How a Blind Gamer Plays Zelda by Every



By Jason Schreier
  April 7, 2011 7:00 am
  Terry Garrett can play games like Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee and 
Legend of Zelda using sound alone.  Photo courtesy Oddworld 
Inhabitants
  When Terry Garrett plays Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee, he pays close 
attention to the videogame's sounds.  The beep of a blinking 
bomb, the desperate cry of a friend in need, the pounding of a 
Mudokon's hammer: They all provide crucial details that enable 
Garrett to get through the game's punishing levels.  When he 
needs orientation, Garrett listens carefully for "sound 
landmarks" like running water or footsteps shifting from grass to 
earth.  And as he works his way through the side-scrolling 
puzzlerbs world of weird creatures, Garrett pieces the noises 
together and sees the game's levels laid out in his mind.  Proper 
listening is essential for Garrett to enjoy the game -- after 
all, he is blind.  Garrett lost his sight in 1997 at age 10.  
That same year, his older brother brought home Oddworld: Abe's 
Oddysee.  Entranced by the game's charming narrator, Abe -- a 
Mudokon slave with his lips sewn shut -- Garrett set out to make 
his way through Oddworld's danger-filled settings.  Although he 
couldn't see a single image on the computer screen, he could hear 
the sounds -- footsteps, voices, music.  At first he couldnbt 
figure out what all the noises meant.  Frustrated, he tossed the 
game aside.  But he came back again.  And again.  Today, Garrett 
can beat the entire game, executing every jump and step with 
near-perfect precision.  He's honed his hearing to the point 
where he can recognize exactly which sounds refer to each object 
and act accordingly.  He hasn't memorized every level, but he 
knows enough about the sound design to beat Oddworld without 
dying.  "Through Abe's sounds, I was able to figure out how to 
navigate the world," Garrett, now an engineering student at the 
University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, told Wiredddcom in an 
e-mail.  Garrett's unlikely accomplishments underscore the 
importance of good sound design in videogames.  When was the last 
time you paid attention to the clang of a sword, or the patter of 
your character's footsteps? To most gamers, sound effects are 
just part of the scenery, supplemental features that we often 
take for granted.  But to the visually impaired, sound is 
everything.



Sight-Free Gaming Oddworld isnbt the only videogame Garrett can 
enjoy.  He loves games with haptic feedback like Wii Sports and 
Rock Band, which he learned how to play through a button-mashing 
period of trial and error.
  How to Game Without Graphics Besides listening to the audio of 
videogames, there is more you can do to play them without being 
able to see the screen.  1.  Read.  Consult text-based game 
walk-throughs, which are full of other playersb vividly written 
descriptions of the layout of the games.  2.  Choose.  Garrett 
recommends games with strong sound design.  Old-school 2-D games 
may not be a good choice, because it's tough to tell where the 
sound is coming from.  3.  Get help.  Garrett's friends and 
family sat with him and helped him visualize the game worlds by 
describing what objects looked like.  Some games are nearly 
impossible for him, even with help.  Retro two-dimensional games 
don't have enough sound cues.  Explosion-packed shooters like 
Halo are so chock-full of noises that they overwhelm Garrett's 
carefully trained ear.  "You hear shots, but can't tell which 
direction they are coming from, and by the time you hear them, 
you are dead," he said.  The sound design of Abe's Oddysee was 
not tailored for the visually impaired.  In fact, Oddworld 
creator Lorne Lanning said it never occurred to him that blind 
gamers would be able to play through the title.  "It's quite 
inspiring to see what was enabled through what we believed were 
just good solid interactive storytelling details," Lanning said 
in an e-mail to Wiredddcom.  To make games more accessible for 
gamers with vision problems, sound designers "should include as 
many sounds as possible," indicating things like a player's 
footsteps, in-game obstacles or approaching enemies, Garrett 
said.  Matt Uelmen, a sound designer who has worked on Blizzard 
Entertainment's StarCraft and Diablo, said making videogames fun 
for the blind isn't that easy.  "It would definitely require much 
more attention to sound implementation than most projects are 
able to give," Uelmen said.  "You're at the mercy of the 
animation.  If the character does nothing which generates sound, 
it is hard to rationalize creating too much [audio]."
  But Oddworld's Lanning said someone like Garrett, "who just 
doesn't seem to acknowledge the obstacles that so many of us are 
bogged down by," could help design innovative games in the 
future.  Garrett's current challenge is mastering one of the most 
beloved games of all time: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.  
He plays the Nintendo 64 game on his PC using an emulator and an 
Xbox 360 controller.  After listening intently as friends played 
through sections of the game, Garrett asked them questions and 
researched Zelda, based on text and video walk-throughs.  Actions 
that require pixel-perfect precision, like shooting arrows or 
finding targets with the game's grappling hook, still stymie him.  
"I have been trying to pass [Zelda] for over a year," Garrett 
said.  He can make it to the Water Temple, roughly halfway into 
Ocarina of Time's sprawling adventure, with no help at all.  
Lanning says Garrett's story has already inspired tens of 
thousands of people through YouTube and other communities.  
"There's a lot of gratitude brought to the surface that surrounds 
this story," he said.  "It's wonderful to see -- a testament to 
the power and potential of the [videogame] medium."
  B) 2011 CondC) Nast Digital.  All rights reserved.


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