MIT Wii game aims to put visually impaired on level playing field

If some researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Singapore-based Gambit Game Lab have anything to say about it, gamers with serious vision problems won't have to take a backseat to their 20/20 friends anymore.

On Tuesday, the lab unveiled AudiOdyssey, a game for the Nintendo Wii that is based solely around sound and tasks players with mimicking a DJ trying to create a catchy beat that people can dance to.

The idea is that players--those with or without vision problems--can use the Wii's motion-sensitive controllers to get a rhythm going and then build more complex musical layers on top of it.

The game is also designed to work with a regular keyboard so that those without a Wii can still play.

Games for the blind or visually impaired are nothing new, but what makes AudiOdyssey interesting is that it puts anyone who can hear on a level playing field, regardless of whether they can see or not.

And that's interesting, because there's certainly a lot of people out there with vision problems who I am certain would want the opportunity to play games with their normal-vision friends. And if AudiOdyssey proves to be a success, that could mean the development of a market for such games, which in turn would mean even more get designed and sold.

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