Visually Impaired Person Siumlator

The project is a virtual reality game simulating the daily life of a visually impaired person. Players will need to complete everyday tasks like brushing their teeth and eating breakfast without their sense of sight, and instead, using other senses including touch and hearing. Players will interact with their surroundings and receive cues to find out about their next task. Through this simulation, we hope for players to gain a better understanding and appreciation of the challenges faced by those with visual impairment, and inspire them to be more empathetic towards these individuals.

Feature

In the “total blindness” mode, which is also the flagship mode, the environment is completely black. The player sees only the silhouette of what they are touching, just like how blind people feel the surroundings with their hands. A list of tasks is provided to guide the players. The tasks include ordinary routines like turning off the alarm, brushing teeth and washing face, having breakfast, checking messages, and leaving the house. This design highlights the challenges VIPs experience on a daily basis. We also incentivise the player to complete the game by uncovering the identity and story of the game character, making the game a more intimate and relatable experience. Players can also use an echo function to get a sense of the spatial layout of the surroundings. This is to simulate echolocation, which is a skill that can be acquired after some training. This function greatly increases the playability of the game without losing fidelity.

There are also other modes that simulate other types of visual impairment, including normal blindness, diabetic retinopathy, diplopia, glaucoma, and macular degeneration. These modes allow partial visibility, hence the touching and echo mechanisms are not included. However, players can learn about how these impairments affect vision differently.