Zeist, [11-11-2002] - Three MA students Music Technology from the Utrecht School of the Arts (HKU-KMT) present Drive, a computer racing game for blind children, developed in co-operation with the Bartiméus Institute for the blind. This game, which only consists of sound, is the ultimate response to the lack of fun games for blind people. The students translated the essence of visual racing games into sound instead of the graphical elements.

Driving on Sound
The object of the game is to test the maximum speed of a newly developed vehicle, named ‘the Shuttle’, by driving as fast as possible. This shuttle moves along a fixed track and the player has to pick up 'boosters' to gain speed. Several sound effects will try to prevent the player from doing this. The player is accompanied by co-pilot Bob and his obstinate comments. There is absolutely no visual feedback, only the game’s title Drive is visible on the screen. The player is solely dependent on his hearing. Both sighted and blind testers were amazed by the terrific sound effects and share the opinion that Drive is very exciting!

Drive
Reason for this project was the lack of fun games for blind computer users. While sighted players venture into exciting 3D worlds, most blind players are forced to play yet another text adventure or memory game. After extensive research, Sander Huiberts, Richard van Tol and Hugo Verweij, developed an exciting game that is evenly accessible for the blind and the sighted. Earlier attempts to make a racing game by others focused only on the translation of the visual elements of a game. Unfortunately many essential elements, making a game fun to play, are lost in this process. Drive focuses on the translation of the essence of a racing game to sound without the need for graphical support.

Online Competition
Players from around the world are able to compete with each other through a special Drive website. Each score is compared there and participants with a high-score can enter their name to be displayed on the website! Currently, the game has one level and is also available in Dutch, named Sneller.

Download
Drive can be downloaded for free from http://drive.soundsupport.net. For more information on the research and development you can contact SoundSupport (http://www.soundsupport.net) or the Bartiméus Institute (http://www.bartimeus.nl).