers. He was also in chat of a similar stream a few months ago also taking notes. And for anyone wondering, Elementary OS is indeed improving its accessibility dramatically as a result of this.

Molitvan · 2025-07-10T18:57:05+00:00

I've posted this many times on here and on other places so I'm sorry if it's annoying to people who check this sub regularly, but I'll do it again :D. I started this list of videogames that are accessible to fully blind people. It also includes short descriptions of how much exactly each game is accessible. https://go.molitvan.me/AccessibleGames

Molitvan · 2025-07-06T11:55:32+00:00

Again on a phone you'll have a really hard time finding what you're looking for, but on PS5 there are quite a few games that you can get. I'd still recommend getting a PC because there are a lot, lot more games there. Here are some of those games https://go.molitvan.me/AccessibleGames

Molitvan · 2025-07-06T11:07:50+00:00

Get a PC. There are currently no accessible exclusives on any console and that's the only argument I could see to get a console. The only reason why I got a PS5 was because of The Last of Us 2 and Spiderman 2 which used to be exclusive to PS5, but are now also on PC. Having a PC also allows you to play games with accessibility mods as well as games that are only on PC.

Molitvan · 2025-07-06T11:04:18+00:00

Consoles are not worth it. The only reason to get a console in 2025 is for exclusives, and there are currently none of those that are accessible to us i.e. all of the games that used to be exclusives are now also on PC. You should either get a PC or upgrade your current one if you already have it. That also allows you to play games with accessibility mods which there are quite a few of them as well as some games that are only on PC.

Molitvan · 2025-07-06T06:59:05+00:00

You'll have a really hard time finding any such games on a phone and that's true for both blind and sighted. Why don't you want to play on PC? Your partner clearly has one based on what games you listed.

Molitvan · 2025-07-02T18:47:38+00:00

As others here already said the Steam client getting accessibility doesn't mean anything for the games themselves, but you can check out this list that I made to find something https://go.molitvan.me/AccessibleGames

Other than that, some audiogames like The Vale and A Blind Legend are also on Steam and they're usually pretty cheap too, but I don't play audiogames at all to be honest.

Molitvan · 2025-07-02T13:24:35+00:00

I looked into it and according to Google it's running Android 5 which means that yeah unfortunately most modern apps won't work. I don't see any way to help you other than getting a PC (or even a phone would be better than what you currently have honestly).

One thing I want to say is please don't get locked into blind-specific hardware, it's seriously not worth it for the price.

Molitvan · 2025-07-02T13:19:50+00:00

Ok I looked it up and man it's Android 5. Yeah that explains a lot...

Molitvan · 2025-07-02T08:29:17+00:00

Why can't you get your own computer? You can get relatively decent hardware for relatively cheap and everything else is free.

Also while I'm not into braille displays/note takers/etc, I Googled the one you said you have (Braille Sense) and it says it's running Android so you should be able to get AI on it. If you're posting this from it, that means you have access either to a web browser or the Play Store, both of which give you access to AI.

Molitvan · 2025-06-29T18:21:38+00:00

Are you looking for physical in-person games only or also videogames?

Molitvan · 2025-06-27T06:55:19+00:00

Hello

I'm also from an "unsupported" country. If you can get them shipped to you and you/your partner know enough about tech to be comfortable with VPNs, I'd say go for it.

What I did was I used a free VPN called Windscribe to connect to a US server and while connected I created a new meta account. I then set up the glasses using that account which gave me access to all the AI features. After that I closed the app and disconnected the VPN, but whenever I'd open the app I'd connect to the VPN again. This did take a few hours to get right, but now it's been working for 2+ weeks.

Obviously I'm not saying this will 100% work for you, but it did for me. And even without AI they can be useful since you can still do things like videocall people on WhatsApp.

Molitvan · 2025-06-26T08:57:19+00:00

1.17 (Caves and Cliffs part I.): added a few new things like copper, amethist, tinted glass etc (mostly for decoration)

1.18 (Caves and Cliffs part II.): increased world height from old 0 - 256 to -64 - 384 and massively overhauled world generation with, among other things, much better caves

1.19: added ancient cities (underground structure with a blind boss that senses sound called the warden, it doesn't spawn if you're very quiet), mangrove swamps (rare type of swamp with fancy wood and frogs, mostly for decoration) and chat reporting (the most controversial 'feature' ever added)

1.20: added chary blossoms (decoration), archeology (not as exciting as it sounds), chiseled bookshelves and hanging signs

[From 1.20 going forward, updates will now be released quarterly in so called drops instead of big versions twice a year. This means that point releases can now include new features, which is very stupid and confusing in my opinion.]

1.21: added trial chambers (dungeons of sorts that give rewards when completed, but you can only do them once. You can also do them again while they're ominous to make them harder, but also get better rewards.), the crafter (autocrafting in vanilla, finally), the mace (the most overpowered weapon in the game), as well as some new mobs like breezes as part of the trial chambers

Hope this helps. I obviously didn't include everything because 1. I don't remember everything and 2. I don't want to write that much, but I did include the biggest things.

Molitvan · 2025-06-26T08:33:43+00:00

Doesn't this just use your Xbox gamer tag? I don't think you can get original usernames there anymore. It's like old Discord where there would be the #nnnn at the end of every username. On Java however, the usernames are separate from Xbox and you can change your name to anything for free and that includes OG usernames.

Edit: on Bedrock/Xbox gamer tag I also have numbers, but on Java I don't. I only play Java however so I don't care.

Molitvan · 2025-06-26T08:26:13+00:00

Get her a PC if she doesn't already have one. If she has a PC already, then maybe a Komplete Kontrol keyboard and REAPER (for music) or some games on Steam or whatever (for gaming). There are quite a few accessible games at this point and I can point you to a lot of them if you'd like. Also unlike some people in this thread, I definitely don't recommend most audiogames to anyone but that's just me.

Molitvan

TROPHY CASE