Let’s Play Together: Games for Blind Gamers Recap and Upcoming Events

A Resounding Success

On Saturday January 24, 2026 we were thrilled to have 30 game developers, accessibility professionals, and members of the blind and low-vision (BLV) community come together for an afternoon of inclusive gaming and meaningful discussion.

The Washington Talking Book and Braille Library’s event room was transformed into a gamer’s playground featuring 10 gaming stations, including 2 Xbox Series S setups, 1 racing wheel, tablet and phone games, and audio first-experiences. Half of the showcased games and mods were created by local Seattle Indies developers, highlighting the incredible talent and inclusive mindset of our indie scene.

Microsoft’s Inclusive Tech Lab brought high-contrast keyboards, Xbox Adaptive Controllers, and a driving wheel—giving attendees a hands-on experience with cutting-edge accessibility and gaming hardware.  Other industry and community partners from Blizzard, Experis, Provail, and UW used the event to connect with attendees to explore ways to make interactive entertainment more inclusive. 

Key Takeaways from the Fireside Chat

Moderator Ben Ritter led an engaging discussion with Zack Kline (QA Tester & Modder), Zach Clothier (Microsoft Gaming Accessibility Testing Service & Indie Developer), Sarah Heinzen (Microsoft Inclusive Tech Lab product developer), and David Dunham (Narrative Game Developer).  As the audience questions poured in, the discussion extended to an hour.

Audio-First Design

• World-Building through sound: wall collision effects, footsteps, spatial audio.
• Screen reader and narration support.
• Simple navigation using cardinal directions and landmarks.

Visual Accessibility

• Text scaling and font options.
• High-contrast modes and outlines.
• Adjustable brightness for photosensitivity.

The “Just Do It” Philosophy

• Don’t approach accessible design as if you need to perfectly recreate your visual interface. 
• Small efforts go a long way. The modding and online community will often assist in building more comprehensive solutions.

Accessibility as a First-Class Citizen

• Treating inclusive design as a core pillar from the start is far more effective than retrofitting features later.
• Accessible design benefits extend far beyond target disabilities (90% of players use subtitles, and 50% activate high-contrast features, EA).

Collaborative Development

• Consult with BLV players year-round via the Games for Blind Gamers Discord. 
• You are also welcome to join the Seattle Indies Discord where we have a newly created accessibility channel for discussing topics.

What’s Next?

1. Games for Blind Gamers 5 Hackathon.
Friday January 30, 2026Games for Blind Gamers 5 begins—a month-long hackathon where blind and sighted developers collaborate on making games for the blind. The Games for Blind Gamers hackathon is not an event run by Seattle Indies.

However, Seattle Indies is participating in Global Game Jam this weekend—a hybrid weekend-long prototyping event that starts on Friday, and has several accessibility challenges. It is our largest attended hackathon, so it’s a great place to find local developers to work on your projects for the Games for Blind Gamers 5. If you want to participate in person, the opening is at Digipen Institute of Technology in Redmond, and Saturday and Sunday there will be 2 onsite locations, Digipen and AIE (4th floor of Armory Building at Seattle Center). You can also connect with developers online by joining Seattle Indies Discord and posting in the GGJ-build-a-team channel. There are both on-site and online volunteers that can assist.   https://www.meetup.com/seattleindies/events/312694074/

Remember: if planning to make something in a weekend or a month, pick one or two problems to solve. Even if they have already been solved, maybe you’ll do it better.
Make something Small. Make something Fun. Make something Accessible.

2. Online Deep Dive: Inclusive Audio & Coding
Thursday February 5th, 2026  |  8pm PST Join our online deep dive on how to make games more accessible for the blind, focusing on inclusive audio design, accessible programming, and tips to focus on making your game fun for Games for Blind Gamers 5. We have award-winning senior technical audio designer Joshua Du Chene, and founder of the accessible evidence-based coding language Quorom Andreas Stefik.  It will be streamed on Seattle Indies Twitch, Youtube, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

Bios:
Joshua Du Chene is a Senior Technical Audio Designer at ArenaNet, where he designs audio systems with accessible design principles as foundational architecture. His approach emphasizes that accessibility serves all players – improving gameplay clarity and user experience while ensuring games work for diverse abilities. Joshua contributed to Halo Infinite’s G.A.N.G. Award-winning audio accessibility at 343 Industries, and he also designed comprehensive UI and interaction audio systems at inXile Entertainment for Clockwork Revolution, emphasizing non-visual game state comprehension. As a lifelong musician with 20+ years of performance experience, Joshua brings creative sensibility to technical challenges, believing robust systems should serve artistic vision while working for everyone.

Andreas Stefik is a professor of computer science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. For the last decade, he has been creating technologies that make it easier for people, including those with disabilities, to write computer software. He helped establish the first national educational infrastructure for blind or visually impaired students to learn computer science and invented the first evidence-based programming language, Quorum.

shiftBacktick is a web developer with a degree in computer music.  They use real-time synthesis and procedural generation to craft interactive audio experiences.  Between their main projects, they organize game jams with an accessibility focus, such as Games for Blind Gamers 5.

Special Recognition:

Heartfelt thanks to Bryce Johnson and Microsoft’s Inclusive Tech Lab for joining us and providing hardware, the Washington Talking Book and Braille Library for hosting, to all of our volunteers for making setup and cleanup seamless, and to the developers who brought games for our guests to play and engage with.

Exhibiting Developers:
Ben Ritter—Wordvoyance, Brailliance
Zach Clothier—Achromatopsia Simulator
David Dunham—Six Ages
Zack Kline—Disco Elysium accessibility mod

Other Titles featured: The Last of Us part I and part II, Balatro, TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge, Forza Motorsport, Slay the Spire, The Vale, and Mortal Kombat 1.